YOU DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO SPREAD IGNORANCE ( Nick Heywood and Curt Doolittle ) Why do you have the right to ignorance? Well, there is a difference between enjoying the luxury of ignorance at other’s expense, and distributing ignorance by your words and deeds. And there is a difference between general knowledge that allows us to escape our ignorance, and the means of testing information against error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, overloading, pseudoscience and deceit, that allows us to increase our knowledge and decrease our ignorance, and to speak truthfully and avoid speaking untruthfully. And since the animal man evolved to negotiate and deceive as well as describe and inform, and since we evolved to act rationally – meaning morally when in our interests and immorally when in our interests – the reason it has taken us thousands of years to develop the technology of truth telling that we call ‘science’, is because it is unnatural to us. We evolved to negotiate, not testify. So just as we must learn manners, ethics, morals, and laws to obtain access to and participate in the benefits of that market for cooperation that we call the ‘social order’, we must learn the ethics of knowledge: how to eliminate error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, loading and framing, overloading, pseudoscience, and deceit. And we must teach one another manners, ethics, morals, laws – not only defensively: to limit the ill-mannered, unethical, immoral, and illegal – but also as investment: to increase the number of people with whom we have an option to cooperate at ever lower costs, in the production of private and common goods, services, and information, for mutual benefit. So defensive and investment reasons we must invest constantly in the teaching of manners, ethics, morals, and laws, including the ethical science of interpreting and giving testimony: truth telling. And conversely we must punish those who cause harm to manners, ethics morals and law; cause harm to the production of private and common goods, services, and information. But how do we punish? By the incremental suppression of ill-mannered, unethical, immoral, illegal, speech: DEPRIVATION OF OPPORTUNITY TO SPEAK 1st with ridicule & shame (Ya f’n idiot! What are ya thinkin’? Or ya not thinkin’?!?) DEPRIVATION OF OPPORTUNITY TO COOPERATE: 2nd with ostracism (I’m afraid I can’t associate with you. You’re deceitful and just repeat lies you’ve been convinced of as true in order to influence) DEPRIVATION OF GOODS, SERVICES AND INFORMATION 3rd loss of privilege (I can’t trade with you or offer service, ya on ya own!) DEPRIVATION OF CHOICE 4th loss of liberty (You’re a danger. You lose the ability to make your own decisions. You demonstrate a high risk to other’s welfare) DEPRIVATION OF ACTION 5th loss of freedom! (Off to Jail ya go ya f’er! Or war in the case of the state
