John Rawls wrote that truth is the first virtue of any system of thought. If you have no truth (in an objective and verifiable sense) your system of thought is fundamentally flawed. If that system of thought is responsible for all of your social institutions eg government, education, courts, economic activity then all of these are themselves contaminated and should be rejected. I fear with the likes of Trump, Farage and those others who are prepared to bend the rules of truth and with a disparate media unwilling or unable to challenge those who treat truth as a malleable commodity we are undermining something foundational in the way we structure our societies. In Russia truth is what the state says it is and any deviation is sanctioned by force. In the USA there simply is no agreed or workable concept of truth any more and so state enforcement is not necessary. No viewpoint can gain enough traction to influence affairs even if objectively true. The effects are the same total breakdown of societal institutions to the detriment of its people and those with whom that country interacts.
Adam, I am very glad that you write this topic and giving us an important topic to contemplate.
You were asking "If fictitious content can make non-fiction more interesting, more readable, and more successful, then are many writers optimising for the wrong thing by pursuing what is true? " I can only say that I appreciate very much that you didnot follow this in your book. What I have read so far from your book is that the not so easy to understand topic you wrote read to me like in a Michael Connelly novel. It is engaging, interesting and it is easy enough for people like me to understand without sacrificing the truth as you want us to understand.
You wrote that "Yes, everyone gets it wrong sometimes, but there is a difference between being occasionally wrong in a minor way and regularly wrong in a major way". it definitely is especially if one deliberately wrong in any way. I think as a scientist this is the largest responsibility we have to society.
You also wrote that "We call it technical debt (this is a good word to remember). Get a quick benefit now, pay the price later". To me this is mortgaging the future generation for this generation selfish benefit or for their thirst of power.
Thank you Adam; I appreciate very much that a mathematician is also concern in this situation and have the willingness to explore it!
It is interesting that you used the word 'debt' in labeling these relatively harmless but clearly mislabeled bits of fiction. Interesting because the term is often associated with the concept of capital. And to me... that is the real story. Information is capital. Full stop. People have been saying this for many years, but the validity of counter-arguments seems to be vanishing very rapidly. If information is not capital, it is difficult to explain the valuation of many publicly traded companies like Google, Tiktok, etc. If information is not capital, then the amounts paid for purchasing data (even anonymized!), customer lists, corporate IP, etc. make no sense.
And... if you allow that information is capital, then we need only look back at how other forms of capital have been introduced, and abused, in the past. In virtually all cases of the introduction of new forms of capital, there have been periods where rampant 'counterfeiting' occurs, at least until proper laws and regulations are created to curb that practice.
With information, mislabeled 'truth' is simply the new form of counterfeiting. Imagine for a moment if every single person who signs up for a Google Account were to input nothing but falsehoods. Imagine that every search was for something the user did NOT want to know about, was NOT looking to purchase. What would the repercussions be? Google would 'sell' that data to advertisers who would see zero sales increase. The advertising revenue would disappear once that effect became clear. Google's valuation would plummet.
The 'free' internet functions only because we feed it a significant amount of truthful information. Who we are, where we are, what interests us, etc. As we move further and further into this information age, we are absolutely going to need regulations and laws about proper labeling of truth, fiction, and the gray areas in between. We already have the 'based on...' label for many movies and television shows (albeit mostly for the producers to avoid lawsuits by depicted characters!)... we should probably come up with something similar for all published information. In the recent lawsuit of FOX News for making disparaging claims about one of the US Voting system software developers, they used the argument that they were an Entertainment vendor, and that as such no one expects their content to always be accurate. Making them apply the label before the information is broadcast seems like the logical regulation needed to prevent their particular style of 'information counterfeiting' from bankrupting a large portion of the public.
“If fictitious content can make non-fiction….” The contradiction is right there. If it’s fictitious then it’s not non-fiction.
