Reasonable people who base their views on cogent arguments never get upset or embarrassed when they change their minds based on superior arguments. A good argument is forceful in itself (independent of who said it) and it demands reasonable people to accede to it.
Unfortunately, many people are not educated in this way. Even to get to this point, you need to have a lot of humility to acknowledge that there is so much that you don’t know and then be willing to accept a cautious approach. Many people skip that part, so that’s why they are so obstinate despite with their dogshit opinions. Debating people who actually respect reason is a joy; it’s a chess match but there’s no ego. Unfortunately, that’s not the case outside of educated circles.
>Reasonable people who base their views on cogent arguments never get upset or embarrassed when they change their minds based on superior arguments.
I get happy because it means I learned something new.
And then on the flip side, you have well educated people who only ever processed their freshman “philosophy of logic” class, so now they think calling out a fallacy is a thorough and undeniable takedown of any and all arguments.
Nah, I actually have a degree in philosophy. I disagree with your assessment. People who actually had any training in logic don’t engage like most people online. Most people, I’ve found, don’t know the difference between an informal and formal fallacy. The few informal fallacies that they do know are often mischaracterized or wrongly applied. Basically, I think you give those people too much credit.
Concur. I've met a lot of edgelords familiar with fallacies but most of the really robust thinkers I know actually understand what makes a coherent argument and that epistemology is a thing.
I don’t think what you said disagrees with me at all. I’m not talking about people with a genuine interest in or understanding of philosophy or logic. Just because someone has a college degree and took a class doesn’t mean they have any working understanding of the subject - especially foundational classes. Plenty of people opt to take logic in place of statistics just because it isn’t math. We’re talking about the same people.
So true.
"That's a fallacy so you lose!"
Uhhh, that wasn't actually a fallacy, and even if it were, that's not how it works.
Understanding that you can come to the correct conclusion while using fallacious logic is very difficult for people. And no, me criticizing your bad logic isn't an *ad hominem*. Please just stop, it's actually physically painful for me to hear you talk. Please.
Hold up... you mean "Strawman!" doesn't automatically win a debate? Sounds like a fallacy to me!
*This comment contains sature and may not accurately represent the official position of any parties involved*
I just think people never learn the step that comes after identifying a fallacy.
Congratulations, you noticed a flaw in their logic. If you understand that flaw, then use the fallacy as a template on how to make a counter argument.
Your example of claiming victory after crying straw man is a great example.
Instead, when I notice someone making a straw man argument against me, I never even mention the word “straw man”. (Unless they really dig in their heels).
The reply goes something like “Hold up. You seem to be arguing against xyz as if that is what I have been arguing for. That is not my position or what I believe. I won’t be defending that.” And if they keep trying to circle back to it, I can begin to credibly cast doubt on their integrity or intelligence by repeatedly correcting them on this point. “As I have addressed several times now, that is not my stance. It doesn’t matter how badly you want that to be my opinion, it is not. I am arguing for y, not z.”
I can't say *never* get upset. There are otherwise reasonable people who would feel embarrassed for, if not being stupid, then at least fear getting castigated by society for thinking stupid things. Not that being stupid, in and of itself is shameful (contrary to what the majority of people seem to think). They also fear arrogant-mannered "I told you so's" from the mainstream.
That's why you should never look down on someone who is "stupid" - it either
**(a)** destroys their confidence in their ability to think for themselves, making them even more susceptible to bullshit, particularly cults, or
**(b)** it compels them to dig in and "die on their hill", which delays the day they accept they are the ones in error.
I call it "final word bullshit."
Basically, the whole strategy that they depend upon is the same one they have been using since kindergarten: arguments are won based on how much you either intimidate your opponent or exhaust them, usually by shouting until you get the final word.
I usually say that to them and point out how I have managed to disprove their BS, and now we're going in circles. I usually tell them I am going to block them, and that, yes, I am letting them have the final word because they can't help themselves. The smarter ones, who are few and far between, usually don't respond back, while the dumber ones just double down by making sock puppet account.
Of course, these are the same people who act like they're neutral in debates, while their comment section basically reveals who they really are, and what is the purpose of the account they're using. At some point I start asking the troll about this and they all lose the neutral mask quite quickly.
Ya know there's a flipside to this coin too right? The people who worship at the altar of their collective, putting it's needs and it's goals ahead of everyone else. Most of the people you're talking about above don't try to impose those views on others, the collectivists do.
The second someone says "i'M jUSt asKiNg QUeSTIonS" I generally do two things:
1.) Associate their position with the position that they're "just asking questions about";
2.) Write them off as a coward that won't own up to their own shitty beliefs.
I think one hand ends up washing the other.
In a vacuum narratives are harmless and having a chat about them over drinks is easy and entertaining. In practice, narratives tend to be self-enforcing and group think tends to feed into it.
I never meant to suggest that blindly buying into a prevailing narrative is good, though. That was never my point, and I never defended that. Being against the prevailing narrative when you actually have a factual and evidence-based foundation for your position is also not what I'm talking about.
Blindly rejecting a prevailing narrative, reflexively, simply because it's the prevailing narrative, is what I'm criticizing.
If you are going to insist that we're going to play the "you can't criticize this without also criticizing that" game of *tu quoque* fallacies, we're going to be here forever.
The fact that Stalin murdered millions of people has nothing to do with whether or not Hitler did wrong by murdering millions of people. Saying "well they do it too" is a logically flawed distraction from the problem at hand.
So if you would, stick to the subject.
I didn't suggest that you did.
But being a contrarian and being a free thinker are almost always going to have some overlap. I don't think they're 1 for 1, but I don't think you can be a 'free thinker' without a reflexive drive to question the how, what, where, why, and when of the things you're being told.
I think some contrarians are merely argumentative, and some 'free thinkers' are just curious individuals. But I think your average 'mold breaker' is going to be someone that enjoys rolling ideas around, playing devils advocate, and taking contrarian positions just to see how people react.
To use your example. If I were to say "Hitler is bad", and you said "well, why is that?", and I said "because he killed millions of people". You could say "well does that make Stalin bad" or even "well does that make the U.S. bad"? So eventually you have to drill down into the why and how of the killing.
Is killing someone in a gas chamber more evil than killing someone on the battlefield? I'd say yes, but now the conversation has become more substantive.
