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[Vector]

I don't think that treating every part of the internet by the same standards as which we give Yahoo Comments is appropriate. I expect that in this discussion thread, posters are working in good faith and are open to a change in their own viewpoint. That's what I mean by "respect." No, not "Yes, this person really has convinced me that misogyny is The Way To Go!!" but perhaps something of what is being said is of value.

There is absolutely no point in arguing with the goal of destroying somebody else's beliefs. Truth-seeking is appropriate. The assumption that whatever we think is right actually is right and that our "opponent" must be beaten, rather than understood, is the petard that is going to fuck this country right into the ocean (that is an exaggeration for poetic effect).

Yes, maybe my expectations are too high, in which case I will stop posting about my viewpoints here indefinitely, as continuing to lower one's expectations is not the only response, nor the appropriate one for my situation. I have, however, been posting with the expectations that others in the discussion were at least pretending to listen. It's a communication medium, after all.


A strawman is a mischaracterization of somebody else's argument, not merely something to call any position you find messy and poorly thought-out. The word you're looking for might be "illogical" or "unclear." I agree that my position might be unclear. That is why I thank people like SalmonGod, Truean, Glowcat, and Bauglir, who are all better at expressing my viewpoint than I am.

I would like to know whose argument I am mischaracterizing. As far as I can tell, I am only arguing against the positions I have actually heard, and the implications and conclusions actually being drawn. I would like, in particular, to see quotations of the things that someone else said, and of my mischaracterizations, so that I can see them together and perhaps clarify my intentions.

[i2amroy]

I think I might note about the flooding example is that in the absolute worst case, where you build sandbag barricades and it doesn't flood, the only person you hurt is yourself, and even that is rather minimal hurt. I'd say that the vaccine thing would be much closer to your neighbors saying that you need to perform controlled burning on your property to help protect yourself from the fire they say is coming. If they are right then you save people, but if you are wrong (or don't have the training to control what you do) you could easily start a fire that burns down the whole area.

[Bauglir]

There may be some tilting at windmills going on here, but I assure you it's far from intentional. All I, at least, see are giants being vaguely threatening toward the countryside.

Probably because once you buy into anecdotal evidence you can believe anything.

This is what's got me all fired up, and what you have explicitly defended as "completely fair". Near as I can tell, we've got an assertion here that anecdotal evidence is universally worthless. Let me be clear about my position here - anecdotal evidence is no substitute for statistically rigorous study. Anecdotal evidence is a tool with particular uses. I agree that you should not, for example, blindly accept any conclusion drawn from anecdotal evidence on its face, particularly not when there's a body of rigorous evidence against that conclusion (for example, when people claim that vaccines cause autism for whatever reason). I agree that you should not use a screwdriver when you need to cut a plank in half.

But I'd like to have it on hand when some screws crop up.

So what am I missing about your position?

Spoiler: Meta (click to show/hide)

who are all better at expressing my viewpoint than I am.

I find that hard to believe (you're awfully damn eloquent)

also why am i even on that list

[Leafsnail]

A strawman is a mischaracterization of somebody else's argument, not merely something to call any position you find messy and poorly thought-out. The word you're looking for might be "illogical" or "unclear." I agree that my position might be unclear. That is why I thank people like SalmonGod, Truean, Glowcat, and Bauglir, who are all better at expressing my viewpoint than I am.

I would like to know whose argument I am mischaracterizing. As far as I can tell, I am only arguing against the positions I have actually heard, and the implications and conclusions actually being drawn. I would like, in particular, to see quotations of the things that someone else said, and of my mischaracterizations, so that I can see them together and perhaps clarify my intentions.

I explained why I regard it as a strawman earlier - you're acting like the people who are defending scientific thinking are saying "We should believe anything that someone with any experience in a field of science says", and then saying "If you believe this then you should take what I'm saying as absolute truth because I also have experience in a field of science".  I don't believe anyone actually holds this position, although some may fall back on it if they're trying to defend a dodgy position (eg "look at what this engineering professor has to say about evolution").

Here is where you make the mischaracterization:

This is the point at which people usually say: "Oh, so you want me to bow down to you?!" No. I want you to look at yourself, and how you respect viewpoints that have Science written on them, and look at my arguments and see how I have a scientific background, and see that I am trying to convince you that having a scientific background does not mean that what you say is true, and see that you are disrespecting what I am saying despite my scientific background, and see that you are exercising my point exactly--except not willing to admit it because what I'm saying doesn't fit with your confirmation bias.

I (and I've seen no indication that this doesn't apply to anyone else you're arguing with) don't respect "viewpoints that have Science written on them", I respect conclusions reached through careful and transparent research. I do not regard any random statement made by a scientist as some kind of divine edict.

