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But what's the mechanism that allows bad ideas to spread? It's not that they're winning the debate, it's that they're avoiding the debate altogether. The mediums that spread these bad ideas tend to be bad at debate but good at spreading ideas with an inherently viral quality.

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Exactly. They're not on campus (or a CPAC meeting, or a TV show or whatever) for "reasoned debate". They're there to raise their profile and signal to others like them that these ideas are now acceptable to air in respectable forums. It's foolish for any of these organizations to be used in this manner.

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