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I don’t think it is possible to end the derogatory use of the term conspiracy theorist universally, but I do have some hope that we can put a stop to it’s use a
by lowkey 3y ago
I don’t think it is possible to end the derogatory use of the term conspiracy theorist universally, but I do have some hope that we can put a stop to it’s use as an ad hominem here on Hacker News.
It is never used in the spirit of promoting insightful discussion.
Instead it is used to shut down a line of inquiry in its tracks. It’s like calling someone an anti-semite.
It is used as a soft form of censorship, to disqualify the mere idea of engaging in the specifics of an argument.
If someone dismisses a comment by implying it is a conspiracy instead of offering a substantive rebuttal of why the comment is mistaken, it reduces the quality of the entire community.
I think we can do better, but more people need to call out this bad behavior.
- tremon 3y agoWhat you're suggesting leads to an offense/defense asymmetry. Spouting a conspiracy theory usually takes very little effort from the poster, they're either intimately familiar with it already or they just copy-paste the talking points from somewhere else (or both). Expecting others to write a deep rebuttal every time takes a lot of time, it basically amounts to a DDOS attack. I reserve the right to dismiss low-quality posts with a low-quality answer. And yes, that's a judgement call. There is no way around that.