:::spoiler spoiler
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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So you've at least silently dropped the accusation of my denial of CIA's involvment in anything. Good, that's some progress.
Indeed, I did literally declare that it is based on stereotyping as a response to your making a stereotype out of me...
It sure might look like it if you ignore that the uprising happened 7 years earlier and that the organisation CIA supported wasn't based in Hungary. But it looks like you ignored that while reading the document, so the connection seemed much stronger than it really is.
This is literally no "evidence", you yourself said it just suggested a connection, it isn't even close to evidence of it, and your meme straight-up says it was admitted.
That's simply not the point I was going for, you've misread it or I should've been more clear. My point was this: your analogy used a time and place where the event is nigh impossible to be ascribed to any other entity than KKK and similar; on the other hand, the event of CIA supporting Hungarian dissidents that is described in the document did not happen in the time and place that is the focus of your theory.
No, it is not even remotely reasonable to provide mere indications, weak proof, or non-proof, while you have easily available and already generally-accepted proof at your disposal.
Lol, "thorough investigation", that's not what I asked of you (again, my first comment: "Can’t you just Google one or two key words?"), you didn't even check Wikipedia and couldn't get the year of the revolution right, and, as I said above, made your whole conjecture while likely ignoring the actual content and context of the letter.
But you've just justified your lack of investigation into the topic by saying that you don't have any connection to Hungary, while simultaneously also making a statement on Hungarian history...
And in principle the discussion of whether something did or didn't happen has little to do with whether one is a leftist or a liberal or anything else. If I'm wrong about something, my politics matter fuck all, I'm simply wrong, and the actual facts will speak for themselves.
If it suggests a connection, that's synonymous with it being evidence.
Again, we've been over it, yes, my meme wasn't 100% accurate, it was based on an existing meme.
Your whole line of criticism is pedantic whining and after this I'm done entertaining it. Literally how many times have you brought up one simple typo, that was only off by three years anyway? Would you also bring it up this many times if I mixed up they're and their? Maybe you would, if you're that kind of annoying pedant, but if you ask me this nonsense has more to do with latching onto something, anything that you can use to punch left.
Just like you justified your lack of investigation into the CIA while also making statements about CIA history.
It does matter if you try to enforce a hypocritical double standard where I have to be exactly right about everything and you don't need to know basic historical facts.
No it isn't synonymous. Evidence is in principle unambiguous, whereas merely "suggesting" something could be more or less ambiguous. And I think that if you put down the raw facts on paper, i.e. described exactly what the document says, nobody could call that "evidence", and some number of people would probably agree that it might be only a "suggestion".
That heavily downplays its actual rhetorical effect. It's not accurate, but it makes a big attention-grabbing dramatic statement. In other words, it's in line with the usual methods of conspiracy theories based on bullshit reasoning.
No more and no less than twice. Once in my very first comment, and second time in the previous comment. I mostly tried to ignore it, and I brought it up again to underline your general carelessness in treating of the issue. (And it's not a typo, it's a factual mistake, as you've said.)
There's a few issues here. I haven't simultaneously claimed to be a leftist and that leftists should be experts in world history and economics, while you did, so this contradiction is only your own. I don't think I'm an expert on history and I'm afraid I never will be. However, since I have indeed not investigated the history of CIA, that's exactly why I've made only minimal statements about CIA history, statements that should be correct regardless of various other information on its history. I said that: CIA supported some Hungarian dissidents in 1963 (as evidenced by the document in OP), and that CIA spread some radio programs in 1956 Hungary in order to stoke the revolt (as is widely accepted and found on Wikipedia). Everything else I wrote is conditionals based on reasonable assumptions and general knowledge that I am aware is not backed by more precise info on my part: yes, it seems perfectly reasonable that CIA has supported anti-communist movements (I haven't read about that in any detail but I've heard of that happening and it seems to be widely agreed on, so I didn't problematise it), and it could also be that it has done the same in 1956 Hungary (correct, as it has turned out).
This is simply intellectual carefulness. I'm not appealing to my expertise or wide knowledge, I'm appealing to reading the actual text carefully and extrapolating what can be reasonably extrapolated from it.
In your position, yes you kind of do (even you said: "If you’re a leftist, you have to be an expert on the history of the entire globe, as well as economics and all sorts of other fields." - high standards!). In general, I think everyone should strive to be maximally correct if they make a claim that hundreds of other people see and take for truth.
Try to approach this discussion with a bit more focus on the arguments and the actual words, and less on me and your own perspective in it. At every turn you're attacking me, making a stereotype out of me and claiming I've said things I haven't said in order to make our positions seem more symmetrical (you're trying to argue about what CIA did or did not do, but I'm trying to argue about whether this counts as proof of what CIA did), and conveniently ignoring my key point even when I spell it out in bold letters. Do you find that I've done the same to you, have I ascribed you statements and ideas that you haven't actually previously expressed? (Aside, of course, from the instance where I explicitly announced I would do it by ascribing you the position of those leftists who deride NYT, and in retrospect I shouldn't have done that because it was nothing more than a pointless jab.) At the same time, you seem to be very emotionally invested in this, downvoting me even while absolutely nobody else is reading this dialogue anymore. Cool it down, you don't have to respond to me, just please reflect on your own thinking/reasoning process once more, maybe sometime later when you have some distance from all this.
That's completely wrong. You don't know what the word "evidence" means, evidence isn't proof, and wrong ideas can have evidence.
If someone gets shot and the bullet is traced back to a gun you own, that's evidence that you did it. Sufficient evidence that the cops are going to come by with a few questions, possibly even arrest you. But it doesn't prove that you did it, the gun could've been stolen, for example, what it does is suggest that you did it.
Likewise, if someone develops some sort of health complication after being vaccinated, that's evidence that suggests vaccines are harmful. It's a very, very small piece of anecdotal evidence that's outweighed by the overwhelming majority of evidence in the opposite direction, but it's still evidence.
The word you're looking for is "proof" or "conclusive evidence." You are 100% wrong on this point.
Actually, what I said is that I mixed it up with the date of a similar event, which is, you know, what a typo is.
Please reflect on the carelessness with which you've approached this argument that led to you making such mistakes.
You're doing it right here. What I was talking about is what is expected, and what you've demonstrated you expect, not what should actually be the expectation.
Bullshit. You repeatedly compared my saying that the CIA was involved to far-right antisemitic conspiracy theories about secret Jewish cabals. That's both a huge claim about CIA history, and it's far more accusatory than anything I've said about you. You're over here whining about "how every turn I'm attacking you" when the worst I've done is call you an annoying pedant because you've repeatedly attacked me over minor typos, while you've compared me to the fucking Nazis! And now you wanna play the victim? Do you really lack self-awareness to that degree?
Rest assured that my take away from this is not going to be "deep personal reflection on the carelessness that made me accidentally type a 3 instead of 6," it's that you're an annoying pedant.