[jonhohle]

I don’t need to accept that the earth is flat to fight for increased government transparency (something flat earthers would be interested in). I don’t need to deny climate change to find other benefits to promote more efficient energy use.

I think most people would agree that the US healthcare system is overly-expensive, complicated, and excludes a vulnerable portion of the population. That doesn’t mean the right solution is federal health insurance or even single payer.

tl;dr I don’t need to change someone else’s beliefs to work towards mutually beneficial goals.

[mlevental]

>I don’t need to accept that the earth is flat to fight for increased government transparency (something flat earthers would be interested in)

can you show me anything (other than your most charitable interpretation of the realization of that political identity) that suggests this is what they want?

>I don’t need to deny climate change to find other benefits to promote more efficient energy use.

can you explain to me why we should operate this way? sure i can come up with all sorts of alternative explanations for why environmentally friendly energy sources are good (solar jobs blah blah blah) that might be more amenable to climate-change deniers but why does it have to be this way?

how about anti-vaxxers and the like? how about birthers? how about sovereign-citizens? how many different narratives do i need to construct in order to get buy-in for something that's rigorously verified and people are simply obdurate with respect to? is the reason that that's how it is now because certain groups have as much power as they do?

>I don’t need to change someone else’s beliefs to work towards mutually beneficial goals.

there are people with whom you do not have common cause. or maybe not you. but there are certainly peoples that are marginalized to such an extent that they do not have common cause with any in power. should they being playing these creative games as well?

[jonhohle]

I’ve only spent a small amount of time reading about the motivations of flat earthers, but IIRC, the best I could come up with was TPTB hiding the truth from the populace. It seemed like a lot of effort to me for little benefit, but there are areas where I think we would all benefit from odd things the government has done. The others are mostly the same - distrust in government - something the left seems to be embracing whilst out of power.

In many of those cases, flat earth, birther, sovereign citizen - there is no obvious impact to me except maybe some Minor annoyance. I could see an argument for anti-vaxxers potentially being dangerous, but people should have control over what goes into their own bodies - and from what I know about them, it’s not the vaccine that’s largely a concern, but the other stuff which may or may not come with it.

Charity (and charitable interpretation) is a big portion of it. In many cases people have fears that aren’t being addressed and want to protect themselves and their families. In some cases there may be mental health issues that predispose certain types of thinking. But ultimately, we’re all humans with differing priorities. If another group is making a good faith attempt at pursuing their priorities, treating eahcother fairly and with respect should be the default.

If someone threatens to harm me or my family based on our differing beliefs, affiliations, or priorities, it only makes forward progress difficult. Based on my own family, I prefer to think communication is a more likely issue than 50% of the population being wrong and stupid.