Since I'm trapped in this Schrodinger's presidential hellscape, where we both very clearly have a new president and yet do not have a new president, I'm gonna kill time by ranting about the current name for my pain:
Cheap Talk (n): Talk without cost for the speaker. 1/9
Cheap Talk (n): Talk without cost for the speaker. 1/9
Cheap arises where a system makes it so that talk comes at little to no cost to the speaker, and it creates a variety of problems. Liberalism's free speech, internet spaces that allow for distance/anonymity, and structurally entrenched minority rule all contribute here. 2/9
The key example I have in mind is cheap talk around the various grifts currently running on the claim that they will prove the existence of election breaking fraud. The grifts coming out of Trump and the GOP are cheap talk that externalizing huge costs onto society. 3/9
Outside of the grifts, there is an equally harmful sea of cheap talk suggesting that the epistemically virtuous and true skeptic position is to suspend judgment on the election, because it's POSSIBLE the fraud claims will prove true and substantial. 4/9
This cheap talk, which nobody will ever face consequences for engaging in, acts like cheap knock off products in the marketplace of ideas. Easy to mass produce, it pushes valuable talk out of the market. It obscures that the two narratives in play are not equally likely. 5/9
We know this is all cheap talk because nobody involved would seriously bet that the election result is ever going to reverse. And it's not cause of the sanctity of elections, it's cause they know they'd lose handily. Anyone who disagrees here let's talk. 6/9
Unfortunately, the most annoying part of cheap talk, besides the risk to democracy when it consumes an entire political party, is that outside of a wager, it's basically impossible to institute any cost for cheap talk. Even keeping track of who engages in is verboten. 7/9
Some amount of cheap talk is an unavoidable and acceptable part of a free society. Too much of it gets you the lamest version of the paradox of liberalism that we're currently living through. I'm worried there's no way to trend back towards a safe amount of cheap talk. 8/9
So here we all sit, trapped by the cheap talkers we've empowered. The best we can do is get as many folks as possible to stop talking the cheap talkers seriously, and stop them from trying to seize power in the most low energy coup this countries ever seen. 9/9
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