What is it that you think I should concede here? Please be clear and honest.
Helena, you said that your solution was to stop the protests. You didn’t say anything about shutting down restaurants.
People selectively quote you because your posts are ridiculously long and it’s useful to break down the point where you make an error.
If we were in the exam section and you had a 50-line solution to a complicated problem and on line 37 you had the expression “2+2=5” then I would probably selectively quote just that piece to make it simpler to point out where you’re wrong.
If you were arguing in good faith you’d actually be interested in knowing where you made an obvious error.
No, she’s saying it not because we are “selectively quoting” but because you haven’t yet retracted that. If you just type something like the below, everyone will be happy to back off:
“Hey, you guys are right, I shouldn’t have suggested that preventing the protests would have made a difference. I thought they were implicated, but I’ve now checked the data, and I was wrong”
That’s how you avoid being called a troll when you say something untrue and controversial. You accept that you were wrong when you get called out on it. You can even add stuff about how masks and closing restaurants still seem important…
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You were wrong about protests spreading COVID.
Just say it, and most will be forgiven.
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This conversation is reminding me of some argument on the AO revolving around the phrase “among other things”*. I don’t remember the details or who all was involved in that.
It revolved around “maybe what I said was wrong, but I also said ‘among other things’, so I wasn’t really wrong”.
*not sure if it was that phrase exactly, but something like that
I didn’t see it either
Really? I said that was my solution? I assume that you’re again reading only that last line… and you’re ignoring things said after that. You’re ignoring:
As well as this:
Is it just that my wording isn’t quite sycophantic enough here? I mean, I literally mentioned restaurants at the very beginning - prior to your selective quote… in complete contradiction to your claim that I’m only talking about restaurants after the fact (which you haven’t admitted you were wrong about or retracted, you know, like I’m supposed to do?). I additionally didn’t press on about the protests after you said they didn’t contribute, and even noted a lack of any direct knowledge on my part AS WELL AS agreeing with you that the spike correlated with restaurant openings very clearly.
If you were arguing in good faith… well, you’d actually read what was written and respond to the entirety instead of ignoring bits and pieces selectively then making false claims about what I said.
I think your understanding of good faith is a bit tilted.
Should I expect you to give Twig the same advice with respect to her incorrect claim that I only brought up restaurants well after the fact, despite it having been mentioned in both the post she was responding to (only partially though, she left out the part that brought up restaurants) as well as the one immediately after her pointing out that the protests had little effect?
Because, you know, that one is also incorrect, and it seems like it should also be retracted.
I didn’t even say anything “untrue and controversial”. I made a comment about the timing of the spike.
Seriously, is the Trump hate so much of a barrier that you guys can’t even conceive of the states’ decisions to open up lockdown having more of a direct impact on the June spike than Trump’s idiocy?
This is a real quote:
What I just quoted is both untrue and controversial. It was a right wing talking point that “ooh, we can’t stop protests, so all the other stuff we are doing must be okay”.
I never brought up anything about Trump. Despite his miserably bad leadership, most of the actual implementation of covid management has been done by the states. I don’t disagree with that. And it’s irrelevant to your aversion to saying, “sorry. I was wrong”.
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LIBERATE MICHIGAN!
The states didn’t reopen in a vacuum.
I am seriously baffled and infuriated by this rigmarole. It’s not a new thing, it’s been done before.
Yes, that’s a real quote. Very good. You clearly have learned how to quote a section of a post.
Seriously, can we back up here? I mean, really?
I made a post that said, in brief… there’s a spike in June that coincides with 1) protests and 2) states lifting lockdowns. It further said that I don’t think Trump had a lot of effect on the states decisions to lift the lockdowns, although maybe he had some, and he didn’t force any of those who are opposed to him to open up. Then I wrapped it up by saying I ballpark that the 30% to 40% of cases that occurred during that spike might have been avoidable… but that would have required prohibiting protests [and not opening up restaurants].
I’m sure that you will immediately note that the bolded section in square brackets is not present in that post. You’re completely right. It wasn’t there. And as I said in a following post, that was an oversight on my part. I abjectly apologize for inadvertently dropping half of my sentence, and I humbly beg your forgiveness for that horrible transgression.
Following that post, twig said that the protests hadn’t had much effect.
I responded to twig acknowledging her post and saying that was very likely correct, and furthermore that all of my guess was based on second hand information. I further said, in that post, that there was a clear correlation in my area with restaurants, and that the same had been seen by colleagues in other states.
Then dr_t_non-fan decided to drop in a quick insult and toss out that I get my views from Fox (which I don’t watch), and that I claimed that the protesters weren’t wearing masks (which I didn’t actually claimed, I was clear that I’d seen a lot of images both with and without masks) enough so to cause the second wave (which I did not claim in the first place). I responded to him by clarifying that I had dropped part of my sentence previously (note my obeisance above, please) and additionally that all my info was second hand from unreliable internet stuff.
After which aofan asked why I had claimed that the protests caused a surge… which I hadn’t done in the first place. I responded by saying exactly that - I didn’t claim it that the protests caused the surge, I said that it coincided with the protests as well as restaurant re-opening.
Then you came in and insisted that my “sources” were wrong. So at this point, I have to conclude that you didn’t actually read my posts, you only read what other people had selectively quoted. So you never saw that I had already acknowledged that twig was probably right about the protests not contributing much, and that my assessment was based on very unreliable imagery. Furthermore, you clearly only read a few select portions, so you had no idea at all that I had spent a fair bit more of my post on the lockdown than on the protests. I’m assuming that’s the case - that you just totally didn’t read my posts, and you only read what other people said I said?
I really get tired of this game. I’m getting reamed because I didn’t “retract” a claim that I never actually made, and I get called a troll because I don’t apologize for the thing I didn’t do in the first place. It’s ridiculous.
And then it all gets wrapped up by twig calling me a troll, and insisting that I was arguing in bad faith, poisoning the well with insinuations about my “posting style”, and then selecting only the last line of my original post and presenting it as if that were all I had said on the subject at all. Then twig goes a step further and accuses me of not even mentioning restaurants until well after she had “refuted” the impact of protests.
So even though twigs post is wrong and materially misleading… somehow I’m still the troll and I’m the one who’s supposed to beg forgiveness and retract a claim I never made?
Okay?
Trump pushed HARD for everything to reopen as fast as possible. He doesn’t get a pass.
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From the start. There was no national plan for distribution of PPE. There was no national plan or even message as to masks, social distancing or closing down.
There was no national plan for reopening other then threatening funds, bullying and cajoling.
His one claim for action, is shutting down China (partially, which means nothing) as it was infecting Europe. But they look like us, so they can’t be a threat.
Pushed Hard to reopen is a simplified conclusion to a total mismanagement
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That’s why I provided you with reliable internet stuff. It’s up to you whether to keep relying on unreliable internet sources to the point that you mention them in posts here. We can do without them.
So, OANN?
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I haven’t kept relying on unreliable stuff.
I’ll hold you to that.
Okay.
Agree. I was responding to this:
Acting like Trump didn’t influence the states’ reopening is hilarious.
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You can view it as hilarious if you prefer.
Regardless of who is in charge, the president simply doesn’t have the authority to force states to go into a lockdown, nor to force them to open back up. That is, ultimately, the decision of the governors of the states themselves. I am certain that Trump had some influence, although I find it far more likely that he had influence on Republican governors who were probably already predisposed to open up. I am a bit more skeptical of the amount of real influence Trump had on governors who were Democrats.
Is it your opinion that Democratic governors were scared of and intimidated by Trump, and so re-opened their states when they really didn’t want to?