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 @mattblaze I'm not sure that tribal-marker conspiracy-theory "beliefs" like Flat Earth and The Election Steal are in the same category as things people really _believe_.
Pretty much everyone _believes_ in gravity. If you jump off the house, you _will_ fall. You're never going to persuade someone on the edge of a cliff otherwise.
Some people "believe" in The Election Steal. "LOL like we have secure elections now? Amirite?" But that attitude will vanish if the winner has an R after their name. It's not a factual or principled belief, it's contextual, it's utilitarian. It's something different, something that doesn't even merit the name "belief" IMHO.
I think there's a case to be made that engaging with that sort of "belief" offers it validation that it does not deserve.
@WesternInfidels Oh I've known a lot of those people personally. Well I know both people who believe in the election steal and I know people who are literal flat earthers. (Although that Venn diagram doesn't really overlap in my personal experience).
And from what I've seen, the attitude doesn't vanish if the winter has an R. They just are falling for BS from the uncontested claims that they are receiving.
So in my experience the key is to systematically sit down and go through the claims that they are receiving from BS sources to debunk them one by one, as annoying as that may feel.
But yeah, I go out of my comfort zone to interact with these people so I know a little more about how they operate than a lot of people here seem to.
@unchartedworlds no, I am thinking about SO many cases where some mass media figure was interviewing some expert, and the expert didn't address the points that the figure was bringing to the table, allowing the figure to both present the misunderstanding to their audience, but worse, continue to promote the misunderstanding and even double down on it in the future.
I'm especially frustrated from seeing this in contexts involving COVID these days. It's an ongoing issue, and the questions that were left unanswered way back when are now snowballing.
It seems like so many public officials may have been technically skilled but really failed in the part of their jobs that involved engaging with the public to explain what's happening.
The way I see it, I consider it tragic the missed opportunities to engage with the public through such mass communication channels.
@volkris
That's a pretty different context. Having the opportunity from time to time to delve into a specific misapprehension with a specific person (likely in most cases someone who has at least a minimal level of pre-existing friendly feeling for you), follow their argument where it leads, analyse where the mistake is, and potentially change that one person's mind... Doesn't mean it's a good idea _in general_ to entertain claims which you have reason to believe are fictional.