The “Debate Me Bro” Grift: How Trolls Weaponized The Marketplace Of Ideas https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/17/the-debate-me-bro-grift-how-trolls-weaponized-the-marketplace-of-ideas/
I've ranted about the retreat into informal reasoning because formal reasoning doesn't seem bushy enough to handle all the vagaries we need for wild type reasoning. A friend of mine who leans heavily to the right, but thankfully could not vote for Cheeto Jesus, made the comment that Kirk was "just trying to talk to people". I regret that I didn't try to correct him. I did remind him that I spent a lot of my off time in college surrounded by very aggressive Christians, trying to tell them how wrong they were. I mean, anyone who engages in that sort of thing in a place like Texas (where we were) should *know* they're likely to get shot. I was fine with the risk. And so should Kirk have been. Anywya, it seems to me his assassination is tightly analogous to the assassination of the United Health CEO. The *damage* Kirk has done to discourse is analogous to the damage people like Thompson do to health (not healthcare, but health). Is it the same? No, of course not. Is it analogous? Yes, I think so. And I know lots of people here are tolerant of Sabine. But she's right there in the pit of vipers with Kirk. This article may help put that in perspective: How the New Atheists Joined the MAHA War on Science https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/new-atheists-maha-war-on-science.html But any of us are susceptible to the attractor. And once you're in it, *how* do you extract yourself? p.s. As usual, Rebecca is fearless: https://skepchick.org/2025/09/charlie-kirk-and-the-empathy-paradox/ -- ¡sıɹƎ ןıɐH ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ ὅτε oi μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχϑροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὰ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα σώσω. .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
