The Challenges of Freedom of Speech – Hongchao's Notes – sensing the abstract nonsense
If there exists a superintelligence system that can take in all the information in the world and process it with the most “optimal” algorithm (whatever that means), perhaps planned economy would be a better mechanism for resource allocation and growth generation than market economy. Similiarly, if we were blessed with a superintelligence that possesses all the knowledge and truth of the world, perhaps all we should do is to shut up and listen, provided that our goal is to use whatever means appropriate to advance society a whole, rather than protecting the holiness of any particular concept, even freedom of speech.
Unfortunately, this superintelligence doesn’t exist, at least not yet. History seems to have shown repeatedly that no matter how wise and well intended an individual or a group of individuals are, it is difficult for mere mortals to be the guardian of information for everybody without stagnating the society over a long time. On top of that, such power almost always leads to Orwellian like state: Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
From the societal perspective, if the goal of freedom of speech is to constantly generate ideas based on new circumstances so that humanity can be equipped with more knowledge and societies can evolve from one consensus to the next, then it has done a remarkable job so far. It encourages the contribution of ideas from individuals with different skillsets and perspectives; It provides a market place where ideas can be challenged, debated and tested; It also protects the “unorthodox” ideas from being suppressed by the powerful status quo consensus. At a higher level, it is a dynamic, decentralized, bottom up approach to achieve collective goals, analogous to biological evolution or market economy in their respective domains.
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