26 Comments

Kapak - Don't use logic with Hanson. His absurd logic implies that because the fraction of terrorists who would choose to stage a major attack on 9/11 (and on a Tuesday, no less!) is likely less than 1%, that this means there is a "silent majority" (lol) who question the "true story".

But since his proposed norm is to respond (except the majority of times when he seemingly doesn't), often with great intellectual discourse such as "I disagree", it is unfair and unintellectual to assume his motives. Everyone else is fair game, of course. Including the supposed "silent majority" that just happens to agree with him, which he knows because he silently communicated with them.

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Wow, this is some mental gymnastics

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It's ironic that your poll is to infer ulterior motives when that is what I read your proposed norm as saying not to do.

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The answer is obviously above 1%. The main issue is that not being accused before being nominated and being nominated are not unconnected. Had Kavanaugh been accused before the day he was nominated, he never would have been nominated in the first place. So something close to 100% of Supreme Court nominees who are going to be accused of sexual assault are going to be accused after they're nominated, not before.

Then you're just left with pools on when they're accused after they're nominated; you split it between before the hearing, after the hearing, and after the vote. If the person has some sense of civic duty to prevent a sexual assailant from getting on the court, they would pick from the first two. If they don't do it before they're voted in, I think it's unlikely they would ever accuse them.

Regardless, I don't see why this split is interesting. Suppose we give a 33% chance to each. If she had accused Kavanaugh after he was approved, someone could say, "Wow, what are the chances? Why didn't she say something before he was approved? This is obviously an attempt to hurt Republican credibility by accusing a nominee after there's no way for Trump to pick someone else!" If she had accused him before the hearing, someone could make a claim that this was the worst thing for Kavanaugh/Republicans/whatever as well. This is similar to cutting between days of the weeks (what are the chances she accuses Kavanaugh on a Tuesday?) and then acting shocked that the chances are low.

I don't think it's rude. I just think it's misleading and out of touch, similar to me asking "What are the chances the government failed to prevent the biggest terrorist attack in US history, and that it happened on a Tuesday?" and then concluding that there was a silent majority skeptical of the official story based on the extremely low percentage answers.

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What if I have a particularly cogent guess about an author? I'm for maximizing the amount of well-reasoned discourse, not restricting it because of sensitivities.

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If you share them publicly you make a public accusation. So better to share another way.

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I disagree.

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The wording of the poll doesn't help with its credibility: "not just 30 yrs, but after Congress hearings & just before Congress vote." "Not just" tells the poll responder that you expect the likelihood to be low.

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You can't share your guesses about their motives with your friends or allies?

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This is a very good point: since collecting information through a twitter pool is an especially bad way to collect information, the likelihood of Hanson being just honestly asking people opinion without hidden motives decreases enough that we could stop taking his words at face value, and starting questioning other motivations.

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I thought it an interesting poll to ask, but never intended to give it much weight or discuss it much. It was the many loud complaints that made this a bigger thing.

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You could decide not to engage them due to your guesses about their motives. But if you do engage, my norm says to respond mostly to what they say.

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Huh?

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Isn't it ironic that the whole point of your poll is to not respond most to what Christine Ford is saying?

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Says much more about your audience than the subject. Not surprised, other than that you would think it have anything to do with the subject.

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See my reply to Stephen Diamond. It's plausible to set up institutions via which anonymous reports could be collected until they passed some threshold. Sending the report anonymously to Feinstein could reasonably have been intended to be used that way. If Feinstein received dozens of similar reports, she could have revealed that and implored some of the victims to come forward. When she only received one, she reasonably attempted to keep it quiet.

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