The Precipice

In a book encompassing nothing less than the entirety of human potential Toby Orb has written a thorough, statistic-laden, intelligent and slightly tepid response to all the things which could go wrong in the worst of all possible nightmares. Asteroids, climate change, nuclear war, volcanos, exploding stars, AI — everything (save one thing) which poses natural or anthropogenic annihilation of all human potential (as opposed to just those threats which could cause the extinction of the species) is gamed out, mathematically and logically. Herein lies the only real problem with the book. In another recent book, The Republican Brain: the Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality, Chris Mooney points out that such factual counterpointing rarely has the desired effect. Mooney says:

[...] as for defending reality itself? That's the trickiest thing of all.

As I've suggested, refuting conservative falsehoods does only limited good. There are more than enough conservative intellectuals out there to stand up (sic.) “refute” the refutations, leading to endless, fruitless arguments. And for the general public, those unconvinced or undecided, sound and fury over technical matters is off-putting, and leaves behind the impression that nobody knows what is actually true.

Rather, liberals and scientists should find some key facts—the best facts—and integrate them into stories that move people. A data dump is worse than pointless; it's counterproductive. But a narrative can change heart and mind alike.

And here, again, is where you really have to admire conservatives. Their narrative of the founding of the country, which casts the U.S. as a “Christian nation” and themselves as the Tea Party, is a powerful story that perfectly matches their values. It just happens to be . . . wrong. But liberals will never defeat it factually—they have to tell a better story of their own.

The same goes for any number of other issues where conservative misinformation has become so dominant. Again and again, liberals have the impulse to shout back what's true. Instead, they need to shout back what matters.