A common tic among right-wingers and conspiracy theorists is to describe someone engaging in debate as "silencing debate" www.bmj.com/content/374/...
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Breakdown of the article: The paper discusses the ongoing debate around the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the COVID-19 disease. For most of 2020, the idea that the virus may have originated from a lab in Wuhan, China was dismissed as a conspiracy theory. However, in early 2021...
mar 30, 2025, 3:22 pm • 9 0 • view
@alt-text.bsky.social
mar 30, 2025, 3:21 pm • 3 0 • view
It’s crazy they never considered the conspiracy theory that they were weaponized to spread Covid-19. I guess the truth is stranger than fiction.
mar 30, 2025, 2:33 pm • 15 0 • view
Conspiracy nuts (especially right leaning ones) use rhetorical tricks and sophistry to run their whole gambit, namely in asking bad faith questions and then suggesting that they have a right to question and if you impede that (say, by answering their questions well) then you are rude and stupid
mar 30, 2025, 2:41 pm • 2 0 • view
Reactions are more valuable than substance. At least, that’s what the ad-revenue-driven gamification of human interaction and communication has demonstrated.
mar 30, 2025, 2:35 pm • 2 0 • view
Similarly, in my area, expressing an opposing (progressive) viewpoint is characterized as “creating a chilling environment to stifle free speech.” No fair disagreeing, especially not with a cogent argument.
mar 30, 2025, 4:17 pm • 4 0 • view
Yes. This drives me nut. ‘I said something that someone disagreed with and you would not BELIEVE what they said back!’ This is a constant refrain. It’s a bunch of people who seem to think nobody should vehemently disagree with them.
mar 30, 2025, 3:19 pm • 4 0 • view
I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say most white males in this country, especially in rural areas, never experience pushback. So they never expect it and are instantly affronted when someone doesn’t either agree with or silently accept their argument.
mar 30, 2025, 3:35 pm • 3 0 • view
Some of this is patriarchy, some of it is Midwestern “politeness”, a lot of it is the echo chamber most of them live in.
mar 30, 2025, 3:35 pm • 2 0 • view
If you scrutinize these claims of being “silenced”—you too are labelled an enemy of Free Inquiry. Without a hint of self awareness.
mar 30, 2025, 2:51 pm • 14 0 • view
Mirror argumentation all the way down bsky.app/profile/lrom...
mar 30, 2025, 2:52 pm • 9 0 • view
"We think this is a possibility based on [random unconnected inferences]." "This is why your evidence doesn't mean what you think it means."
mar 30, 2025, 2:32 pm • 8 0 • view
They’re STILL on this lab leak bullshit? If you think about it for more than 1” seconds you can work out why it makes no fucking sense
mar 30, 2025, 2:47 pm • 5 0 • view
Zoonosis happens all the damned time The lab leak folks just prefer to pretend that isn’t true for some reason? A lab leak always needed stronger evidence than the existence of a lab!
mar 30, 2025, 2:55 pm • 6 0 • view
The lab leak folks desperately need it to be true. Human error is easier to live with than "there's a whole bunch of nasty viruses out there and just one could mutate and wipe out half of humanity in a short amount of time." That stupidity makes it more likely to happen with the next one.
mar 30, 2025, 3:18 pm • 6 0 • view
This is why I want all of these people read a bare minimum of three books on viruses before commenting
mar 30, 2025, 3:19 pm • 2 0 • view
Maybe one book on statistics first?
mar 30, 2025, 3:53 pm • 0 0 • view
During the pandemic, I listened to audiobooks on the 1918 flu pandemic, a cholera outbreak in London in the 1850s and the Black Death/bubonic plague outbreak in Europe in the 14th century. You'd think people would have gained some understanding by now. Alas...
mar 30, 2025, 3:29 pm • 1 0 • view
When you speak, you’re silencing debate When we arrest and deport people for saying things we don’t like, we are free speech absolutists
mar 30, 2025, 2:59 pm • 2 0 • view
Or, you are engaging in “cancel culture” because you are challenging me. 🤦♂️
mar 30, 2025, 2:58 pm • 0 0 • view
Thacker is appalling whether writing on climate, GMOs, or Covid. There’s no amount of interviewing or explanation that will divert him from his agenda.
mar 30, 2025, 2:45 pm • 7 0 • view
It's gaslighting as the conservative/liberal divide is basically people who are okay with abuse vs people who are not okay with abuse.
mar 30, 2025, 2:51 pm • 4 0 • view
Thacker is a nutjob
mar 30, 2025, 5:16 pm • 2 0 • view
I dealt with this for years debating people in the alt med world. This is a way of poisoning the debate by pre-emptively painting it as an ad hominem attack. Not a good faith move, obviously
mar 30, 2025, 5:24 pm • 2 0 • view
I am old enough to remember when right-wingers sneered at about “silencing” and argued that the correct response was to “fight fire with fire” (more speech) and “grow a thicker skin”.
mar 30, 2025, 2:59 pm • 1 0 • view
I feel no reluctance in silencing them. We have seen what they're about. What they're doing right now, I certainly will not forget.
mar 30, 2025, 2:31 pm • 10 0 • view
Anyone, and I mean anyone, who demands “Debate me!” is neither interested in debate, nor will accept any evidence presented against their position.
