{"id":75998,"date":"2020-12-02T11:00:09","date_gmt":"2020-12-02T17:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=75998"},"modified":"2020-12-03T06:55:26","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T12:55:26","slug":"denialists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=75998","title":{"rendered":"Denialists!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCENE: Mitch BERG is waiting for takeout at a near-eastern restaurant on Snelling Avenue when Avery LIBRELLE walks in. Trapped, BERG tries to ignore…er, Avery. To no avail. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIBRELLE: Merg!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERG: Oh, hey, Avery. What’s new…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIBRELLE: Republicans reject science!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERG: Is that so?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIBRELLE: That’s right. You don’t wear masks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERG: Huh. So – just to be clear, if you conduct an experiment, and the theory succeeds, and succeeds repeatedly, then it’s an indication that one’s theory is holding up well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIBRELLE: Of course. Science is awesome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERG: OK. So – theory: defending against ballistic missiles would remove a key area where a hostile foreign power can blackmail the US by threatening millions of American lives. Hypothesis: modern technology makes point defense against incoming missiles not only feasible, but reliable enough to incorporate in foreign and defense policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIBRELLE: Nonsense. It’s impossible. That science was settled back in the 1980s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERG: This ain’t the eighties, and the science is settling in the direction of “set ’em up, we can shoot ’em down”<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIBRELLE: Not only is it impossible to shoot down missiles, but even considering it is destabilizing, actually making a nuclear attack more <\/em>likely, which would disproportionally affect People of Color, Latinx, gay and transgender people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERG: So we’ve gone from science to intersectional sociology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIBRELLE: Intersectional sociology is <\/em>science. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERG: Huh. And queer gender theory?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIBRELLE: Science. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERG: The 1619 Project?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIBRELLE: Science. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERG: Vox.com?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIBRELLE: Scientists, every one of ’em. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERG: Shooting down missiles using a 50-year-old missile and guidance technology that’s been steadily improving since Jimmy Carter was in office?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIBRELLE: Pure emotion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERG: Gotcha. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIBRELLE: Hey, could you buy me a gyro? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERG: When can you pay me back?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIBRELLE: What do you mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BERG: Right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And SCENE.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCENE: Mitch BERG is waiting for takeout at a near-eastern restaurant on Snelling Avenue when Avery LIBRELLE walks in. Trapped, BERG tries to ignore…er, Avery. To no avail. LIBRELLE: Merg! BERG: Oh, hey, Avery. What’s new… LIBRELLE: Republicans reject science! BERG: Is that so? LIBRELLE: That’s right. You don’t wear masks. BERG: Huh. So – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,11],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-75998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","category-world","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75998"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76002,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75998\/revisions\/76002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}