Thruthiness is the word invented to describe fiction which is sold as fact and which “rings true”. But the problem with truthy statements is they aren’t verifiable, or in Popper’s terms falsifiable. They are hopelessly soft ground upon which to stand.
I read the *Observer* article and the subsequent review in *The Guardian*. What struck me was the unmistakable intent—on the part of both author and publisher—to frame events in a way that casts the Winns in a sympathetic light. It’s one thing to say you lost your home to foreclosure. It's quite another to acknowledge that the foreclosure was a direct consequence of a conscious decision: taking £64,000 from your employer to invest in a friend’s business venture. In the first scenario, you're a victim of unfortunate circumstances; in the second, you're grappling with the fallout of personal choices. That the Winns—and the publishers—opted for the former reveals a great deal about how they regard readers.
Pragya Agarwal, author and writing teacher, is quoted in *The Guardian* as saying, “it’s about trust between writer and reader.” That’s a convenient oversimplification. There’s a third party in this dynamic—the industrial publishing and marketing complex—whose purpose is profit, not truth or trust. Few authors reach readers without this machinery, and in that triangular relationship, trust is the first casualty.
The idea that writing, speech, and imagery—however divorced from truth—can provoke genuine emotion is hardly new. Socrates railed against this manipulation of sentiment. Centuries later, Goebbels and Riefenstahl refined it to devastating effect. Is this what advocates of "authentic feeling" seek? A culture in which unexamined emotion reigns over examined thought?
“Truth Debt” is tackling multiple moral or ethical concerns but treating them all as equivalent. However, they have different moral weight and complexity. Salt Path-like memoirs may spark debates, but they don’t usually carry large societal consequences. Transparency about product issues may reflect systemic problems and may have wider consequences. Political and government disinformation and propaganda raise high-stakes, deeply consequential ethical questions. These deserve dedicated treatment because they influence public trust, safety, and policy at scale. Each category of truth debt could be unpacked in individual posts, exploring not just what the issue is, but why it matters, who it affects, and what moral questions it raises.
John Rawls wrote that truth is the first virtue of any system of thought. If you have no truth (in an objective and verifiable sense) your system of thought is fundamentally flawed. If that system of thought is responsible for all of your social institutions eg government, education, courts, economic activity then all of these are themselves contaminated and should be rejected. I fear with the likes of Trump, Farage and those others who are prepared to bend the rules of truth and with a disparate media unwilling or unable to challenge those who treat truth as a malleable commodity we are undermining something foundational in the way we structure our societies. In Russia truth is what the state says it is and any deviation is sanctioned by force. In the USA there simply is no agreed or workable concept of truth any more and so state enforcement is not necessary. No viewpoint can gain enough traction to influence affairs even if objectively true. The effects are the same total breakdown of societal institutions to the detriment of its people and those with whom that country interacts.
Adam, I am very glad that you write this topic and giving us an important topic to contemplate.
You were asking "If fictitious content can make non-fiction more interesting, more readable, and more successful, then are many writers optimising for the wrong thing by pursuing what is true? " I can only say that I appreciate very much that you didnot follow this in your book. What I have read so far from your book is that the not so easy to understand topic you wrote read to me like in a Michael Connelly novel. It is engaging, interesting and it is easy enough for people like me to understand without sacrificing the truth as you want us to understand.
You wrote that "Yes, everyone gets it wrong sometimes, but there is a difference between being occasionally wrong in a minor way and regularly wrong in a major way". it definitely is especially if one deliberately wrong in any way. I think as a scientist this is the largest responsibility we have to society.
You also wrote that "We call it technical debt (this is a good word to remember). Get a quick benefit now, pay the price later". To me this is mortgaging the future generation for this generation selfish benefit or for their thirst of power.
Thank you Adam; I appreciate very much that a mathematician is also concern in this situation and have the willingness to explore it!
