MixedNuts comments on Rationality Quotes April 2012 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Oscar_Cunningham 03 April 2012 12:42AM

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Comment author: Alejandro1 02 April 2012 07:08:33PM 21 points [-]

On politics as the mind-killer:

We’re at the point where people are morally certain about the empirical facts of what happened between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman on the basis of their general political worldviews. This isn’t exactly surprising—we are tribal creatures who like master narratives—but it feels as though it’s gotten more pronounced recently, and it’s almost certainly making us all stupider.

-- Julian Sanchez (the whole post is worth reading)

Comment author: MixedNuts 04 April 2012 04:30:51PM 1 point [-]

Wait, is there any actual disagreement about what happened? I'm reading older Julian Sanchez posts, but the only point of disagreement seems to be "Once Zimmerman confronted Martin with a gun, did Martin try to disarm him before getting shot?". None of what I've read considers the question relevant; they base their judgements on already known facts such as "someone shot someone else then was let free rather than have a judge decide whether it counted as self-defense".

Comment author: [deleted] 10 April 2012 06:59:26PM 7 points [-]

There is the minor matter of people trying to very hard to spin and misrepresent events. At this point I can't help but link to this very relevant Aurini talk on the subject.

Comment author: CaveJohnson 23 April 2012 10:19:17AM *  6 points [-]

Thank you for the link!

Checking out some of his other videos and links I found this podcast on the topic rather interesting commentary.

Especially the summary of facts starting at the 23 minute mark.

Comment author: wallowinmaya 25 April 2012 11:26:58AM 3 points [-]

Link doesn't work. Here is a new one.

Comment author: CaveJohnson 25 April 2012 12:14:51PM 2 points [-]

Thank you! Fixed the link to match yours.

Comment author: [deleted] 23 April 2012 10:29:00AM *  3 points [-]

Yes I listened to that podcast as well.

I am much more confident that Zimmerman was not the attacker than I was about the innocence of Amanda Knox. His instant demonization and near lynching (people putting out a dead or alive bounty) seems a very troubling development for American society.

Comment author: CharlieSheen 03 May 2012 01:01:16PM *  1 point [-]

His instant demonization and near lynching (people putting out a dead or alive bounty) seems a very troubling development for American society.

More justice for Trayvon I guess.

Comment author: TimS 10 April 2012 12:01:06AM 4 points [-]

There's substantial disagreement about the facts. For example, someone was heard yelling for help, but no one agrees whether that was Zimmerman or Martin.

I can talk about Stand-Your-Ground laws and their apparent effect in this case, but I don't want to drone on.