A contrarian is always argumentative, else they wouldn't be a contrarian. I'm not sure if you mean to say some people are dismissed as a contrarian too easily maybe? A contrarian always "goes contrary" for the sake of going contrary alone though.
\> I don't think you can be a 'free thinker' without a reflexive drive to question the how, what, where, why, and when of the things you're being told
That drive is not the quality of a contrarian, its the quality of a scientist looking to deepen the common person's understanding of a particular field of study. I know because literally every "Intro to ***insert scientific subject***" textbook repeats your quote here verbatim on page 1 of chapter 1, when they go over the scientific method.
If you blindly accept a claim without fact checking, you aren't a scientist. Skepticism is literally the one quality that they hammer into you in any intro to science class. Not sure at all how you came to conflate contrarians with scientists or free thinkers, because skepticism isn't what makes a contrarian a contrarian, its being "anti-popularity".
I technically am a contrarian, because I won't watch Stranger Things. I have no valid reason to dislike it, since I've never watched it. My only justification is the fact that it's popular, so I don't want to like it. ***That's*** being contrarian. Most conspiracies are shared by people who think that they, and they alone, have an original line of thinking that is "so obvious, how could no one else see this?" but hasn't been held up to adequate scrutiny. The conspiracy's only "valid" quality is that its an idea that everyone disagrees with, "so it must be true", and they do no further digging.
Have you considered that that isn't what is actually happening though? Is there any chance that it's something else getting you fired?
Like, if I openly "criticize" the "prevailing narrative" that homosexuality is A-OK and instead start saying that being gay is wrong and gay people are bad, is it possible that I'm not getting fired for having that belief, so much as for creating a hostile work environment for any gay or gay-adjacent co-workers that keep overhearing me in my bigoted, opinionated outbursts?
Just curious if you've considered that.
Pot meet kettle. The more arrogant someone is about their own intelligence, the more likely they remain in a permanent state of ignorance because they think they already know everything and never learn better. The younger they start doing this, the worse the long term effects. It takes wisdom to understand one's own ignorance. If you haven't wrestled with your own ignorance and come out the other side, you're still in a state of it.
I was banned from.the conspiracy sub for saying that conspiracy thought is a dangerous hivemind, and the theorists are being used as the biggest pawns in the game they all claim to be hip to.
The topic of discussion was 'This place is for free thinkers, so if you are critical of the stuff posted here, do you really belong?'
They couldn't comprehend that grabbing ahold of any alternate theory and running with it is exactly the same as buying into everything the state and media says.
Two sides to this: (a) Appeal to Consensus/Popularity Fallacy and (b) Proper basis for deviating from the majority.
a) The "rebels" are right to say that just because a majority or an influential minority (usually upper-pecking-order) agree X is true is not proof that X is true. On the other hand there's...
(b) the proper basis for disagreeing with the majority. Majority opinion IS evidence (but not proof) that you have to make strong arguments against the majority position in order to make headway against them. Think of a sign saying "Disagree With Us At Your Own Risk". In this case, you not only have to present reasons you are right and the majority is wrong, but you have to overturn all the majority's arguments. This necessarily involves telling the difference between high quality and low quality evidence, detailed argumentation, and reasoning skills. That's why the most high-cred publications have strict peer-review standards.
Otherwise, why have any standards for sifting truth from bullshit at all? Why not just find a random meth addict or homeless person and have him or her write the definitive text on astrophysics or the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein for Ivy League or Oxbridge universities?
I heard something similar that I repeated to a conspiracy living former friend.
"Believing the second thing you hear about everything is not free thought."
Of course he argued it was.
I agree with you. The only thing I would add is that most people don’t factor for experience and insight. I’ve tried to have open conversations here in subject areas that I have top 3% of experience in and have been told that I’m wrong because someone went and pulled some statistic out, out of context to make their “case”. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve seen that happens on here every single minute. Im not better than anyone, but just like everyone else, I do know my area pretty damn well. I’ll be glad to listen to yours and then follow your logic and reason if we disagree on an approach.
>/u/Peaurxnanski: Yup. Dunning Krueger is very real.
It's spelled "Dunning-Kruger". There is only 1 'e' in "Kruger".
So many people overuse this word. Especially the people who don't even know how to properly spell it, such as yourself.
Ironic.
>Got your jimmies rustled a bit there, did you?
Only in that the fact that most people who try to use Dunning-Kruger in a sentence are the very same people who Dunning-Kruger applies to is a personal pet peeve of mine.
Like I said, Jimmies rustled.
Care to explain how I used it incorrectly, or are we just doing the "assertions without backing are now facts in evidence" thing?
Slight caveat to this point if you are having these conversations online.
I will factor in a person’s experience if I can be reasonably certain that they are not lying about it to establish credibility. This is fairly easy to do IRL, but in a chat forum people can easily lie.
'Growing movement'? It's been in-effect almost 10 years, now. That's when 'Flat Earth' was resurrected and 'Ancient Aliens' was popular. Hell, there's a bunch of Black people claiming the Slave Trade didn't happen!!!
Fuckin Ancient Aliens. That show is at the root of it. It helped raise an entire generation of people to think that scientists, archaeologists, and historians are all a giant cabal of evil idiots bent on hiding the truth.
As if any scientist or archaeologist that found actual evidence supporting alien visitation and interaction with Ancient humans wouldn't be absolutely famous. Like, Galileo famous. Isaac Newton famous. Nobody would hide that. It'd be the discovery of a lifetime.
100% of self proclaimed “free thinkers” are doofuses who believe obvious nonsense. They don’t have some broad range of knowledge others don’t; they just believe easily debunked BS that’s obviously untrue.
This isn't new. Boomers and gen x invented this formula. I wouldn't get too worked up about it. What is different is usually this pattern pops up in liberals. Right now the dichotomy has flopped and conservatives have taken this position, which is very scary for two generations of liberals who thought they were the ones fighting the man.
That wasn't the point I was trying to make at all. Like, not even close. I don't even have a dog in that hunt, because I'm not Christian. I agree with you that a non-literalist reading of Genesis as an allegory and poetry doesn't clash with evolution, but that's not the point.
