This is ridiculous Studies are always behind a paywall.

Thats why debate culture doesn’t work. The truth is, the type on the right doesn’t even care if they’re wrong. You could give them a thousand things proving them wrong and they won’t even read them.

You could convince a friend maybe but this requires a huge amount of trust and good faith on both sides.

However, ridicule does work because no one wants to join society’s punching bag. An example of this would include foot binding in China where the upper classes sent their children off to foreign universities who mocked relentlessly for being from the foot binding country. I would recommend the book “the honor code: how moral revolutions happen” for more examples. It’s a fantastic, easily accessible and short modern philosophy book by who I consider to be the greatest living philosopher (Kwame Anthony Appiah).

Realistically, people are sharing abstracts with one another and then citing their preferred, biased sources of information, whether it’s Al Jazeera, the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, Democracy Now, The New York Times, etc… In practice, this means relying mostly on secondary sources, with primary studies cherry-picked to support whatever point they are trying to make.

Ok… its a good story, but has anything like that ever actually happened beyond pretend narratives?

Worse yet, you read their article, and it doesn’t actually support their argument at all. The headline just kind of vaguely implies support.

This makes me so glad that Lemmy exists. Not only is it a great Reddit alternative, but there are infinitely more real and reasonable people here.

Nobody knows everything and we’ve all been exposed to propaganda at some point. It’s fantastic that there’s a place online where we can hold civil discussions and nicely fact check each other.

I’ve been fact checked a few times and it was great. On reddit it would have just been insults or propaganda from the other side. Let’s keep this going! ❤️

There was a thread about this not long ago.

A MAGat posted a meme of a riot and claimed it was in Portland.

People pointed out that the picture was actually a Right wing riot in a different place.

The MAGat responded that it didn’t matter, because it was a meme, not intended to be taken factually.

“Here’s a link to a ChatGPT-generated article on why horses are actually reptiles”

It’s so much easier to spread misinformation than truth. Just imagine the time investing vetting the studies to share in the response.

Arguing with an idiot is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are at chess, the pigeon will knock over all the pieces, crap on the board and then strut around like it won anyway

I bet you feel pretty foolish now.

Yes, but not for the reasons you think.

(btw, this is the first time I’m seeing someone copying xkcd’s absence of style)

The real problem is that “actual scientific journal” 's quality control is shit too.

There are no actually real standards on how to write a paper, or which citation style to use. Sources aren’t hyperlinked, if the source isn’t machine readable or just a book, that’s just an “eh, oopsie, go read it then”. There are no automatic setups that check for AI use, corruption and “cooperation” between companies or other “public benefit organizations”, study conducting bodies and potentially favorable outcomes.

If you look at any research institute or university, they will brag front and center about who much tradition they have, but they’re real quiet about how many studies they’re publishing and how many of them get reproduced. And don’t get me started on the whole publishing industry that somehow everyone has to pay into for everything and the people and institutions that actually do the work don’t see a dollar of the profits that those companies rake in.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t relatively even worse sources. That is definitely the case. But it’s very much not a “just believe the scientists” either.

Way too serious rant for a comic over.

It’s My Right to Hold This Turd

Neither will actually seriously examine the article/video/etc.

And that’s how everybody does it. We cite the term or authority and the rest is just a blurry assumption. The conversation is as deep as a rain puddle.

The dude is a dumbass and a dickhead. The girl is incredibly annoying and needs to get a life.

EDIT: I was wrong for this one, I apologise.