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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   21718 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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Major social media companies colluding together to prevent the voter from accessing vital information about a candidate is such a significant violation of democratic norms that it should be our entire focus when discussing election fraud. We had information hidden from us which indicated a candidate’s son was paid by the spy chief of our geopolitical rival, and a corrupt oligarch in the most important geopolitical region of Europe (Ukraine), and that the candidate met with many of the players paying his son, and that Biden-as-VP held Ukrainian aid hostage unless he fire the prosecutor that was investigating the corrupt company which was paying his son. (This oligarch went on to participate in one of the largest money laundering cases in American history, in a little discussed story, using his Chabad-affiliates — but this is a story for another post).

Right, I've repeatedly identified the motte-and-bailey tactic of making bombastic fraud-fraud claims about Dominion Voting or whatever but then shifting towards the weaker "the election was unfair" position when pressed for evidence on the initial claims. I don't want to tip the scales here and it's why I'm asking people to volunteer what they believe are the strongest claims worthy of attention. If someone wants to claim that the strongest argument in favor of the stolen election is the attempted suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story then that's fine and I'll take whatever I can get, but that's conceding the more dramatic claims as indefensible.

Again, I've been repeatedly accused of dishonesty and weakmanning on this topic, and I'm trying to do everything I can to facilitate them making their case that it's a valid allegation instead of a baseless smear.

  • -12

That's not a motte-and-bailey tactic, that's something that happens whenever a lot of people have ideas about something. There are plenty of naive people who complain about Trump being bad because he eats his steak well done. If other people on the left don't care about steak, and criticize Trump on a different basis, that doesn't make it a motte-and-bailey where the bombastic claim is that Trump is bad for a totally ridiculous reason.

That's true! The problem is the lack of acknowledgements along the lines of "Yes, the Dominion Voting stuff is crazy but this other thing is worthwhile...". And I don't know how many times I need to repeat this, but people go beyond refusing to acknowledge the retarded theories to accuse me of dishonesty/weakmanning. I suspect the lack of disavowals is part of the sanewashing tactic, where the crazy wing of any faction is kept close because their enthusiasm remains useful.

We're not going to get anything from such acknowledgements (which have in fact been given if not as clearly as you would like). No one on the "most safe and secure election ever" side is going to be more likely to seriously engage with the strongest claims because the person wanting to engage is willing to stipulate that other claims are "crazy".

Closing off motte-and-bailey acrobatics is a great way to raise one's credibility.

Perhaps, in the eyes of some sort of rationalist receptive observer. There aren't any of those around here.

Hopefully there are on this site, at least.

god no. Can you imagine a bunch of quokkas going about EA and Skynet every two days on the forum?. The place is better served by users grounded in reality, be they lefties or righties.

Major social media companies colluding together to prevent the voter from accessing vital information about a candidate is such a significant violation of democratic norms that it should be our entire focus when discussing election fraud.

Very much noncentral fallacy, but ok. However if we're calling shaping media coverage and the national conversation as election fraud, then Russia definitely committed election fraud to help Trump get elected the first time.

  • -12

The premise of democracy is that we can access truthful information, and that we can share political information to peers using the expected normal means of communication. The normal means of sharing political information since 2010 has been online. Yet, every major company which controlled our normal means of political communication conspired to hide essential political information. This thwarts how democracy is intended to operate, regardless of whether it technically violated a rule. It is very much central to the concern of, “is our democracy working or did an actor destroy it?” And this is the heart of the concern over election fraud, whether it in substance thwarts democracy, not just by a technical rule.

(If one political side is fundamentally thwarting democracy, then in my humble opinion the other side can do the same. They can do this by, for instance, accusing them of technical election fraud or vampirical adenochrome or whatever they want. They are morally justified to defend themselves using the same weapon as their attacker.)

(If one political side is fundamentally thwarting democracy, then in my humble opinion the other side can do the same. They can do this by, for instance, accusing them of technical election fraud or vampirical adenochrome or whatever they want. They are morally justified to defend themselves using the same weapon as their attacker.)

This is just silly. If you're saying you wouldn't look down on the other side for getting down in the mud with their opponents that's one thing, but I think setting things up so that if Side A suppresses even a single voter-relevant news story, then that gives Side B full moral license to claim actual election fraud without evidence or to make up conspiracy theories, then I think you've set up an insane and unworkable game.

I think you've set up an insane and unworkable game.

This... does not seem like grounds for ruling out such a situation currently being in effect?!

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