Political spectrum, Trumpism, and ideological semantics (Split from Covid-19 miscellany)

[Elixir]

bilby wants people to believe that the lab leak theory has about as much support as a flat earth or hoaxed moon landings.

The fact that the China Virus BS is believed by a half dozen more suckers than the flat earth BS doesn't place it in the realm of reason. It's an extension of the brainless masses who also think the 2020 election was stolen. Not because there's any truth to it, just because the Mango Menace said so.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

bilby wants people to believe that the lab leak theory has about as much support as a flat earth or hoaxed moon landings.

The fact that the China Virus BS is believed by a half dozen more suckers than the flat earth BS doesn't place it in the realm of reason. It's an extension of the brainless masses who also think the 2020 election was stolen. Not because there's any truth to it, just because the Mango Menace said so.

Do you actually believe that all the people who believe the lab leak theory is likely, do so because Trump says so?
If you don't, why do you make that sort of claim?

 

[Elixir]

bilby wants people to believe that the lab leak theory has about as much support as a flat earth or hoaxed moon landings.

The fact that the China Virus BS is believed by a half dozen more suckers than the flat earth BS doesn't place it in the realm of reason. It's an extension of the brainless masses who also think the 2020 election was stolen. Not because there's any truth to it, just because the Mango Menace said so.

Do you actually believe that all the people who believe the lab leak theory is likely, do so because Trump says so?
If you don't, why do you make that sort of claim?

Not all of them. You might have convinced yourself without Cheato's encouragement, for instance.
But most of them. It is curiously just as well supported as massive fraud in the 2020 election. Assertions, innuendo, may even those affidavits that right wingers find so convincing...
We had plagues long before we had labs.
Plus, I'm feeling kindly toward China today because they slapped some banking restrictions on Uncle Vlad.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

bilby wants people to believe that the lab leak theory has about as much support as a flat earth or hoaxed moon landings.

The fact that the China Virus BS is believed by a half dozen more suckers than the flat earth BS doesn't place it in the realm of reason. It's an extension of the brainless masses who also think the 2020 election was stolen. Not because there's any truth to it, just because the Mango Menace said so.

Do you actually believe that all the people who believe the lab leak theory is likely, do so because Trump says so?
If you don't, why do you make that sort of claim?

Not all of them. You might have convinced yourself without Cheato's encouragement, for instance.
But most of them.

First, I said it was probable. I did not say certain. I said I assign >0.5, but not close to 1.
Second, your reply was in this thread. And people in this thread are definitely not swayed by Trump's claims.
Third, reasons and arguments in support of the lab leak theory have been given in the thread. "Trumps says so" is not among them.
Fourth, Metaphor was talking about the evidentiary support for the lab leak theory, not about the number of people who support it.

 

[Elixir]

I said it was probable.

I know you said that. I said most people who think that do so because they were told to, not because there's sufficient reliable evidence to draw that inference.
I stand by my assertion just as you stand by yours. You're free to think I'm wrong, just as 90 something percent of trumpsuckers do.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I said it was probable.

I know you said that. I said most people who think that do so because they were told to, not because there's sufficient reliable evidence to draw that inference.
I stand by my assertion just as you stand by yours. You're free to think I'm wrong, just as 90 something percent of trumpsuckers do.

I explained again what I said in order to clarify just in case, but the rest of my points are a direct challenge to your claims in this context. Now you keep making a parallel with Trump suckers. Why do you keep doing that?

 

[Elixir]

you keep making a parallel with Trump suckers. Why do you keep doing that?

Because most people who believe the Chyyyna Virus crap are trumpsuckers.
I thought I made that clear. Get it now?

 

[Elixir]

Like we need more boogeymen.

Conservos and their halfwit cousins the trumpsuckers are furiously manufacturing them lest people fail to be terrified enough to vote against their own interests.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

you keep making a parallel with Trump suckers. Why do you keep doing that?

Because most people who believe the Chyyyna Virus crap are trumpsuckers.
I thought I made that clear. Get it now?

Even assuming that the majority of people who assign probability >0.5 to the lab leak hypothesis are trumpsukers, that would not be a good reason to insist on the parallel when talking to people who are not so. Also, see the rest of my points.

 

[Elixir]

assuming that the majority of people who assign probability >0.5 to the lab leak hypothesis are trumpsukers

That doesn't make any sense, AM. Most trumpsuckers have no clue what >0.5 is, let alone grasp the concept of assigning probabilities.
You might as well call it the "lab leak theory" too, since they also have no idea what a theory is.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

assuming that the majority of people who assign probability >0.5 to the lab leak hypothesis are trumpsukers

That doesn't make any sense, AM. Most trumpsuckers have no clue what >0.5 is, let alone grasp the concept of assigning probabilities.
You might as well call it the "lab leak theory" too, since they also have no idea what a theory is.

It does make sense. To assign probability >0.5 is to assess it is probable. And humans intuitively assign probabilities all the time, regardless of whether they ever encountered the word 'probability' or synonyms, or whether they ever studied any theory in that regard. Also, I said "lab leak hypothesis". Regardless of whether they have encountered the word 'hypothesis', they surely probabilities to all sorts of hypotheses all the time, since they are human.

 

[Elixir]

It does make sense.

No, it doesn't. The breadth of possible factors involved and the paucity of our actual knowledge of what happened conspire to make assigning greater than .5 probability to any cause that is not the simplest explanation, nonsensical. The simplest explanation is that what we know has happened before, happened again.

 

[Elixir]

Of course, saying rational people can disagree is not to say that all the people who disagree are rational.

Right … case in point.

 

[Metaphor]

bilby wants people to believe that the lab leak theory has about as much support as a flat earth or hoaxed moon landings.

