This shouldn't need to be said at this point, but given the new Speaker's apparent beliefs, it bears repeating:
While there are weaknesses in US election infrastructure, there is simply no evidence whatsoever that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" or that technical attacks in any way altered its outcome.
58 of my colleagues and I wrote this shortly after these nonsensical conspiracy theories began to spread two years ago. It remains as true now as it was then. https://www.mattblaze.org/papers/election2020.pdf
@mattblaze it's a mistake, both factual and rhetorical, to say there is no evidence instead of saying the evidence is scant and uncompelling.
It's like, yes, there is evidence that the world is flat. It's poor evidence and the overwhelming body of evidence and analysis debunks it. But it exists.
If one wants to engage with someone who has questions about the election, they're going to be immediately shut out once they deny that the evidence exists.
At that point they're clearly gaslighting and won't make any progress.
Although, if the goal is just to preach to the choir or signal tribalism, have at it.
@volkris you’re not as clever ad you think you sound. This isn’t a freshman philosophy class.
@mattblaze who said anything about philosophy?
This is really about rhetoric and political science. This is 100% about real world choice of words.
Philosophy doesn't enter into it.
The moment a person feels gaslit they're going to shut down and your argument is not going to be convincing.
Again, maybe your goal is not to convince. That's fair. The choir will still eat it up.
But if you do want to reach some people with misguided beliefs, then you have to reach them where they are.
@volkris made up bullshit isn’t evidence.
@mattblaze that might be, but AGAIN, if you want to convince someone then you have to meet them where they are.
If I'm a fervent believer that the earth is round and your first words to me are, "Seeing as the world is flat..." I'm going to start with the assumption that you don't know what you're talking about, and you're unlikely to convince me of your perspective.
Maybe a person does believe a bunch of made up bullshit about the election. Fine. If you want to reach them you have to engage with that.
Again, IF your goal goes beyond preaching to the choir.
@volkris I’m not going to meet you halfway on bullshit. Facts and evidence actually matter. If someone says the COVID vaccine is full of 5G tracking microchips, it’s not helpful to say, “ok, but there are probably really only a few 5G microchips in there.”
@mattblaze so again, What's your goal here?
Do you want to educate, influence, and maybe even bring others over to your perspective?
Or is your goal just to shout into the wind?
Or something else?
@volkris @mattblaze it isn't Matt's job to educate the invincibly ignorant.
@abraxas3d I don't know if he's taking on that job or not, as I tried to stress.
As I keep stressing, if a person's goal is just to preach to the choir, great!
If their goal is to do more and educate, even better in my book, but if so, there are ways to do that effectively that don't start with making the listener feel gaslit.
But whistling into the wind is definitely an option.
This is social media, after all, and Matt can pick his own job.
@volkris @abraxas3d @mattblaze I think we will have working nuclear fusion reactors before we have a good way to reach people who have fallen down a conspiracy rabbit hole🙁
@edyoung sadly, tragically, part of the issue is how people sort of accelerate as they fall down those rabbit holes, so it's really important to reach them early, to nip the claims off at the bud.
I never think people in general are unreachable (even though some individuals absolutely are) but the longer you wait to start engaging with them and debunking things they are falling for, the harder it is to arrest their fall.
These days I'm especially frustrated with the things people are spouting about COVID, and I sure do wish we had addressed some factual claims about vaccines and stuff even half a year ago when the misunderstandings were just beginning to really snowball.
And it was something I watched in real time, in frustration, because it's not like I have the microphone that, say, a national journalist does to answer questions being brought up but not addressed.
Anyway, it's my theme here that anyone is free to give up and I understand that choice. It's not the one I make, but I respect other people who just give up on the other side and don't bother addressing them.
