What I was aiming to demonstrate is that those people can quite rationally - towards their own value function - decide to dismiss this essay and not shift their opinion on Ivermectin
Only if their value function is not about making correct arguments and believing accurate things.
Of course, this then becomes a motte and bailey, where the motte is "it's rational because it wins according to a value function that doesn't value truth" and the bailey is "it's rational in the way that 'rational' is ordinarily used in this context".
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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently,
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Notes -
Only if their value function is not about making correct arguments and believing accurate things.
Of course, this then becomes a motte and bailey, where the motte is "it's rational because it wins according to a value function that doesn't value truth" and the bailey is "it's rational in the way that 'rational' is ordinarily used in this context".
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