A few thoughts about January 6, 2021

ObsidianJones

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This is what we'll be talking about for a while. This pretty much shot dead the hopes that 2021 will not be such a trash fire as 2020, but we must keep hopes.

But I want to have a specific thread about the day. Our new 9/11, where the unthinkable once again happened on American Shores. But this time, the terror came from Americans.

-My first thought is that Biden should Make January 6, 2021 an official day of remembrance. Call it "The Day of Conviction" or something like that. Let it forever be remembered that we can't take our speech for granted, we can not just allow baseless accusations for brownie points rule the day, and we can never allow anyone to forget that we went to anarchy due to hurt feelings.

-My second thought is that I'm so uneasy with how lightly people are taking this. I had a few mocking "I guess you're going to add this to your reasons of why you're moving to Canada"

You're Fucking Right I am.

This was an attempt at a coup because it was much more beneficial for pundits and rabblerousers to lie and delude the public into thinking their voices where stolen when in truth they simply lost. Even the politicians who tried to egg this on for votes mostly rescinded their accusations due to realizing no one is going to be spared from their untrue rhetoric.

But sadly, not all. A class that had only 2/3 actually grasp the material, the teacher and the school would be found wanting. What does it say about a damn republic that even a small segment of the population will insist on the lies to keep their little vestiges of power EVEN when there's blood that has been split?

-My final thought is a little deeper one.


Is this moment on par with finally televising the racial treatment of 1963 civil rights America to the entire world? No longer is this just your dad or just your crazy aunt. We can not pretend this will go away because it's just a few people that are like this, and they probably don't believe it that much. Or that they won't cause harm.

No longer can we sit and say we're uncomfortable with confrontation so we can let this go unchecked. And no longer can we allow people to try to "polite us" into silence by saying they don't want to make this political.

It goes far beyond your dinner table or your break room. This was an insurrection. Emboldened by silence. It's not just your uncle. It's the nation.

So, Nation (and the rest of the World because we were a little loud in our disagreement), we're confronted with the truth of it. How has it affected you? How SHOULD it affect us all?
 

Kwak

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Delusional thinking and where it leads, how to avoid it and what can be said to be 'true' has been a concern of mine for a while when I had to deal with my own spiral into nonsense.
When you're a lone individual it's easier to eventually be honest with yourself; when you're part of a group zeitgeist dedicated to delusion it is much harder to break away from that.
There has to be a personal moral line that the group pushes across that will shock you out of the collective stupor, but the personal moral line of people who voluntarily choose to support a character like Trump is so low that that awakening is unlikely to happen anytime soon without a serious escalation.
 

thebobmaster

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If there is one thing I hope we learn from this, it is the following: never, EVER find yourself saying "There's no way that X could do Y. He'd never get away with it."
 
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CM156

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When you're a lone individual it's easier to eventually be honest with yourself; when you're part of a group zeitgeist dedicated to delusion it is much harder to break away from that.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals."

These last few years have made me incredibly frustrated with conspiracy theorists. I used to think they could be argued out of the positions they held. I no longer hold that belief.

The only positive from the past few months is that the courts might finally get to determine whether or not a president can pardon himself. It's been an open question for decades now.

EDIT: Sorry, didn't mean to sign my post there. Did so absent mindedly like I was signing an email.
 

Agema

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These last few years have made me incredibly frustrated with conspiracy theorists. I used to think they could be argued out of the positions they held. I no longer hold that belief.
If conspiracy theorists were rational, they wouldn't be conspiracy theorists. People believe things because of wider psychology - emotion, ego, attachments, etc. - not facts and logic.

One thing I have noticed over the years is that the strongest believers in their own rationality are not very good at reasoning, and even worse at general self-awareness.
 
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MrCalavera

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These last few years have made me incredibly frustrated with conspiracy theorists. I used to think they could be argued out of the positions they held. I no longer hold that belief.
Welcome to the club. Although, i used to think they're more like a harmless fringe you don't need to worry about.

