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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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I don’t get the sense that there’s anything I could say to get you to stop pretending like you can mind read my epistemology and consistently misrepresent it.

Which is really ironic because my underlying philosophy and approach is identical to Scott’s. I’m not innovating.

Your whole paragraph about libertarians is baffling. But then you bringing in “democracy” as a comparison point was inappropriate and unhelpful from the start.

You are being pretty damn obtuse when you write:

Exactly, and given that none of us can be expected to have access to evidence proving it happened, or to be allowed to conduct an investigation where any such evidence could be revealed, it is disingenious to demand we concede election fraud did not happen

This is not a good faith take in a conversation branching off from the fact TTV (among others) claims there is evidence they have for the courts and that we in the public could see, and where one of the strongest arguments against any meaningful election fraud is that the claims were investigated.

Forget “proving” it happened. We’re pretty far from actual evidence suggesting meaningful election fraud took place because the many claims did not survive scrutiny.

You’re doing an election fraud version of Sagan’s garage dragon and it’s tiresome to have to address your apples to orange comparisons with e.g. police and crime.

And now on the new thread you’re also responding in a way that isn’t even wrong because you can’t seem to grasp the actual point I was making. I might be wrong but it’s not because you refuted my points.

Take a breath and read slower.

I don’t get the sense that there’s anything I could say to get you to stop pretending like you can mind read my epistemology and consistently misrepresent it.

Which is really ironic because my underlying philosophy and approach is identical to Scott’s. I’m not innovating.

I did indulge in a bit of mind reading when I claimed you might be applying different standards to different ideas, but when I see an inconsistency, I cannot help but point it out. The simplest thing to say in that situation is to describe your standards, and to point out how you're actually applying them consistently across ideas, using the claims we've been discussing as examples.

"Identical to Scott's" doesn't really cut it, unless you're literally Scott himself, our interpretations of his work might be different, after all.

Your whole paragraph about libertarians is baffling. But then you bringing in “democracy” as a comparison point was inappropriate and unhelpful from the start.

I was making a pretty basic point about rationalizing one's biases away. And as for "inappropriate and unhelpful", I wish I could do better, but since you don't really say what your issue is, it's hard for me to address it.

This is not a good faith take in a conversation branching off from the fact TTV (among others) claims there is evidence they have for the courts and that we in the public could see, and where one of the strongest arguments against any meaningful election fraud is that the claims were investigated.

Forget “proving” it happened. We’re pretty far from actual evidence suggesting meaningful election fraud took place because the many claims did not survive scrutiny.

This is where our conversation started. The substance of TTV's claims was not my concern anywhere in our conversation.

You’re doing an election fraud version of Sagan’s garage dragon and it’s tiresome to have to address your apples to orange comparisons with e.g. police and crime.

If Sagan's garage dragon involved screaming at the believer that they're a far-right conspiracy theorist, instead of investigating, you'd have a point. All I'm saying is that the case is suspicious enough that it warrants an investigation, rather than dismissing it out of hand like it's currently being done.

And now on the new thread you’re also responding in a way that isn’t even wrong because you can’t seem to grasp the actual point I was making. I might be wrong but it’s not because you refuted my points.

Take a breath and read slower.

While this may be occasionally good advice for me, it's a swing and a miss here. First, I'm not sure what's the point of bringing up the other thread, other than to attempt to distract from this one, but more importantly, I think you're just plain wrong. But let's leave that for the other thread.

You’re implying investigations didn’t happen regarding allegations made.

A lot did. Are there significant allegations that weren’t?

Nowhere did I say investigations shouldn’t happen. That’s a pretty stupid stance.

It’s not specifically about TTV’s claims, they’re just the example of the day for a class of people and groups who did make strong allegations, which fell apart upon investigation.

A lot of investigations happened and a lot of people out there failed to update when the allegations could not be substantiated.

Overall, I’m not going to engage with someone I see consistently misrepresenting my positions after I try to correct a misunderstanding.

Try harder or don’t, I’m just giving you notice.