4 ms·

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Bill Gates really did want to inject poison into people as part of an agenda to bring about a 'new world order'. Obvio

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Bill Gates really did want to inject poison into people as part of an agenda to bring about a 'new world order'. Obviously he would work very hard to conceal these intentions, so this would not be "observably" true or false by simply reading the newspaper to see whether he has or has not done it yet. You'd be left to draw conclusions from the publicly available facts. Some facts which one might view as supporting the proposition would be a close association with a convicted pedophile sex trafficker who professed eugenic beliefs, a publicly stated desire to reduce the population, or a history of distributing vaccines which caused actual and significant harm in at least one instance. Now, the fact that all these do apply to Bill Gates does not mean the proposition is necessarily true, but I don't see how you can say it's "observably" anything.

jacquesm 6y ago
This comment exactly illustrates why I don't expect this to be resolved in my lifetime. It is intellectual masturbation around something that should not require any debate at all. Like that lots of bits get spewed every day that ostensibly are some kind of elevated discussion about fine moral points but which in fact just add noise and no signal. There are very few arguments about observable facts that start with 'for the sake of argument' and then postulate something utterly ridiculous, to engage such an argument would require one to shift ones worldview into the realm of the insane and that just isn't productive. If you want to postulate that argument you are going to have to come up with some proof, the burden for any kind of argument that is so far out there lies with the one making that argument, it does not lie with the people addressed to dispel it other than out of hand until there is even a whiff of support. That a ridiculous proposition would require other ridiculous things to be true as well is not support, it is lack of support.
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  So, sounds like you're simply convinced it's impossible that it would be true, and therefore no further consideration of any facts is needed. I'd say we've established it's not "observation" at work here. Now I'm curious what your take is on "There is a pedophile ring run by democratic operatives who shield each other" because there's even more smoke around that fire (although of course it's not limited to Democrats). A more illustrative example than "asbestos causes cancer" from your list would be "asbestos manufacturers are hiding the fact that their product causes cancer." There was a point in time where the conspiracy to conceal asbestos's cancer-causing properties was in a liminal state of knowledge: you couldn't read about it in the New York Times or even initially in scientific journals, but now it's simply a matter of the established record. It's certainly an "insane" idea (company executives explicitly deciding to kill thousands of people rather than endanger their profits), even when contemplated in retrospect. How would this idea have avoided a preemptive dismissal as "disinfo"? > That a ridiculous proposition would require other ridiculous things to be true as well is not support, it is lack of support. Those other things I pointed out w.r.t. Gates may seem ridiculous, but they are actually true.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    Observable facts about Bill Gates do not make fantasy stories that fit those observable facts true.
    - zo1 6y ago
      Very disappointed that this line of discussion was stopped with accusations of "fantasy stories" and "intellectual masturbation".
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  All your arguments seem to assume that public knowledge is always true and that there are no conspiracies going on. And yet we know from very recent history that potentially world-destroying facts have been deliberately hidden by people in power - tobacco, asbestos, global warming would be some of the largest. If you were to go by mainstream knowledge 20 or 50 years ago, claiming that cigarettes cause cancer and tabacco companies know about it and are paying doctors to hide it from everyone would have seemed like utter lunacy. Or claiming that our use of fossil fuels is likely to cause huge areas of the planet to become uninhabitable, oil companies know about it and are paying good money to keep it hidden. Or that there are no weapons of mass destructionin Irak and our intelligence agencies and government just made that up as an excuse to invade. That's of course not to say that fringe beliefs MUST be rigt, of course. But if I claim that it's obvious Epstein was murdered,am I spreading disinformation or am I dissenting? If I claim mRNA vaccines are potentially dangerous and that we can't just trust the clinical trials? It's sometimes easy to sort fact from fiction with hindsight. There are certain facts that can be discounted as disinformation on the face of it. But it's very hard to entrust anyone with such power. For an example of how this is dangerous, just look at how hard it is to criticize the state of Israel and its actions without being labeled an anti-semite (or a 'self-hating jew' if you are Jewish). This is an excellent example of how dissent in proximity to disinformation can easily get swallowed along. Bill Gates is not trying to poison us with 5G, but if people start removing such facts, they may also start removing posts that accuse Bill Gates of using his money and influence to pressure states into trying his experiments, e.g. with his disastrous ideas about education in the US.
adsharma 6y ago
I summarized some of the arguments here: https://en.arguman.org/the-war-on-disinformation-is-a-war-on-dissent/ https://en.arguman.org/the-war-on-disinformation-is-a-war-on...
- adsharma 6y ago
  https://en.arguman.org/the-war-on-disinformation-is-a-war-on-dissent https://en.arguman.org/the-war-on-disinformation-is-a-war-on... trailing slash gives a 404

