Extremely great essay. You'd actually be surprised how many intelligent people, if you pulled them off the street, would do poorly in an impromptu debate against even a "pro" Flat Earther. So all the vastly more plausible fringe theories (which are basically all of them) are going to take a lot more work.
Is calling someone a racist on Twitter intended to debunk their ideas? If I say “Bulldog is evil because he is a white demon created by Yakub”, it would be totally fair to call me a racist, even though this does not in fact disprove whether Yakub in fact created a race of White Demons.
Relatedly, at a certain point (not for the lab leak theory but for some stuff), spending 3,000 hours to debate a clown on a niche issue isn’t worth anyone’s time. It can be entirely fair to point, laugh, and move on.
Extremely great essay. You'd actually be surprised how many intelligent people, if you pulled them off the street, would do poorly in an impromptu debate against even a "pro" Flat Earther. So all the vastly more plausible fringe theories (which are basically all of them) are going to take a lot more work.
Is calling someone a racist on Twitter intended to debunk their ideas? If I say “Bulldog is evil because he is a white demon created by Yakub”, it would be totally fair to call me a racist, even though this does not in fact disprove whether Yakub in fact created a race of White Demons.
Relatedly, at a certain point (not for the lab leak theory but for some stuff), spending 3,000 hours to debate a clown on a niche issue isn’t worth anyone’s time. It can be entirely fair to point, laugh, and move on.