Reply #26: that isn't all he's saying [View All]

[OnTheOtherHand]

There's a difference between saying that "left unchallenged, bullshit runs rampant," and saying:

We suggest a role for government efforts, and agents, in introducing such diversity. Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action.

This quotation really ought to be read in context. As Sunstein and Vermeule should have anticipated, and probably did, it has been wildly overhyped by adherents of the theories that S & V hope to undermine. But really, I can't imagine how they could think this idea would work. Well, I can vaguely imagine a scenario in which a government agent convinces a number of People's Temple adherents not to drink the Kool-Aid.

It's an eye-rubber. For years some of us have been confronting strange notions with inconvenient facts and questions -- and others have accused us of being shills for something or other, as if presenting facts and questions is an anti-democratic activity. S & V handed them the "proof" that presenting facts and questions really is an anti-democratic activity!!1! Of course, one has to be pretty far down the rabbit hole to interpret what S & V wrote in that way.