Also, congrats on 20/20 hindsight and changing your avi to Pence years before it ended up like this.
 
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CM156

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If conspiracy theorists were rational, they wouldn't be conspiracy theorists. People believe things because of wider psychology - emotion, ego, attachments, etc. - not facts and logic.
One of the frustrations I have is that in my field of work, there are actual rules for argumentation. And how if you make a claim, you have to provide actual evidence of it. And that since there's a record of what you've said, moving goalposts after failing to prove your point is much harder.

Conspiracy theorists don't work with those restraints.
 
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ObsidianJones

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The new 9/11? A bunch of idiots broke in to the Capitol Building. Compared to 3000 people dying in a terrorist attack.

I suspect that people would see this differently if Antifa had done the same thing following a Trump victory.
If I compared it to a death toll, you would have a very valid point. But as I already said, " where the unthinkable once again happened on American Shores"

A bunch of 'idiots' broke into the capitol building with attempts to disrupt United States process, spurned on by the American President. This is the unthinkable part, where we're left with feelings of uncertainty, anger, and levels of distrust that will mark the tone of American Politics and Interaction going forward. Something that has never happened in most of our lifetimes, with the rage to go along with it.

Or have you not seen a news feed since that point?

If you're only metric of if something is pivotal is a death count, you walk a dark path. We're talking about trust in our elected officials, our President, and our fellow citizens. That is a monumental thing, no matter how the pundits want to refocus it.
 
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Breakdown

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If I compared it to a death toll, you would have a very valid point. But as I already said, " where the unthinkable once again happened on American Shores"

A bunch of 'idiots' broke into the capitol building with attempts to disrupt United States process, spurned on by the American President. This is the unthinkable part, where we're left with feelings of uncertainty, anger, and levels of distrust that will mark the tone of American Politics and Interaction going forward. Something that has never happened in most of our lifetimes, with the rage to go along with it.

Or have you not seen a news feed since that point?

If you're only metric of if something is pivotal is a death count, you walk a dark path. We're talking about trust in our elected officials, our President, and our fellow citizens. That is a monumental thing, no matter how the pundits want to refocus it.
I've seen plenty of news footage from America in the last year. Police stations and court houses burned to the ground, stores looted, mobs roaming the streets, people being dragged from cars and beaten up. This just seems like a natural progression.
 
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Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
The new 9/11? A bunch of idiots broke in to the Capitol Building. Compared to 3000 people dying in a terrorist attack.

I suspect that people would see this differently if Antifa had done the same thing following a Trump victory.
Considering the alt-right is already saying the people who broke in are Antifa.

But this is way different then burning cop cars and government buildings, this is literally trying to overturn the constitution. This is more insidious than 9/11.
 
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tstorm823

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These last few years have made me incredibly frustrated with conspiracy theorists. I used to think they could be argued out of the positions they held.
You can argue someone out of an understanding of facts. You cannot argue someone out of their beliefs. Beliefs change when the people who hold them want to. You can argue against a conspiracy and genuinely shift the person's understanding of the facts without making a dent in the central belief. If someone has a belief based only on some presented facts, you may change their mind, and some people might be moved to change beliefs because they put more value in defending the argument than holding their beliefs, but for the most part people cannot be argued out of beliefs. This isn't just conspiracy theorists, this applies to almost everyone.

To change someone's beliefs, you gotta make them want to do that themselves. You can't argue that the facts of Q are ridiculous if someone believes strongly in it, they'll move the facts around without conceding a bit. You have to make them want to not believe in it. And if you're arguing with someone, the only way I know to change someone's mind during the argument is to present the facts WHILE simultaneously getting them to admire you. You have to be someone who believes differently than then and make them want to be like you.
 

