6 ms·

Prosecuting Epstine would have helped. Auditing the voting system would have helped. Just show the movement that there nothing to hide rather than yell at them

Prosecuting Epstine would have helped. Auditing the voting system would have helped. Just show the movement that there nothing to hide rather than yell at them and appear to cover up.

treeman79 6y ago
Also don’t change the rules right before the election.
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  The rules were changed months in advance. Due to this, suing only after a loss was heavily disfavored by the courts.
- nawgz 6y ago
  No rules were changed right before the election, except perhaps by Trump who tried to rail against mail-in voting and destroyed the USPS in the process. This talking point - that mail-in votes were somehow less secure than previously - is such a post-hoc rationalization it makes me sick
dag11 6y ago
But it's never enough proof, the goal posts never stop moving. We can't keep playing the game forever, or we'd be paralyzed as a society. For example, there were two months of audits, recounts, and countless court cases. The skeptics wanted an additional "ten day audit" on top of this, which would have consequences for the transition. After that audit, how do we know they'd have been satisfied? Nothing in the past has demonstrated their ability to be satisfied.
pjc50 6y ago
There have been audits of the voting system. They didn't believe them, and they were reported falsely in the media they follow. It's a cult. It's like trying to convince them that aliens don't exist. (Epstein would have been prosecuted .. if he hadn't died in extremely mysterious circumstances. Now that's a situation where absence of evidence where evidence should be expected - the security cameras - drives paranoia.)
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  The “cult” (if you insist) was once much smaller, so something must be driving this phenomenon, which means there is hope that we can stop or even reverse it. What makes people go from believing the media, science, etc to unwarranted skepticism? Specifically, what changed in the last couple of decades that might’ve yielded this result? My pet theory is that our institutions increasingly pivoted from truth-seeking to left-wing activism, so the right lost considerable incentive to play the game, and indeed some of the right is breaking away and finding their own institutions (and less savory than those that we’ve built up over decades and centuries).
  - glial 6y ago
    > something must be driving this phenomenon I’m going to go with a repeated exposure to propaganda designed to convince people that the election “WAS RIGGED” and sow distrust in our system of government. The left certainly has some questionable positions, but the “stop the steal” movement is not rooted in fact.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      The phenomenon in question is a sharp increase in the number of "post-truth" right-wingers--those people who can't be convinced by evidence alone that their position is wrong. This largely predates the most recent election and I would argue the rise began even in advance of Trump (although I think he was a coalescing figure which accelerated the phenomenon).
      - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        It's not just the right wing. The intellectual view that "all speech is about power, not truth" is much more prevalent among the left. Now, that wasn't a view that was largely held on the right. In fact, I suspect it still isn't. The "post truth" on the right are people who still believe in truth, believe that they have it, and won't listen to any evidence to the contrary. In fact, maybe this is the consequence of the "post truth" left - if the right believes that the left believes what the left says about speech, then the right has no reason to trust any truth claim coming from the left. But the change may in fact be as you say, that the post-truth people grew on the right. Now you can't sway chunks of either side with facts.
amznthrwaway 6y ago
That's naive nonsense. Epstein was in the process of being prosecuted when he died. The state has no credible mechanism to continue prosecution (along with a vigorous defense) once he's dead. There was no way to do what you wanted. Voting systems were audited, and all that happened was that Q people made up bullshit and moved the goalposts. None of the conspiratorial-minded right-wingers looked at the 60 lawsuits or the many recounts and took them as evidence that their cause was incorrect. They took it as proof that the truth was just even more oppressed. Facts don't work against bullshit. This is an important lesson that people like you need to learn. Wake the fuck up, you dumb son of a bitch.
alpha_squared 6y ago
Part of the problem is that people feel things are true and you can't debate or logicise that away. You can't argue against a feeling because it's deeply personal and you can't invalidate feelings. The most you can offer is another perspective and hope they're willing to consider it. Short of having them convince themselves, you can't really change people's minds when they feel something is true.
jeromegv 6y ago
Those voting systems were audited and that made absolutely no difference. Once the conspiracy theories were being debunked in court, they just kept coming with new ones.
TeaDrunk 6y ago
The voting system was audited, repeatedly. Biden even gained votes because the auditing system discovered that some votes weren't being counted. It was brought to multiple courts repeatedly and the only thing done was that elector witnesses were allowed to be slightly closer to the people counting.
geofft 6y ago
Epstein was a thing for them to latch onto. If he were prosecuted, it would be something or someone else. (Soros? Gates? Hillary Clinton? Jeremiah Wright? etc.) Or, alternatively, there's no convincing argument that had Epstein never been born, the Qanon movement would have been noticeably smaller or weaker. If your claim is that it would have helped to deliver justice in every single case of injustice, promptly and transparently, then yes, that certainly makes for a better society and certainly everyone agrees with that goal but it's also never going to be 100% completed. And if you remember 2004, there were serious allegations of unaudited changes to the voting system as well as coverups and hiding of important information (like what we knew about Iraq's weapons program or lack thereof), but the movement of people who objected to both of them did not storm anything. So there's something else different here.
TigeriusKirk 6y ago
It has to start with admitting the systems are imperfect and unchecked misconduct is possible even if it's not actually happening. The insistence that our systems infallible is not at all helpful because anyone can see that's not true. Once we get to admitting unchecked misconduct is possible in the current systems, we can make some progress to reducing those possibilities. Right now we're resisting that path, and that's just not sustainable.
ardy42 6y ago
> Prosecuting Epstine would have helped. Auditing the voting system would have helped. Both of those things happened. The prosecutors indicted Epstein, but he killed himself before the trial could proceed. The voting system has been audited many times this cycle. > Just show the movement that there nothing to hide rather than yell at them and appear to cover up. The real issue is "the movement" doesn't like the true result. It doesn't matter to them how fair the process is, they'll reject it unless they get what they want.

