On Liars

On the Alex Jones Verdict: The Very, Very Lucrative World of Lying

"The internet has brought about many positive changes that helped expand speech rights, not just in the United States but around the world, but no such historic transition is easy or uniformly good. In fact, such transitions are often deeply destabilizing, and accompanied by much suffering.

The printing press may have launched encyclopedias and the wonderful world of books, but as many historians point out, one of immediate downstream consequences was the Thirty Years War, dubbed a “media event” by historian Peter Wilson, which may have resulted in as much as 20% of Europe’s population perishing. Recognizing this is obviously not wishing we never got the printing press or books, but just that major historical transitions are often very, very painful.  

Spread of other communication technologies hasn’t been all rosy either."

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