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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31540 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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I interpreted your response to my "why didn't Nixon say anything?" question to posit the theory that Nixon decided to stay quiet because he was concerned that his attempt to tell the truth would make it look like he's just digging his own hole further. My assumption is that he would only have this concern if there was a generalizable cautionary tale establishing it as a viable danger, otherwise why else would he preemptively decide to stay quiet?

Did I misunderstand your response?

Did I misunderstand your response?

I don't know. Your responses seem almost tailor-made to maximize misunderstanding, and I don't want to get into the weeds of what does you mean by "generalizable" or "viable".

Can we start with my original question, have you ever been in a situation like the one I described, or at least knew anyone that was? If not, do you see how in the Eichenwald example I gave telling the truth could make him look worse, if he didn't have supporting evidence?

Regarding your Eichenwald example, I realize now I misinterpreted "telling the truth" to refer to the authenticity of the anti-semitic flyer, rather than the reason for the Hentai tab.

Assuming the conversation with his wife actually happened but Eichenwald had no evidence to showcase, I would agree his explanation would sound suspicious. I don't think it would be an example of him digging a hole deeper though because I don't see anything immediately objectionable about "I know this is going to sound crazy and I can't prove it, but I really was having a conversation with my wife about tentacle porn."

Which gets to your assumption. The fact that he did post screenshots with his wife illustrates that even with something as banal as an errant Hentai tab, there's the possibility of circumstantial evidence out there somewhere. That's why the assumption of "Nixon uncovered who secretly assassinated JFK but has access to zero evidence" strikes me as too unrealistic to be worth entertaining.

Which gets to your assumption. The fact that he did post screenshots with his wife illustrates that even with something as banal as an errant Hentai tab, there's the possibility of circumstantial evidence out there somewhere.

Emphasis on "possibility". There's also the possibility that you will not have any evidence. And given that I was supposed to give an example of telling the truth making you look bad, I am somewhat limited to events that have been in some way confirmed to be true, no?

That's why the assumption of "Nixon uncovered who secretly assassinated JFK but has access to zero evidence" strikes me as too unrealistic to be worth entertaining.

It's not an assumption, it was a possible to answer to the question of "why wouldn't he say anything?".

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