US Politics

Taylor has endorsed Harris.

92% thought Trump won, 4 % Harris and 4% unsure.

Time and time again it appears the Trump cult members can’t accept reality at all.

The web is full of videos titled "Trump/Peterson/Shapiro/Asshole-of-choice destroys woke libtard". Watch them and you see said "destroyer" actually embarrassing themselves with their argument and behaviour. A significant chunk of humanity has no idea how to construct a logical argument or even listen to one, seeing debate as a cage fight, not a discussion.

One of the more frustrating aspects of trying to talk to somebody like that is trying to do reasonable things like establishing common ground, only to see the sheer confusion on their face. They're wondering what kind of point you're trying to score, when that's the opposite of what you're trying to do.

The debate has (narrowly) nudged Harris into being the bookies' favourite. "According to the Election Betting Odds tracker, which consolidates betting numbers from four separate markets, bookmakers now believe Harris has a 51.8% chance of winning compared to Trump’s 46.9%. This is a major shift in favor of Harris, whose chances have risen by more than four and a half points in the past 24 hours, while Trump’s have plummeted by four." https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2024/09/11/harris-surges-past-trump-in-election-betting-markets-after-presidential-debate/

That is a hell of a shift over 48 hours or so, since she was only about one point ahead in the polls released at the start of the week.

Was it the debate or taytay?

Also in other news, 44% of Telegraph readers think Trump won the debate.

It's not poll data, it's bookmakers' odds.

If you want poll data you might enjoy this attempt in the FT to consolidate all the polls. It lets you play with outcomes in battleground states https://ig.ft.com/us-elections/2024/polls/

44% of Telegraph readers think Trump won the debate.

Given the maelstrom of raving wingnuttery that place is, that's equivalent to a rout by KH.

Was it the debate or taytay?

Judge for yourself

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_xjjwbRaVt/?igsh=Zml2c2w5eHlsMjcz

The web is full of videos titled "Trump/Peterson/Shapiro/Asshole-of-choic­e destroys woke libtard". Watch them and you see said "destroyer" actually embarrassing themselves with their argument and behaviour. A significant chunk of humanity has no idea how to construct a logical argument or even listen to one, seeing debate as a cage fight, not a discussion.

One of the more frustrating aspects of trying to talk to somebody like that is trying to do reasonable things like establishing common ground, only to see the sheer confusion on their face. They're wondering what kind of point you're trying to score, when that's the opposite of what you're trying to do.

A lot of the time, I feel like the difference between fuckwits and arseholes is just a matter of perspective.

Pro tip: never, ever click on anything in YouTube with even the most tangential relationship to Jordan fucking Peterson, or your feed will be polluted with the cunt for months.

A significant chunk of humanity has no idea how to construct a logical argument

Everyone should read this book.

I’d also recommend turning off your watch history on YouTube, after a few weeks you get a lovely black screen every time you load up.

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You're right, but the loss of the ability to discuss things across an ideological divide is not restricted to the alt-right (although that type of "X destroys libtard" video does seem to be). We seem to have to have lost sight of the fact that point of a discussion is to uncover truth and convince other people. That requires actually putting yourself in other people's shoes and recognising that "Reasonable people with good intentions can still disagree over matters of substance." There's no point in just restating arguments that are perfectly logical but that only hold if you already have the worldview that you already have.

In theory this is great, but when one side is out and out lying: intelligent design, climate science isn’t true, WMDs in Iraq, Covid is a hoax, performative cruelty to vulnerable people will fix society…discussion as if the other side has a point is conceding and validation of fantasy

When you say "lying", do you mean "deliberately stating as true something you know to be untrue", because there are people who genuinely believe, for example, that intelligent design is true. It's enormously difficult to discuss matters when someone appears to be fundamentally disengaged from facts and any rational process of building a worldview, but then some people will think that of views that we hold.

It's also worth noting that sliding from factual claims like WMDs in Iraq (there either were or there weren't) to something more complex and value-based like "performative cruelty to vulnerable people will fix society…" as if they require similar levels of analysis is part of the problem.

JD Vance on Taylor Swift: “I don't think many people are going to be
influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is disconnected from
the interests and the problems of most Americans.”

It reads like you think you have given a definitive list of "facts" which are true and unarguable. But Imo you've highlighted the weakness in your argument.

• intelligent design - this is a belief system. I assume you're talking about teaching it as science, but people who believe in it are not lying. The ones I've met have strong faith and this gives them a more rational basis on which to believe the creation story.
  
