A person can be smart, people are dumb: A Cactus containment thread

Politics & News
104

OK, who changed it?

105

It’s actually pretty rare where anyone has all the facts about anything. In certain limited circumstances, sure. But in general a thoughtful person needs a heuristic for dealing with situations where they personally do not have all the facts, because that’s actually going to cover most situations. That’s why distrust of experts is usually more limiting than it is helpful. You need to blend wisdom about the nature of experts, their incentives, changing conditions, etc., to have a meaningful opinion. Holding out until you have “all the facts” is actually just a misdirection to avoid dealing with what we know to be a complicated world. This is a known pitfall of conservatism, they world isn’t as simple as they wish it to be no matter how many times they demand that it bend to their need for simplification.

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107

I did because jalfrezi thinks it’s important to coddle admitted trolls.

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108

Ah, well, it was fun while it lasted.

109

It’s tough finding an actual transcript of this for some reason, the closest I could find was this Fox News article that has a quote that doesn’t match what you claim was said

“Improperly worn masks can give a false sense of security” is different than “masks do nothing”.

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110

This person’s Twitter bio says “independent thinker” and “question everything”.

https://twitter.com/skepticalspice/status/1467055081300312068

111

Here is the clip.

He never says masks don’t work and in fact says it’s ok to wear one, but right now people don’t need them. He also says it’s important for infected people to wear them, just not healthy people in public.

Shocking that our independent thinker has transformed the quote to one that allows him to more easily attack Fauci (not saying the quote is great, but it’s not what Cactus claims).

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112

I can’t form an opinion until I have all the facts. Please provide a searchable transcript of everything Fauci has ever said in his entire life.

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113

Lots of experts made incorrect statements in good faith about COVID, esp in the early days. That’s how science works. The notion that you stop ever listening to expert advice because of that is dumb.

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114

Fauci lied so I did the research and did what noted health expert Joe Rogan suggested.

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115

That’s Dr. Joe Rogan, pal.

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116

Rogan is skeptical of health experts, so we know Rogan is smart because smart people are skeptics.

I am belaboring the point but its so damned obvious but this is how people actually reason their way through this stuff.

117

So much this. Also, the subtext here is clearly “Fauci deserves the same unfair scrutiny that Trump received.”

118

Don’t trust doctors LDO many of them have spent up to 9 years in medical school and residency. Think of all the widely held medical beliefs they would have been exposed to! DANGEROUS!

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119

A big part of intelligence is knowing when to be skeptical; not just being skeptical as a default position.

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120

This is standard process for the skeptical mob. They have created tens of thousands of hours of YouTube video based on the most absurd game of telephone ever. Nobody actually quotes the source, they just name it.

This happens with pretty much everything. It’s why providing sources in discussion are so important otherwise the gaslighting grows exponentially.

121

Effective skepticism is such an easily trainable skill I’m not even sure it fits into conventional ideas of “intelligence” which tends to lean more toward abstract problem solving. To be an effective skeptic you just need a) a passing familiarity with the most common logical fallacies and b) a passing familiarity with the most common statistical manipulations. Those are things that are literally accessible by reading a few Wikipedia articles. Bad skepticism is mostly just lazy skepticism.

122

a key feature of intelligence is recognizing when you have enough evidence to drop good-faith skepticism.

123

This.

This is the key rule of skepticism imo. If what you are basing your skepticism on does not outline a direct source, they are not worth listening to. If they paraphrase and do not link to a source document, they are lying. Alex Jones does it 100% of the time with his stories. He takes a headline, spins it however he wants, and NEVER includes a direct source for his claims. Because he cant. Because it will prove he is lying.

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124

I’m stealing this. A+ for eloquence.