jacquesm 6y ago

This comment exactly illustrates why I don't expect this to be resolved in my lifetime. It is intellectual masturbation around something that should not require any debate at all. Like that lots of bits get spewed every day that ostensibly are some kind of elevated discussion about fine moral points but which in fact just add noise and no signal. There are very few arguments about observable facts that start with 'for the sake of argument' and then postulate something utterly ridiculous, to engage such an argument would require one to shift ones worldview into the realm of the insane and that just isn't productive. If you want to postulate that argument you are going to have to come up with some proof, the burden for any kind of argument that is so far out there lies with the one making that argument, it does not lie with the people addressed to dispel it other than out of hand until there is even a whiff of support. That a ridiculous proposition would require other ridiculous things to be true as well is not support, it is lack of support.

AndrewBissell 6y ago
So, sounds like you're simply convinced it's impossible that it would be true, and therefore no further consideration of any facts is needed. I'd say we've established it's not "observation" at work here. Now I'm curious what your take is on "There is a pedophile ring run by democratic operatives who shield each other" because there's even more smoke around that fire (although of course it's not limited to Democrats). A more illustrative example than "asbestos causes cancer" from your list would be "asbestos manufacturers are hiding the fact that their product causes cancer." There was a point in time where the conspiracy to conceal asbestos's cancer-causing properties was in a liminal state of knowledge: you couldn't read about it in the New York Times or even initially in scientific journals, but now it's simply a matter of the established record. It's certainly an "insane" idea (company executives explicitly deciding to kill thousands of people rather than endanger their profits), even when contemplated in retrospect. How would this idea have avoided a preemptive dismissal as "disinfo"? > That a ridiculous proposition would require other ridiculous things to be true as well is not support, it is lack of support. Those other things I pointed out w.r.t. Gates may seem ridiculous, but they are actually true.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Observable facts about Bill Gates do not make fantasy stories that fit those observable facts true.
  - zo1 6y ago
    Very disappointed that this line of discussion was stopped with accusations of "fantasy stories" and "intellectual masturbation".
tsimionescu 6y ago
All your arguments seem to assume that public knowledge is always true and that there are no conspiracies going on. And yet we know from very recent history that potentially world-destroying facts have been deliberately hidden by people in power - tobacco, asbestos, global warming would be some of the largest. If you were to go by mainstream knowledge 20 or 50 years ago, claiming that cigarettes cause cancer and tabacco companies know about it and are paying doctors to hide it from everyone would have seemed like utter lunacy. Or claiming that our use of fossil fuels is likely to cause huge areas of the planet to become uninhabitable, oil companies know about it and are paying good money to keep it hidden. Or that there are no weapons of mass destructionin Irak and our intelligence agencies and government just made that up as an excuse to invade. That's of course not to say that fringe beliefs MUST be rigt, of course. But if I claim that it's obvious Epstein was murdered,am I spreading disinformation or am I dissenting? If I claim mRNA vaccines are potentially dangerous and that we can't just trust the clinical trials? It's sometimes easy to sort fact from fiction with hindsight. There are certain facts that can be discounted as disinformation on the face of it. But it's very hard to entrust anyone with such power. For an example of how this is dangerous, just look at how hard it is to criticize the state of Israel and its actions without being labeled an anti-semite (or a 'self-hating jew' if you are Jewish). This is an excellent example of how dissent in proximity to disinformation can easily get swallowed along. Bill Gates is not trying to poison us with 5G, but if people start removing such facts, they may also start removing posts that accuse Bill Gates of using his money and influence to pressure states into trying his experiments, e.g. with his disastrous ideas about education in the US.

adsharma 6y ago

I summarized some of the arguments here: https://en.arguman.org/the-war-on-disinformation-is-a-war-on-dissent/ https://en.arguman.org/the-war-on-disinformation-is-a-war-on...

adsharma 6y ago
https://en.arguman.org/the-war-on-disinformation-is-a-war-on-dissent https://en.arguman.org/the-war-on-disinformation-is-a-war-on... trailing slash gives a 404