Isn’t it bots and literal children 90% the time anyway?
I don’t get why people use the internet for fighting about stuff when you can just get updoots for nothing but being nice and showing your ass a little.
Unfortunately, it is the current United States president and more than 50% of people voted for him in the last election.
I understand the temptation to dismiss people on the internet like this as bots. But it’s unfortunately part of our reality.
If you want to start to grasp why people are like this I can recommend starting with this video. If you want a TL;DW, the direct answer starts around 40 minutes, but the rest is important context.
50% of people who voted voted for him.
there are also a lot of people who didnt vote
Don’t forget the fraud
I wouldn’t normally say this but it seems warranted in a thread about “Factism”. Trump did not win over 50% of the popular vote. He won with 49.8% in 2024 and 46.1% in 2016.
Depends. Sometimes it’s paid shills from foreign countries.
https://www.the-independent.com/tech/x-about-this-account-location-maga-b2871068.html
Eristic, bad-faith debater. They only care about winning. They don’t care how. They aren’t there to change their minds. It’s not a discussion, it‘s a fight; and they‘ll sell their souls, their dignity, and reality, to win.
This is ridiculous Studies are always behind a paywall.
In before someone says “Well Askshawlley you can just reach out to the author of the studies for a free copy!”
Fully ignoring that yes, that is possible, but no, it won’t be instant, you’ll waste a lot of time getting that study, just to win a argument on the internet with a chud who wasn’t actually interested in facts.
Thats why debate culture doesn’t work. The truth is, the type on the right doesn’t even care if they’re wrong. You could give them a thousand things proving them wrong and they won’t even read them.
You could convince a friend maybe but this requires a huge amount of trust and good faith on both sides.
However, ridicule does work because no one wants to join society’s punching bag. An example of this would include foot binding in China where the upper classes sent their children off to foreign universities who mocked relentlessly for being from the foot binding country. I would recommend the book “the honor code: how moral revolutions happen” for more examples. It’s a fantastic, easily accessible and short modern philosophy book by who I consider to be the greatest living philosopher (Kwame Anthony Appiah).
I think in a debate what that works more than proving the other person wrong is that the spectators are able to identify who is in the right and who is full of shit, so in the end even if the moron debating doesn’t change his stance the people listening to it would atleast. The same applies for arguments we see in comments sections too I think or I am just putting more faith in us.
Thats why debate culture doesn’t work. The truth is, the type on the right doesn’t even care if they’re wrong. You could give them a thousand things proving them wrong and they won’t even read them.
Can confirm.
No amount of debate stopped Charlie Kirk’s racist spiel and bullshit.
But one thing did stop him.
There’s some questions science just can’t answer:
What if our kink was kink shaming?
What if the haters dab back?
How did the shooter miss Charlie kirk’s head?
probing them wrong
Always ask for consent first though.
They don’t ask first, why extend them the courtesy?
It’s comical how they are “facts over feelings” but would never read a study or consult with someone with actual expertise that isn’t working for a right wing think tank owned by a billionaire.
We are not supposed to be a two-party system, we will continue to have this tired good cop/bad cop routine for foreseeable future.
Nothing about it is constitutional. BoTh PaRtIes circumvent actual democracy and squash new political parties/causes by law, since they write the law.
Meanwhile, actual voters are now over 40% INDEPENDENT, and our “major parties” are down to 30% each.
The Constitution has been ignored for a long time. Trump is the inevitable result, and it’s going to get worse. He’s the dumb one.
Worse yet, you read their article, and it doesn’t actually support their argument at all. The headline just kind of vaguely implies support.
Reading the article is for libtards, the headline is all I need!
“Reading the headline? Nah, just give me what RagebaitSS tells me!”
This makes me so glad that Lemmy exists. Not only is it a great Reddit alternative, but there are infinitely more real and reasonable people here.
Nobody knows everything and we’ve all been exposed to propaganda at some point. It’s fantastic that there’s a place online where we can hold civil discussions and nicely fact check each other.
I’ve been fact checked a few times and it was great. On reddit it would have just been insults or propaganda from the other side. Let’s keep this going! ❤️
Right…all these calm, open-minded, and delightfully reasonable people to chat with here.
I was gonna say… I like Lemmy overall but there are many, many reply guys on here. 😅
Happy Cake Day!
Lemmy also has the only Fox News worth a damn
I’ve still had some people correct me in nasty ways, and even be incorrect in their call outs. Not quite as often as Reddit, but it’s certainly far from rare here.
Lemmy is like Reddit pretty much. No idea where you see such a difference.
Luigi Mangione is a hero
Billionaires should all drop dead.
“Here’s a link to a ChatGPT-generated article on why horses are actually reptiles”
As soon as I see someone start a sentence with: “So I asked ChatGPT,” I know I can basically disregard whatever it is they’re about to say.
Yeah sometimes I just block those people. If I wanted AI to answer the question, I would have asked AI. They’re adding no value and wasting my time. People just have to weigh in, even on topics they know nothing about.
I though the whole thing was just a meme, but literally I was arguing with a mate of mine about the state of piracy in my contry and whether or not it was illegal to consume pirated media.
I searched found a post on reddit which linked me to one of my country laws official documents. I showed him the document and phrasing on the law that clearly stated it was only illegal to share/profit from pirated content.
My guy just hited me with “yeah, yeah . . . now ask chatgpt”.
Fortunately it agreed with the current law, but like what the hell the I just showed u the official thing.
You shouldn’t entertain such a request BUT considering how aggressively these models try to agree with you you can hugely bias the response kinda however you want.
You can do that long before that. Just don’t engage.
There are many reasons why horses are legally reptiles including egg laying, accounting, and sun bathing. If you want I can make an anime drawing of a horse lizard.
There was a thread about this not long ago.