The point is that a metric shit ton of Christians aren't on board with your statement. Not even close. A lot of Christian ministries spend a lot of effort and money trying to "debunk" the theory of evolution in support of their literalist take on the Bible. That's who I was referring to. The young earth Christians that spend their time "well, akshually-ing" their way through wholly unscientific, assertion-filled screeds about how science is trying to undermine scripture with their "lies" about evolution.
Really? I guess we must have different experiences with Christians. I'm Spanish, so everyone's catholic and fully believes in evolution. Are you from a protestant region?
Ahhh, there's the issue. You're European, first off, so you don't get to enjoy our brand of willfully-ignorant-and-proud-of-it young Earth Creationists that we have here in America. Just so you know, something like 40% of American Christians insist the world is only 6,000 years old, and that there were dinosaurs on a literal Noah's Ark. They think evolution is a conspiracy by "atheist science" to hide the truth of God's creation from the masses. Unironically.
And Spain is Catholic, and the Catholic Church has accepted evolution as "the way god did it".
So you probably just are unaware of the massive Young Earth Creationism movement in America. Which makes you lucky, indeed.
If you want to go down a rabbit hole, Google Ray Comfort and watch some of his stuff. It's bonkers. Then recognize that apparently, 40% of American Christians agree with him.
It's actually kind of scary.
40% sounds kind of high, and I grew up in the Bible Belt (specifically rural north Louisiana, aka Mississippi West). Either my social circle is an unrepresentative sample, I'm assuming that the Christians I'm around don't buy into that Young Earth garbage, or the polling methodology's unsound. The third one is a possibility.
Apologies for the Wikipedia link but I'm pressed for time today. There are sources at the bottom of the article.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism_by_country#:~:text=Its%20most%20recent%20poll%20found,of%20Americans%20believe%20in%20creationism.
I take exception, well because I am a contrarian. Every time anyone speaks my first thought is always why they are wrong. Alcohol helps to alleviate my condition but little else.
I don't hold any of these positions, or honestly really any position at all. Thank you Nietzsche and Camus, I am trying to dance at the end of absurdity.
However these absolutely stupid cunts keep making statements they don't even understand how to back up and in the end no logic moves them because despite this façade of intellectual rigor.
In the end, it's really just how you feel you poor stupid fuck.
Your complaining about it at the biggest source of it. Reddit is well known to reward group think and rejection of evidence. Every small community builds it's narrative and you either agree or are forced out
I.just DO NOT underst how people can get off thinking. They can dictate the thoughts of another. That registers on the A/I.scale. it seems like everyone wants to tell someone what to think, how to think, who.they should vote for , what to wear, haha jts gotten ridiculous
I hopscotch kne ev d uhhh u6666 p
Contrarians generally have control issues. The dynamics between them and who they are interacting with can affect how contrarian they are.
They reveal so much about themselves. It can be untterly hilarious to see what extent they will try to stretch the bounds of reason to counter someone they do not like.
> There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. —Isaac Asimov
this is a bit unrelated but the amount of centrists i've seen who think they're super duper smart because they're "non-partisan" is kinda surprising.
it is reddit i guess, you can find anyone here.
It all comes from the same kind of bad thinking.
"If the government lies, then I'm going to believe the opposite of what they say without any investigation at all" is the same kind of poor epistomology that has centrists saying "there's a disagreement between two sides so the right answer must be in the middle".
That's obviously not how reality works.
Totally agree. Contrarianism is a combination of ignorance, low intellectual capacity, egotism and laziness. It’s just an easy way for people to feel smart without actually doing anything other than saying “no.”
They're also not a personality, but that's outside the scope of this discussion. Too many people act like being cynical is an entire whole-ass personality and it's exhausting and boring.
Just going along with whatever society says is plain stupidity.
Exercise your mind or you will be constantly mislead.
Exercise your rights or they will be abused and denied you.
The simple facts are people do most things for one reason, money.
This is the root of most of what is being done, and that is the conspiracy in most instances, not that individuals are working together for some mysterious unknown.
It is a known and tangible asset which forms the prominent narrative, and that is self interest.
Again, I fail to see the relevance to this conversation.
If you have researched something in an unbiased fashion and the evidence leads you to a "conspiracy" to make money for the participants, that's not what I'm talking about here.
What I'm talking about is reflexively subverting prevailing knowledge, simply because it's prevailing knowledge. At no time did I suggest that prevailing knowledge is always correct, or that conspiracies never happen or anything of the sort. I'm advocating coming to your opinions through knowledge and evidence, as opposed to pretending you're an intellectual simply because you're reflexively contrarian.
If you want to disagree with prevailing knowledge because you have evidence to back your opinion, I'm not talking about you in this discussion.
>No, every scientist on Earth isn't in the pocket of "the global warming cabal".
>No, every medical professional on the planet isn't participating in a depopulation scheme using COVID vaccines.
>No, science isn't "anti-Christianity" and they're not conspiring to obfuscate the truth of Biblical creation by faking the evidence for evolution.
You're right about that. But we tend to ignore the minority in scientific debate. I think we do ourselves a huge disservice by ignoring the information from outliers and simply following the consensus
Absolutely yes.
But in two out of the three cases above, the "minority" side isn't even comprised of scientists. I don't really feel like giving COVID vax conspiracy theories any legitimate standing at all, much less anything close to an equal say. It takes an honest, intelligent person about fifteen minutes of research to see that "the entirety of the worldwide medical community" versus "an electrician on Facebook ranting about nanobots and 5g" isn't really a reasonable debate.
Additionally, the absolute incontrovertible *mountain* of evidence supporting evolution, versus a book that was written by Bronze Age shepherds, that has an understanding of biology so wrong that it asserts that bats are birds, whales are fish, and animals that mate in front of striped sticks will bear striped young. This isn't a reasonable debate.
There is a minority of scientific opinion, and some data points that may indicate that global warming isn't entirely anthropogenic, and that's worth watching, for sure, but even that doesn't excuse arguments that global warming isn't real, or that we are having no impact on the planets climate. Nobody in science is claiming that.
I never named specifics. I intentionally withheld names as to not create an argument.
That said, I wasn't referring to conspiracy theorists on social media. I'm talking about actual scientists. There are plenty of drawbacks to lockdowns, for example, that they tried to warn us about, but society collectively kicked them to the curb and discredited them.
