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Bro, Mamdani has certainly toned down his rhetoric since he became mayor, but how else do you interpret that line about the IDF lacing the NYPD's boots? He was, at the very least, gesturing towards Da Joos and implying Israeli training was responsible for police brutality, and he's too smart not to know what he was implying.
I personally know trans people who genuinely believe that federal agencies are gearing up to start going after trans people, either to put them in camps or forcibly detransition them or maybe just arrest them for having the wrong gender on their driver's licenses.
And we've discussed many times here how many unarmed black people the average leftist believes are gunned down by police every month.
You can quibble over what the precise definition of "conspiracy theory" is, which strikes me as being about as useful as arguing about the legal definition of "genocide" wrt Gaza. But irrationality is definitely not limited to the right.
The same way I said, about the NYPD/Israeli partnership! I even checked the chatbots with the other guy who asked me to see if I'm out of line.
And what did I get?
Unless the chatbots are also trolling or something, this seems to be a fair way to interpret the comment.
The first one is obviously a conspiracy, these other ones are not.
https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/denton-county-rep-wants-to-institutionalize-transgender-people-23307423/
https://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2021-2022/billintroduced/House/htm/2022-HIB-6454.htm
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/28/nx-s1-5728969/kansas-revokes-drivers-licenses-of-hundreds-of-trans-people-prompted-by-new-law
Being wrong about that number does not allege a shadowy cabal behind such shootings.
First of all, I am really not a fan of "Ask ChatGPT to settle a debate." There are lots of reasons for that, and it's not because I don't think AI is useful for a lot of purposes. But AI is definitely not useful for impartially adjudicating subjective interpretations of culture war events and statements.
ChatGPT sort of gives it away with "I think the most charitable—and probably most accurate—" ChatGPT likes to be charitable. ChatGPT does not like to imply negative things about contemporary figures. A judgment like "probably most accurate" is purely the LLM churning out tokens in a most-probably-plausible response, not any actual reasoning or analysis by which it can tell you that this interpretation is "probably most accurate."
It's specific claim? "A metaphor for institutional influence"? What ... institution would be that, exactly? How does the IDF become "a metaphor for institutional influence"?
Come. On. Apply some actual critical thinking. Don't offload it to ChatGPT and say "Neener neener an LLM says I'm right and you're wrong!"
Yes they are. I am well aware that some states are passing laws requiring birth sex on driver's licenses. I figured you would bring it up. But that does not mean that federal agencies are preparing to conduct mass arrests of trans people who have the wrong sex on their driver's licenses. Yes, their current licenses were invalidated in Kansas and they have to get new licenses, and that sucks, but it's a leap, a stretch, a ballistic missile launch from "federal troops rounding up trans people."
A ban against transitioning children is not forcibly detransitioning people.
Congressman Ronny Jackson sounds like a crackpot. Let me know when he gets any traction outside of Newsmax.
I mean, come the fuck on. You are willing to give maximum charity to Mamdan's crack about the IDF lacing the NYPD's boots, accepting any interpretation other than the obvious one, while you want us to give full weight and seriousness to a Republican popping off on a radio show as if he's speaking for the federal government.
Right, so we're going to debate the nuances of what constitutes a "conspiracy theory." Fine, I'll grant it's not a modal example, but it certainly does allege that, not a shadowy cabal, but massive institutional power, is behind such shootings. Which seems at least "conspiracy-adjacent" to me.
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