FACT vs OPINION

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by SalingSue

They are sooo full of it and very left biased and left owned.

Half the time they call something false or partially false, yet their description reinstates why it’s true.

Which ones? Link to them please.

Reality is not left-biased.

[Thumbs Up]

Originally Posted by Thumbs Up

You are right, it is tough being King. I do have one last idea though. I could have a dialogue with them. Maybe they have a point and seatbelts could be made even safer. Maybe offer to some add some side impact airbags and proper headrests. If these two guys are able to convince all of those people that easily then just maybe they actually have a valid point. Maybe the seatbelts that my accountant sold them are defective and should be inspected!

NEWS FLASH!
We have worked out the problems with the seatbelts. They are defective due to some minor toxicity issues. The big problem though (and the reason the two guys were able to get so much attention) was that (perhaps due to faulty instructions) they were maiming and killing babies. We have now obtained proper baby seats for all of the cars and the problem is solved. (Except for some minor toxicity issues).

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by SalingSue

They are sooo full of it and very left biased and left owned.
Half the time they call something false or partially false, yet their description reinstates why it’s true.

If so, then you should be easily able to refute their verdict, using their narrative (description).
As with most of your assertions, you fail to argue your claims, either through fact or reasoning.

Per the original thesis, this qualifies your statements as unsubstantiated opinion.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Reality is not left-biased.

As a leftist, I believe that reality is mostly left biased.
At least, that's my opinion (unsubstantiated HERE).

[Jason Flare]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Which ones
? Link to them please.

Reality is not left-biased.

This one:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cd...ty-statistics/

Of course you’d have to read it.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Jason Flare

This one:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cd...ty-statistics/
Of course you’d have to read it.

Where does Snopes go wrong? Is it their description/analysis:
- How the virus attacks the body and can become deadly...
- How the CDC compiles COVID-19 death toll data...
- Their description of the CDC’s process for analyzing those death certificates that list COVID-19...
- or just their final analysis & conclusion?

Were their errors, of fact, or of reasoning?

[Jason Flare]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Where does Snopes go wrong? Is it their description/analysis:
- How the virus attacks the body and can become deadly...
- How the CDC compiles COVID-19 death toll data...
- Their description of the CDC’s process for analyzing those death certificates that list COVID-19...
- or just their final analysis & conclusion?

Were their errors, of fact, or of reasoning?

Stop playing the fool here.

I assumed you were smarter.

The part I like best is when Snopes says the CDC fueled their own conspiracy:

“ However, fueling the conspiracy theory, the CDC web page stated:”

LOL.

[Jason Flare]

They had a problem with “Quietly” while they were at it. LOL.

“Lastly, we looked for any evidence to confirm or deny that the CDC attempted to “quietly” adjust its mortality statistics under the public’s radar.”

[Martin Sea]

Truth cannot be manipulated,the existence of the force of gravity is true.
Science instead can be manipulated,science is scientists being paid to do some kind of research,not very seldom those who paid did not like the result.
But Truth needs to be believed also.
It all comes down to what we believe.
Believe means "put our trust into" something or someone we trust to tell the truth or do what they say they will do.Only time shows the outcome.We can out our trust in things that have shown in the past to work.
Truth,Believe/Faith and opinion can be one and the same thing for a person.
These are decisions we make for our lives

[Luv2Sail2020]

Originally Posted by GordMay

FACT vs OPINION, Belief, or Prejudice.

People think that I'm stupid,

Follow the science. What a bunch of bull. You talk like science can always be believed. Like when the Scientists of the day thought the Earth was the center of the universe.
A fact in science is defined as an observation that has been confirmed so many times that scientists can, for all intents and purposes, accept it as "True".

Has what you are deeming as 'The Science' actually been confirmed as true? As fact? By many scientists? And it has been observed so many times the same? Seems to me the science lately keeps changing.

Here is how science deals with FACT-

Fact
"When you drop a pencil, it falls to the ground."

This one is pretty straightforward, but it's got a big caveat. Remember that in science, a fact is an observation that's been confirmed so many times that scientists can, for all intents and purposes, accept it as "true." But everything in science comes with a level of uncertainty, so nothing is ever scientifically "true" beyond a shadow of a doubt. You could say that "all swans are white" is a fact, but there's always the chance you could see a black swan and throw that fact out the window. Likewise, you could say it's a fact that every time you let go of a pencil, it will drop to the floor, but science leaves room for the vanishingly, infinitesimally small chance that it might not.

[Gingersnap]

What does this topic have to do with the boat? Don’t we have enough to do on our boat? Go and enjoy sailing ⛵️

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

That's BS. Mythology from back in the spring that lives forever in the covid-skeptic echo-chambers.

People can live for months and years with many co-morbidities. If one catches covid and dies, and they wouldn't have necessarily died if they didn't catch covid, that's a covid death.

Sure, and that's why if you read my comments, I co-morbidities are at best a very high level review that only hints but doesn't tell us what they died of. I suggested doctors make an assessment of the proximate cause of death and where it's not clear, indicate such...and then present the results as a range, rather than an absolute value based on even the slightest possibility that corona could be involved.

But trying to claim it's mythology is just an attempt to shut down discussion when you can't support your position.

[bvimatelot]

Hell's Bells fellas - This is a Sailing and Cruising Site No? I almost prefer Guns or Anchors or cat v mono threads!