[Magistrum]

*grabs ears and screams*
I don't like it when mummy and daddy are fighting!

But in all seriousness, just be careful. Arguments seem to turn to flamewars pretty readily, and this thread doesn't need locking.

Something about calm and cool and progressive wouldn't give it off that easily.

[Truean]

In re: Anedcotes v. Empiricism

Everybody's talking past everybody else. The bottom line is that both science and anecdote can have value and can have flaws. When you go too far with either, it gets a little nuts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyS_a7u6ppw

__________________________________________________
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/wal-mart-suddenly-closed-5-135231172.html



"Wal-Mart suddenly closed 5 stores and laid off thousands of workers and no one knows why....

Some employees believe that the stores were closed because of worker protests for higher pay.

Employees of the Pico Rivera store were among the first to hold Black Friday protests in 2012.

"This is the first store that went on strike," an employee told CBS Los Angeles. 'This is the first store in demanding changes for Walmart.'"

....

[Frumple]

That's kinda' odd.

They don't seem to have actually laid folks off yet, though -- two months of paid leave for everyone, followed by other stuff. Couple months of free money to find another job is... not as bad as it could be, I guess. Hell, it's possibly better than the workers could have otherwise expected, walmart being walmart

Does look like fairly normal heavy-handed union busting tactics, though. Right up Wally World's alley. Y'd just think they'd be a bit less clumsy with the excuse.

[Reelya]

I'm sure rich people realize that, they just try to justify it by telling themselves that poor people deserve it (maybe relying on anecdotes about lazy or stupid poor people)

The Just World Fallacy is really interesting. I recommend reading up on it if you have not.

Spoiler: just world fallacy (click to show/hide)

The less you actually did to deserve the outcome, the more they slag you. It seems to be about a rock-solid belief in moral cause => effect. Any cases that don't fit, they invent rationalizations after the effect to explain it. e.g. in the 1960's they desribed various cases to test subjects and got them to answer questions about the people in the scenarios. The more "unjust" the outcome, the more they invented negative opinions of the victim. If there were plausible cause/effect connections between the persons actions and outcomes, the opinions of the victim were neutral. e.g. if you walked down a dark alley at night, and got mugged they just think "you shouldn't have walked down the alley", whereas if you got mugged in broad daylight, they start concocting negative character flaws. The irrational nature of the Just World Fallacy is highlighted in studies where fortune came down to a coin flip, shown to all test subjects. The subjects rated every possible trait of the coin-flip winner as better (looks, intelligence etc) than coin-flip losers. So even when they know it was mere chance they still rationalize reasons you deserve the shitty outcome. Explaining about circumstances outside victim's control is clearly the wrong approach with such people. It seems to be a psychological defense. These people want to believe in a predictable moral universe where bad things don't happen at random. Because if they accept that, then they have to accept that bad things could happen to themselves. So, they separate the world into those who "deserve" bad things and good people like themselves. This kind of thinking seems more prevalent in social conservatives. Things like "lazy" or "stupid" seem to be post-rationalizations that people grasp for after already deciding you deserved being poor. It's also something you have to look out for when crafting social messages. If you craft social messages around a narrative of unjust treatment, then that might make conservatives hate the group even more. Sure, something might be actually unjust, but maybe there are other ways to present it to get conservatives to agree with the conclusion.

There's also a really interesting  thing called "negative social proof", because it throws into question the best way to present a whole swathe of social messages - if you actually care about social outcomes and aren't just grandstanding / complaining to score points.

 People conform to whatever they believe the norm is, even if you say that norm is bad. Some classic examples includes signs which tried to prevent stealing of something by pointing out how much got stolen, and how bad it's effects were. Stealing tripled afterwards. "Everyone does X, but X is bad. Don't do X" often has the effect of increasing 'X'. More recent efforts present the unwanted behavior as abberant and rare. This actually dissuades people from doing it.

This raises questions about how to couch discussions of rape and domestic violence. Saying these are epidemics and "every guy" is doing it or wants to do it, actually sends the message to rapists and abusers that they're normal average guys. Which going by the psychology research, is likely to backfire. This is something I noted as contrarian in an Anita Sarkeesian video. She took games to task for presenting violence against females as a signifier of the extreme evil of a villain. Anita says (paraphrasing) that games are wrong for saying "only the worst monster would beat their wife" and that actually wife beaters are everywhere and they look like normal guys next door. Whether this is true or not, going by social proof theory, it's actually dangerous to go around saying it like that because it emboldens abusers by convincing them that everyone else is an abuser too, hence their actions have social acceptance. The games that basically send the message that only the worst monsters are wife beaters, they are actually sending the correct message if you go by the best psychology research, whereas Anita's "wife beaters everywhere" message closely resembles the failed social messaging campaigns they stopped using because they backfire.