• climate science - agree.
  
• WMDs - good e.g. of why it's not necessarily 'lying'. A lot of that story is characterised by exaggeration and confirmation bias.
  
• Covid is a hoax - agree, but a lot of skeptics are on a scale and I think you can debate depending on where on that scale. And some points aren't lying - was it an accidental leak from a lab? Having a view on that doesn't strike me as lying, and TBH how any questions around that were shut down makes me uncomfortable.
  
• performative cruelty to vulnerable people will fix society - unsure what that means? Millions of people watch the early rounds of X Factor and professional fighting. I mean it's not a solution to fuel poverty, but it is pretty inate to most societies.
  

Overall I think asking questions is the best route rather than going straight in with your own different facts.

Why is climate change a hoax? Where is that information coming from? Who paid for that data? Does anyone have an interest in maintaining fossil fuel dependency? etc.

Thanks for the recommendation.

https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.247216/page/4/mode/1up

I’d also recommend turning off your watch history on YouTube, after a few weeks you get a lovely black screen every time you load up.

My feed is mostly pretty good, I just wish it was a) able to notice that I'm interested in more than a handful of subjects, and b) less affected by short-term digressions from the stuff I normally watch.

Oh, and more diversity in the level of popularity of the channels which show up would be good.

Presumably that's Vance admitting Donald isn't actually a billionaire...

In the twelve hours after her Instagram post in support of Harris, over three hundred thousand people followed the link Taylor Swift included to register to vote.

Seen this, but how many people are actually paying attention/listening to this vs taytay, was what I meant. Bookies odds show you end result but correlating to cause oftentimes difficult and as @andyp has pointed out TS has some clout..

Where are the memes dudes? You should be ashamed of yourselves attempting rational thought 🤣🤣🤣🤣 about these chumps. Trump, Harris, Vance & Walz are all grifting morons completely accountable to their donors and PAC funders.

Kamala the Clown..

*We invested an additional $12 billion into community banks, because we know community banks are in the community, and understand the needs and desires of that community as well as the talent and capacity of community."

“It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day. Every day it is time for us to agree that there are things and tools that are available to us to slow this thing down.”

She told Robert Costa, "I think that, to be very honest with you, I do believe that we should have rightly believed, but we certainly believe that certain issues are just settled. Certain issues are just settled.*

Donald the dunce..

*And this is really not a news conference, it’s not a speech, it’s not anything, it’s just we’re sort of — it’s a celebration because we have something that just worked out. It worked out. We went through hell unfairly. Did nothing wrong. Did nothing wrong. I’ve done things wrong in my life, I will admit. Not purposely, but I’ve done things wrong. But this is what the end result is. [Cheers and applause]

We can take that home, honey, maybe we’ll frame it. It’s the only good headline I’ve had in the Washington Post. Every paper is the same, does anybody have them, because they’re all like that and I appreciate that. Some of the people here have been incredible warriors, they’re warriors. And there’s nothing from a legal standpoint. This is a political thing, and every time I say this is unfair, let’s go to court, they say, sir, you can’t go to court, this is politics. And we were treated unbelievably unfairly, and you have to understand we first went through Russia, Russia, Russia. It was all bullshit.

We then went through the Mueller report, and they should have come back one day later. They didn’t, they came back two years later after lives were ruined, after people went bankrupt, after people lost all their money. People came to Washington to help other people. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I’d say. They came, one or two or three people in particular, but many people.*

I should have been more explicit…

Intelligent Design is a falsehood. To say ah well it’s this idiot’s belief system therefore we must give it as much credence as peer-reviewed science and have a debate is patronising the idiot and damaging scientific study.

WMDs it was quickly established there were no WMDs. Blair holding up a printout of a pdf* that was from a forged document. Was a lie.

*the yellowcake pdf was the first result when you googled WMD in Iraq evidence about 6 months before Blair waved it around. By the time Tony was basing an invasion on it, it was virtually a meme

yellowcake

Not made up, it's a scientific fact.

You're right, but the loss of the ability to discuss things across an ideological divide is not restricted to the alt-right

True, and I wasn't saying so either, just using examples relevant to the context. There are plenty of people out there who share some of my views (just not on intellectual debate) who I'd hate to have arguing a case I agree with.

Was indifferent to swift, but she seems to know how to spread her wealth but she is no dolly parton.