21–30 of 108 posts
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/when-scienti...
This law is a disgusting level of political interference in the practice of medicine. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to have broken people's brains and caused them to discard fundamental principles for the sake of expediency.
> While the legislation has raised concerns over freedom of speech, the bill’s sponsors said the extensive harm caused by false information required holding incompetent or ill-intentioned doctors accountable. There was no addressing the actual issue in this statement. If you're arguing an issue falls under free speech, then the response of "OK, but it's really bad" doesn't change the free-ness of the speech.
> There was no addressing the actual issue in this statement. If you're arguing an issue falls under free speech, then the response of "OK, but it's really bad" doesn't change the free-ness of the speech. There are no rights that are absolute. You can have a right of free speech and still not be allowed to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. Additionally, being an expert comes with some responsibility. You are given t…
I am truly surprised how frequently this old gem gets trotted out as if there might be someone who is unaware of it.
I am pretty sure most kids (at least where I grew up) get taught about this in 5th or 6th grade Civics or Social Studies classes.
And I bet some of them can even recall that it was Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who said it -- but probably just because that guy had a really cool name.
> While the legislation has raised concerns over freedom of speech, the bill’s sponsors said the extensive harm caused by false information required holding incompetent or ill-intentioned doctors accountable. There was no addressing the actual issue in this statement. If you're arguing an issue falls under free speech, then the response of "OK, but it's really bad" doesn't change the free-ness of the speech.
- Hi everybody! - Hi Dr Nick!
> While the legislation has raised concerns over freedom of speech, the bill’s sponsors said the extensive harm caused by false information required holding incompetent or ill-intentioned doctors accountable. There was no addressing the actual issue in this statement. If you're arguing an issue falls under free speech, then the response of "OK, but it's really bad" doesn't change the free-ness of the speech.
> There was no addressing the actual issue in this statement. If you're arguing an issue falls under free speech, then the response of "OK, but it's really bad" doesn't change the free-ness of the speech. There are no rights that are absolute. You can have a right of free speech and still not be allowed to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. Additionally, being an expert comes with some responsibility. You are given t…
Or apparently anti-war Yiddish folks distributing flyers.
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> The idea that the state would define and criminalize what "false" information is is absolutely disgusting. What do you think libel and perjury are?
I am pretty sure that they are NOT related in any way to the matter at hand which relates specifically to medical information.
To bring libel and perjury into the matter seems as almost a red herring.
This will not end well. Say this law was in place when COVID-19 started and a doctor said "hey, this looks like a new virus causing this pneumonia." This is exactly what is supposed to have happened in Wuhan and those doctors were, surprise surprise, punished by their government. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/world/asia/chinese-doctor...
When doctors repeated their advice and then the CDC reversed, would they have been spreading misinformation, or is official information, even though wrong, by definition not misinformation even when it is false?
This's pretty ill conceived.
Just remember if you're wanting to leave California to escape this non-sense, please leave all the bad ideas there too.
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We would need to make courts a completely separate institution for this to work. No more politicians nominating judges.
> While the legislation has raised concerns over freedom of speech, the bill’s sponsors said the extensive harm caused by false information required holding incompetent or ill-intentioned doctors accountable. There was no addressing the actual issue in this statement. If you're arguing an issue falls under free speech, then the response of "OK, but it's really bad" doesn't change the free-ness of the speech.
Not sure how this is would be so different from how we treat forms of speech such as pergury, libel, and treason.