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> His affiliation means his facts and actual investigation of the full story are suspect.

That is one of the most blatant statements of a textbook fallacy I've seen in a while. The affiliations and motivations of the arguer do not affect the trueness of facts or the validity of arguments.



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> This doesn’t have the same faux objectivity as

This is the crux of the issue I suppose. If you don’t maintain this plausible deniability, you get accused of being biased when you report the actual truth.


>Lack of trust is a bullshit argument. It's basically the Conspiracy Fallacy

Or you know, what actual real life and political experience points to, and labelling it "conspiracy" is the "jumping to conclusions fallacy".


> The reason to lie about this is that it makes him appear weak, needy, and a target of even more mockery. Given the purchase of Twitter seems to have been a vanity project, having this be exposed and leaving it in goes directly against his apparent goal.

I think it only makes sense to think like you are if you've adopted equilibrium assumptions; if you haven't then I find this sort of reasoning to be a conjunction fallacy causing an epistemic closure.


>All signs point to misinformation.

What does that even mean? That you don't trust these people? Isn't that, definitionally, ad hominem?


> Only that what they say should not be regarded as final or defenitive word, rather only as claims in argument.

I'd agree with that.

It's the claim that they're in on a massive conspiracy because of a select set of articles on the subject is the line I've taken to issue.


> Zuck is an outright liar. There are now mountains of exceptionally good research showing a solid causal link between social media use and negative mental health impacts on young people (no, I will not google that for you, please do your own homework).

what is the point of the statement if you call someone a liar, claim that there exists material to prove the lie and then say, that you will not link to this material?.


> If you allow for conspiracies to exist, it becomes harder to judge truth since all facts become subjective.

What are you talking about? Conspiracy theories? This bombing is a conspiracy by definition (Edit: Unless he acted alone).

This missuse of the term conspiracy as something only a crackpot would use need to end.

BTW my favourite conspiracy theory is that lunatic conspiracy theories are a conspiracy to limit free speech.


> but calling them a conspiracy, when they specifically engage and practice debate professionally, is sort of pathetic honestly.

Debating professionally precludes conspiracy? What if a high-school debate club decides to rob a bank?


> False claims aren't conspiracy theories.

Are you saying that conspiracy theories are all true?

> I'm not sacrificing truth to point out your mistake.

You are wasting 100% of your effort on arguing semantics instead of engaging with my actual argument, sounds like a tradeoff to me. And no, it's not a mistake, don't know where you got that idea from.


> It's a known fact that there is conflict of interest between the Buttigieg campaign and Acronym/Shadow. That's not a "theory", it is indeed a fact.

Citation needed. It is a known fact that Shadow is one of the few software contractors that works for cheap for Democratic candidates. The fact that Buttigieg also used them for cheap projects does not mean there is a conflict of interest, and immediately jumping to that conclusion indicates conspiracy-minded thinking.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22241404


> Not if the "well regarded source" has a clear motive to lie.

Then it is not a well regarded source any more.


> Ah, Project Veritas, an organization whose founder has been convicted of fraud and who has a history of falsying and modifying evidence.

False on both counts.


> I argued that there is an infinite number of conspiracy theories that would satisfy the available facts.

Thus, you can't say it wasn't a conspiracy. Yeah, you can't say it was one either. Both of you are jumping to conclusions, what's irrational by the definition of the article.


> to point out that conspiracies like this aren't purely fantasy

You're doing it again!

You can't justify belief in a baseless conspiracy theory by saying that some other vaguely related thing was true! You can't. The logic doesn't work.

And it's expressly harmful, because now that "justified" belief can be weaponized to hurt your political enemies. Stop it.


> Criticizing retaliatory and intellectually dishonest hit pieces makes him sound like he isn't open to dissent

Non-sequitur.


>The author is a major pusher of conspiracy theories, pedophilia accusations, and the like which almost never stand up to scrutiny.

I counter your ad hominem with a substantive appeal to authority and evidence to the contrary: the author is not only a lawyer, but the one who broke open the Epstein case (pedophilia accusation conspiracy theory that stood up to scrutiny) with a Florida filing alongside the Miami Herald.


>the narrative means all and facts mean nothing.

Few things are as binary as this.

But yes, narrative matters, as well as facts. Narrative built on a complete lack of facts is more difficult to sustain that that which is based on some facts.

Still, the $15,000 or so this dude makes for Patreon (at most!) is likely not worth the hassle of keeping him around.


>That is not a straw man argument.

It is a textbook example of a strawman. He is putting words in my mouth that I never said to debunk my post. That is exactly what strawman fallacy means. Lmao.

>If anything you seem to be conducting one by focusing on a single detail to discredit a narrative

Another strawman. I merely pointed out it was a hoax, as briefly and straightforwardly as possible. I didnt say anything about any "narrative" at all.

>The method of execution is really irrelevant here.

It is very relevant when it was explicitely stated. Falsehoods must be pointed out. Relentlessly.


> This case is not a conspiracy theory. But it is something where you disagree with a popular opinion

Is it a popular opinion? Where's the evidence of that? Or is it maybe just a manufactured clickbait outrage now bordering on conspiracy theory? I provided a link that clearly demonstrates the very foundational claim is wrong, and the article has already clarified the mistakes in the timeline that conspiracists are citing as evidence of malfeasance. This controversy is a textbook nothing burger and it annoys me to no end that people keep falling for these tactics.

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