It is interesting that you used the word 'debt' in labeling these relatively harmless but clearly mislabeled bits of fiction. Interesting because the term is often associated with the concept of capital. And to me... that is the real story. Information is capital. Full stop. People have been saying this for many years, but the validity of counter-arguments seems to be vanishing very rapidly. If information is not capital, it is difficult to explain the valuation of many publicly traded companies like Google, Tiktok, etc. If information is not capital, then the amounts paid for purchasing data (even anonymized!), customer lists, corporate IP, etc. make no sense.
And... if you allow that information is capital, then we need only look back at how other forms of capital have been introduced, and abused, in the past. In virtually all cases of the introduction of new forms of capital, there have been periods where rampant 'counterfeiting' occurs, at least until proper laws and regulations are created to curb that practice.
With information, mislabeled 'truth' is simply the new form of counterfeiting. Imagine for a moment if every single person who signs up for a Google Account were to input nothing but falsehoods. Imagine that every search was for something the user did NOT want to know about, was NOT looking to purchase. What would the repercussions be? Google would 'sell' that data to advertisers who would see zero sales increase. The advertising revenue would disappear once that effect became clear. Google's valuation would plummet.
The 'free' internet functions only because we feed it a significant amount of truthful information. Who we are, where we are, what interests us, etc. As we move further and further into this information age, we are absolutely going to need regulations and laws about proper labeling of truth, fiction, and the gray areas in between. We already have the 'based on...' label for many movies and television shows (albeit mostly for the producers to avoid lawsuits by depicted characters!)... we should probably come up with something similar for all published information. In the recent lawsuit of FOX News for making disparaging claims about one of the US Voting system software developers, they used the argument that they were an Entertainment vendor, and that as such no one expects their content to always be accurate. Making them apply the label before the information is broadcast seems like the logical regulation needed to prevent their particular style of 'information counterfeiting' from bankrupting a large portion of the public.
“If fictitious content can make non-fiction….” The contradiction is right there. If it’s fictitious then it’s not non-fiction.
Thruthiness is the word invented to describe fiction which is sold as fact and which “rings true”. But the problem with truthy statements is they aren’t verifiable, or in Popper’s terms falsifiable. They are hopelessly soft ground upon which to stand.
I read the *Observer* article and the subsequent review in *The Guardian*. What struck me was the unmistakable intent—on the part of both author and publisher—to frame events in a way that casts the Winns in a sympathetic light. It’s one thing to say you lost your home to foreclosure. It's quite another to acknowledge that the foreclosure was a direct consequence of a conscious decision: taking £64,000 from your employer to invest in a friend’s business venture. In the first scenario, you're a victim of unfortunate circumstances; in the second, you're grappling with the fallout of personal choices. That the Winns—and the publishers—opted for the former reveals a great deal about how they regard readers.
Pragya Agarwal, author and writing teacher, is quoted in *The Guardian* as saying, “it’s about trust between writer and reader.” That’s a convenient oversimplification. There’s a third party in this dynamic—the industrial publishing and marketing complex—whose purpose is profit, not truth or trust. Few authors reach readers without this machinery, and in that triangular relationship, trust is the first casualty.
The idea that writing, speech, and imagery—however divorced from truth—can provoke genuine emotion is hardly new. Socrates railed against this manipulation of sentiment. Centuries later, Goebbels and Riefenstahl refined it to devastating effect. Is this what advocates of "authentic feeling" seek? A culture in which unexamined emotion reigns over examined thought?
“Truth Debt” is tackling multiple moral or ethical concerns but treating them all as equivalent. However, they have different moral weight and complexity. Salt Path-like memoirs may spark debates, but they don’t usually carry large societal consequences. Transparency about product issues may reflect systemic problems and may have wider consequences. Political and government disinformation and propaganda raise high-stakes, deeply consequential ethical questions. These deserve dedicated treatment because they influence public trust, safety, and policy at scale. Each category of truth debt could be unpacked in individual posts, exploring not just what the issue is, but why it matters, who it affects, and what moral questions it raises.