Prosecuting Epstine would have helped. Auditing the voting system would have helped. Just show the movement that there nothing to hide rather than yell at them and appear to cover up.

treeman79 6y ago

Also don’t change the rules right before the election.

TeaDrunk 6y ago
The rules were changed months in advance. Due to this, suing only after a loss was heavily disfavored by the courts.
nawgz 6y ago
No rules were changed right before the election, except perhaps by Trump who tried to rail against mail-in voting and destroyed the USPS in the process. This talking point - that mail-in votes were somehow less secure than previously - is such a post-hoc rationalization it makes me sick

dag11 6y ago

But it's never enough proof, the goal posts never stop moving. We can't keep playing the game forever, or we'd be paralyzed as a society. For example, there were two months of audits, recounts, and countless court cases. The skeptics wanted an additional "ten day audit" on top of this, which would have consequences for the transition. After that audit, how do we know they'd have been satisfied? Nothing in the past has demonstrated their ability to be satisfied.

pjc50 6y ago

There have been audits of the voting system. They didn't believe them, and they were reported falsely in the media they follow. It's a cult. It's like trying to convince them that aliens don't exist. (Epstein would have been prosecuted .. if he hadn't died in extremely mysterious circumstances. Now that's a situation where absence of evidence where evidence should be expected - the security cameras - drives paranoia.)

