Debate Me, You Cowards

A simple explanation for why you don't appear on the stage with paid liars (I know nothing about Koonin, but generally), or why you don't respectfully interview the head of the racism factory for your prominent news outlet, even if you think you're scoring points.

I declined to debate Koonin a long time ago. It’s a simple matter of Bayesian statistics. You get up on the stage with a charlatan, you signal to the audience a prior of 50/50. You have to spend the whole debate trying to work back to the true weight of evidence (99.999 to 0.001)

— Prof Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) September 14, 2022

The "ideas" don't deserve respect, but more than that the people peddling them don't deserve respect and they should not be granted the presumption of respect simply because they earn a salary from a fancy think tank, all of which (all!) have some pretty dodgy funding!

If you engage them as equals, this is what happens. And it reboots every single day.