Posted on

If You Have Time, I Think I Would Find The Answers To These Questions Helpful

  • What is the top thing that your ideological opponents misrepresent about your position?
  • What is the top thing that your opponents say is a tenet of your position, but about which there is in fact much disagreement between you and your allies?
  • What’s the worst argument that people on your side put forward for your position?
  • What’s your opponent’s best argument?
Posted on

Will the #COVID19 Antibody Test Break Our Discipline and Make Things Worse?

We’re all in this together. But what happens when we’re not?

Earlier this week I posted a tweet that got plenty of attention.

When the COVID-19 antibody test becomes available, it will split the country – and the world – into two types of person: those who are immune to the virus, and those who are still susceptible.

In the long term, when we have established ‘herd immunity,’ this won’t matter.1 But in the short term it could prove incredibly divisive, and cause the disintegration of solidarity and co-operation that our country has demonstrated so far.

Continue reading “Will the #COVID19 Antibody Test Break Our Discipline and Make Things Worse?”
Posted on

Trump's Particular Style of Bullshitting

Over on Twitter, CNN journalist Daniel Dale highlights Donald Trump’s “speaking mistake”…


Donald Trump has a particular style of bullshitting. He will assert something, and then qualify it with a “maybe” or a “probably.” Politicians the world over will obfuscate and mislead, but the way Trump does it is particularly noticeable. Its almost like he is a child, play-acting at being a politician.
Each of these qualifications — the “maybes” and the “probablies” — has a profound grammatical effect on the sentence. They render the assertion he has just made meaningless. But in the flow of a speech, the audience (and annoyingly, the journalists) don’t always pick up on the trick.
I’ve come to realise that this is the President’s way of trying to give himself plausible deniability for each lie. Those equivocations are Donald Trump’s ‘tell,’ the vocal quirk that betrays the fact that he’s just making shit up as he goes along. Every now and then I bookmark examples.
Continue reading “Trump's Particular Style of Bullshitting”

Posted on

Would It Break Journalism If Sources Who Lied Were Named?

Journalists Laura Keunssberg and Robert Peston have egg on their face this week, after they both breathlessly tweeted the news that a Tory staffer had been punched by a Labour activist in Leeds.
When video emerged of the incident, it turned out that no assault had taken place. One man accidentally brushed past the hand of another.
Both Keunssberg and Peston posted follow up tweets to apologise and share the video. But in giving an explanation for their inaccuracy, they enraged people further. Both journalists gave the excuse that ‘sources’ had told them it was true. Continue reading “Would It Break Journalism If Sources Who Lied Were Named?”

Posted on

Let's rebrand the #PeoplesVote as 'The Cummings Plan'

In 2016, Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the United States Supreme Court. In a historical break with precedent, the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) refused to confirm Garland to the Court, or even hold the traditional confirmation hearings.
In doing so, he dredged up a 1992 speech from Joe Biden, who was then a US Senator for Delaware. Back then, Biden had floated the idea that the president (at the time, George H. W. Bush) should wait until after the presidential and congressional elections before appointing a Supreme Court judge. Justifying his inaction in 1992, Senator McConnell cited the ‘Biden Rule’ in speeches, as if it were an established congressional custom. The seat remained open until after the 2016 presidential election, when Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch instead. Continue reading “Let's rebrand the #PeoplesVote as 'The Cummings Plan'”