The secret square of the Bingo. Because contrarians often go meta as a way to desguise their power play. How they misrepresent Climateball is worth a page. See this post (coming soon) for more.
Examples
You are Climateball.
(Andy)
You ClimateBallers are a piece of work.
(The Auditor)
Objections and Replies
Ball. Climateball is all about playing the man, not the ball—
☞ One could play Climateball without playing the man at all. Many do. All one needs is to rinse and repeat a good stock of talking points.
Better. You could do better than a Bingo—
☞ Contrarians gave me Climateball lemons. I made them a lemonade with natural ingredients and it does not taste too bitter. Take a look at the Contrarian Matrix for their best of and the Manual for my own playbook.
Bots. We could program bots to play your “but” game—
☞ I’d wish to see it. Please send me your code. One day they might. If they do, I would bet dollars to donuts that they could easily look like online contrarians.
ClimateBallers. You ClimateBallers are—
☞ Don’t be too hard on yourself, and don’t let the Ghosts of ClimateBall Past get to you.
Conversations. Your game is killing the possibility of having conver—
☞ What conversation? What you present as a conversation is you trying to use me as a springboard to rehearse your talking points over and over again. Conversationalists know better than manipulative and passive aggression.
Destroyed. You created Climateball, and then you killed it—
☞ I wish. Alas it persists! Take your comment, for instance.
Discredit. The whole point of the ‘But’ is to discredit any logic—
☞ The “but” indicates a deflection. Once again you’re trying to use me as a springboard for your pet topics. Since it’s your main weapon, of course you’ll whine about that. Cheers.
Footnote. Climateball deserves no more than a passing paragraph—
☞ Agreed. Climateball players still like it. Suck it up.
Game. Climateball is a game, it’s not serious—
☞ Games are a bigger industry than movies nowadays. We use game theory to model very serious stuff.
Kids. Climateball is a kids’ game—
☞ Most players I know have kids who have kids. They’re still young at heart!
Know-How. I do not know how to play Climateball, but Ross wrote—
☞ Your “but Ross wrote” indicates that you know more than you think!
Linear. Your Bingo is linear, whereas a conversation—
☞ The Bingo is a tree, some of its leaves are incompatible. You are free to rope-a-dope from one topic to the next. I am free to call your baits and switches.
No U. I’m not playing Climateball, you are Climateball—
☞ Of course you are. Hereunder we all are, including scientists who have an online presence. Rejoice, for contrarians can’t lose!
Rules. You are making all kinds of rules—
☞ There are no fixed rules in Climateball, no central authority, no real scoring system. I play by my Manual.
Science. All is well and good, but Climateball is not science—
☞ No shit, Sherlock. Appealing to science in a non-scientific exchange can lead to #ButScience.
Symmetry. The game is not symmetrical—
☞ And it actually helps contrarians. They don’t need to be consistent, whereas the established viewpoint works by consilience of evidence. Also, contrarians have less to lose from food fights.
Trademark. Did you really trademarked Climateball-
☞ No™. Nor did I trademark INTEGRITY™. Though I’m tempted to trademark RHTRCS ™ with-an-S and said really fast so that we clearly hear the “tricks” at the end.
* * *
Notes
{1} Auditing. When done well, auditing can contribute positively to sciences. When done with Climateball in mind, not so much. The first case does not defeat Climateball at all – it actually reinforces its function.
References
2021-12; Computer-assisted classification of contrarian claims about climate change; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01714-4
Climateball Episodes
2021-12; Public Climateball; Andy tries to reframe the concept for his CAGW meme.
2014-09; The Ghosts of Present ClimateBall™; on a slime job by the Auditor.
2014-07; Play the Ball; wherein I explain how to play the man and the ball.
2014-03; Climateball ™; AT discovers the power of making rules as we go along.
ClimateBall 