3 ms·
There is danger in the middle ground as well, though. Many middle grounds are factually incorrect, for example between evolutionists and people who believe god
by yakult 10y ago
There is danger in the middle ground as well, though. Many middle grounds are factually incorrect, for example between evolutionists and people who believe god put fossils underground to troll archaeologists.
Further, as a strategy it is exploitable: say you have opinion X and I want you at X+1. I can manipulate you by loudly proclaiming X+2.
tl;dr: there are no easy heuristics here. Treat the entire communication environment as hostile and manipulative, form your opinions with great care, and double check all your sources.
- james-watson 10y agoI enjoy that you had the courage to bring "factually incorrect" into this conversation. If someone, anyone, goes looking for the facts, there is only one destination in which they will end up. The facts aren't hard to find. They are all in boring science textbooks. But nobody reads those anymore. The current culture war is waged by those who profit off ignorance against those who crusade for truth. You may think this is a black and white view of it, but it isn't. One side wishes to obliterate facts, the other wishes to incinerate pretty lies at the expense of hurt feelings. So yes, there are a great many positions that are factually incorrect. All of them, to be exact, except the factually correct ones. The problem of course is that facts can be inconvenient to those who seek power.
- mst 10y agoI find it highly unlikely that Jessica was referring to being unable to say publically that evolution is a real thing. Additionally, I said that, having already formed my opinion X, if I get that response, I can predict certain things. This is very different from your 'exploit' which requires the reverse process. I'm afraid you've provided cogent and valid criticisms of a completely different set of statements than I actually made.