Sam is the same way in a wide variety of political and economic topics. And it goes back to the question - on how many topics does he have to be actively dishonest where you have to start questioning his insights everywhere.
It’s similar to a tweet about Elon Musk that I’m going to badly paraphrase:
People told me Elon Musk was an expert on electric cars, and I didn’t know anything about electric cars so I assumed he was. Then they said the same about rockets and I again assumed he was. Now they’re saying the same about programming. But I do know programming and I know the things he’s saying are nonsense, so now I’m questioning how much he knew about electric cars and rockets.
By actively dishonest are you suggesting he does not believe things he himself posted, or just that one might be credulous to believe disinformation (which hardly seems unique to Mr. Stone)? Are you saying he is mendacious if he can’t defend a point against counterarguments?
I think he’s dishonest in that he misrepresents his own cites and also misrepresents counterarguments to his points that he can’t think of a way to engage with honestly without conceding the point.
Sometimes he screws up because he doesn’t bother to read what he cites, or doesn’t look into his source. Other times he just says things he knows to be false. I think he does more of the former than the latter, but does enough of the latter to not trust his motives.
When he was caught lying it was for really obvious things, we’re talking about claiming someone said something they didn’t, or claiming he never said something that he actually did. Stuff that goes beyond laziness or carelessness, but was clearly deliberate.
Aww, Sam is just helping us fight ignorance by posting cites and forcing someone else to read it to see if the cite actually says what he claims it does. If one of us doesn’t read his cites, then nobody would have, Sam himself included.
I can forgive someone being too lazy to read their own cite once if they own up to it, realize how much of a fool it made them look like and hopefully did at least skim their cite but didn’t read it closely enough to know that it in fact says the opposite of what they wanted it to. Sam hasn’t done this once, he does it all the time and without any of those caveats. He’s done it so many times that you can’t count on Sam having read anything past the headline. It makes him less than useless as a source of facts and information in anything he’s debating, he’s an active source of disinformation about any given topic.
I have a really well thought out reply to your post, but am off to lunch shortly. Perhaps you could do some research to find some stuff that disproves your points. Thanks. < s >
If you would like a nice calm SDMB, there’s a simple fix: Stop attacking me. I have never pitted you, or anyone else in these threads. I have always been civil with you outside the pit. I am here to do what everyone else is here to do - have fun, have some debate, and put my own thoughts out there.
That this triggers you into a rage is really not my problem, it’s yours. Stop pitting me and attacking me, and this place will be lovely an peaceful. Keep it up, and I’ll push back. And apparently you don’t like that.
Also, I don’t respond to heckler’s vetos. Every time you lash out at me and demand that I leave, it makes me more determined to stay. So you might want to find another tactic for your de-platforming efforts.
I don’t consider pointing out your repeated falsehoods “attacking you”, but if you want to avoid it, stop repeating (and linking to) falsehoods as if they’re fact.
The Biden impeachment thread is somehow, I think, my first tête-à-tête with Sam_Stone so I’m giving him nearly full benefit of the doubt. I normally tune out of all Hunter Biden related things so I sort of have an open mind on it all.
Those of you who have concluded he is not worth the trouble - why not just ignore him?
His misinformation deserves to be countered, especially on this web site.
I very rarely put a person on ignore. I only have a couple of people. I do so when a person has admitted to trolling, or is posting in such a way to deliberately antagonize me (in other words, trolling without admitting it). Sam doesn’t do that. I do not think Sam is a troll at all, for all of my criticisms of him.
Also, let’s be honest, sometimes he posts stuff I agree with, or at least he posts something I disagree with that’s interesting and not total bullshit. I don’t think he’s 100% a bad poster. When he does post something decent, I want to see it.
I think the answer to that, based on my recollections of a number of other topics, is that his insights are useful on non-controversial topics where such insights are not subject to being skewed by his bizarre political views.
He’s responsible to a large degree, but it’s not 100%. Sam is not responsible for the level of rancor that sometimes surfaces in this ongoing demonstration of mob psychology.
I went back to the original posts and I have to agree. I gave Sam credit for coming around on climate science, but what he posted just two months ago is complete bullshit. He’s basically implying that science in general is unreliable these days, especially when it’s “political”, and therefore climate science especially can’t be trusted because everyone in it has an agenda and bucking the consensus would be career-ending. The reality is that climate change deniers have carved out quite lucrative careers for themselves outside of the scientific mainstream, and the reason they get slammed by real scientists for the crap they publish (usually in low-quality journals if they get published at all) is because their work is provably, clearly, blatantly wrong, often almost unbelievably bad.
