Really great site and users:
1 Like
Poker player Steve Albini weighs in.
https://twitter.com/electricalWSOP/status/1670120546057461761?t=dSVSvK7ySVB0Dt4zE2FxiA&s=19
A scientist should just challenge RFK Jr to a duel.
2 Likes
Isn’t rfk Jr a cross of curb and VEEP?
His wife is literally Larry’s (ex-)wife on Curb.
4 Likes
David Simon never blocked me when he used to get furious that I would argue that The Wire only told of a world with good police, and never showed it
Also his opinion was that Hamsterdam was bad
I saw this thread of his which gave an example of why it’s painful and fruitless to have these sorts of debates
https://twitter.com/electricalWSOP/status/1670505490126602242
Its about the scare that happened decades ago where some people were worried that subliminal messages were being put in records specifically Judas Priest
5 Likes
I get random transphobes showing up in my “for you” feed because I reply-guy argue in transphobic tweet threads. It’s dumb but I understand the algorithm spitting that out.
I just feel embarrassed on behalf of Elon for pushing this on me.
There’s elements of truth here, but this feels a lot like cope. The inability of the scientific establishment to successfully engage with the public and persuade people of things is a huge problem. Vaccines are the easiest science policy question imaginable. I don’t know how people imagine that influence of science on public policy is going to do anything but continue to wane if you can’t go on Joe Rogan and defend vaccines.
3 Likes
Joe Rogan isn’t inviting people who debate for a living. He’s inviting scientists that he can bad faith browbeat.
You’re talking about a guy who has access to all the information in the world, and still pushes Ivermectin hard as a cure for covid. You’re never going to change his mind or “win” anything by going on his show, any more than you could win debating race relations with stormfront.
1 Like
It’s easy to predict how this goes. RFK makes up some complete nonsense:
Scientist: “That’s ridiculous. We’ve spent less than 2% of that amount on the Ukraine war. And you’re just completely inventing that $16 trillion number out of thin air.”
RFK: “Of course, all you can do is nitpick the specific numbers when you know I’m directionally right.”
“Directionally right” is the new “truthiness”, and I’m not sure how one goes into a scientific debate against vibes.
5 Likes
WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU PEOPLE STILL USING IT?!?
6 Likes
This depends on what you mean by win. I don’t believe I could convince a neo-Nazi to abandon their ideology in a one-hour debate, but I’m pretty fucking sure that any persuadables who listened to the debate would come out of it less inclined to being Nazis than they were before. The anti-Nazi is easy mode!
1 Like
It is, but it’s also virtually impossible to try to explain something to someone and get them to understand it when they don’t actually want to understand it. The people that are proud of their ignorance are not engaging no matter what you do to try to explain it to them.
No persuadables are going to watch a stormfront debate. Very few are going to tune into Joe Rogan. If someone is persuadable there are a million better sources out there. You’re dealing with people whose identity is staked out around vaccine denial.
There’s no universe where RFK and his idiot followers don’t claim victory, just like when Rogan interviewed Sanjay Gupta and spent the entire time whining about how he was treated over Ivermectin, then all his idiot followers spiked the football.
I think starting from the point of imagining that the audience is “persuadable” is really going to go absolutely nowhere fast. I can’t imagine being a person in 2023 that is paying attention to current events and thinking “you know what the problem is here, we’re not doing a good job of reaching the persuadable antivaxxers!”.
2 Likes
Blaming scientists for public illiteracy is an amazing bit of mental gymnastics.