A calming suggestion for anybody's life is to stop thinking the ideas people argue about have any relevance…

A calming suggestion for anybody's life is to stop thinking the ideas people argue about have any relevance to why they're arguing with you. People use ideas purely as ammunition to promote their own social group, and to oppose rival social groups. /1 https://t.co/HSvYEENQUm

The debates never end, they're incredibly tedious, because the actual facts of the matter were never at issue. What's at issue is the different social positions of the rival social groups. For example the meme on Tweet 1 of this thread. /2

Many of the anti-EV 'debaters' don't know a single thing about science or engineering, or even vehicles. But they'll latch onto anything they can find, often made up, if it gives them a perceived edge in their group rivalry. /3

Often they're the kids from school who used vehicles to build a social identity, to define their place in the world. And who now see the world rapidly shifting to a type of vehicle that bypasses much of that culture they're a part of. Their man-sheds are social HQs. /4

Or we can use Covid as an example, the alarming number of people with expertise in medicine and public health who have spent the pandemic promoting views that have not even a tiny resemblance to public health practice going back over 150 years. /5

They do it because it carves out a social space for them, a way to differentiate themselves from other public health professionals and achieve higher status. You get less angry at the apparent stupidity of people not understanding basic things when you realise it's irrelevant. /6

They're not interested in the reality, only in their team. Actual change comes either when their team becomes dysfunctional and dissolves for some reason, or again as Planck said, when the team gets old and dies. Housing will be like that. /7

Many boomers will never admit they've gamed housing for massive capital gains, so it will take the passing of that generation - that team - for real change to happen. One exception is when some technology disrupts the entire fake debate. /8

Solar is doing that right now. It's so cheap that even interests previously aligned with fossil fuels are switching to renewables, because it's saving them a fortune. They'll find a way for the old team to rationalise that shift. /end