Anarchopedia:Truth

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Anarchopedia will endeavor to communicate the truth, first and foremost. Anger is understandable, and can be moving, but it is not intellectually convincing and should be avoided; however, it should never be replaced by the insipid or the disingenuous or the propagandized.

Links are fine, but they are no guarantee of any truth at all; Wikipedia editors increasingly defend what they know to be untrue with the Notability rule

Note that this is not mutually exclusive to Anarchopedia:Subjective. Subjectivity is assumed to exist at the edges of what has been defined as Truth.

Top Out

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"Don't Top Out", do not go Over the Top; these are phrases from acting methodology, which warn actors to save the volume and intensity of the emotions they impart to a speech, for the end of the speech. If you start out at full volume, "you'll leave yourself with nowhere to go" If one deems the killing of any three cops to be a massacre, as the articles on WP do, then 'massacre' stops meaning anything. Side note: one cop = 3.9 strikers, roughly, according to the "Rule of Using Massacre in a Press Article" This also helps nicely to achieve Wikipedia:WP:NPOV with guidance rather than that rule's censorship.

Balance

shortcut A:T#B

"Balance" is to be avoided; a lie is not the other side of the truth, and the chances are infinitely small that both sides of an argument are of exactly equal worth. If an article is exactly balanced, something is probably wrong with it

Balance with reference to Utility; while Truth is of uppermost importance, Balance is preferred; mostly because of Justice but Completeness is almost as important a rationale in this case

Point of View

shortcut A:POV

• Most thinking is skewed; one of the ways this is achieved is to propose Point of View as a relative thing.
• The best ideas have less probability of being shared by the majority.
• One of the supports for the idea of PoV is the assumption of bias; this amounts to nothing more than "You would say that" (Tu Quoque). Obviously we want more people to learn more faster, but we should not be surprised if the people who most want to learn are those with the most vested interest.

Anarchopedia does not name articles what the news media calls them, if they have abandoned responsible journalism for sensationalism (Wikipedia:Miami cannibal attack). Conversely, it reports all viewpoints, as there is no reason not to once it becomes possible to truthfully comment on those viewpoints rather than simply report what they say.

Problems with Notability and Verifiability as standards to replace Truth

Incompatibility between the two:

Notability allows articles to exist if the subject is notable, even if entirely unsourced; and Verifiably allows unsourced material to be removed.

N = truth

The product of N itself is empirically observable, all things working properly

The value of N on the other hand, is truth by another name

This mental legerdemain escapes comment if not notice or comprehension:The above is tight as a drum. It is a dirty shame to have to follow it with the rest, but not everyone can grasp the implications of the above. Let's take it in stages

All truth is subjective, we are told. Therefore we must find another way

To an infinite extent, N excludes content. This has an infinity of possible consequences good and bad, small and large, depending. You cannot necessarily say anything at all, even empirically observable facts like 1+1=2, on Wikipedia.

To a finite extent, although it must be said Wikipedia is a very large encyclopedia, N includes content. If many paid to read something, or many paid attention, you can say anything you like.

Common sense will often prevail in the case of what N includes. But that means that again, a value judgement is being used, while ostensibly the rule has a worth that a subjective measure of truth would not have. And yet, let us examine this part of the rule itself. Is there not something morally wrong about a rule that claims to replace truth, and yet has no empirical value at all? And what of the common acceptance of values in the form of common sense? And this works two ways, also. Not only does common sense instruct well-meaning deletors that they should delete the Flat Earth article or articles on Astrology, it can allow them to include material that is flawed.

The majority of people will never be able to tell that there is anything at all wrong with this. They share almost every one of their values with the writers of the included content. They know only the facts that the writers tell them, and many of the writers in turn only know what the rest of the writers, in the past and on to the future have told and will tell them. They think what it is expedient for them to think, both what benefits their rulers, and the lie that what benefits them but not others is their self interest, in disregard of all ethical and moral considerations to the contrary. In most cases, they do not have time to think anything else before they have to go to work again, and after they have finished energizing themselves for another day's work. What is more, they are given every reason to be ignorant of their ignorance, as their true masters have well hidden the fact that the consent of the governed is based on their ignorance. and that they, to a man, consider themselves above the herd. The rulers cannot admit it, and so it has become a deep secret between the groups. It is only a simple fact, and yet to declare yourself of better anything than another is to invite sudden anger. Consider, for example, a person who embarks on self-improvement. What are they, when they have completed even a small part of such a task, if not better? And yet, to note such a difference is taboo. That is because the ruling class has used the lie of superiority to justify inequity. The ruled class has seen the lie, and criticized it. The right wing has coopted the tactic of criticizing claims of superiority. In the face of this hypocrisy, the left has failed to distinguish between the simple to describe but difficult to evidence difference between false superiority, and real superiority.

The illusion of democracy and civilized society covers over inequities as much as the illusion of freedom covers over the restrictions of law.

There are two groups of people who think differently. Some of those with time on their hands and inquiring minds, and some of those for whom the established wisdom is not expedient. It cannot be denied that self interest is a powerful motivator. But the existence of self interest for the creation or support of an argument does not disprove the argument itself. There is nothing stopping those with time on their hands from accepting the established wisdom. Therefore, only some of them think differently. There is, however, something stopping those for whom the established wisdom is not expedient: in fact, they are almost forced to see it for what it is; its flaws are manifest in the difficulty of every day of their lives. The only thing stopping most of them, and it does it quite effectively, is the relentless barrage of propaganda they hear from their friends and family and co-workers, if by some rare chance they do not also hear it from the source.

An example, which I did not really fine tune, so it is a little sloppy. Most of it is an inconveniently divergent rehash to the above, in fact. Its only value is a hypothesis as conclusion: I attribute a reason, namely the power of money in our society, as an overriding reason for the choice of N.

This movie exists, according to these magazines. So far, so good, right? Well, is anyone really going to deny that the movie was made? Truth woulda solved that one. Here is how much money the movie made (a true fact) and here are some opinions about the movie (well, it is true they said that), in a magazine that makes this much profit (true fact). Is there anything about this magazine that explicitly proves its opinions should be valued? All truth is subjective, nothing can prove a value judgement.

See also

• Anarchopedia:Consensus building
• Anarchopedia:Copyright
• Anarchopedia:Quote
• Anarchopedia:Point of View shortcut A:POV
• Anarchopedia:Subjective
• Anarchopedia:Truth (shortcut A:T)
  • Balance A:T#B
• Anarchopedia:Utility (shortcut A:U)