Inspired by a GQ thread about anti-vaxxers and too much browsing RationalWiki. While on your travels you happen to be staying in a hotel that’s hosting a woo convention. There’s a fault with the elevator and you’re going to be stuck in there for several hours, at least.
Two questions - if you had to pick one of them to be stuck with you, who would you pick?
Question the second - you’re going to be stuck in there with all of them, but I can remove one. Who would you not want to be there?
IMHO, I’d rate those as follows, from least-obnoxious to most-obnoxious:
[ul][li] A practicing psychic/medium.[/li][li] A young Earth creationist.[/li][li] An anti vaxxer.[/li][li] A 9/11 truther.[/li][li] A Holocaust denier.[/ul][/li]I base this ordering on the likelihood of each class of nutter being totally unhinged stark-raving bigoted hate-spewing racist jackholes. One could probably have a civil conversation (even if somewhat irrational) with the psychic/medium or the YEC-dude. Engaging them in debate about their preferred woo is probably optional, with some possibility of remaining on a civil discourse level. In any case, they’re relatively harmless nuts, so I’m sort-of okay with them believing whatever they want.
The anti-vaxxer, maybe, if you don’t get him all worked up on the subject. Here, you start getting into nutters who are substantially harmful and somewhat crazy. (“Somewhat crazy” meaning, in comparison to the truther and Holocaust denier.) A discussion might remain civil or start getting angry. Their conspiracy theories about Big Pharma and Big Gummint don’t quite reach the unhinged level of the truthers and deniers.
These three classes probably aren’t all that heavily crazy into mad conspiracy theories.
The 9/11 truther would more likely be spouting racist and hateful shit, full of conspiracy theories. The Holocaust deniers are probably the worst. These groups are the nuttiest lunatic hateful irrational CT-spouting jackholes of the listed groups. Engaging them (or rather, getting engaged) in debate is probably neither optional, nor likely to remain civil.
I’ve become increasingly intolerant of woo as I’ve aged, to the point where today I wouldn’t care who was in the elevator because I’d tell them to STFU from the start.
But, 15 years ago? I’d keep the psychic just so I could point out that if she were truly gifted she’d know I thought she was a nut. I’d boot the holocaust denier because duh.
Given my aversion to “Johnny One Note” types who have a cause and insist on forcing it on everyone around him, I’d choose the psychic. The few I’ve encountered may be a bit weird, but they are usually gentle types and don’t have an ax to grind.
All of them would be fairly obnoxious in prolonged confinement as they probably wouldn’t be able to back up any of their claims. I voted to get locked in with the psychic because I’d be able to say things like “Wow, who could have predicted this? Oh, yeah, you could have.”
I don’t know which of them I’d exclude from the group bonding experience, but the anti-vaxxer would have to be there so I could say “Gee, I hope we’ve all had our shots…”
Interesting…I think I’d be in the minority of 1 in picking the Holocaust denier. While it’s undoubtedly the most hateful I’d be fascinated in seeing how they got that wrong and hear what type of revisionism they’d have to spin. I imagine it being like talking with someone who didn’t believe D-Day occurred.
On booting out I’ll probably also be in a minority in booting out the Young Earther. The others at least attempt a paper-thin veneer of being evidence based, but eventually with a YEC you’re just gonna bump into ‘it’s my faith’, and where do you go from there?
Q1: the psychic. At least with her there’s the possibility she knows she’s full of shit, and one-on-one in a stressful situation she’d be willing to lay off the act and just be a normal.
The others, there is no reasoning with them no matter what. Fuck that noise.
Q2: it really doesn’t matter. It’s gonna be a closet of insane no matter who you get rid of.
I would think that an anti-vaxxer might be amenable to rational argument. But the psychic might be second choice. Don’t leave me anywhere near a holocaust denier. You wouldn’t want to find a mangled body when the elevator is finally opened.
The YEC and I will have a lot more in common. I’m actually sympathetic to the views and have a take on interpreting some things that would give us something constructive to talk about. I even kind of enjoy talking about (Just for the record, I’m willing to concede that things both look and work like it’s an old Earth driven by natural processes of evolution, but my position of faith is not that simple.)
As for who to boot… it’s a little hard to say. Ultimately, I pick the Holocaust denier. While the others can be annoyingly wrong, at least they are not hatefully wrong. Holocaust deniers are rarely just taking an alternative interpretation of the facts, which is something I could at least explore. In my experience, they’re twisting the facts to justify their pre-existing race-based hatred and I can’t do anything with that.
The 9/11 CTs are a close second, but usually because they almost always buy into a boatload of other BS. Every one I’ve met have also bought into at least one other fiction about the banking system, government surveillance, Illuminati/Freemasons, aliens, the military/industrial complex and/or chemtrails. It’s not a stand-alone delusion.
If I have to pick one to hang out with I’d go with the psychic at least it would entertaining getting cold read and having them use their powers.
On the other hand I’d kick the anti vaxer off of the elevator at least they way I wouldn’t walk away with whooping cough or some other disease after the torment was over. The rest of them it would be entertaining getting them to argue with each other.
I’m going to need something to pass the time and debunking YEC is probably not a bad way to spend it, even though I realize the chance of success is very low. Anti-Vaxer would be my second choice, because its just going to boil down to “yes those studies are valid”, vs “no they aren’t.” and so less interesting.
Boot out the Holocaust denier. With all of the other delusions it’s possible that the person professing them is a decent person outside this one subject, but Holocaust denial is based on pure hatred and I can’t imagine anyone professing it being the sort of person I would like to spend any time with at all.
What I like about the psychic as an argument is that their predictions are testable.
What’s my favorite color? When is this elevator going to be fixed? What number am I thinking of? Etc. If they get it right, you have something further to test (or you can find the flaws in their experiment). If they get it wrong, you can ask for their amusing explanation of why they think they got it wrong.
