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and whenever seriously pressed, they'll stop responding (or only respond with some short nitpick which is also regularly wrong and misleading) and then you'll see them at some later time attempting the same characterizations they now know are at best misleading and some will be even more confident in their posts
if I made a post and was corrected in any way, even if someone added in important context which changes how it should be interpreted by those who don't know the full picture, I would not show up to a board later attempting to pretend it never happened and I really struggle to believe a person who doesn't is acting in good faith
I don't see this all the time, but I agree it happens pretty regularly.
Right, I think that a lot of the time it's just a slightly more sophisticated form of consensus-building. i.e. you repeat the talking points and arguments of your Tribe, and if enough people do it, it drives out people who dissent (because it's uncomfortable to argue against a chorus of people), which creates the illusion of consensus, which then becomes reality, since most people want to be popular and liked and will just go along with whatever is perceived to be the popular view.
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