[amarant]

I think you just reinforced the articles point. Coal power needs lots of lies to justify it, as per your own statement.

That is in fact because coal energy is a terrible idea. It has 0 upsides compared to renewable alternatives, and is on the whole worse than even other non-renewable alternatives.

If you have to lie to make it sound good, that's probably because it isn't actually good

[appstorelottery]

I think we’re still talking past each other. I’m not arguing that any specific idea is good.

My point is just that public acceptance itself isn’t reliable evidence either way: ideas can gain support (or fail) for reasons other than their actual merit.

[amarant]

That's true. The inversion of the quote is that good ideas require lies to lose public acceptance.

Well, there's a lot of lies flying around lately. So it happens.

[victorbjorklund]

You can turn it around. If stopping using coal is a good idea then all that should be needed it present the facts and all the people will cheer and support stop using coal - if not it means stopping using coal is a bad idea?

[rafterydj]

No, turning it around doesn't work because it's cause and effect.

"Present the facts and all the people will cheer and support stop using coal" -> correct

"If not it means stopping using coal is a bad idea?" -> incorrect, because people are against switching to renewables because of lies, not because of facts

[victorbjorklund]

> incorrect, because people are against switching to renewables because of lies, not because of facts

Do you really think that if you presented the truth to a MAGA follower that believes climate change is a communist scam that they will just see reason and support your position just because you presented them with the facts?

[rafterydj]

No, but what else is there to do?

If, despite best attempts for me to communicate facts to them within our common language, they still can not recognize basic truth or fact from their subjective truth? I don't really see that a problem for the speaker, but a problem for the listener.

That's no way that the opposite expectation can scale as a society. Otherwise we would all need to validate everyone else's words constantly with primary source documents. There must be some level of trust in order to communicate efficiently, surely.