[Reelya]

Actually, it's interesting when you dissect the implications of karma, and not just the feel-good notion that bad people will get their payback in the end for being bad.

Karma can be seen as the Just World Fallacy given a religious stamp of approval. I've read Indians who write that the poor deserve to be poor, because of Karma from past lives. Otherwise the universe wouldn't have made them poor, right? Karma is "you get what you deserve", so conversely whatever you're getting now is what you actually deserve. If thugs beat you up, then you must have deserved it from your present or past lives, even though those thugs will deserve to get beaten up too. Conveniently this can happen after they die, which explains away rich asshole nobles who live long healthy lives, trample on everyone and have 72 sexy wives. The injustice is explained away since he'll probably be reincarnated as a slug or something.

Screw "Karma" basically. Karma has the payback possibly after you die and what you did to deserve the suffering possibly before you were born, so it's a codified version of the Just World Fallacy but you don't even have to rationalize "lazy" or "stupid" now because of the past/future lives things.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Helgoland]

Also makes it more difficult for people like child molesters to search/accept treatment. The effects of the argument depend on how it's applied, I guess.

[Helgoland]

It's more like 'nobody is this terrible, so what I do can't be that bad'. It's more of a refusal to admit to having a problem - I should have worded my statement more carefullly. Also 'I'm a monster - no-one must ever know.', I guess.

[SalmonGod]

Yeah... I've spent a lot of time reading into all that stuff... and it's left me with the impression that the vast majority of human beings truly do intend to be socially caring and just, but the functions which produce their actual perceptions and behaviors undermine that intention constantly.  But it's also left me with the belief that the structure and function of our society also exacerbates those natural flaws in every possible way.

The best thing we could do to make things better is educate everyone about these psychological shortcomings from an early age, because these mental quirks can be consciously adjusted for once one is equipped with the proper awareness of them.  But it seems to me like our education system, at least in the U.S., is much more effective at reinforcing them.

[Vector]

Yeah... I've spent a lot of time reading into all that stuff... and it's left me with the impression that the vast majority of human beings truly do intend to be socially caring and just, but the functions which produce their actual perceptions and behaviors undermine that intention constantly.  But it's also left me with the belief that the structure and function of our society also exacerbates those natural flaws in every possible way.

The best thing we could do to make things better is educate everyone about these psychological shortcomings from an early age, because these mental quirks can be consciously adjusted for once one is equipped with the proper awareness of them.  But it seems to me like our education system, at least in the U.S., is much more effective at reinforcing them.

I agree with this.

I'll also add that that was what religion was supposed to do, but there are some obvious shortcomings.

[inteuniso]

Yeah... I've spent a lot of time reading into all that stuff... and it's left me with the impression that the vast majority of human beings truly do intend to be socially caring and just, but the functions which produce their actual perceptions and behaviors undermine that intention constantly.  But it's also left me with the belief that the structure and function of our society also exacerbates those natural flaws in every possible way.

The best thing we could do to make things better is educate everyone about these psychological shortcomings from an early age, because these mental quirks can be consciously adjusted for once one is equipped with the proper awareness of them.  But it seems to me like our education system, at least in the U.S., is much more effective at reinforcing them.

I agree with this.

I'll also add that that was what religion was supposed to do, but there are some obvious shortcomings.

The main problem is that by and large the system of governance has not changed in 12,000 years. What I mean to say is that while there has been a clear path of evolution of government, the underlying idea of government (hierarchical order) is a creation of War: Kings were appointed to a position above others because you need to focus like that in battle. It originated from the Chief-Among-Equals government that has remained in existence until now; the kings remained in power through means lost to the sands of time, and every non-tribal government has been some modification of this wartime government.

I suppose the Grand Illusion is this, and was pointed out quite obviously in 1984 among other works: There hasn't been worldwide peace since the dawn of "civilization:" everyone living under a state government has been living under martial law the entire time. It's the reason slavery still exists, it's the reason mercantilism-branded-as-capitalism still exists, it's the reason that we're killing ourselves (The Hopi call it the breaking of the Sacred Hoop and predict Armageddon should the Sacred Hoop not be restored)

We are animals. Quite intelligent animals, we're certainly (probably maybe) as intelligent as the rest of the intelligent animals on this planet. We're certainly the most knowledgeable animals on this planet, although some of our knowledge is best forgotten...

I suppose my conclusion is this: Existence is Alive. Non-Existence is Not Alive. Respect Being Alive.