I very much believe in the no-win scenario.
For example, "debating" settled science with people who will, under no circumstances, accept evidence outside of the locked box of their atavistic faith. People who will, under no circumstances, change their minds.
The Bill Nye-Ken Ham Debate Was a Nightmare for Science
...It was like watching the Broncos play the Seahawks. Nye never had a chance. Ham won this debate months ago, when Nye agreed to participate. By last Friday, when I spoke with Ham, Nye hadn’t even arrived in Kentucky, but Ham was already basking in the glow of victory (Nye didn’t respond to my request for comment). “The response,” Ham told me, “has been absolutely phenomenal.” He talked about the media attention. He talked about how professional the stage was going to look. He talked more about the media attention. “It’s going to create a lot of discussion. I think that’s very healthy,” said Ham, in reference to the raging scientific debate over whether evolution actually happened. “In many ways aggressive atheists have shut down that discussion.” But, Ham continued, “the public wants to hear about” origins. Fortunately, Nye has given them that chance. ...Ham had nothing to lose. When you exist on the cultural fringe and make your living by antagonizing established authority, there’s no form of media attention you don’t love. All Ham had to do was sit still for two-and-a-half hours, sound vaguely professional, and pander occasionally to his base. Sure, if you listened closely, what Ham was saying made absolutely no scientific sense. But debate is a format of impressions, not facts. Ham sounded like a reasonable human being, loosely speaking, and that’s what mattered....
It has been nearly a century since Clarence Darrow mopped the floor with William Jennings Bryan Dayton, Tennessee:
And nearly a century later, from ACORN to Bengaaaahzi! to Creationism, there is no upside to debating these people about the various articles of their imbecile faith. None. Because as this because as this blog has meticulously documented:
As "Meet the Press" continues to devolve into the test-pattern that great-aunt Muriel falls asleep to while everyone under 90 busies themselves with other things, it is once again worth mentioning why the marginal utility of debating Conservatives is zero.Because Conservatives do not understand what "Conservatism" means anymore, and because Conservatives do not understand what "debate" means anymore...
In this Year of Our Lord 2014, there are no fence-straddlers anymore. Shirts and skins have chosen up sides and there is no one left to convince and so engaging these (as one long-forgotten wag once put it) "terrified lunatics walled up behind an ideology which demands 100% supplication, permits no new information in and declares all Reality to be its sworn enemy" does nothing but lend them your credibility and oxygenate their cause with your energy.
Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding.
So for God's sake, stop feeding it and calling it edutainment
16 comments:
I feel like Im letting down the future and more importantly my son (Who I just made read Wells'"The Time Machine" at age 7). The healthy future of our species depends on us fighting back the Rubes and Loons. Its the endless righteous struggle that defines us, not the victory.
I've been watching the entire debate on youtube and going on some nice long rants with family and friends.
I can recall twice that Ken Ham took the opportunity to point out that God is the ultimate authority, and has defined marriage as between one man and one woman.
There were many times that Ken Ham actually sounded reasonable. The problem is, if you are familiar with logical fallacies, and particularly those thrown at evolution, you can see how most of his argument boils down to marketing speak.
Although someone on imgur actually summed it up perfectly:
What would make you change your mind?
Bill Nye: Evidence.
Ken Ham: Nothing.
Mike.K.
Apropos your stated principle herein, what the hell is President Obama doing having a dialog with Bill O'Reilly. It serves nothing except O"Reilly and Fox.
I think the troll rule applies - don't feed them.
Thanks DG. I've been trying for a while to get people to stop feeding the trolls. They can not/will not be reached by reason or evidence and when you engage them you are giving them exactly what they are after. Legitimacy. What they deserve is derision.
You got to hit them where it hurts - Show them they would never get pistons rings to fit after re-boring their V8s if you use the biblical calculation for 'Pi'.
Drifty, you're probably right that you'll never change the shoutycrackers.
However, you did have the chance to solve much of that problem by just letting their heartland go, back in 1861.
But their corrupt, greedy, amoral misruling class owed great big horse-choking wads of money to your corrupt, greedy, amoral misruling class, so you chose to make them stay and pay their debts.
