An urban myth about litter boxes in schools became a talking point | Hacker News Reader

An urban myth about litter boxes in schools became a talking point

nbcnews.com

21 pointsjohnny31317 comments

I can understand some random person listening to rage-bait media nutjobs and falling for something so clearly absurd, but it's genuinely depressing to see GOP congressmen and officials falling for it. Either they are fools who don't do even the most basic fact checking before publicly foaming at the mouth about nonsense, or they know full well that what they're saying is a lie and they are cool with lying to republican voters whenever it's politically convenient for them.

Either way, it's not a good sign for America or the voters who are either fine with being straight up lied to and manipulated or have made the choice to elect people who clearly have no business whatsoever being in a position of authority.

We really need to demand more from elected officials and party leaders. I don't think most people want idiots and liars in charge, but if there's zero accountability when they show themselves for what they are what else can we expect?

Ivy league educated Rep Elise Stefanik (R-NY) went from a moderate to a rabid Republican and it's been puzzling me how that works. The closest I can figure is Republican voters these days are very energized and demand their reps repeat everything they tell each other, no matter how far fetched. It's a group signifier. You're either with us all the way, or you're against us and shunned. Reps feel they have to play along if they want to keep their job.

That said, someone like Stefanik doesn't seem all that bothered by it.

Edit: Good politicians lead their constituents, while politicians who just want a job follow their constituents.

I believe the term is "politically correct", yes?

Among individuals it's called that but when a politician does it we call it pandering

A web web search for "politically correct politician" says that's a thing.

They want the attention, regardless of truth. It spans from saying something absolutely stupid or known-false to making a typo/mistake that is getting the engagement because of mockery... but they don't care about the mockery. It's like MTG complaining about "gazpacho police" - do you really think she doesn't know the right word?

The game is to get engagement/retweets from both sides: those that agree with your regardless of what's true (they know your general stance on an issue) and those that will mock you for mistakes and still give you wider reach.

For example complaining about the litter box is a stand-in for "I don't agree with trans rights" that's going to give you way more attention for the same basic message. (with the extra benefit of not being on the record for saying that)

Publicity stunts are to be expected to some extent. The problem with what MTG said wasn't the bit about the Spanish soup though. What MTG did was lie to Americans (and especially republicans) about Nancy Pelosi employing a secret police force to spy on congress, staff, and the American people.

I suspect MTG knows full well that what came out of her mouth was a lie, and I suspect that you're right and she intentionally used the "gazpacho police" phrasing to amplify the lie and further its spread, but that doesn't make what she did acceptable for a member of congress in a functioning democracy. Lying to the American people about serious abuses of power is exactly the kind of thing that should end a person's political career. Instead, republicans appear to be rewarding that behavior and I believe this is extremely dangerous.

“…during a legislative hearing last month in Tennessee, two Republican state lawmakers discussed the ‘growing crisis’ of public schools providing litter boxes for children who identify as cats, and claimed it’s happening across the state.”

How did it happen that a substantial section of the American public is so entirely divorced from their community’s reality that they could believe for a second that public schools in Tennessee(!) are doing this?

Wannabe politicians presumably have been tempted by outrageous lies forever, but to be effective they require an audience already primed to believe anything, preferably with no connection to everyday issues like what American public schools are actually like. Who are these people? Retirees that spend too much time on social media?

"A lie can travel halfway around the world in the time it takes the truth to lace up its boots"- attributed to Mark Twain, but probably due to another keen observer.

FWIW, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/ .

The first and only occurrence I’ve heard of this claim was Rogan’s podcast. The article lumps him in with other claimants. But it doesn’t actually demonstrate that his anecdote is fabricated. How does this portion of the article make it past the editor? It’s entirely possible that his story is completely made up. It is also possible that it’s not made up. Tabloid journalists make conjectures. Real journalists substantiate their claims. We deserve better reporting.

> But it doesn’t actually demonstrate that his anecdote is fabricated. How does this portion of the article make it past the editor? It’s entirely possible that his story is completely made up. It is also possible that it’s not made up.

It seems to me that, if such a claim is made, that it’s much easier for the people making the claim to back up their claim with evidence. In this case, if one is claiming that a school is putting in litter boxes for children who identify as cats, then provide evidence. For example: what school, specifically? Sorry, saying a “friend’s wife” is insufficient.

How would you even demonstrate that the anecdote is fabricated? Isn’t that like proving a negative? Wouldn’t one, for example, need to do an exhaustive search of every school to disprove it? Or, identify all of Joe Rogan’s friends who are married with wives working in schools and contact those schools.

I’m somewhat partial to the line of thinking wherein if you make a claim (particularly one that’s unexpected), that it’s your responsibility for providing evidence to support your claim.

“Possible” doesn’t sound like any kind of proof to me.

> But it doesn’t actually demonstrate that his anecdote is fabricated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor says that neither journalists or anyone else needs to bother disproving that schools aren't filled with litter boxes for students if no one has any evidence at all suggesting that they are.

Scouring every last school in the country over every totally unfounded and ridiculous claim would be a massive waste of time and resources. If someone wants to claim that the litter boxes exist they can "put up or shut up". The burden of proof is theirs to meet, not anyone else's.

The substantiated claim is "There is no evidence that any school has deployed litter boxes for students to use because they identify as cats."

The Rogan example was "a litter box was installed in a[n unnamed school that his friend’s wife worked at". That's subject to all the usual third-hand hearsay cautions. It is not substantiated.

The claims I know about are from reading https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-fake-furry-s...

] So far there has not been a single factual foundation for any of these stories. Nor, for that matter, do the stories get it right when it comes to Furry culture and behavior.

It points out there's also a Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_boxes_in_schools .

"Rogan did not name the school, and his publicist did not respond to a request for comment."

It's not an urban myth. It's a rural myth.

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