Doubt the Claim – Even when evidence, sources, and processes hold, the claim itself is reframed as impossible. “That could never happen.” This is denial dressed up as common sense.
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Common sense is so overused. 500 years ago, people were looking at the Sun trajectory in the sky and common sense told them it was turning around the Earth
sep 10, 2025, 3:29 pm • 0 0 • view
If you've followed the use of chemical weapons in Syria you would have seen these tactics deployed repeatedly. Videos are staged, The White Helmets are untrustworthy NATO paid terrorists, the OPCW is corrupt, Assad would never use chemical weapons when he's winning.
sep 9, 2025, 4:31 pm • 182 23 • view
Together these pillars form a fortress of doubt. They don’t need to disprove reality, only to make certainty impossible. Once people internalise them, any fact can be denied, or turned into evidence of the depths to which the out-group will go to deceive the in-group. Sound familiar?
sep 9, 2025, 4:33 pm • 249 37 • view
"Often, when the film's protagonists were confronted with reality, they at first didn't believe, would suddenly just adopt a position that explained the broader picture they had already created." kyivindependent.com/what-happens...
sep 9, 2025, 4:59 pm • 41 8 • view
I wonder whether the requirement/expectation of certainty is in itself problematic, and therefore enabling of disordered discourses? For example are societies that use the precautionary principle as susceptible? Would requiring that we make underlying values more explicit help mitigate this?
sep 9, 2025, 5:41 pm • 5 0 • view
Yes, the demand for absolute certainty can feed disordered discourse, because nothing in complex reality is ever 100%.
sep 9, 2025, 6:00 pm • 9 1 • view
The key is to make values and thresholds explicit: what level of evidence justifies action, what risks we accept, what principles guide us. That transparency makes doubt manageable rather than corrosive.
sep 9, 2025, 6:00 pm • 8 2 • view
Now the question: what to do to counter that?
sep 10, 2025, 3:15 pm • 1 0 • view
By fostering an environment where "nothing is true and anything is possible," those employing this strategy can manipulate perceptions, sow discord, and achieve their objectives with greater ease…..Russians have mastered it.
sep 10, 2025, 10:29 pm • 0 0 • view