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I get that it's hard to have a productive conversation based on nothing but speculation, but I feel that the Rat / Internet Atheist habit of "where's the evidence, bro" needs to die, or take a severe beating at least. There are "boring" orgs, that are relatively accessible to the public, which do goofy clandestine stuff every once in a while, and when we find out, it's often by dumb luck. What kind of evidence do you expect the public to have regarding Mossad?
- "You have no evidence for that!", he said standing in front of a stack of burning papers...
The claims for evidence are always attempts to force the burden of proof onto the claimant, which is normally a good thing. However modern internet discourse allows for extensive poisoning of the wells, so by forcing a source to be provided it becomes an orthogonal attack: by providing a source you have activated my trap card of categorical deniability.
There is no source so pure that it will be above reproach, so by providing a source to be arbitrarily torn down the argument is in fact further advanced: I have proven you are a chud by the fact that your source is the right wing rag Time magazine.
Facts do not matter for debatebros intent on using 'SOURCE?!?!' as an argument. Memory holing, source poisoning or other means of denying reality are tools extensively employed to maintain ones moral position.
Right wingers will admit that they do not like trans people and are working on legislation to ban transgender ideologies, left wingers will scream endlessly that there is no such pushing of trans ideologies in schools and evade/attack if evidence is provided.
This breaks down when the source provided is ones ownself, so thats where Epsteins claims of being a mossad agent are as spurious as Logan Pauls claim that he was buildings a crypto project or Musks claims that he is a Real Man who can stand up to the jewish weenie Zuckerberg - the only proof of their claim is their own words, so the motivations for providing a source must itself be considered. Source poisoning is a tactic used by really bad actors and ignoring the poison is also a bad action.
(Disclaimer: this is not a counter-argument, or even a disagreement, though it may sound like one. Maybe a tangential diatribe. Ahem.)
I can sympathize with this perspective, but only to a degree, as I feel it ignores that sources can be evaluated on various factors for credibility to support a claim, and the basis of these are appropriate grounds of conversation/debate such that 'source, please' is a relevant and reasonable thing.
Source credibility matters, and it can come from many observable factors that don't need mind-reading. These can be their consistency over time (do they have an established bias), their willingness to issue retractions and corrections (i.e. how likely are they to stand behind a lie if challenged, versus correcting a mistake), their self-interests in taking a position (does a claim inflate or decrease their social standing at the time it is made), and so on.
(This is one of the reasons that Epstein's claims are weaker than they might otherwise be, because he had a history of lying in favor of himself, and the specific claim itself could be self-benefiting, both before and after he got into serious scrutiny. Beforehand it could buff his prestige and imply he had powerful friends to help him get away with things so best not challenge him, and afterwards it could be used to deflect blame and responsibility away from himself. Note that these interests are valid whether the connection is true or not.)
The issue with 'providing sources is a waste of time because it's a trap card' is that, well, many sources most commonly used are indeed bad, and their usage is often used also bad. Time Magazine is not immune from political bias or propaganda, and using a citation in the form of an appeal to authority is double-bad both because of the fallacious form of the argument, and that the argument ignores why the source could be doubted. Pointing out either of these can be true and relevant, and also dismissed as 'poisoning the source.' The accusation itself is a means to counter an accuasion that would undermine the argument if true, thus letting the argument remain stronger than if the challenge went unchallenged.
The solution here isn't to disclaim sources entirely, but to use- and expect them to be used- in a more measured faction. But that measured faction goes back to the credibility of the source, as how far a source can be taken is going to vary significantly depending on context.
(Which I don't think you'd disagree with in general, but I wanted to write down those thoughts.)
I am in broad agreement. My specific inciting reason for my disjointed rant was the last line of @ArjinFerman post, about the burning books. In reasoned debate and discussion source provision is indeed a standard we should all abide by, but source poisoning is a tactic so regularly yet inconsistently applied that the calls for a source are warning signs of bad-faith poisoners readying their needles instead of honest requests for verification.
Appeal to authority is indeed a logical fallacy, but explicating the objection to a source is never framed in that way. Instead the arguers aim to pull off a heads I win tails you lose, for no source means no proof and a source means proof of your right wing bias. In public forums, requests for sources are not attempts at furthering an argument or discussion, they are performative kayfabe to pretend at decorum while castigating the other side.
This can of course be said of most public facing forums and indeed institutions as a whole, with mindshare capture being the meta of discourse shaping. I wish we could find a way to arbitrate and give concrete value to facts and opinions shared, but the upvote is just inconsequential goodboypoints.
Btw pls updoot for visibility, thank
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Sure, I’m not saying the public is going to know. I’m saying that we do know that Epstein lied about a huge number of things, and that the source of the Mossad rumors (if you look into them) is typically people who were told by Epstein himself (who notoriously wanted to be an international man of mystery) that he was a secret agent and intelligence broker for Mossad.
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Surely you're not arguing that the alternative is to simply believe what we feel like believing? I don't consider myself a rationalist or an internet atheist but I regularly ask "where's the evidence?" and do not think I'm being particularly (overly) skeptical to do so. The comment by /u/Magusoflight was clearly an attempt at baiting, and I'd suggest we need far less of that regardless.
Of course not. In these situations I think it's important to make it clear what is being claimed with evidence, and what is being based on speculation, but I don't think speculative claims should be dismissable out of hand. In this case we're talking about Epstein, and no matter how many demands for evidence go unmet, that case stinks and glows from orbit. Maybe it's not Mossad, but someone was backing that guy.
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