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Comment by listenallyall | Hacker News Reader

Typically, labelling something as a "lie" is a bigger un-truth than the actual thing being labelled. Very few comments or opinions are wholly untrue end-to-end. Most things have some kernel of truth... perhaps there are unfounded assumptions, exaggerations, selective interpretation, etc.

The person labelling something as a "lie" is usually doing so in order to outright dismiss some uncomfortably partial truth without actually having to prove it's wrong in its entirety.

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>The person labelling something as a "lie" is usually doing so in order to outright dismiss some uncomfortably partial truth without actually having to prove it's wrong in its entirety

I don't think the usually is well placed on that one. If I call something a lie, it rarely is about denial of the nuggets of truth in the big sentence - it's about the damn thing being a lie.

You don't have to prove things are wrong in their entirety. Arguments/statements are like house of cards or long Mathematical transformations - if any subset of the thing is wrong, the whole thing is wrong.

If you care about truth and correctness, you should stick to short sentences and properly using abstractions.

So, Trump's lies about a rigged election. I'm labeling it a lie because it is. How am I a bigger liar? I'm open to hearing any explanation you have, as long as you're open to hearing my rebuttals.

Your generalization is a bad one, not because it has exceptions, but because it likely has as many as confirmations.

Please state exactly what the lies are. That the election was rigged? Are you claiming that not a single district in a single state was compromised in any way? I'd like to see your proof. My point is not that Trump is correct... but just like I said, there are likely some kernels of truth in the statement, while you labelling it a lie is a shortcut to dismissing his entire argument without showing any proof yourself.

Please state exactly what any of the truths are.

There has been plenty of debunking of the specific claims. If you have some specific claims that you don't think have been debunked, I'd like to hear them.

There are indeed examples where calling something a lie (or conspiracy theory) is a bigger lie. If this is one of those, you should have no trouble finding specific supporting claims that aren't also lies and haven't been expressly debunked.

You're asking me to prove a negative. If there were any grounds for the claim, it wouldn't be a lie, but there aren't. The courts have settled it, election officials of both parties have settled it, and frankly basic understanding of the election system has settled it. I'md dismissing his entire argument because he doesn't have one outside of delusions. So I'll say it again, if you give me any substantive grounds for the lie, I can explain how it's wrong.

The massive expansion of vote-by-mail in the 2020 presidential election, especially in many states which had not previously planned to do so, is sufficient to cast some doubt on the election's integrity. The NY Times reported on increased errors and fraud due to mailed ballots back in 2012.

I am not claiming the election was stolen or that Trump should have won. What I am saying, is that when you state "Trump's lies about a rigged election", you are labeling his comments as "lies" to dismiss any discussion of the very real problems with mail-in voting. And that denial is your attempt to "dismiss some uncomfortably partial truth", just what I stated in my first comment.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-...

Mail-in-voting is linked to a (registered voter) person. If someone were to have voted for you (fraud), you would either not get to vote on election day, or cast a provisional ballot if it has not yet been counted, for example [0].

If this had happened at large, or really at all, there would be (thousands of) accounts of this, which there weren't.

I'm labeling his lies about a rigged election as such because he specifically claims things that aren't true, demonstrably not true, or simply impossibly true.

Discussing any problems with mail-in-voting is very much still possible, but entirely beside the point.

[0] https://ballotpedia.org/What_happens_if_someone_votes_by_mai...

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