throwaway894345 6y ago
The “cult” (if you insist) was once much smaller, so something must be driving this phenomenon, which means there is hope that we can stop or even reverse it. What makes people go from believing the media, science, etc to unwarranted skepticism? Specifically, what changed in the last couple of decades that might’ve yielded this result? My pet theory is that our institutions increasingly pivoted from truth-seeking to left-wing activism, so the right lost considerable incentive to play the game, and indeed some of the right is breaking away and finding their own institutions (and less savory than those that we’ve built up over decades and centuries).
- glial 6y ago
  > something must be driving this phenomenon I’m going to go with a repeated exposure to propaganda designed to convince people that the election “WAS RIGGED” and sow distrust in our system of government. The left certainly has some questionable positions, but the “stop the steal” movement is not rooted in fact.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    The phenomenon in question is a sharp increase in the number of "post-truth" right-wingers--those people who can't be convinced by evidence alone that their position is wrong. This largely predates the most recent election and I would argue the rise began even in advance of Trump (although I think he was a coalescing figure which accelerated the phenomenon).
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      It's not just the right wing. The intellectual view that "all speech is about power, not truth" is much more prevalent among the left. Now, that wasn't a view that was largely held on the right. In fact, I suspect it still isn't. The "post truth" on the right are people who still believe in truth, believe that they have it, and won't listen to any evidence to the contrary. In fact, maybe this is the consequence of the "post truth" left - if the right believes that the left believes what the left says about speech, then the right has no reason to trust any truth claim coming from the left. But the change may in fact be as you say, that the post-truth people grew on the right. Now you can't sway chunks of either side with facts.

amznthrwaway 6y ago

That's naive nonsense. Epstein was in the process of being prosecuted when he died. The state has no credible mechanism to continue prosecution (along with a vigorous defense) once he's dead. There was no way to do what you wanted. Voting systems were audited, and all that happened was that Q people made up bullshit and moved the goalposts. None of the conspiratorial-minded right-wingers looked at the 60 lawsuits or the many recounts and took them as evidence that their cause was incorrect. They took it as proof that the truth was just even more oppressed. Facts don't work against bullshit. This is an important lesson that people like you need to learn. Wake the fuck up, you dumb son of a bitch.

alpha_squared 6y ago

Part of the problem is that people feel things are true and you can't debate or logicise that away. You can't argue against a feeling because it's deeply personal and you can't invalidate feelings. The most you can offer is another perspective and hope they're willing to consider it. Short of having them convince themselves, you can't really change people's minds when they feel something is true.

jeromegv 6y ago

Those voting systems were audited and that made absolutely no difference. Once the conspiracy theories were being debunked in court, they just kept coming with new ones.

TeaDrunk 6y ago

The voting system was audited, repeatedly. Biden even gained votes because the auditing system discovered that some votes weren't being counted. It was brought to multiple courts repeatedly and the only thing done was that elector witnesses were allowed to be slightly closer to the people counting.

geofft 6y ago

Epstein was a thing for them to latch onto. If he were prosecuted, it would be something or someone else. (Soros? Gates? Hillary Clinton? Jeremiah Wright? etc.) Or, alternatively, there's no convincing argument that had Epstein never been born, the Qanon movement would have been noticeably smaller or weaker. If your claim is that it would have helped to deliver justice in every single case of injustice, promptly and transparently, then yes, that certainly makes for a better society and certainly everyone agrees with that goal but it's also never going to be 100% completed. And if you remember 2004, there were serious allegations of unaudited changes to the voting system as well as coverups and hiding of important information (like what we knew about Iraq's weapons program or lack thereof), but the movement of people who objected to both of them did not storm anything. So there's something else different here.

TigeriusKirk 6y ago

It has to start with admitting the systems are imperfect and unchecked misconduct is possible even if it's not actually happening. The insistence that our systems infallible is not at all helpful because anyone can see that's not true. Once we get to admitting unchecked misconduct is possible in the current systems, we can make some progress to reducing those possibilities. Right now we're resisting that path, and that's just not sustainable.

ardy42 6y ago

> Prosecuting Epstine would have helped. Auditing the voting system would have helped. Both of those things happened. The prosecutors indicted Epstein, but he killed himself before the trial could proceed. The voting system has been audited many times this cycle. > Just show the movement that there nothing to hide rather than yell at them and appear to cover up. The real issue is "the movement" doesn't like the true result. It doesn't matter to them how fair the process is, they'll reject it unless they get what they want.