I have a friend who lives out in the country, so mostly I saw him on facebook. He eventually blocked me, but when he first started putting up conspiracy theories, he’d “discuss” them with me. He went from “we didn’t go to the moon” to anti-vaxxer and “crisis actors” over the course of two years. In one of the last drag-outs about vaccines, I showed him the numbers, I showed him tombstones from 100 years ago when kids died young, it didn’t matter. The only numbers he accepted were the anectodal stories of people who got their kids their shots, then believed they became autistic due to it.
I kept asking, what about the 40,000 people a year who died of measles before the MMR vaccine began? He literally said, “I don’t know about those”. But somehow, he did know of Bill Gates’ secret plan to “reduce population”. There is no way to win that argument. Facts are irrelevant. You can only lose by doing what Dilbert does in the next to last frame.
So the Dilbert figure loses to the dark haired T rump spokesperson, by being reasonable, AND he loses when he yells “What is wrong with you?” in exasperation.
How would one go about winning such a conversation?
You can’t “win the conversation”, that is the entire point. You can only hope that others see what you see. In a job situation, the advice I’ve always received is, look for another job. In politics, voting and participating in the democratic process is it. That covers a broad spectrum, public statements, supporting organizations like CFI, talking to people you know over a dinner table. We’ve covered a lot of this in the year or so.
Oh, I see. Like the thread title, there is NO WIN in the conversation.
Why should I hope that others will see what I see, when there is NO WIN (a win would be that they see and accept the truth)?
But with the plethora of devoted bots and RepugLIARs and Alt-righters drowning my little perspective of truth with their exciting LIES, it is THEY, I think who WILL win. Because all they need to do to win is to obfuscate the truth. And that seems pretty easy, especially when they cheat, and they do cheat.
So maybe the thread title would be “No win for the truth conversation” because the LIES HAVE BEEN winning lately, (actually for a long time now) in case you haven’t noticed.
So maybe the thread title would be “No win for the truth conversation” because the LIES HAVE BEEN winning lately, (actually for a long time now) in case you haven’t noticed.
Obviously one can win by cheating. I don't see it as a long term strategy, and it's expensive. Once the lies start piling up, there is a cost to maintaining them. I have been shocked at how well the liars are doing, but I think there is a limit and I think they have reached it.
I have been shocked at how well the liars are doing, but I think there is a limit and I think they have reached it.
Well, that would be nice, but I don't see them being stalled out by limits.
e.g. Bolsanaro is a role model FOR PASSING ON LIES in his country of Brazil. He regularly goes out in public (even now that Brazil appears to be about to take off into what we experienced through April - the valley of the shadow of death) He draws large crowds of avid followers. He never wears a mask. Crowd members pass their children to him through the throngs to be hugged by Bolsonaro. They LOVE him, all the while he is leading his country into devastation.
I have always looked at the development of Fascism in the pre-WWII era in various countries as something that people of the time must have been really screwed up to have accepted and to have even enthusiastically welcomed. But they had some economic woes due to unfair treatment by other countries due to WWI, and thus they had reason to take on something evil. I don’t think that our contemporary throngs of LIE believers, even have that much excuse.