Trunkage

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You can argue someone out of an understanding of facts. You cannot argue someone out of their beliefs. Beliefs change when the people who hold them want to. You can argue against a conspiracy and genuinely shift the person's understanding of the facts without making a dent in the central belief. If someone has a belief based only on some presented facts, you may change their mind, and some people might be moved to change beliefs because they put more value in defending the argument than holding their beliefs, but for the most part people cannot be argued out of beliefs. This isn't just conspiracy theorists, this applies to almost everyone.

To change someone's beliefs, you gotta make them want to do that themselves. You can't argue that the facts of Q are ridiculous if someone believes strongly in it, they'll move the facts around without conceding a bit. You have to make them want to not believe in it. And if you're arguing with someone, the only way I know to change someone's mind during the argument is to present the facts WHILE simultaneously getting them to admire you. You have to be someone who believes differently than then and make them want to be like you.
I dont know about the admiring bit. Most of the time the only way to get them to admire you is to agree with everything they said... which is counterproductive
 

ObsidianJones

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I've seen plenty of news footage from America in the last year. Police stations and court houses burned to the ground, stores looted, mobs roaming the streets, people being dragged from cars and beaten up. This just seems like a natural progression.
Just last year? And only those things? What about the inciting events? George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery?

What about the incidents afterwards? Casey Goodson Jr, Daniel Prude, et al?

What about the years previous? Unite the Right rallies, People being run over by cars, Churches Burned down, Innocent people being run down and shot like animals, the Hate Crime Surge since Trump came into office, and especially during the pandemic, Police Brutality, Trump downplaying the rampant Police Brutality that occurred while trying to suppress their voting ability at the same time, and etc.

You're right. It does seem like a natural progression. But not from the side you might be referring...
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
You can argue someone out of an understanding of facts. You cannot argue someone out of their beliefs. Beliefs change when the people who hold them want to. You can argue against a conspiracy and genuinely shift the person's understanding of the facts without making a dent in the central belief. If someone has a belief based only on some presented facts, you may change their mind, and some people might be moved to change beliefs because they put more value in defending the argument than holding their beliefs, but for the most part people cannot be argued out of beliefs. This isn't just conspiracy theorists, this applies to almost everyone.

To change someone's beliefs, you gotta make them want to do that themselves. You can't argue that the facts of Q are ridiculous if someone believes strongly in it, they'll move the facts around without conceding a bit. You have to make them want to not believe in it. And if you're arguing with someone, the only way I know to change someone's mind during the argument is to present the facts WHILE simultaneously getting them to admire you. You have to be someone who believes differently than then and make them want to be like you.
I dont know about the admiring bit. Most of the time the only way to get them to admire you is to agree with everything they said... which is counterproductive
Cracked has a really interesting article from a used to be 9/11 truther about how he got into the conspiracy and how he ended up getting out of it.
 

Zeraki

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"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals."

These last few years have made me incredibly frustrated with conspiracy theorists. I used to think they could be argued out of the positions they held. I no longer hold that belief.
I learned that back in the early-mid 2000's with 9/11 truthers.

The only good way to deal with a conspiracy theorist is to ignore them.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
I learned that back in the early-mid 2000's with 9/11 truthers.

The only good way to deal with a conspiracy theorist is to ignore them.
I mean its fun to think we can ignore them, but they can vote also and ignoring them kinda leads to trump. Someone with strange charisma that tells them they are the hero these people have been waiting for and can't outright say he agrees with all their conspiracies but he will wink at them. You can't ignore them but you can't really argue against them, its a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.
 

CaitSeith

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I learned that back in the early-mid 2000's with 9/11 truthers.

The only good way to deal with a conspiracy theorist is to ignore them.
Unfortunately when the conspiracy theorist became POTUS, that was impossible. For the sake of transparency, the media had to broadcast all the insane theories being said, no matter how unhinged from reality they were.
 
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CaitSeith

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It certainly goes along with 9/11 and Pearl Harbor as an event where America received an unexpected wake up call. The questions is: will they pick up the phone?
 
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