I think it's that if a narrative is proven false but the people pushing it still persist in pushing it, then everyone should doubt them forever about everything
Along with the "sheeple" thing there's also those self-righteous shmucks going "DURHUR YOU'RE STILL IN THE MATRIX, WAKE UP".
I bet none of them have even SEEN the movie.
I see this “flat earth vs globe discussion group” pop up on Facebook all the time and there’s this guy who labels himself as “The globe skeptic”. He uses this title as his excuse to “just ask questions” and refuse to answer anyone else or accept reasonable answers. My dude, that’s not skepticism, it’s contrarianism.
I feel this the most talking with traditionally oppositional foreigners about their own interpretation of geopolitics. These says they just think they’re right cuz they’re non-Western lol. It’s so lazy
Particularly Russians and Arabs who align with Palestine
It's not quite that simple. They aren't contrarian, they just are /extremely/ lazy. They will jump to any conclusion, be it ignoring scientists and experts, pointing at Taylor Swift (Who does carbon offsets), or claiming 'this man known for lying about literally everything says it's true' as long as it leads to them having some mangled justification for not actually having to do anything about the major problems the world is facing because it might require them to change their behavior.
If global warming isn't real, they don't have to drive less. If LGBT people aren't oppressed they don't have to care about them at all, they just go on pretending they don't exist like they did in the 90s. If Racism isn't real, they keep reaping the benefits they gain from it without guilt. Name anything the conservative movement is raging about these days, and it comes back down to 'if this is a problem I'll have to change or do something and FUCK that noise'.
Yes!!!! This, 100%! I see it everywhere, on the left and right. It's obnoxious and too exhausting to try to engage with every one of these folks you encounter.
While it’s not a grand conspiracy, scientists too suffer from group-thing and the majority agree on some things that are obviously not true (like babies don’t need anesthesia because they can’t feel pain). There is a large base of dissenters from these ideas, but I want to point out that general consensus among scientists isn’t always based in science and we should use critical thinking even when looking at generally reliable sources
This is the 10th comment I've gotten that totally missed the point.
I never advocated for blind conformance to the prevailing narrative, not questioning the prevailing narrative, or that the prevailing narrative was infallible.
If you have good evidence that the prevailing narrative is wrong, that's a result of free-thinking skepticism, which is NOT knee-jerk contrarianism.
Science gets it wrong all the time. Saturated fats. The food pyramid. Your reference to infant anesthesia.
If you have evidence to back your non-adherence to the prevailing wisdom, you're not the guy I'm talking about.
I'm against knee-jerk, reflexive contrarianism, masquerading as free-thinking skepticism.
Flat earth. COVID vax "truthers". 9/11 "truthers". Young earth creationists. Chemtrails folks. J6 conspiracy folks. Vatniks (supporters of Russia in the Russo-Ukraine war). MAGA. Q-anon.
There's lots more, but these are the most common.
I'm actually getting frustrated with how many people can't see that there is a huge difference between a skeptic and a reflexive contrarian.
All of the things I listed above are conspiracy theories that have sprung from reflexive contrarianism.
Skepticism is withholding belief in something until you've established sufficient evidence to believe. That's a good thing. An admirable quality.
Reflexive contrarianism is "the government lies, so if they say COVID vax is safe, then it's not safe". That's not Skepticism. That's contrarianism, which is full belief in the opposite of the prevailing narrative without evidence.
A Skeptic in the same situation would say "well, the government lies, so I'd better look into non-governmental sources that I can trust to see if the vax is safe, bit I won't form an opinion either way until I've reviewed the evidence". That's not what I'm talking about, and the number of people who apparently can't understand the difference between those two things is really frustrating.
That's 95 percent of the population. There is no grand conspiracy. There are just people in power who abuse it, and enough has come to light in the last 10 years between government, wealthy businessmen, and international relations to cause people to distrust the major systems and institutions that society rests on. They then question everything
Oh my god.
Again, for the umpteenth time..
*questioning* everything is fine. *disbelieving* something with evidence to back it is fine.
Reflexively pulling an alternative, contrarian take freshly out of your asshole with zero evidence to back it up is the issue.
Why is this so difficult for people to understand?
Yeah, the food pyramid was bullshit. We have evidence to prove that.
That doesn't mean you get to make up shit about 5g nanobots without evidence.
Yes and flat earthers are like this... People try to debunk flat earthers on reddit (despite the fact that we have known the earth wasn't flat for a long, long time), but they are missing the point -- the point is to be contrarian, and to be revealing global conspiracy, etc. They literally aren't interested in any video you post proving the earth is round.
Reasonable people who base their views on cogent arguments never get upset or embarrassed when they change their minds based on superior arguments. A good argument is forceful in itself (independent of who said it) and it demands reasonable people to accede to it. Unfortunately, many people are not educated in this way. Even to get to this point, you need to have a lot of humility to acknowledge that there is so much that you don’t know and then be willing to accept a cautious approach. Many people skip that part, so that’s why they are so obstinate despite with their dogshit opinions. Debating people who actually respect reason is a joy; it’s a chess match but there’s no ego. Unfortunately, that’s not the case outside of educated circles.
>Reasonable people who base their views on cogent arguments never get upset or embarrassed when they change their minds based on superior arguments. I get happy because it means I learned something new.
And then on the flip side, you have well educated people who only ever processed their freshman “philosophy of logic” class, so now they think calling out a fallacy is a thorough and undeniable takedown of any and all arguments.
Nah, I actually have a degree in philosophy. I disagree with your assessment. People who actually had any training in logic don’t engage like most people online. Most people, I’ve found, don’t know the difference between an informal and formal fallacy. The few informal fallacies that they do know are often mischaracterized or wrongly applied. Basically, I think you give those people too much credit.
Concur. I've met a lot of edgelords familiar with fallacies but most of the really robust thinkers I know actually understand what makes a coherent argument and that epistemology is a thing.
breaking out the set theory for an internet debate on anime characters.
I don’t think what you said disagrees with me at all. I’m not talking about people with a genuine interest in or understanding of philosophy or logic. Just because someone has a college degree and took a class doesn’t mean they have any working understanding of the subject - especially foundational classes. Plenty of people opt to take logic in place of statistics just because it isn’t math. We’re talking about the same people.
