Re: <nettime> It's Time to Fight for Open Source Again (fwd)

[carlo von lynX via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

On 11/12/23 8:12 PM, Christian Swertz via nettime-l wrote:
>>> some hindrances, the concept of 'scientific consensus' still exists and
>>> there still is, in the majority of situations, ways to differentiate
>>> facts from misinformation.
> 
> argument by Daniel, and write this:

Actually those words were mine, not Daniel's.

I'm a bit fascinated by how the important issue whether open source
could be seen as having produced more evil than good is disregarded
while several posts are discussing the philosophical definition of "fact".

Well, since you are citing me I might as well elaborate how I see it.

There may be laws of nature that are beyond the human species and
intelligence, but since using language is about social interaction among
humans, "facts" may be things that are likely to be truths because a
sufficiently large and influential group of humans is endorsing it. If
95+% scientists interpret scientific data in such a way to consider
something like global heating a scientific fact, then that's one
possible way of defining facts. Facts could also be knowledge derived
empirically from scientifically agreed facts - if there is a scientific
consensus that traces of DNA belong to a specific person, then even a
single person can create a new fact by proving that the DNA of a certain
person was found on a specific crime scene. As long as they can prove
it, it will be a fact. Who can judge what facts are? Guess what, judges.
That's why we have a justice system, because we need societal structures
that ultimately decide what the truths are before the laws that citizens
agreed to subject to. If politicians later renamed "global heating" into
"climate change", maybe to make it sound less dangerous, then this
illustrates the influential power of certain classes of human beings
that are not frequently required to respect scientific consensus. That's
a societal issue, that society isn't putting the scientific consensus
procedure first over charismatic folks having convincing opinions and
articulating simplifications suitable for deriving ideologies.

So what was the intention of this off-topic subthread? Trying to
question the societal methods of defining facts in order to make it look
legit to promote misinformation and manipulation?



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