I'm sitting on a comment at present. I'd kind of like to publish it, except for one little problem: it makes assertions without support and then infers conclusions from them.
This is my blog, featuring my opinions and as much factual matter as I can muster in support of them, and if there's any crawling out on a limb to be done here, that's my job. If you want to push back against what I write, your tools are facts, supported by links, cites or -- because I am a generous person and like to look things up -- easily verifiable. Establish a firm foundation of facts and I'll probably let you make a claim about what they imply.
But this a blog is not a public forum. I'm not handing out soapboxes. The occasional brief cheer, hiss, boo or correction is fine, but sweeping claims, even if they are received orthodoxy among you and your friends, require verifiable factual support. No matter how close your reasoning or how impeccable your chain of logic may appear, if it didn't start with stuff any competent, literate person can dig up and point to, it doesn't count. Your experiment has to be reproducible. Your facts have to be testable. Otherwise it's just a con job, fast talk masquerading as a map of reality.
This kind of dull slog through the stacks and links, sifting wheat from chaff, refining the raw ore, flipping through many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, has always been unpopular. It's a lot of work! But it has never been easier than it is right now, and it's how anything worthwhile gets done. The Founders and Framers knew history; Newton knew math (and a lot of alchemical bullshit); Heinz knows pickles. What do you know -- and can you prove it?
“I'm sitting on a comment at present.
ReplyDelete“This is my blog, featuring my opinions . . .
“But this a blog is not a public forum.”
Yup, your site, your rules. You don't have to apologize for establishing your standards. Most of us understand that. I don't always agree with everything presented here, but I am usually prompted to at least consider "other ideas". :-)
I think that autocorrect may have bitten you - I think that 'slug' should have been 'slog'.
ReplyDeleteRx - have you found it any more difficult to find unorthodox information sources after the COVID misinformation saga?
I don't look for unorthodox information sources. I avoid them. I look for primary sources (direct evidence) and well-documented secondary sources: very orthodox indeed.
ReplyDelete"Unorthodox information sources" are nearly always unreliable and frequently disinformation.
Have you noticed that for a group who has such disdain for Da Feelz, there's a lot of emotion & feeling derived positions on the extreme Right?
ReplyDelete