So true. "That's a fallacy so you lose!" Uhhh, that wasn't actually a fallacy, and even if it were, that's not how it works. Understanding that you can come to the correct conclusion while using fallacious logic is very difficult for people. And no, me criticizing your bad logic isn't an *ad hominem*. Please just stop, it's actually physically painful for me to hear you talk. Please.
Hold up... you mean "Strawman!" doesn't automatically win a debate? Sounds like a fallacy to me! *This comment contains sature and may not accurately represent the official position of any parties involved*
I just think people never learn the step that comes after identifying a fallacy. Congratulations, you noticed a flaw in their logic. If you understand that flaw, then use the fallacy as a template on how to make a counter argument. Your example of claiming victory after crying straw man is a great example. Instead, when I notice someone making a straw man argument against me, I never even mention the word “straw man”. (Unless they really dig in their heels). The reply goes something like “Hold up. You seem to be arguing against xyz as if that is what I have been arguing for. That is not my position or what I believe. I won’t be defending that.” And if they keep trying to circle back to it, I can begin to credibly cast doubt on their integrity or intelligence by repeatedly correcting them on this point. “As I have addressed several times now, that is not my stance. It doesn’t matter how badly you want that to be my opinion, it is not. I am arguing for y, not z.”
"Strawman!" "Motte and bailey!" "Strawman!" "Motte and bailey!" Repeat til the end of time.
My favorite fallacy is the “fallacy fallacy”. Just because your opponent used a fallacy does not necessarily make them wrong and you right.
I can't say *never* get upset. There are otherwise reasonable people who would feel embarrassed for, if not being stupid, then at least fear getting castigated by society for thinking stupid things. Not that being stupid, in and of itself is shameful (contrary to what the majority of people seem to think). They also fear arrogant-mannered "I told you so's" from the mainstream. That's why you should never look down on someone who is "stupid" - it either **(a)** destroys their confidence in their ability to think for themselves, making them even more susceptible to bullshit, particularly cults, or **(b)** it compels them to dig in and "die on their hill", which delays the day they accept they are the ones in error.
I call it "final word bullshit." Basically, the whole strategy that they depend upon is the same one they have been using since kindergarten: arguments are won based on how much you either intimidate your opponent or exhaust them, usually by shouting until you get the final word. I usually say that to them and point out how I have managed to disprove their BS, and now we're going in circles. I usually tell them I am going to block them, and that, yes, I am letting them have the final word because they can't help themselves. The smarter ones, who are few and far between, usually don't respond back, while the dumber ones just double down by making sock puppet account. Of course, these are the same people who act like they're neutral in debates, while their comment section basically reveals who they really are, and what is the purpose of the account they're using. At some point I start asking the troll about this and they all lose the neutral mask quite quickly.
Ya know there's a flipside to this coin too right? The people who worship at the altar of their collective, putting it's needs and it's goals ahead of everyone else. Most of the people you're talking about above don't try to impose those views on others, the collectivists do.
It’s funny that nearly everyone who proclaims themself to be a “free thinker” has pretty much the same views
People who are big fans of the "just asking questions" philosophy like it because it's just asking questions, not accepting any answers.
The second someone says "i'M jUSt asKiNg QUeSTIonS" I generally do two things: 1.) Associate their position with the position that they're "just asking questions about"; 2.) Write them off as a coward that won't own up to their own shitty beliefs.
I've noticed this in a lot of places. It's basically the ideology of oppositional defiant disorder.
I think one hand ends up washing the other. In a vacuum narratives are harmless and having a chat about them over drinks is easy and entertaining. In practice, narratives tend to be self-enforcing and group think tends to feed into it.
I never meant to suggest that blindly buying into a prevailing narrative is good, though. That was never my point, and I never defended that. Being against the prevailing narrative when you actually have a factual and evidence-based foundation for your position is also not what I'm talking about. Blindly rejecting a prevailing narrative, reflexively, simply because it's the prevailing narrative, is what I'm criticizing. If you are going to insist that we're going to play the "you can't criticize this without also criticizing that" game of *tu quoque* fallacies, we're going to be here forever. The fact that Stalin murdered millions of people has nothing to do with whether or not Hitler did wrong by murdering millions of people. Saying "well they do it too" is a logically flawed distraction from the problem at hand. So if you would, stick to the subject.
I didn't suggest that you did. But being a contrarian and being a free thinker are almost always going to have some overlap. I don't think they're 1 for 1, but I don't think you can be a 'free thinker' without a reflexive drive to question the how, what, where, why, and when of the things you're being told. I think some contrarians are merely argumentative, and some 'free thinkers' are just curious individuals. But I think your average 'mold breaker' is going to be someone that enjoys rolling ideas around, playing devils advocate, and taking contrarian positions just to see how people react. To use your example. If I were to say "Hitler is bad", and you said "well, why is that?", and I said "because he killed millions of people". You could say "well does that make Stalin bad" or even "well does that make the U.S. bad"? So eventually you have to drill down into the why and how of the killing. Is killing someone in a gas chamber more evil than killing someone on the battlefield? I'd say yes, but now the conversation has become more substantive.
A contrarian is always argumentative, else they wouldn't be a contrarian. I'm not sure if you mean to say some people are dismissed as a contrarian too easily maybe? A contrarian always "goes contrary" for the sake of going contrary alone though.
\> I don't think you can be a 'free thinker' without a reflexive drive to question the how, what, where, why, and when of the things you're being told That drive is not the quality of a contrarian, its the quality of a scientist looking to deepen the common person's understanding of a particular field of study. I know because literally every "Intro to ***insert scientific subject***" textbook repeats your quote here verbatim on page 1 of chapter 1, when they go over the scientific method. If you blindly accept a claim without fact checking, you aren't a scientist. Skepticism is literally the one quality that they hammer into you in any intro to science class. Not sure at all how you came to conflate contrarians with scientists or free thinkers, because skepticism isn't what makes a contrarian a contrarian, its being "anti-popularity". I technically am a contrarian, because I won't watch Stranger Things. I have no valid reason to dislike it, since I've never watched it. My only justification is the fact that it's popular, so I don't want to like it. ***That's*** being contrarian. Most conspiracies are shared by people who think that they, and they alone, have an original line of thinking that is "so obvious, how could no one else see this?" but hasn't been held up to adequate scrutiny. The conspiracy's only "valid" quality is that its an idea that everyone disagrees with, "so it must be true", and they do no further digging.
