>Presumably if someone's viewpoint isn't represented in a debate, but rather outright maligned, then that person isn't going to trust the moderator and is going to feel free to find his own moderator. If rejecting neutrality is the cause, then it stands to reason that we can cure the problem in part or in full by embracing neutrality again.
I don’t fully understand your point here as it relates to the other poster’s comment. Are you saying that “we should embrace neutrality” in this context by entertaining the idea that it’s not raining outside when it clearly is? I don’t think that’s a solution.
I’m saying had we (our epistemological institutions) not given up on neutrality (rather, truth-seeking) in the first place we might not have had so many people who felt free to give up on it themselves and in such overt ways (for example, weather denial).
That said, some people in this thread are really stuck on this contrived weather hypothetical; in reality, current events are typically a lot more subjective. Consider BLM—had the media critically considered the conservative position—that perhaps police killing victims skew black for reasons besides police racism—maybe blacks have more frequent interactions with the police or maybe they commit more crimes or both. Perhaps the media could have also considered some of the heinous police killings of whites instead of fueling the narrative that it’s only blacks who are egregiously killed by police. Had the media done these things, it might’ve earned back a bit of trust from some people, and since everyone is absolutely certain about the dynamics of race and policing, it could have been an opportunity to demonstrate to conservatives and skeptical liberals how we know for certain that crime rates, etc don’t drive police killing disparities but rather racism.
I'm stuck on the weather hypothetical because it's a neutral topic because it depoliticizes the issue at hand. What you are failing to answer is that the people who think it's not raining outside are refusing to apply any critical thinking; no amount of "neutrality" will fix that.
To go back to your topic about BLM; your counter-issues have been addressed many times. Remember that Kapernick started kneeling in 2016, during Obama, protesting to criminal justice reform. BLM activists had continually made the case that police reform is needed given:
1. Black communities are over-policed and black Americans were targets, for reasons including generating more revenue. [1]
2. White victims such as Daniel Shaver [2] received major media coverage from BLM and mainstream media.
I could sit here and list of articles and anecdotes about the BLM movement - and you can research them as well; but the solution comes with discussing police reform and as you can imagine they are certain institutions who do not want to have that conversation. The problem is, just how it's raining outside, despite evidence for it, the "not raining outside" crowd will continue to regurgitate the same arguments like the one you have espoused. And in this 4 years of trying to convince them that it's not raining outside we have hardly made a dent in the issue. At this point you can only make the assumption that one side is acting in bad faith; and if that's the case why should anyone give a neutral position to bad faith actors? That's why I don't think it's a solution - it's not that the other side is "misinformed", but they are actively impeding progress with bad faith arguments - in order to prevent having to reform our profitable criminal justice system and their attempts to tell us to be "neutral" is simply an attempt for them to slide us backwards.
How do you play neutral with a corporation that is dumping radioactive waste in your lakes?
I don’t fully understand your point here as it relates to the other poster’s comment. Are you saying that “we should embrace neutrality” in this context by entertaining the idea that it’s not raining outside when it clearly is? I don’t think that’s a solution.