Having worked in public advocacy advertising, I’d frame it like this:
“Good ideas don’t need lies” is a compelling ideal but in practice, public acceptance isn’t a reliable signal of truth or societal benefit. It depends on incentives, narratives, and how information is presented.
History shows that even harmful or suboptimal ideas (like coal power) can gain widespread support if presented persuasively, while genuinely beneficial ideas can struggle if they’re complex or unintuitive.
A useful heuristic is: if an idea relies on misleading claims to survive scrutiny, that’s a warning sign. But public acceptance itself is not proof of goodness or correctness.
In short: persuasion and truth are related—but far from identical.
I think you just reinforced the articles point. Coal power needs lots of lies to justify it, as per your own statement.
That is in fact because coal energy is a terrible idea. It has 0 upsides compared to renewable alternatives, and is on the whole worse than even other non-renewable alternatives.
If you have to lie to make it sound good, that's probably because it isn't actually good
I think we’re still talking past each other. I’m not arguing that any specific idea is good.
My point is just that public acceptance itself isn’t reliable evidence either way: ideas can gain support (or fail) for reasons other than their actual merit.
You can turn it around. If stopping using coal is a good idea then all that should be needed it present the facts and all the people will cheer and support stop using coal - if not it means stopping using coal is a bad idea?
No, turning it around doesn't work because it's cause and effect.
"Present the facts and all the people will cheer and support stop using coal" -> correct
"If not it means stopping using coal is a bad idea?" -> incorrect, because people are against switching to renewables because of lies, not because of facts
> incorrect, because people are against switching to renewables because of lies, not because of facts
Do you really think that if you presented the truth to a MAGA follower that believes climate change is a communist scam that they will just see reason and support your position just because you presented them with the facts?
If, despite best attempts for me to communicate facts to them within our common language, they still can not recognize basic truth or fact from their subjective truth? I don't really see that a problem for the speaker, but a problem for the listener.
That's no way that the opposite expectation can scale as a society. Otherwise we would all need to validate everyone else's words constantly with primary source documents. There must be some level of trust in order to communicate efficiently, surely.
Some good ideas might need a whole lot of marketing to catch on. Some bad ideas might need very little. The quote merely argues that if you must deceive people for an idea to catch on, the idea is not good. A corollary is that if you are tempted to lie in your advocacy, you should probably reexamine what you are advocating for.
I’m not making a claim about whether any particular idea is good or bad.
I’m pointing out that the process by which ideas gain acceptance is somewhat independent from their actual quality, so acceptance alone isn’t a strong signal.
I might not have been clear. I’m separating two questions:
(1) whether an idea is actually good or true, and
(2) how easily it gains acceptance.
My point is just that (2) doesn’t reliably answer (1).
History shows that even harmful or suboptimal ideas (like coal power) can gain widespread support if presented persuasively, while genuinely beneficial ideas can struggle if they’re complex or unintuitive.
A useful heuristic is: if an idea relies on misleading claims to survive scrutiny, that’s a warning sign. But public acceptance itself is not proof of goodness or correctness.
In short: persuasion and truth are related—but far from identical.