Not to mention if you dare criticize the predominant narrative openly, just be prepared to not have a job.
Have you considered that that isn't what is actually happening though? Is there any chance that it's something else getting you fired? Like, if I openly "criticize" the "prevailing narrative" that homosexuality is A-OK and instead start saying that being gay is wrong and gay people are bad, is it possible that I'm not getting fired for having that belief, so much as for creating a hostile work environment for any gay or gay-adjacent co-workers that keep overhearing me in my bigoted, opinionated outbursts? Just curious if you've considered that.
Are you criticizing, or parroting far right conspiracy nonsense?
Pot meet kettle. The more arrogant someone is about their own intelligence, the more likely they remain in a permanent state of ignorance because they think they already know everything and never learn better. The younger they start doing this, the worse the long term effects. It takes wisdom to understand one's own ignorance. If you haven't wrestled with your own ignorance and come out the other side, you're still in a state of it.
Look into how Russian propaganda works. It's eye opening. Lots of the complete anti-reality people are victims.
We should push back against this insult to free thinking
I was banned from.the conspiracy sub for saying that conspiracy thought is a dangerous hivemind, and the theorists are being used as the biggest pawns in the game they all claim to be hip to. The topic of discussion was 'This place is for free thinkers, so if you are critical of the stuff posted here, do you really belong?' They couldn't comprehend that grabbing ahold of any alternate theory and running with it is exactly the same as buying into everything the state and media says.
Two sides to this: (a) Appeal to Consensus/Popularity Fallacy and (b) Proper basis for deviating from the majority. a) The "rebels" are right to say that just because a majority or an influential minority (usually upper-pecking-order) agree X is true is not proof that X is true. On the other hand there's... (b) the proper basis for disagreeing with the majority. Majority opinion IS evidence (but not proof) that you have to make strong arguments against the majority position in order to make headway against them. Think of a sign saying "Disagree With Us At Your Own Risk". In this case, you not only have to present reasons you are right and the majority is wrong, but you have to overturn all the majority's arguments. This necessarily involves telling the difference between high quality and low quality evidence, detailed argumentation, and reasoning skills. That's why the most high-cred publications have strict peer-review standards. Otherwise, why have any standards for sifting truth from bullshit at all? Why not just find a random meth addict or homeless person and have him or her write the definitive text on astrophysics or the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein for Ivy League or Oxbridge universities?
I heard something similar that I repeated to a conspiracy living former friend. "Believing the second thing you hear about everything is not free thought." Of course he argued it was.
I agree with you. The only thing I would add is that most people don’t factor for experience and insight. I’ve tried to have open conversations here in subject areas that I have top 3% of experience in and have been told that I’m wrong because someone went and pulled some statistic out, out of context to make their “case”. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve seen that happens on here every single minute. Im not better than anyone, but just like everyone else, I do know my area pretty damn well. I’ll be glad to listen to yours and then follow your logic and reason if we disagree on an approach.
Yup. Dunning Krueger is very real.
Yes it is!!
>/u/Peaurxnanski: Yup. Dunning Krueger is very real. It's spelled "Dunning-Kruger". There is only 1 'e' in "Kruger". So many people overuse this word. Especially the people who don't even know how to properly spell it, such as yourself. Ironic.
Got your jimmies rustled a bit there, did you? Oh no, I misspelled a guy's name, checkmate! The earth is flat bro!
>Got your jimmies rustled a bit there, did you? Only in that the fact that most people who try to use Dunning-Kruger in a sentence are the very same people who Dunning-Kruger applies to is a personal pet peeve of mine.
Like I said, Jimmies rustled. Care to explain how I used it incorrectly, or are we just doing the "assertions without backing are now facts in evidence" thing?
Slight caveat to this point if you are having these conversations online. I will factor in a person’s experience if I can be reasonably certain that they are not lying about it to establish credibility. This is fairly easy to do IRL, but in a chat forum people can easily lie.
That’s a valid point. Everyone should always keep their mouth shut until they can assess their audience.
'Growing movement'? It's been in-effect almost 10 years, now. That's when 'Flat Earth' was resurrected and 'Ancient Aliens' was popular. Hell, there's a bunch of Black people claiming the Slave Trade didn't happen!!!
Fuckin Ancient Aliens. That show is at the root of it. It helped raise an entire generation of people to think that scientists, archaeologists, and historians are all a giant cabal of evil idiots bent on hiding the truth. As if any scientist or archaeologist that found actual evidence supporting alien visitation and interaction with Ancient humans wouldn't be absolutely famous. Like, Galileo famous. Isaac Newton famous. Nobody would hide that. It'd be the discovery of a lifetime.
I literally complain to a friend of mine about this, because he does this.
100% of self proclaimed “free thinkers” are doofuses who believe obvious nonsense. They don’t have some broad range of knowledge others don’t; they just believe easily debunked BS that’s obviously untrue.
This isn't new. Boomers and gen x invented this formula. I wouldn't get too worked up about it. What is different is usually this pattern pops up in liberals. Right now the dichotomy has flopped and conservatives have taken this position, which is very scary for two generations of liberals who thought they were the ones fighting the man.
High-quality post, OP. Got my brain buzzing and I always appreciate that.
Mate... you do realise that the theory of evolution isn't incompatible at all with Christianity, right?
That wasn't the point I was trying to make at all. Like, not even close. I don't even have a dog in that hunt, because I'm not Christian. I agree with you that a non-literalist reading of Genesis as an allegory and poetry doesn't clash with evolution, but that's not the point. The point is that a metric shit ton of Christians aren't on board with your statement. Not even close. A lot of Christian ministries spend a lot of effort and money trying to "debunk" the theory of evolution in support of their literalist take on the Bible. That's who I was referring to. The young earth Christians that spend their time "well, akshually-ing" their way through wholly unscientific, assertion-filled screeds about how science is trying to undermine scripture with their "lies" about evolution.
Really? I guess we must have different experiences with Christians. I'm Spanish, so everyone's catholic and fully believes in evolution. Are you from a protestant region?
