It’s possible that Schrödinger’s Fact might also be involved.
(A cite is both being accurately referenced and inaccurately referenced simultaneously until you click the link and read it. Though it’s not a real 50/50 in Sam’s case.)
He’s trolling. That’s it.
And seeing that this thread now has close to 550 posts must make him all proud and tingly.
There is no other reason for a person with his purported political views to hang around here. Now, when I say purported, it’s because it fits with his MO. If he’s trolling and actually don’t hold these reactionary beliefs, it perfectly explains his “factual errors” and inconsistencies:
Shit, they’re talking about the difference between propane and butane and which is more eco-friendly. Have to google some stuff.
Someone who actually holds these views would have all their bullet points ready.
“You only like propane because you’re a leftie monkey rando! . I look on with bemused detachment! You only disagree with me because you hate real conservatives with black belts!” (not a real quote. consult doctor before reading.)
He’s a smart guy who used to be right about some stuff back when conservative views were still reality based. He has terrible news sources and so is wrong about science, economics, and politics now, again due to conservatives having to deny science, economics, and political reality in order to continue to defend their unpopular and dangerous policies.
Other smart guys adjusted to the reality that conservative “think” tanks, etc., have left the fact-based world behind for partisan purposes. They no longer fit in the conservative mold. He hasn’t made that adjustment.
It’s a difficult adjustment to make.
See, this is where I was the first time I posted to the thread way back in #181, and in #199 I was still giving the same benefit of the doubt. But now, as per my last post, I think he’s honestly become a troll. He may not fully realize that’s what he’s doing, or may believe that he’s just trying to get some of his own back, but it’s trolling all the same.
I imagine some of that is pushback from the pile-on. I mean, if I were getting this many posts about me, calling me an idiot, a liar, a troll, etc., I would like to think I would change my ways, but I certainly might just start trolling the board.
At some point, hopefully, he’ll stop reading right-wing sources and his eyes will clear, and he’ll be back with a big “I’m sorry”.
I’m reminded of a podcast I heard about Leon Festinger, and the observations that led to his theory of Cognitive Dissonance. He studied a group that believed they were receiving messages from aliens who would rescue them on a particular day from an impending apocalypse. Some of them sold their homes and gave away all their possessions. When the promised day came and went with no rescue, some of the members realized that they’d been wrong and resumed their lives. Not all of them, though. The more committed that people had been, the harder it was to admit they were wrong. Some of them clung ever tighter to their beliefs, found ways to rationalize why their prophecy hadn’t come true, and began proselytizing to others.
I’m as human as anyone. I hope I wouldn’t fall into that way of thinking, but I can’t promise it. That’s also why I try not to back people into corners in debates here. Sometimes all it does it make people more committed to defending something that isn’t true.
It’s taking longer than we thought.
I can’t remember a time when it’s been as bad as it is now. Maybe I’m just feeling particularly pessimistic, but I’m terribly worried about the world.
You’re not the only one, by a long shot, and it’s one reason why I take those “America’s going the wrong way, say 70 percent of Americans! Woe to Biden” stories with so little respect. There’s plenty of us on the left who think he’s doing a ridiculously impossible job about as well overall as it can be done and still think things are going to hell in a greased handbasket.
This is how confidence crimes work. Someone who’s been defrauded may feel that admitting to being a fool is so horrible, they stick with the fiction.
When I was ten or eleven we had classes explaining ABC weapons and which was more likely to kill off humanity. I caught On the Beach on TV one night and was afraid to sleep for quite a few days after. The Vietnam war was raging. Newspapers published photos of starving African kids with swollen/extended bellies and flies in their faces. Over population would lead to food riots by the mid 80’s, claimed some Malthusian doomsday sayers.
It all depends on perspective. I can certainly remember a worse time as compared to now. That doesn’t mean I think everything is A-OK and as ever, the human experience is marred by a malevolent universe throwing shit our in our path.
I’ve been think about this and another interaction I had with Sam came to mind.
Sam summarized as cite thusly…
… and then I respectfully pointed out that Sam left out some important context…
… and Sam never came back to apologize for or even acknowledge his error.
That’s because it was not an error. It was a deliberate act of attempted misdirection. He’s not egregiously stupid, which would be his only defense.
This is probably a bit too much to ask given Sam’s disposition. I’d just be satisfied if he just stopped posting such sources with or without an apology.
Yeah, probably.
Yeah, this interaction was terrible and an illustration of why he was pitted.
…I don’t have a problem with Sam.
He says stuff that annoys me. He sometimes says things that I consider objectively wrong.
So I debate him. I offer a strong case that he’s got something wrong. IMHO I typically win. Perhaps, in his mind, that conclusion is incorrect. But it really doesn’t matter.
Maybe I’m just getting old. Or maybe its the state of the world today. But I really don’t see how posting a meme of a fat man with glasses labled “Sam Stone” is funny. This is just some petty school yard bullshit.
In a world where this year we are very close to transgender genocide officially becoming law in several states, where the disparity between rich and poor continues to grow, where America has more people locked up per capita than anywhere else in the world, where last year the police in America killed people at record levels, that healthcare is out of reach of the poor and the marginalised, that everyone is just pretending that the pandemic is over, that abortion is banned in multiple states, I really couldn’t care less that Sam was wrong in a thread about something that happened a few years ago.
The people on this board who argued that “defund the police” was bad are infinitely more annoying to me than anything that Sam has done, or Sam will ever do. I’m not arguing against the pitting. It’s just that: Sam has never done anything to me that’s deserving of the ire I’m seeing here. I’m as anti-his-opinion on pretty much everything, but every time I’ve engaged him and pointed out he has gotten something wrong, I’ve seen him respond in good faith.
Ummmm… I think you may have missed a fair bit of Sam’s oeuvre there.
Believe it or not, that’s not even a comprehensive list of the many times that Sam_Stone on these boards argued that “defund the police” was bad. Sometime within the past year he seems to have more or less stopped beating that drum so insistently, but I know of no reason to think he’s changed his mind about it.
…I’m not missing that.
Its just that: Sam posts exactly what one would expect a conservative poster to do. Would you expect anything less?
It’s the centrists who took up the mantle against the movement that did the damage. And when President Biden said that we needed to “fund the police” at the State of the Union it was clear that the centrists had won. They had control of the House, the Senate, the Executive, and they decided to send a clear message that “we are standing on the side of the police.”
I don’t think it’s possible to meaningfully isolate “centrist” opinion from right-wing propaganda such as Sam is constantly pushing.
…the thing is: the metric we are talking about here are “things that I personally find annoying.”
And I’m personally more annoyed by faux-progressives that pretend to be arguing for “reform” but are in reality arguing for the status quo infinitely more than a conservative arguing for what conservatives argue for.
It wasn’t Sam I was arguing with in the SF DA thread. It was “progressives” who agreed that “something had to be done” about the DA, and that the alt-right propagandist who wrote an article in the Atlantic “probably had a point”.