Candelestine, 1 year ago

It’s evolved. His understanding of anti-science attacks seems to be of those leveled by the older GOP, the ones that only wanted their businesses to be free to make the max amount of money.

However, that same tool of generalized chaos, confusion and eventually, disgust and hatred from that sustained confusion, are exactly how you increase the chances of a fascist strongman rising to power in a place that otherwise wouldn’t have happened. Because it helps make people afraid.

This is a case where the genie has been let out of the bottle by a bunch of fools, and now its out, and we all might pay dearly. With a lot more than cutting of funding and support, we’re sliding towards mass violence, as seen in previous centuries.

I think, when possible, we need to present our evidence for our positions to the public in ways that are as hard to refute as possible. One way is numerically, particularly with nice visualizations included.

Because honestly, they just don’t believe us. The problem has continued to worsen, and now people have not just opponents, but enemies. The preferred approach for actual, honest-to-god enemies is usually destruction, because emotions start running things. We can still appeal to rationality, but we need things that are as hard to distrust as possible. Using narrative was a great idea 10 years ago, but has been losing effectiveness.

Can we quantify potential benefits for the things we do, in ways someone with only a HS level of education can understand?