mar 30, 2025, 5:43 pm • 4 0 • view
There were raging conspiracy theories at that time, like the film Plandemic. It was promoted by Alex Jones, Bannon, and other bad actors
mar 30, 2025, 2:48 pm • 1 0 • view
debate is when i say something and you tell me how smart i am
mar 30, 2025, 2:33 pm • 183 2 • view
That is such a strong point.
mar 30, 2025, 2:48 pm • 65 0 • view
mar 30, 2025, 3:29 pm • 10 0 • view
Reaching a common consensus = silencing debate? 🤦
mar 30, 2025, 2:36 pm • 3 0 • view
Getting hit with arguments they cannot reasonably answer does not mean they've been silenced. It's totally the opposite, a debate has been concluded and everyone had the opportunity to become smarter from experiencing it.
mar 30, 2025, 2:53 pm • 1 0 • view
you see, everyone has a right to an opinion, and if you say my opinion is wrong, that’s infringing on My Right to have My Opinion.
mar 30, 2025, 3:49 pm • 1 0 • view
I just got "you don't want to have a good-faith debate" from someone who bought a Tesla last week because of the cool tech, and didn't like being called out (by many) as supporting Musk. Like, dude, that's just a fact, whether you like it or not.
mar 30, 2025, 2:50 pm • 2 0 • view
Bill Maher and Gavin Newsome are cranks. Full stop
mar 30, 2025, 3:23 pm • 0 0 • view
The trumpy right wing has exactly two forms of communication: Projection and Lies.
mar 30, 2025, 4:30 pm • 0 0 • view
They think lost debates are “censorship”
mar 30, 2025, 4:20 pm • 1 0 • view
Pointing out a factual error is silencing debate!
mar 30, 2025, 2:50 pm • 7 0 • view
I absolutely hate how obvious it is that all this credit being handed to the lab leak hypothesis is basically affirmative action for right-wing bullshit
mar 30, 2025, 2:35 pm • 98 0 • view
It’s not the substance of the arguments that is causing this “reappraisal” of the lab leak hypothesis, it’s that right-wingers have bitched about it long enough that establishment institutions have just given in and decided to take it as an alternative hypothesis on equal standing with others
mar 30, 2025, 2:37 pm • 70 1 • view
If the far right hadn't abandoned Q anon, there would probably be op-eds about how we should take it seriously in the mainstream media by now.
mar 30, 2025, 5:42 pm • 0 0 • view
And then we get another round of bog-standard scolding of expert consensus or debate among subject-matter experts as some sort of illiberal exclusion
mar 30, 2025, 2:38 pm • 28 0 • view
It was the same way with tobacco, with gun legislation, with climate change - there was a preponderance of evidence, and it was either denied or covered up or spun as just another opinion - they weren't just opinions, they were based on observable statistics and scientific evidence.
mar 30, 2025, 2:44 pm • 10 1 • view
Mike Pence was a tobacco truther *in this century* bsky.app/profile/saba...
mar 30, 2025, 2:51 pm • 10 0 • view
wow. i'm a little stunned i hadn't heard about this before.
mar 30, 2025, 3:00 pm • 2 0 • view
They think push back and good debate silences them and that's why never take them seriously
mar 30, 2025, 3:13 pm • 1 0 • view
Have you tried sprinkling Vitamin A into the discussion?
mar 30, 2025, 3:22 pm • 0 0 • view
Tfw RFK Jr is gonna give a kid Vitamin A toxicity
mar 30, 2025, 3:26 pm • 1 0 • view
It's the 'choose your poison' presidency.
mar 30, 2025, 3:34 pm • 0 0 • view
I'm a fan of whale oil, myself.
mar 30, 2025, 3:28 pm • 0 0 • view
Seriously! Someone disagreeing with a right-wing or even just expressing a different view is called “cancel culture”, and too many folks buy this framing.
mar 30, 2025, 3:44 pm • 0 0 • view
Discussed here. sciencebasedmedicine.org/muzzled/
mar 30, 2025, 2:50 pm • 23 1 • view
They debate? That's news to me, all I usually see is personal attacks, slurs and insults bc they don't have a winning position in any debate and they know it - if they don't know it, they're too ignorant to govern.
mar 30, 2025, 2:38 pm • 3 0 • view
I get so fucking sick of it. The lying, the bad-faith assholes, the blatant payola. So fucking sick and tired
mar 30, 2025, 2:54 pm • 0 0 • view
Debate me, bro. No, not like that.
mar 30, 2025, 4:39 pm • 1 0 • view
It's why it's not worth it to debate those imbeciles. As Brandolinj's law states “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.”
mar 30, 2025, 3:50 pm • 1 0 • view
Dear @michaelhobbes.bsky.social sir, really enjoy your work, please add alt-text to to your screenshots so everyone can appreciate them.
mar 30, 2025, 2:57 pm • 2 0 • view
And more specifically it's when they are losing their side of the debate that they retreat into this canard.
mar 30, 2025, 2:32 pm • 44 0 • view
This is just like when the head librarian at my local library said ‘you can’t bring tacos in here’, silencing any debate
mar 30, 2025, 10:04 pm • 2 0 • view
And winning a debate is censorship.
mar 30, 2025, 2:36 pm • 8 0 • view
This very annoying piece ignores the fact that lab leak conspiracism predates *any* credible data on origin beyond the early case plots. It was an a priori assumption.
mar 30, 2025, 4:14 pm • 1 0 • view