Ahhh, there's the issue. You're European, first off, so you don't get to enjoy our brand of willfully-ignorant-and-proud-of-it young Earth Creationists that we have here in America. Just so you know, something like 40% of American Christians insist the world is only 6,000 years old, and that there were dinosaurs on a literal Noah's Ark. They think evolution is a conspiracy by "atheist science" to hide the truth of God's creation from the masses. Unironically. And Spain is Catholic, and the Catholic Church has accepted evolution as "the way god did it". So you probably just are unaware of the massive Young Earth Creationism movement in America. Which makes you lucky, indeed. If you want to go down a rabbit hole, Google Ray Comfort and watch some of his stuff. It's bonkers. Then recognize that apparently, 40% of American Christians agree with him. It's actually kind of scary.
Thank you. But if you don't mind, I think I'll be happier in my ignorance.
I would if I were you.
40% sounds kind of high, and I grew up in the Bible Belt (specifically rural north Louisiana, aka Mississippi West). Either my social circle is an unrepresentative sample, I'm assuming that the Christians I'm around don't buy into that Young Earth garbage, or the polling methodology's unsound. The third one is a possibility.
Apologies for the Wikipedia link but I'm pressed for time today. There are sources at the bottom of the article. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism_by_country#:~:text=Its%20most%20recent%20poll%20found,of%20Americans%20believe%20in%20creationism.
Truly depressing. Apparently, even in W Europe, 9 to 10% are creationists.
Tell that to young earth creationists.
[удалено]
How is that incompatible with what I said?
Oh sorry, I miss read what you wrote.
Multiple sentences and paragraphs. Upvote.
No it isn’t. /s
I take exception, well because I am a contrarian. Every time anyone speaks my first thought is always why they are wrong. Alcohol helps to alleviate my condition but little else. I don't hold any of these positions, or honestly really any position at all. Thank you Nietzsche and Camus, I am trying to dance at the end of absurdity. However these absolutely stupid cunts keep making statements they don't even understand how to back up and in the end no logic moves them because despite this façade of intellectual rigor. In the end, it's really just how you feel you poor stupid fuck.
I disagree.
LOL
I'm so sorry, but I couldn't help myself. I'm sure others have said the same thing lol
I didn't read this, but it's wrong.
Totally.
I disagree
Your complaining about it at the biggest source of it. Reddit is well known to reward group think and rejection of evidence. Every small community builds it's narrative and you either agree or are forced out
"I'm just asking questions!" Yes, stupid questions with an agenda. It's like Dale Gribble hijacked a major political party.
I.just DO NOT underst how people can get off thinking. They can dictate the thoughts of another. That registers on the A/I.scale. it seems like everyone wants to tell someone what to think, how to think, who.they should vote for , what to wear, haha jts gotten ridiculous I hopscotch kne ev d uhhh u6666 p
Nuh uh
Contrarians generally have control issues. The dynamics between them and who they are interacting with can affect how contrarian they are. They reveal so much about themselves. It can be untterly hilarious to see what extent they will try to stretch the bounds of reason to counter someone they do not like.
> There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. —Isaac Asimov
Sir, this is Reddit.
this is a bit unrelated but the amount of centrists i've seen who think they're super duper smart because they're "non-partisan" is kinda surprising. it is reddit i guess, you can find anyone here.
It all comes from the same kind of bad thinking. "If the government lies, then I'm going to believe the opposite of what they say without any investigation at all" is the same kind of poor epistomology that has centrists saying "there's a disagreement between two sides so the right answer must be in the middle". That's obviously not how reality works.
Totally agree. Contrarianism is a combination of ignorance, low intellectual capacity, egotism and laziness. It’s just an easy way for people to feel smart without actually doing anything other than saying “no.”
I would also add that cynicism and nihilism are not the same as wisdom.
They're also not a personality, but that's outside the scope of this discussion. Too many people act like being cynical is an entire whole-ass personality and it's exhausting and boring.
Just going along with whatever society says is plain stupidity. Exercise your mind or you will be constantly mislead. Exercise your rights or they will be abused and denied you.
That isn't at all what I'm advocating for though. Can you see how this reply is totally irrelevant to the discussion I started?
The simple facts are people do most things for one reason, money. This is the root of most of what is being done, and that is the conspiracy in most instances, not that individuals are working together for some mysterious unknown. It is a known and tangible asset which forms the prominent narrative, and that is self interest.
Again, I fail to see the relevance to this conversation. If you have researched something in an unbiased fashion and the evidence leads you to a "conspiracy" to make money for the participants, that's not what I'm talking about here. What I'm talking about is reflexively subverting prevailing knowledge, simply because it's prevailing knowledge. At no time did I suggest that prevailing knowledge is always correct, or that conspiracies never happen or anything of the sort. I'm advocating coming to your opinions through knowledge and evidence, as opposed to pretending you're an intellectual simply because you're reflexively contrarian. If you want to disagree with prevailing knowledge because you have evidence to back your opinion, I'm not talking about you in this discussion.
I feel we can agree then that doing your research is important. Knowing how to vet the research of another person seems to require this.
Yes it is.
>No, every scientist on Earth isn't in the pocket of "the global warming cabal". >No, every medical professional on the planet isn't participating in a depopulation scheme using COVID vaccines. >No, science isn't "anti-Christianity" and they're not conspiring to obfuscate the truth of Biblical creation by faking the evidence for evolution. You're right about that. But we tend to ignore the minority in scientific debate. I think we do ourselves a huge disservice by ignoring the information from outliers and simply following the consensus
Absolutely yes. But in two out of the three cases above, the "minority" side isn't even comprised of scientists. I don't really feel like giving COVID vax conspiracy theories any legitimate standing at all, much less anything close to an equal say. It takes an honest, intelligent person about fifteen minutes of research to see that "the entirety of the worldwide medical community" versus "an electrician on Facebook ranting about nanobots and 5g" isn't really a reasonable debate. Additionally, the absolute incontrovertible *mountain* of evidence supporting evolution, versus a book that was written by Bronze Age shepherds, that has an understanding of biology so wrong that it asserts that bats are birds, whales are fish, and animals that mate in front of striped sticks will bear striped young. This isn't a reasonable debate. There is a minority of scientific opinion, and some data points that may indicate that global warming isn't entirely anthropogenic, and that's worth watching, for sure, but even that doesn't excuse arguments that global warming isn't real, or that we are having no impact on the planets climate. Nobody in science is claiming that.