The fact that the China Virus BS is believed by a half dozen more suckers than the flat earth BS doesn't place it in the realm of reason. It's an extension of the brainless masses who also think the 2020 election was stolen. Not because there's any truth to it, just because the Mango Menace said so.

Not every person in the world is American, Elixir.

I know what you are doing is no worse than nearly every other American chauvinist on the board but it is quite tiresome to non-Americans.

 

[Hermit]

bilby wants people to believe that the lab leak theory has about as much support as a flat earth or hoaxed moon landings.

The fact that the China Virus BS is believed by a half dozen more suckers than the flat earth BS doesn't place it in the realm of reason. It's an extension of the brainless masses who also think the 2020 election was stolen. Not because there's any truth to it, just because the Mango Menace said so.

Not every person in the world is American, Elixir.

I know what you are doing is no worse than nearly every other American chauvinist on the board but it is quite tiresome to non-Americans.

Yeah, right. No Trump supporters in Australia.

Melbourne

Sydney

 

[Angra Mainyu]

It does make sense.

No, it doesn't. The breadth of possible factors involved and the paucity of our actual knowledge of what happened conspire to make assigning greater than .5 probability to any cause that is not the simplest explanation, nonsensical. The simplest explanation is that what we know has happened before, happened again.

You seem to have lost track of the conversation. Even if assigning >0.5 to anything that it is not the simplest explanation ("simplest" in what sense? not that it matters to my point) were nonsensical, it would make perfect sense for me to consider the scenario in which most of the people who assign >0.5 to the lab leak hypothesis (i.e, who consider it is more probably true than false) are Trump supporters, in the context of a reply in which you assume that most of the people who believe the hypothesis is true, are Trump supporters!

 

[Metaphor]

bilby wants people to believe that the lab leak theory has about as much support as a flat earth or hoaxed moon landings.

The fact that the China Virus BS is believed by a half dozen more suckers than the flat earth BS doesn't place it in the realm of reason. It's an extension of the brainless masses who also think the 2020 election was stolen. Not because there's any truth to it, just because the Mango Menace said so.

Not every person in the world is American, Elixir.

I know what you are doing is no worse than nearly every other American chauvinist on the board but it is quite tiresome to non-Americans.

Yeah, right. No Trump supporters in Australia.


Melbourne


Sydney

That isn't what I said. The rest of the world is not as obsessed with Trump as you are personally.

 

[Hermit]

The fact that the China Virus BS is believed by a half dozen more suckers than the flat earth BS doesn't place it in the realm of reason. It's an extension of the brainless masses who also think the 2020 election was stolen. Not because there's any truth to it, just because the Mango Menace said so.

Not every person in the world is American, Elixir.

I know what you are doing is no worse than nearly every other American chauvinist on the board but it is quite tiresome to non-Americans.

Yeah, right. No Trump supporters in Australia.

Melbourne

Sydney

That isn't what I said. The rest of the world is not as obsessed with Trump as you are personally.

I regard myself more concerned about Trumpism than obsessed with the man named Trump.

"Not every person in the world is American, Elixir." amounts to saying there are no Trump supporters outside the US, Metaphor. Your reply is quite ironic, because Elixir neither said nor implied that every person in the world is American. You see, there are plenty of right wingers outside the US who think the 2020 election was stolen because the Mango Menace said so.

Trumpism has started off in the US, but has become a global phenomenon just like Nazism was originally an exclusively German movement (you know, it being an abbreviation of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), but nowadays the label is rightfully applied to thousands of people who have never as much as set foot in that country or even just speak its language.

 

[Metaphor]

"Not every person in the world is American, Elixir." amounts to saying there are no Trump supporters outside the US, Metaphor.

No: it amounts to accusing Elixir of being obsessed with Trump and thinking his level of obsession applies worldwide.

Trumpism has started off in the US, but has become a global phenomenon just like Nazism was originally an exclusively German movement (you know, it being an abbreviation of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), but nowadays the label is rightfully applied to thousands of people who have never as much as set foot in that country or even just speak its language.

The label of Nazism doesn't belong either, frankly. The Nazi party ceased existing in 1945, and the movement that shares most of its values was generally branded 'neonazism'.

Now the neo is gone and labels are applied with abandon: anybody who deviates from far left orthodoxy is almost certainly a 'fascist', according to the far left.

 

[Hermit]

"Not every person in the world is American, Elixir." amounts to saying there are no Trump supporters outside the US, Metaphor.

No: it amounts to accusing Elixir of being obsessed with Trump and thinking his level of obsession applies worldwide.

That is not what you accused him of here, Metaphor, You accused him of being an American chauvinist.

Trumpism has started off in the US, but has become a global phenomenon just like Nazism was originally an exclusively German movement (you know, it being an abbreviation of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), but nowadays the label is rightfully applied to thousands of people who have never as much as set foot in that country or even just speak its language.

The label of Nazism doesn't belong either, frankly. The Nazi party ceased existing in 1945, and the movement that shares most of its values was generally branded 'neonazism'.

The label applies for as long as neo-Nazis subscribe to the Nazi ideology

Now the neo is gone and labels are applied with abandon: anybody who deviates from far left orthodoxy is almost certainly a 'fascist', according to the far left.

There definitely is a tendency of misapplying labels like 'Nazi', 'fascist' .... and 'far left'. I shake my head every time the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have the 'far left' sticker slapped on them.

Then there is the absurdity of labelling Hitler's regime as socialist, presumably because the full name of the NSDAP includes the word 'socialist'. May as well regard North Korea as a democratic country since it's officially named 'Democratic People's Republic of Korea'.