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The above screed (that you're replying to) was written by someone who rather than consider just how difficult it is to tell the truth to an inflamed populace would prefer to lean into an ideological mistrust of 'blue tribe' targets.
To the extent that this place is attempting to be 'conservative' it's essentially lost all semblance of responsibility as a virtue.
This is not a neutral word; it's a sneer.
@gattsuru assembled evidence and critiqued specific rather than general groups; you are accusing them of not doing that, but you don't actually provide evidence or argument for it.
"This place," assuming you mean the Motte, explicitly forbids recruiting for a cause and sneaking in "consensus building" language. It's a "place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas," and so, Conquest's Laws notwithstanding, "this place" is definitely not "attempting to be 'conservative.'" Also: you are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic. It's always a mistake to post on the Motte to make sweeping claims about what "the Motte" is (or is trying to be) if you are excluding yourself from that claim.
This is not the kind of engagement we're looking for here, don't do this.
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I was under the impression that using the credibility attached to a prestigious domain (like science) for the purposes of deceiving the public for political reasons was a bad idea. Once the truth comes out you've heavily damaged the credibility of scientific research and made it harder to convince people on important issues - because they are correctly judging you as a political entity whose expertise cannot be trusted and is effectively meaningless.
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It's easy to tell the truth. You just... tell the truth. As for ideological mistrust... here's The Intercept blaming Trump and Mike Pompeo for pushing the lab leak theory and claiming that this is what's preventing investigations into COVID's origins. Beam in thine own eye and all of that.
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