Comment by gruez
16 days ago
I'm not claiming that those people are right, only that the "videos ... speak for themselves" claim isn't true. If people can watch the same video and come to entirely different conclusions, how can you say it "... speak for themselves"? If so, can we also say ambiguous studies on whether ivemectin was effective against covid "speak for themselves"? Or does it just become a no true scotsman where you can say whatever evidence "speaks for themselves", and anyone who disagrees are lunatics?
At some point you have to assume the people are, in fact, lunatics. Your argument is essentially the same as saying there is no such thing as a fact, because you can always find one person who disagrees. Someone thinking that the earth is flat and gravity isn't real doesn't make the evidence ambiguous, it makes the person you're dealing with either willfully ignorant or fucking with you.
> if people can watch the same video and come to entirely different conclusions, how can you say it "... speak for themselves"?
because a disappointingly large fraction of the public is unable to acknowledge facts of reality. the video is speaking, but some people just ain't listening.
>because a disappointingly large fraction of the public is unable to acknowledge facts of reality. the video is speaking, but some people just ain't listening.
If something really does "speak for themselves", but also "disappointingly large fraction" (1%? 5%? 10%? 20%? 50%?) refuse to accept it, is that a meaningful statement? Is it the epistemic equivalent of "80% of the time, it works every time"?
I don't know what you want me to say.
"some people are wrong and dumb" is not an argument compelling enough to me to reject the evidence of my eyes and ears.
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