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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 2024

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A premise that flat Earthers are just dumb or crazy, and therefore shouldn't be doing science, doesn't steelman the assertion that the Earth is flat

I agree, it doesn't steel man that the earth is flat, but it does steel man that the people claiming the earth is flat aren't doing it out of malice/willful deception. The first line in my post is "What is the steel man for the Trump fake elector scheme being no big deal" and saying Trump is dumb or crazy satisfies that since it is a way smaller deal that Trump is just dumb or crazy than he tried to overturn the election. Another way to say it isn't a big deal is to say that the election really was stolen, or that this was a normal process, etc. So, it depends what exactly the steel man is for.

Trump sincerely believed the election was stolen. At the time, he found Sydney Powell, Mike Lindell etc more convincing the Attorney General, his Chief of Staff, White House council, the head of election security, etc

Trump sincerely believing the election was stolen seems to be the most common reply to this that I've talked about in a bunch of other comments, so I guess that is the ultimate steel man.

Just read about the limitations of a steelman. For example, its possible to steelman creationism or flat earth science. That doesn't make it an illuminating endeavor. Many or most Americans do not (more likely cannot or will not) see anything wrong with Trumps handling of the 2020 election. When asked in a 2019 survey, about 40% of Americans don't see anything wrong with asserting the Earth is less than 10,000 years old either.