When is Hillary getting arrested?

[_Some Schmo]

Dear DoubtingThomas:

Why did you type the words "Hillary Clinton is arrested" into your thread title when the article itself says no such thing?

Click bait.

[_Res Ipsa]

I don’t think so, Schmo. If lying is equated to being wrong, then why would lying be a bad thing?

I wouldn't equate them. There's certainly not the same underlying intent.

It's just the social climate we're in often makes it hard to distinguish between when someone is lying and is flat out wrong. The lines are being blurred.

Someone can be misinformed and, absent other relevant facts, believe it. There's nothing specifically wrong with that (except on the people doing the misinforming). It's how people react when confronted with compelling counter-evidence showing the facts that matters. That's where the lie either will or will not take place.

The brain takes an incredible amount of sensory input and distills it down into a story about the world and about itself. in my opinion, the problem is that the brain doesn’t seem to care as much about how closely the story maps to reality as it does whether the story makes sense to itself. When a new piece of information comes along, the brain doesn’t reconstruct the whole story — it tries to make the new information fit with the existing narrative. Thus, we get the backfire effect and other cognitive biases.

I don’t think we’ve got much of a handle on what it takes to get the brain to abandon an existing narrative and write a new one based on new information. It happened to me, and I suspect it happened to every believing Mormon who went on to abandon the religion. But why the same information that led my brain to create a new story about Mormonism has caused others to reinforce their own story that Mormonism is God’s true church.

Even worse, our brains make up stories to explain the differences. People leave the church because they want to sin. People stay in the church because they are dupes or liars. Maybe the truth is that our brains are evolved for survival and not necessarily for truth. Maybe having a relatively stable world view is more important for survival than having a story that maps 100% to reality.

Of course, maybe this is just the story my brain is telling itself because it makes sense.

At any rate, that story implies that I should be wary of accusing people of lying when they reject evidence that appears overwhelming to me. It also implied that many of the problems facing us today are a consequence of normal brain function resulting from evolutionary forces. It’s profoundly depressing view, but my brain seems to find it a reasonable one.

[_Some Schmo]

Of course, maybe this is just the story my brain is telling itself because it makes sense.

At any rate, that story implies that I should be wary of accusing people of lying when they reject evidence that appears overwhelming to me. It also implied that many of the problems facing us today are a consequence of normal brain function resulting from evolutionary forces. It’s profoundly depressing view, but my brain seems to find it a reasonable one.

I don't think our stories really differ that much. I see significant problems in equating lying with being wrong. I guess I'm talking more about perceiving what others are implying than what they are actually doing, even though I didn't think I was saying that when I started.

This whole line of thinking spawned from the idea, How can I tell the difference between Drumpf and his disciples' lies and the times they have no idea what they're talking about?

[_DoubtingThomas]

It appears doubting Thomas has doctored the quote from the Fox article. There is nothing about Clinton being arrested. I do not know if the doctored quote is deranged wishful thinking or a cheap attack on Fox. I do not like Fox but it is not what the title of this thread would indicate.

It is just an obvious joke! Goddammit! I am making fun of conservatives.

[_Some Schmo]

It is just an obvious joke! Goddammit! I am making fun of conservatives.

Gotta work on your punchlines. Nobody said comedy is easy.

[Guest]

playing with us all with his apparent cluelessness]

Cluelessness about what? I am just a dude that reads the research literature and is open to new ideas. I am not a tribalist.

As did you! Sometimes I wonder if DT is some brilliant child, playing with us all with his apparent cluelessness. Or maybe he's so old 2016 is indistinguishable from NOW. In any case, it reminds me of a Deputy Dewey quote:

My age is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if I am 12, 22, or 52. What matters here are intelligent discussions.
Now, do you want to have a discussion on Skype?

[_DoubtingThomas]

Gotta work on your punchlines. Nobody said comedy is easy.

I guess, but I was obviously making fun of Republicans. I wonder if some people really believed for a second that Hillary Clinton was arrested.

[_Res Ipsa]

DT, all of us post stuff that falls flat. Just take your lumps and move on. Rewriting your OP after it is criticized simply makes the thread incomprehensible.

[_DoubtingThomas]

DT, all of us post stuff that falls flat. Just take your lumps and move on. Rewriting your opening post after it is criticized simply makes the thread incomprehensible.

You are right! but was just a bad joke, I don't want to give someone a heart attack.

[_Some Schmo]

I guess, but I was obviously making fun of Republicans. I wonder if some people really believed for a second that Hillary Clinton was arrested.

My first thought was, if this were true, I'd have seen it on my news feed. I refreshed my news feed and there was nothing - just a story about Clinton's reaction to Kavanaugh's idiotic accusation.

Next, I clicked the link and immediately noticed what huckelberry pointed out, that the story didn't match your post headline. Then I thought, when the hell did this happen, saw the date, and thought, oh, he's not being serious or he's mistaken.

At no point did I think to myself, he's trying to be funny. Maybe if you referenced the article with a comment like, I wonder how that investigation's going? you might evoke a grin or two.

Now what truly would be funny is if Drumpf tried to start an investigation on Clinton the day after everyone got documented evidence he's a corrupt fraud. Actually, not so funny as much as typical. I guess he hasn't thought of it yet.