First, how dare you accuse me of looking up someone else’s claim before engaging in debate on the internet. I would never…

But seriously, they originally said people are moving to places where companies are building. Someone else responded with something along the lines of “companies are building in red-leaning areas due to poor labor protections”. Without addressing that point, the original guy said Texas is building more green energy than California. With that comment he: side stepped the claim that companies are building where there are fewer labor protections, and talked about a hyper specific example of one section of one industry where one state is creating more output (not more jobs, mind you) than another state. I responded with a claim that state-led conservative governments have not been a shining example of “how to govern in the best interests of your population”.

So now, like an idiot, I’m gonna start googling things so that I can address his point and yours. First him:

Texas generates more green energy than California. He is correct. According to Wikipedia, but according to that same data California produces a higher percentage of green energy than Texas. Neither are in the top position for green energy production, or percentage. Even if they were, green energy production is not a direct correlation to economic prosperity, corporate development, or well employed populations. Better examples might have been standard of living, median income, or new jobs created. Texas beats California in only one category (new jobs created), but neither are in the top spot in any of the three. Are there better metrics? Undoubtedly- like median income divided by cost of living, or job growth of only jobs earning 1.25x annual cost of living by state, but I’m not gonna sit down and do that math, and I wouldn’t want to make an unsubstantiated claim that doesn’t fully paint the picture.

Now, to you:

Their statement is true, but as I’ve just demonstrated, trivially so. I responded with a dismissive remark because they, as well as many others, knew their claim didn’t support their original thesis. We can sit and argue about why they were down voted and I was up voted, but you’re probably correct. Left leaning sites like Lemmy probably didn’t get more critical than “Texas bad, California good” with their voting. Or, maybe, they got down voted for attempting to lie with statistics by proving a point no one was arguing, and did an obviously bad job, which the users on this site critically analyzed and down voted accordingly. We’ll never know.

You, however, came in and disregarded my point, and attempted to discredit my argument without disproving it, based on an appeal to the audience that I’m a partisan hack without the spine to engage in the debate at hand. Ironically, in doing so, you created a comment no better than mine, based on your own position, and a lot less pithy and amusing.

So now the ball is in your court. Are you gonna do hours and hours and jobs research, determine if it’s blue or red states that create more economic prosperity for their occupants, and post your findings, or are you gonna look it up, realize I’m right, and decide to respond in a way that doesn’t actually address what I said?

Do keep in mind the conversation is blue vs red states, not California vs Texas, and it’s overall prosperity, not one or two cherry picked metrics. That was the mistake the original guy made, and if you do the same, I’m probably gonna respond with a single sentence joke dismissing the work you put in as an attempt to mislead.