CDC data are disappearing

I do feel like there is a limit to how biased a source can be when it tries to be based in evidence, though. Nobody would disagree that 1+1=2, basic physics tells one that COVID is not spread by 5G towers, the climate has warmed enough that you can dump weather records into a spreadsheet and see the effect without needing to measure CO2 at all. That COVID causes disease and a warming climate causes more extreme weather is also rather easy to corroborate. Accepting the obvious is already a good starting point for deciding whether climate policy XYZ is good or not (combined with other basic facts and every party's proposals), but it seems to me that the current striving for unbiasedness leads to giving lunatics equal air time. Any amount of fact checking would at least remove this level of misinformedness

> Nobody would disagree that 1+1=2, basic physics tells one that COVID is not spread by 5G towers,

But yet people believe these things, and will believe a source that supports them. What's obvious to you is not obvious to others.

Nah come on, what you've cited is obvious to everyone but a delusional 0.001%. They do not need a podium for that

You're not an American, so maybe you aren't aware how widespread conspiracy theories are in the US and how much they influence the public discourse. As a trivial example, the American Senate is currently interviewing the nominee for the head of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH, CDC, and FDA, among other agencies.

The nominee, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has been very outspoken in his opinions, some of which are:

   Wi-Fi causes cancer and "leaky brain"
   Chemicals in the water supply could turn children transgender
   Antidepressants are to blame for school shootings
   AIDS is not be caused by HIV
   the Covid is designed to target white and black people but not Ashkenazi Jews

This nominee will likely be approved. These opinions are shared by a significant body of people who voted for the president who nominated him.

Okay? Then you disprove their claims and their bad sources. If they don't want to understand that, there's nothing to do. They are not a reasonable audience to debate with logos at that point.

Them denying nature's truth doesn't allieve them from nature's forces.

To give a much undeserved BOTD: I don't think he'll be approved because people really believe nor even trust RFO Jr. He will be approve to upkeep the status quo. A status quo to appeal to their voter base or to appeal to Trump or something like that.

Almost nothing on the RFO appointment is rooted in facts.

> He will be approve to upkeep the status quo. A status quo to appeal to their voter base or to appeal to Trump or something like that.

No, RFKJr will be approved because he was nominated by Donald Trump and Donald Trump has a total control of the Republican Party. That's all there is to it.

I don't think it's that blatant. Even R's have limits when Gaetz got rejected. I don't think it's as rank and tow as implied.

But yes, a lot of policy for R's will ba passed. We'll see how much insanity they Will tolerate when it comes to Trump destroying the economy. Rich people kinda need that.

Do you honestly think that people who believe these things will be swayed by facts and evidence?

Go watch some flat earther videos on YouTube. Lots of people are very committed to a particular conclusion and have developed elaborate processes for disregarding evidence that would persuade a rational person.

The US political system right now is built on believing easily disprovable lies. Unfortunately, their bad choices affect everyone.

>Do you honestly think that people who believe these things will be swayed by facts and evidence?

No I do not:

>They are not a reasonable audience to debate with logos at that point.

but if people insist on arguing, that's your approach.

I just don't debate on Youtube. The people who matter aren't there anyway. Those people have to go through a slower process but one that doesn't care about the feelings of youtube comments complaining about Hilary emails (iroinc, isn't it?)

> The people who matter aren't there anyway.

The people who matter are the ones who vote.

We're past voting. The people who matter now are those who can stop the country from falling apart.

But sure, if anyone feels they can change minds in 2 years before midterm, go for it. That is not where I am useful.

Are they so widespread because of this "both parties/sides' views need to be represented" perhaps? And is that why they influence discourse so much, because they have to be brought up again and again?

Of course, you're right that I'm not an American, it may be that I'm missing something that would have been clear to me. Not meaning to pretend to know it all, just hoping that an outside perspective (from a place where, from my POV, it works better even if far from perfect) might be helpful

> Do you honestly think that people who believe these things will be swayed by facts and evidence?

I've got two data points to offer!

For one, some research from last year showed that

> Over three rounds of back-and-forth interaction, [a tuned version of GPT-4 Turbo], also known as DebunkBot, was able to significantly reduce individuals’ beliefs in the particular theory the believer articulated, as well as lessen their conspiratorial mindset more generally — a result that proved durable for at least two months.

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/mit-study-ai-c...

It's not like the chatbot gave them a beating or something, so it must be appeals to reason and evidence that did something? At least, that's my takeaway

Second data point is an anecdote. I somehow ended up on this flat earther youtube video where they had gotten their viewers to fund them an expedition to the south pole (wtf is a south pole if the earth is flat? Where did they fly out to? Idk, they seemed to have an alternative hypothesis in case the earth really was flat, such that this "experiment" mattered) to, and I shit you not, observe that the sun does not set during summer. Why they didn't just ask someone living beyond the (ant)arctic circle, I don't know, but so they're stood there watching the sun, waiting for it to set. It didn't, and after another glance at a wristwatch that it really is midnight, they now said they believed that the earth is in fact round because their alternative hypothesis had been disproven

Whether many of the viewers on youtube believed it, I have no idea. Also conspicuously missing from the video was any sort of remark hinting at "gee, what everyone outside of our little community said turned out to be right, I wonder if maybe this could mean that there isn't some big conspiracy going on", so perhaps they'll go on to believe the next useless thing now and it was all for naught? I'm not deep enough into conspiracy theory, but it does seem to me that: if you get them to work it all out (whatever that means for them) to a point where there is an experiment you can sensibly do, or evidence they can obtain or so, they'll actually be swayed if given that evidence. Or at least some of them are. (Or maybe these are just really good actors and getting a free holiday to the most exclusive continent by becoming famous was their long con all along, who's to say, but I'm inclined to apply occam's and hanlon's razors.)