How has that worked out for you?
Oh, you did try that Reconstruction thing, but that was always half-hearted and half-assed, and probably could never have been done anyway with the primitive opinion-control technology of that time period, which preceded both Bernays and his "public relations" revolution, and the electronic media.
A second try at Reconstruction wouldn't work now, because too many members of the (reunited) corrupt, greedy, amoral misruling class benefit from having them stay primitive, so the misruling class would never let it happen.
You'll never change the shoutycrackers, and now you're stuck with them. Sucks to be you.
Monster from the Id -- "However, you did have the chance to solve much of that problem by just letting their heartland go, back in 1861."
Several million human slaves and, later, several million American citizens living in apartheid subjugation would disagree with you.
White privilege says what?
Oh, yes, Drifty. Many of your rank-and-file soldiers and civilians operated from noble motives.
But your misruling class of that period? They showed how little they actually cared about the injustices done against the slaves when they agreed to the Compromise Of 1876, hence abandoning the ex-slaves to Jim Crow semi-slavery.
Would you care to explain why your misruling class did that, if they were so concerned about the well-being of the freedmen?
After all, they still had the troops in place. Why not just use them to break the shoutycrackers once and for all?
Meanwhile in the superstitious and pig-ignorant base:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-hypnosis-leads-demonic-possession
Someone wants Pat Robertson's opinion because she thinks being anesthetized for wisdom tooth removal will leave her infested with demons.
Mike.K.
Gee, Hamshit Carmelo Monster from the Backwater is a slaveowner apologist.
Oh shock and surprise.
Dg,
Again, thanks!
How about coming to NC to spread the word?
We need everybody to come on down.
Love you guys!
C
Yeah, Pinkie, I'm such an apologist for slaveowners that I described the treatment of the slaves with the word "injustices".
Maybe Pinkie defines the word "injustice" differently than I do, so that it is a term of approval?
Can anyone explain to me why the Northern ruling class abandoned the ex-slaves to their Jim Crow fate in the Compromise of 1876?
Why would the Northern ruling class abandon the ex-slaves, if the Northern ruling class actually fought that war to end slavery in this country, and if the Northern ruling class actually ever cared about the injustices done against the slaves?
The Northern ruling class still had the troops in place in the formerly Confederate states, and could have crushed any second Rebellion promptly. Instead, they just abandoned the ex-slaves to their fate. Why?
Your concern for those Poor, Poor Southern Whites writhing beneath the Hideous Hobnailed Boot of the Filthy Northern Oppressors (oh, and them negros, but who cares about them when there's white folks to care about, right?) is duly noted, Hamfuck, and ignored.
You showed your ass some months ago. You don't need to do so again. Those of us with memories not blown into swiss cheese by years of drinking radiator moonshine can retain enough to recall your rants against That Goddamn Yankee Driftglass and anyone who dares to say that the South isn't the victim of history.
Now shut up already. Go back to whatever lily-white enclave of miserable permanent-victim neckbeards you crawled from and leave us in peace.
What concern? I despise the shoutycrackers.
I merely despise the other side as well.
Why not throw your accusations of racism at Drifty, Pinkie Pie?
Of course, he's not guilty of that--I doubt any of his ancestors have ever been guilty of that--but they still work on him.
That tactic used to work on me, too--until an overreaching political organization tried to use that tactic to brainwash me into accepting assimilation into their eerily cultish movement, and then the tactic quit working. I like being an individual too well.
Guilt-mongering only works for so long, Pinkie Pie.
Why you don't wanna refute the cadres of the Dunning-Kruger Goonsquad is itself academic - the ugly truth is that any such refusal, be it ever so logical or reasonable, is seen as an overt admission of defeat by both them & the throngs of JustPlainFolks in the big mushy middle. Unfair? False? Yeah, sure, & absurd too ... but also as real as a jackboot to the nutsack. Throughout history, the results of letting rampant idiocy stand unopposed so it can sing its pretty song of Thud without interruption speak for themselves.
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