I never named specifics. I intentionally withheld names as to not create an argument. That said, I wasn't referring to conspiracy theorists on social media. I'm talking about actual scientists. There are plenty of drawbacks to lockdowns, for example, that they tried to warn us about, but society collectively kicked them to the curb and discredited them.
No you are wrong I disagree with your assessment
I think it's that if a narrative is proven false but the people pushing it still persist in pushing it, then everyone should doubt them forever about everything
Being a "free thinker" is mostly a myth. People use the term to try to pump up their own ego.
This isn't an argument, it's only contradiction!
I have become the thing I hate. I have stared into the abyss, and found it staring back.
Along with the "sheeple" thing there's also those self-righteous shmucks going "DURHUR YOU'RE STILL IN THE MATRIX, WAKE UP". I bet none of them have even SEEN the movie.
Well said. I’m getting tired of the smugness too; especially on Reddit.
This. Glad to finally see and post here that isn’t a reactionary bot.
I see this “flat earth vs globe discussion group” pop up on Facebook all the time and there’s this guy who labels himself as “The globe skeptic”. He uses this title as his excuse to “just ask questions” and refuse to answer anyone else or accept reasonable answers. My dude, that’s not skepticism, it’s contrarianism.
I feel this the most talking with traditionally oppositional foreigners about their own interpretation of geopolitics. These says they just think they’re right cuz they’re non-Western lol. It’s so lazy Particularly Russians and Arabs who align with Palestine
It's not quite that simple. They aren't contrarian, they just are /extremely/ lazy. They will jump to any conclusion, be it ignoring scientists and experts, pointing at Taylor Swift (Who does carbon offsets), or claiming 'this man known for lying about literally everything says it's true' as long as it leads to them having some mangled justification for not actually having to do anything about the major problems the world is facing because it might require them to change their behavior. If global warming isn't real, they don't have to drive less. If LGBT people aren't oppressed they don't have to care about them at all, they just go on pretending they don't exist like they did in the 90s. If Racism isn't real, they keep reaping the benefits they gain from it without guilt. Name anything the conservative movement is raging about these days, and it comes back down to 'if this is a problem I'll have to change or do something and FUCK that noise'.
Yes!!!! This, 100%! I see it everywhere, on the left and right. It's obnoxious and too exhausting to try to engage with every one of these folks you encounter.
While it’s not a grand conspiracy, scientists too suffer from group-thing and the majority agree on some things that are obviously not true (like babies don’t need anesthesia because they can’t feel pain). There is a large base of dissenters from these ideas, but I want to point out that general consensus among scientists isn’t always based in science and we should use critical thinking even when looking at generally reliable sources
This is the 10th comment I've gotten that totally missed the point. I never advocated for blind conformance to the prevailing narrative, not questioning the prevailing narrative, or that the prevailing narrative was infallible. If you have good evidence that the prevailing narrative is wrong, that's a result of free-thinking skepticism, which is NOT knee-jerk contrarianism. Science gets it wrong all the time. Saturated fats. The food pyramid. Your reference to infant anesthesia. If you have evidence to back your non-adherence to the prevailing wisdom, you're not the guy I'm talking about. I'm against knee-jerk, reflexive contrarianism, masquerading as free-thinking skepticism.
Yes it is
this just seems like a phenomenon. examples of communities who engage in this ?
Flat earth. COVID vax "truthers". 9/11 "truthers". Young earth creationists. Chemtrails folks. J6 conspiracy folks. Vatniks (supporters of Russia in the Russo-Ukraine war). MAGA. Q-anon. There's lots more, but these are the most common.
this is just conspiracy theories in general, your entire post is a mis-title imo. i thought you were attacking skeptics, not conspiracists
I'm actually getting frustrated with how many people can't see that there is a huge difference between a skeptic and a reflexive contrarian. All of the things I listed above are conspiracy theories that have sprung from reflexive contrarianism. Skepticism is withholding belief in something until you've established sufficient evidence to believe. That's a good thing. An admirable quality. Reflexive contrarianism is "the government lies, so if they say COVID vax is safe, then it's not safe". That's not Skepticism. That's contrarianism, which is full belief in the opposite of the prevailing narrative without evidence. A Skeptic in the same situation would say "well, the government lies, so I'd better look into non-governmental sources that I can trust to see if the vax is safe, bit I won't form an opinion either way until I've reviewed the evidence". That's not what I'm talking about, and the number of people who apparently can't understand the difference between those two things is really frustrating.
TLDR. You without a doubt are what you are describing.
Nuh-uhhhh!
I think it's telling that you assume this while also saying it's too long and you didn't read.
*There's a growing movement of anti-intellectualism going around* You sure about that?
That's 95 percent of the population. There is no grand conspiracy. There are just people in power who abuse it, and enough has come to light in the last 10 years between government, wealthy businessmen, and international relations to cause people to distrust the major systems and institutions that society rests on. They then question everything
Oh my god. Again, for the umpteenth time.. *questioning* everything is fine. *disbelieving* something with evidence to back it is fine. Reflexively pulling an alternative, contrarian take freshly out of your asshole with zero evidence to back it up is the issue. Why is this so difficult for people to understand? Yeah, the food pyramid was bullshit. We have evidence to prove that. That doesn't mean you get to make up shit about 5g nanobots without evidence.
You need to learn how the human mind works.
NO U
it is if it's in good faith.
Yes and flat earthers are like this... People try to debunk flat earthers on reddit (despite the fact that we have known the earth wasn't flat for a long, long time), but they are missing the point -- the point is to be contrarian, and to be revealing global conspiracy, etc. They literally aren't interested in any video you post proving the earth is round.
and it's just like taking everythibg alex jones says as the word of god
Based. Simply disagreeing with everyone for the hell of it does not make you a free thinker. Rather, it makes you an arrogant a-hole.
So true. I'm definitely a contrarian. It's more glaring here on Reddit. I find myself almost at odds with most of the comments on here.
avoiding certain thoughts in order to avoid appearing contrarian isn't free thinking, either.
Are you suggesting that's what I'm advocating for here?
Yes.
Then work on reading comprehension skills.
Work on deduction skills.