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Thread: OT: Politics

  1. #711
    Quote Originally Posted by Lurker27 View Post
    Considering my point was about how brick walls can be useful, zero. I am not under the illusion I'm going to 'save' Josh, nor am I interesting in creating an intellectual monoculture in the first place. I want to hear his arguments in order to best hone my own.

    At some point I will be able to deploy the refined argument when talking to someone without an entrenched position. It's obvious from the fact that both parties win elections despite being mostly comprised of entrenched bases that swing voters do exist, or voter enthusiasm/turnout is affected by exogenous political factors. It's clear from the latest presidential result that your style of "debating" is at best ineffective and at worst counterproductive:

    https://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/114513...can-liberalism

    I can't tell you how often in this thread I've had preferred you say nothing at all compared to the blunt invective you favor. And crucially, I almost never think you're wrong prima facie. The facts aren't enough, or we wouldn't be where we are politically, where a vast swath of Americans voted against their own economic interest. Economics has had a kind of postmodern period in which the rational actor model is discarded - I'd be sure that you're trapped in the mindset that facts are enough when empiricism clearly contradicts this position.
    my argument is that if facts don't matter then what is the purpose in honing arguments based on facts with folks who don't care about what is factual?
    social conservatism: the mortal fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.

  2. #712
    Insider PBSteve's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pbjosh View Post
    Bring me facts. As Steve and Ryan have seen, if I get the facts wrong, sometimes in self discovery, I change my position. I do it a lot.
    Speaking of putting words in people's mouths...
    Ever so many citizens of this republic think they ought to believe that the Universe is a monarchy, and therefore they are always at odds with the republic. -Alan Watts

    I work for the company building the Paragon

  3. #713
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    Gordon,

    For our purposes:
    Facts are necessary, but not sufficient.

    In a perfect world:
    Facts would be both necessary and sufficient.

    In Trump's World:
    Facts are not necessary.
    "So you've done this before?"
    "Oh, hell no. But I think it's gonna work."

  4. #714
    Quote Originally Posted by Lurker27 View Post
    In Trump's World:
    Facts are not necessary.
    this is the world we live in.

    they won.

    #heremails
    social conservatism: the mortal fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.

  5. #715
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    Josh, have you read the minority memo from HPSCI, commonly referred to as the Schiff Memo? That memo is a rebuttal to what I thought was an unwritten argument until I've seen you here writing it (back to the Fusion GPS thing).

    If you haven't, it's here: https://www.documentcloud.org/docume...hiff-Memo.html

  6. #716
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lurker27 View Post
    Gordon,

    For our purposes:
    Facts are necessary, but not sufficient.

    In a perfect world:
    Facts would be both necessary and sufficient.

    In Trump's World:
    Facts are not necessary.

  7. #717
    Quote Originally Posted by Unfated33 View Post
    Josh, have you read the minority memo from HPSCI, commonly referred to as the Schiff Memo? That memo is a rebuttal to what I thought was an unwritten argument until I've seen you here writing it (back to the Fusion GPS thing).

    If you haven't, it's here: https://www.documentcloud.org/docume...hiff-Memo.html
    even the nunes memo clearly lays out the time table, and that carter page was under FISA warrant long before the steele dossier. ergo the steele dossier (accused of being political, when again, it was originally funded by republicans) isn't the reason carter page was under FISA warrant. the entire argument that the "political" steele dossier was the motivation for the FBI to investigate trump is destroyed with that simple fact.

    even the republican version confirms the case against carter page.
    social conservatism: the mortal fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.

  8. #718
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    But I apologize for the confusion, because I was not in any way meaning to say that Josh takes his opinion over other people's facts.
    Thank you for the clarification. It is easy to take that as the Argumentum ad Verecundiam, or an argument from authority fallacy.

    I mean that Josh sees himself as the arbitrator of how evidence fits into the puzzle, how much it contributes, and whether it is ignored or subverted by other information.
    Don't we all though? Individually, in making our points back and forth, we are all arbitrators of evidence. That is how the mind works for the most part, until we abdicate that to another authority we trust to align it for us. Like Ryan seeing the IPCC as that authority. Not an any insulting way, there is a lot of science there in one of their reports. They are viewed as an authority.

    So to convince Josh of your argument, you're going to have to convince him that how he weights and interprets facts as a process is wrong, not that any one fact or paper is right/wrong. But I'm now not entirely sure that even Josh sees that in himself.
    No, you are really going to have to bring evidence and facts. The problem in the climate debate (which is really a totally different debate from the others on here, since I have an absurd level of research into it) is that my pile of research and the few people I hold as authorities is in direct conflict with others, and I disavow the IPCC and others, like SkepticalScience.com. There is no real point where any of you have come close to my level of research. In that, most of the authority figures you abdicate to I have rejected. Not because of bias, but due to years of seeing their emails, the way they have manipulated research, attacked other researchers, tried to affect the peer review process, and in the end, failed in their predictions. Hansen, Mann, Trenberth. All of them. It is a shit show.

    I have no problem with facts, and it isn't how I have to weight them. The problem is, on the topic of climate change, I know most of the facts better than I should. It is obscene. In most discussions on climate, it is like I am talking to newbies saying they are going to freeze paintballs and shoot them from their Tippmann or telling me I need to put Seal Forward Tech into my gun. No, you didn't freeze a paintball and shoot out a cars front window. Seal Forward Tech is just an o-ring in the breech, it doesn't make it closed bolt. Closed bolt won't make it shoot farther. These are all statements we have heard or hear about. Yet I hear you guys repeating them to me "TSI is Flat!" and I just shake my head. Sure kid. "Solar output doesn't affect temperature!" "CO2 is the major driver! Not the Sun!" "There will be no more snow!" "Sea level will be so high Manhattan will be underwater by 2016!"

    Look, I have heard it all before. From smarter guys than you. From people who should know better. From the people you are listening to. The predictions have fallen flat on their face. The claims have. None of the models track reality, none. I get it. They are smart, and know their subject.

    But so are the skeptics. The difference is the evidence, now tracking on 30 years of the IPCC, shows that we were right. I have been there for more than half of it. Sorry man, closed bolt won't make it shoot further. But switching to HPA will help it shoot straighter, and get a new barrel. Don't believe Smart Parts advertising. There ya go. Go have fun!



    The evidence, which I have clearly brought out, has agreed with the Skeptic's side.
    Josh Coray
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  9. #719
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    Quote Originally Posted by cockerpunk View Post
    this is the world we live in.
    It's demonstrably not, though! The world we live in is not defined by any one of the above paradigms - it's a blended population of all three.

    Obama level turnouts (either election) would have produced an electoral landslide in the favor of the democrats in 2016. My point is that the first premise I listed is the valuable one for swing voters and voter mobilization. Under that conceit I do not find your blunt approach effective.
    "So you've done this before?"
    "Oh, hell no. But I think it's gonna work."

  10. #720
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    @ Josh

    So you never got around to reading the Santer paper, I take it?
    "So you've done this before?"
    "Oh, hell no. But I think it's gonna work."

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