By the way...if anyone needs their boat shifted, let me know...I'm told I'm quite good at it...

With apologies for inexcusable thread drift/hijack/whatever. Tony

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Singularity

As King, you are paying them.

They don't us a PR department, rather they use the internet and smart phone system that you paid for 5 years ago. They don't need a PR department, they are just good at talking, figuring out how to convince people to not wear seatbelts.

Now, these 2 subjects are honest people. They may/may not think that you are trying to kill them by your order to wear seatbelts. But at any rate, in their hearts they believe that seatbelts cause more harm than good, and, because of their efforts, more people die, it's hurting your business, and your wealth.

Your country is losing competitive advantage compared to the other 3 refrigerator-making countries. All of your subjects are starting to grumble that things are not what they used to be. That in the other countries people seem to be able to take more vacations, not have to work as hard.

So what are you going to do? You've exposed the 2 guys, but this hasn't changed anything...people are still not wearing seatbelts because of these 2 (legitimately) good-hearted guys.

So what do you do next? The 2 guys mean well after all.

This is a rather strangely cast scenario. It assumes:

1. The population are irredeemably stupid; and

2. You have a monopoly on truth (i.e. the "two guys" don't have any point and you have no questions about your own beliefs); and

3. There is no point in discussing it -- i.e., although you have a monopoly on truth, you don't have arguments which can convince anyone;

4. There is some kind of overwhelming power of "two guys and the internet", which cannot be counteracted.

Cast like this, the scenario invites a totalitarian response -- knock off the two guys (silence, imprison, kill, whatever); force the population against their will to do the right thing.

In real life, what we do with seat belts around the whole world is we require their use, and we fine people who don't use them. Job done. This is not controversial policy -- even fairly hard core libertarians support seat belt laws because there simply isn't any serious controversy about their efficacy, and there aren't any significant downsides or material infringement to individual liberty to using them. The very rare case of a seat belt causing more harm than good doesn't invalidate the well-established case for using them, uncontroversially supported by any kind of science you try to apply to the question.

I believe what we are really talking about here are anti-vaxxers, not some hypothetical and non-existent seat belt skeptics. Indeed vaccines (in general) are somewhat like seat belts -- highly effective and with very small risks to the vaccinated person. Unlike the situation with seat belts, however, we do have a certain number of -- in my opinion deluded people who believe objectively incorrect information about the risks of vaccination. What do you do with them?

1. Supress the spread of objectively incorrect information?

2. Punish people for spreading it?

3. Force people to be vaccinated against their will?

Those are policy questions, the answer to which, reveal the character of the community and its political system.

In Nazi Germany or the USSR, you wouldn't hesitate -- you would just do all three, job done.

In a society which takes seriously freedom of expression and respects the population to make up its own mind -- essential for any democracy, or anything even vaguely resembling democracy, indeed for any non-totalitarian society -- it's not so simple:

* You can't stop people from having and spreading their own opinions, even if those opinions are crazy. This right is a cornerstone of a liberal society.

* If you insist on your own monopoly of truth, and refuse to engage in dialogue, you will exacerbate the schism and the culture war and just make the anti-vaxxers dig in their heels and refuse to think or consider other information. Because that is what you are doing -- refusing to engage in dialogue. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. This is how you create a "post truth" society, and this leads nowhere good.

* So what you have to do is to respectfully engage the public with good information, based on facts and logic. Only with respectful dialogue can you restore the standing of facts and logic and restore some kind of public trust. Once you start waging culture war against "deplorables", suppressing opinions, censoring social media, you are in the trenches, you are in a war, no one is listening to anyone else, and it won't stop until one side simply suppresses the other. Nothing democratic will ever happen under such conditions -- society falls apart, next stop dictatorship.

What concerns specifically this pandemic -- in the U.S., we have the power to force people to get vaccinated if this is a compelling necessity of public health, just like we have the power to pass laws forcing people to use seat belts. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905). Considering the fact that the vaccines are turning out to be 95% effective, I think forcing people in this particular case will not be crucial to stopping the pandemic, and would be a terrible, disastrous idea politically.

If you don't want to end up losing your democracy, there is just no choice other than engaging in respectful dialogue, offering good information based on facts and logic, earning the trust of society, restoring the standing of facts and logic. You cannot get down into the mud with fake news and conspiracy theories. You can't form truth commissions and legally arbitrate what is truth, and force this on the people. You have to trust the population to figure it out. They will never trust you, if you don't trust them. Without this trust, there can be no democracy. And it's not even actually all that different if instead of a democracy, you are some "king". Every society requires a certain degree of consent of the governed. In a fully "post-truth society" there can be no social cohesion -- the eventual result will be civil war. Because you either talk to each other, or you kill each other. Society just can't work any other way.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by GordMay

The hyperbolic accusation of "Grandma Killer!" is wrong.
The sentiment that "who cares if Grandma dies" isn't even wrong (it's wronger than wrong), in the Pauli sense.
"That is not only not right; it is not even wrong” ~ Wolfgang Pauli

See also Asimov's axiom: Wronger than wrong is a statement that equates two errors, when one of the errors is clearly more wrong than the other.

I get what you are saying but "who cares if Grandma dies" and "Grandma killer" are pretty much the same level of wrong.