A MAGat posted a meme of a riot and claimed it was in Portland.
People pointed out that the picture was actually a Right wing riot in a different place.
The MAGat responded that it didn’t matter, because it was a meme, not intended to be taken factually.
Yeah. This is something I keep realizing.
So many people simply seek to ‘support’ their tribe/idols. Scientific debate isn’t the point; loyalty and conformity is.
It’s a feature of a lot of religious culture. And, in an oddly similar way, influencer culture.
And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it unless there’s a really huge personal connection/issue.
Its like the popular culture right now is just being seen. Being seen sticking to your faith, sticking to your commitment or truth. Being seen rooting for your side to show that you dont care what anyone else says.
Everyone needs to be seen and seems to think this is how they get rewarded for their faith, heck it works somewhat.
Could it be because attention-based algorithms/structures reward it?
I think its just financial stress getting more common place. And appeasing those with money seems like the only way to get some yourself since you dont earn much more for being a better worker.
You have to be seen to get charity. The algorithm just doesnt help by making it so its less communal help and more rage since it is more engaging.
These are the people that seek things “to have their ears tickled” instead of ingesting the truth of the matter.
“Yes but it could be true! That’s the point!!”
I’m pretty sure this is why the Bolsheviks just started using firing squads.
Arguing with an idiot is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are at chess, the pigeon will knock over all the pieces, crap on the board and then strut around like it won anyway
That’s why you’re not really arguing with the idiot: you’re showing everyone else the idiot is wrong. Different perspective to same activity.
Comparing idiots (and by necessary extension, fucking conservatives) to pigeons is tremendous insult to pigeons. Pigeons are smart. If I’m playing chess with any avian, winning against the bird was never the point lol, not even a consideration. I’m no ornithologist, and so don’t seek to play serious games with avians any more than I feel the need to seriously rebut a fucking conservative.
They may be smart birds, but they’re about as good at chess as the average conservative is at intellectual debate
Given the two, I’d debate a pigeon before a fucking conservative. After all, the former is a bird, but the latter is just fucking stupid.
Hell, the former can fuck you up with large numbers and so can the latter, but at least pigeons are useful.
Realistically, people are sharing abstracts with one another and then citing their preferred, biased sources of information, whether it’s Al Jazeera, the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, Democracy Now, The New York Times, etc… In practice, this means relying mostly on secondary sources, with primary studies cherry-picked to support whatever point they are trying to make.
I’ve read 12 pages of a study only for the other person to say cool story bro and move on to the next point. This happened more than once, so I no longer think that don’t things the right way is the best way to go about it. 😅
deleted by creator
Gestures broadly at the US.
No they usually ignore you after you send any studies unfortunately
Or start insulting you. Someone actually responding with a link, even to propaganda trash like Fox, is a more rare occasion.
The real problem is that “actual scientific journal” 's quality control is shit too.
There are no actually real standards on how to write a paper, or which citation style to use. Sources aren’t hyperlinked, if the source isn’t machine readable or just a book, that’s just an “eh, oopsie, go read it then”. There are no automatic setups that check for AI use, corruption and “cooperation” between companies or other “public benefit organizations”, study conducting bodies and potentially favorable outcomes.
If you look at any research institute or university, they will brag front and center about who much tradition they have, but they’re real quiet about how many studies they’re publishing and how many of them get reproduced. And don’t get me started on the whole publishing industry that somehow everyone has to pay into for everything and the people and institutions that actually do the work don’t see a dollar of the profits that those companies rake in.
That doesn’t mean that there aren’t relatively even worse sources. That is definitely the case. But it’s very much not a “just believe the scientists” either.
Way too serious rant for a comic over.
I mean, it’s a very large dependency on which journals, how well cited they are etc…
I mean yes there’s absolutely problems, but it doesn’t make much sense when we are comparing to basically completely unsourced arguements from complete and total laymen. That’s basically in the category of calling out Obama did some unethical things as president… in a discussion about trump. Yes 100% agreed with the premise, but also have to say they aren’t even in the same league.
The real problem is that “actual scientific journal” 's quality control is shit too.
Good thing they referred to a meta-analysis, which is near the top of the hierarchy of evidence. Most of the scientific research articles nowadays are hyperlinked. They aren’t appeals to authority: the entire purpose of the article is to present their work, data, & findings (ie, evidence).
the entire purpose of the article is to present their work, data, & findings (ie, evidence).
I know, that that is the claim, that’s what I’m attacking. They’re garbage at doing this. There is no agreed upon standard of doing it. and because they are so utterly shit at it, all that is left is the appeal to authority, because “our methodology works”.
(And if I’m wrong, point me to the template and standard formatting that was agreed upon. Show me the standardized procedures that meta analysis studies have to pass to be considered “acceptable”.)
They’re garbage at doing this. There is no agreed upon standard of doing it. and because they are so utterly shit at it, all that is left is the appeal to authority, because “our methodology works”.
Not really: most research of any credibility openly shares its data either upfront or on request. The argument isn’t “I did this right, trust me, bro”, it’s “here’s my methods & data supporting my analysis & conclusions: check for yourself or even redo it all”. Reproducibility (verification of findings) & replicability (same findings with new data) is the standard: once that’s done (researchers can communicate to clear up methods or miscommunication), the issues to do that had been cleared up & don’t really matter anymore.
A meta-analysis takes in a body of independent studies that replicate findings & analyzes them together to reproduce results, so it addresses both standards.
I’m happy someone is pointing this out. There is so much trash out there that is just maximised for “citation count” because that’s how you get recognition in academia.
One more thing for folks who don’t know: peer reviewed doesn’t always mean someone actually verified shit, let alone read it all.
I’m not saying don’t believe scientists or that the whole research field is a hoax, I just am severely disappointed in the broader scientific community.
