I'm content with the ground we've covered, but I still wanted to address your specific request for a reply--I'll try to winnow a bit.

> b) "you harbor suspicion [I do - suspicion is common human nature] that climate scientists are cooking the books [I didn't say that - that you interpreted it that way may be worth thinking about]"

I did take metaphorical liberty in how I phrased this, but I don't see this much room, here. You quoted, and responded:

> > I have a bunch of coworkers that think scientists are making up this data and skewing results because their jobs depend on it and they want to continue to get funding.
> FWIW, I also happen to harbor this suspicion...

Regardless of what you thought, or suspected, or meant to say, you said you harbor the same suspicion as the poster's coworkers--and the poster said their coworkers think the scientists are making up the data because their jobs depend on it. Where do you see enough daylight--between the initial poster's assertion, your statement, and my "cooking the books" metaphor--to assert that my interpretation is inconsistent with what you said?

> ...I don't understand what you mean by this...

You expressed skepticism (to be clear, as I said previously, I have no intrinsic objection to skepticism) of the scientists and their data, but also separately expressed interest in how we move forward from the misunderstanding. If your skepticism of the scientists and the data is serious, it's not clear to me why you're motivated to figure out how we move forward from the misunderstanding. It seems like one of a few things has to be true:

- Your skepticism of the scientists/data isn't serious. This seems to be undercut by your statement that you "harbor this suspicion" (that the scientists are making up the data and skewing their results because their jobs depend on it). If you suspect they're making up the data, I don't see why you'd be you'd also have genuine interest in moving forward to address conclusions identitariains have drawn from the data/results you suspect are made up/skewed.
- Your interest in moving forward isn't serious. This seems to be undercut by your subsequent posts to others and myself.

To close the circle: You baited the trap by agreeing you suspect that the scientists are making up the data and skewing results because their jobs depend on it (I suspect this assertion is ~unfalsifiable in our moment; how would the scientists tarred by this assertion refute it? could you support it in any way that isn't vulnerable to the same assertion? And, to be clear, it would not surprise me if there are some scientists doing this--but this is not what you or the poster you quoted asserted). Your agreement with an unqualified assertion that they're making data up and skewing their results attracted about the same kind of responses I'd expect. You seem open-minded and nuanced, but the bait you left out wasn't.

> I propose, for your consideration, that conflict largely derives from the topic of discussion... the magnitude of how an individual ~"ideologically identifies" with a topic

I'm not sure. The conflict is inevitably shaped by the topic (and there are inevitably some people who care about one topic and not another), but a lot of it feels like on Wednesdays we wear pink and on Thursdays we boycott/buy something the other side loves/hates.

> To me, job #1 is getting more people than just you and me to realize (or even open up to consider) that this is actually the situation, and potentially a non-trivial part of the problem. It seems to be a very unpopular idea.

I don't know enough local/global political-party history to have a sense of whether it's like this always/everywhere, but (similar to not feeling compelled to have opinions) I've wondered for a while if it would help if we cultivated different norms around party identification (i.e., that it's unseemly for anyone who isn't a candidate or party official to "identify" as <party>).

> ...asking them some questions might be a good way to start... why everyone seems to have such a strong "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" attitude towards this instance is odd ... something needs to be done

Fair. My own approach has been bending towards some playful socratic prodding over the past several years (I guess this is analogous to "street epistemology"). But I'll admit to feeling ground down by watching peoples beliefs/opinions do the Borg thing if you undermine anything they previously claimed was load-bearing. That's why I've been wondering if cultivating abstract norms/virtues is the real answer (but, of course, many people regularly prove that they're willing to discard abstract virtues for expedience). In a memetic frame, my curiosity is about whether we can cultivate more of an immune system to resist polarizing/gridlocking memes.