Industrial scale lying in the marketplace of ideas

For the past several days I've been trying to write an essay provisionally entitled “Industrial scale lying in the marketplace of ideas.” So far I’ve produced lots of words, a bunch of ideas, and quite a bit of frustration. I’ve failed to produce something that I want to publish on the blog.

One of the essays that I’m proudest of is [Violence markets and government monopolies](https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2015/11/violence-markets-and-government.html) And I think this could end up being as good. I'm determined to see it through, but the way I've been working on it is not converging and has been manifestly unsuccessful.

So here's the new plan. Lay out the main argument. Identify the research I need to do and write things along the way. Finally, get to the promised land. Let’s see what happens.

## The main argument

The idea of a “marketplace of ideas” is useful, but underdeveloped. There are many kinds of ideas, and they each have their own marketplaces. The internet has changed the means and economics of idea creation and it has completely disrupted the old means and economics of distribution.

The change in economics has led to changes in the markets for ideas, and those changes have led to new market failure modes and new ways to manipulate those markets. The changes may call for new forms of regulation in certain markets. I don’t know what those regulations might be or how to carry them out effectively. I hope I’ll figure it out by the end.

I'm going to start by reviewing some of the literature on the rise and evolution of other markets--for example, the markets for products and services and financial markets. Then, with a good historical grounding of these well-studied markets, I'll turn to the history of the markets for ideas and changes in their generation and distribution of ideas. I'll probably drop some meme theory along the way. Finally, we'll get to modern marketplaces for ideas.

I will argue that the marketplaces for some important ideas--the ones related to politics, government, and economics--are coupled to markets for violence. If someone can generate ideas that convince people that the idea generator should be in power, then they can maintain power with fewer violence delivery resources.

Some people create ideas in order to discover the truth. Others generate ideas without regard for truth--other than as a convenience. Lies are as easy to assert as truths but more difficult to defend without extra work because a single false statement will stand out as inconsistent with a large number of true statements. Lies work best when they are produced on an industrial scale, each lie supported by other lies.

Lies also work better when people are told (and believe) that there is no such thing as truth or that truth cannot be found. These are lies.

Lies work better when they are packaged in ways that make them appear more truthful. Once again this takes extra work.

That's the project.

Now, onward!