Even less sure where to put this

Discussion in 'Brainbent' started by seebs, Feb 7, 2017.

  1. seebs

    seebs Benevolent Dictator

    This one really stood out to me, because it seems like a very oddly specific complaint. I don't know when people accused you of "violating good faith", or who accused you, or why, so it's really hard to tell.

    That said, it's certainly a thing which is in at least some cases not even a little bit either "respectability politics" or "tone policing". There is a significant difference between arguing with a person who disagrees with you, but who distinguishes between true and false claims, and arguing with someone who will say absolutely anything if it seems to advance their cause right now, and they don't care whether it's true or not, or whether or not it contradicts things they were saying five minutes ago.

    One of those situations admits the possibility of progress. One doesn't.

    More generally, a whole lot of your analysis here makes no sense unless we start with the presupposition that "Kintsugi" is a monolith and that "Kintsugi" can reach an opinion on things. I don't think that makes any sense. It also seems to just sort of ignore contrary evidence.
     
  2. local troublemaker

    local troublemaker professional tumblrina

    Yes, that's fair.

    @seebs I have no interest in talking to you. Your weird micromanaging-nitpick style of argument is incredibly frustrating for me, I can't handle your textwalls, I do not have the clout to make you change your mind on anything, and I don't foresee getting anything good or productive out of talking to you.
     
    • Like x 5
  3. Ipuntya

    Ipuntya return of eggplant

    • Like x 1
  4. seebs

    seebs Benevolent Dictator

    ...

    "Clout."

    Dude, if "clout" could make me change my mind, my life would have been unrecognizably different.

    And I guess that's a big part of why I am dismissive of some people's criticisms. It's not a matter of "clout". It's that if you've read me so completely wrong that you think that's the magic ingredient, it's hard for me to see what the benefit will be of listening to your comments on that strange parallel universe.
     
  5. local troublemaker

    local troublemaker professional tumblrina

    Aaaaaand this is exactly what I mean. I don't need a paragraph of nitpicking on my word choices after expressly saying I have no interest in talking to you.
     
    • Like x 6
  6. seebs

    seebs Benevolent Dictator

    Yes, and I don't need someone calling it "nitpicking" to point out that your statement was that only social capital and influence could change my mind, not, say, facts, evidence, or argumentation.

    I don't recall agreeing to a general principle that, if someone doesn't want to talk to you, they have to be allowed to tell lies about you without fear of contradiction. That seems like it would be a bad policy.
     
    • Like x 1
  7. seebs

    seebs Benevolent Dictator

    I don't think it quite works; there's too much vocal disagreement among people. It relies on a fairly unambiguous Conclusion Reached being a real thing in most cases, and I don't think it really has been.
     
  8. Ipuntya

    Ipuntya return of eggplant

    you're skilled enough at debating things that it is incredibly difficult to argue with you even when you are wrong about things

    anyone here would have better chances changing your mind about something by getting someone close to you to agree with them, such as your husband, luka, beldaran, or rigs

    that's the kind of clout we're talking about here
     
    • Like x 8
  9. Ipuntya

    Ipuntya return of eggplant

    only general agreement is needed to reach a consensus, not a supermajority. it doesn't matter that there is vocal disagreement as long as one of the opinions being held is being spoken the loudest. and when you have the loudest opinion, you're also able to shout down those who disagree with it
     
    • Like x 5
  10. local troublemaker

    local troublemaker professional tumblrina

    I don't believe that you are as objective as you present yourself, or that certain people's opinions don't carry more weight with you than others, or that the use of the word "clout" constitutes a lie.
     
    • Like x 11
  11. Petra

    Petra space case

    @seebs I respect you a lot but I also don't think you're as objective as you think you are. And that ain't even an insult because nobody is. People are really bad at looking at themselves objectively. I think you've got a lot of valuable life experience and insights but you also definitely have your blind spots and biases, and the bad part of that is sometimes it feels like you're not aware enough of them to compensate for them. I've got at least one example I'm thinking of but I'm not sure how you'd work around it.
     
    • Like x 15
  12. swirlingflight

    swirlingflight inane analysis and story spinning is my passion

    A relevant thing: I'm relieved by @local troublemaker jumping in as stalking horse and pointing out things that are hard to put in words, much less brought up. But as much as I can toss likes at things that say something of interest, I am tired and too low on spoons to muster up the kind of thought-out back-and-forth necessary to outline a point of view that you don't already understand or agree with, @seebs . It's difficult work, trying to follow and respond to each probing "I don't see what you mean, to the best of my knowledge X is the case" question you offer.
     
    • Like x 5
  13. Petra

    Petra space case

    You have the tendency to armchair diagnose onset of schizophrenia a lot, which is pretty reasonable given the whole Florida Man thing but also comes off as dismissive when people don't know the context. I don't necessarily think you need to shut up when you're getting red flags from someone but also a lot of people are not going to take mental health advice from strangers on the internet especially if they're fighting with you.
     
    • Like x 7
  14. seebs

    seebs Benevolent Dictator

    Except I never claimed to be "objective". And I never claimed that there are no people whose opinions carry more weight with me than others. And I do think that the use of the word "clout" constitutes a lie.

    This part is just plain wrong. People, random strangers I've never run into before, persuade me of shit all the fucking time. They do it by presenting arguments. Keep in mind that "skilled at debating" only means "hard to convince" if you're entering every debate with winning as the primary goal, and figuring out what's true as a secondary or tertiary goal at best. Otherwise, "skilled at debating" can just as easily mean "the moment you point out that there's a problem, I will pick up the thread and chase it down anyway".

    The problem, I think, is this: I usually do think about stuff, which means that by the time I'm making a statement that someone could argue with, the chances are pretty good that I've already seen a whole lot of the arguments on it, and thought about them. So it may well seem like I'm not reacting to arguments, when in fact, I'm merely not reacting much to arguments that were already factored into my positions.

    But random anons who aren't any of those people (and amusingly, your list is very different from my list of people whose criticisms will get looked at extra carefully even without a specific argument just because they've got a good track record) can, and do, persuade me that I've been wrong on issues. It's not even all that hard!
     
  15. local troublemaker

    local troublemaker professional tumblrina

    Cool. I don't agree, I am still not interested in a discussion with you, and this interaction has pretty much only served to confirm that.
     
    • Like x 2
  16. rigorist

    rigorist On the beach

    This guy acts like he owns the place or something.
     
    • Like x 6
  17. seebs

    seebs Benevolent Dictator

    I'm not sure what this is a specific example of, but yeah, I have noticed that this is a problem. I've only got a very small pool of cases where I formed definite opinions for or against and was able to compare them with professional diagnostics, so I don't think the evaluation is all that unreliable, but I haven't really solved the "and then what can I do with that information" problem.

    Yes, that is definitely a problem. But I'll point out: In general, I will at least allow for "I haven't really got the spoons to argue it, but I think this merits thought". Because while that's not a "persuasive argument", it's not pretending to be more persuasive than it is. So I'll stop and go look at things for that, usually.

    Thing is. It's also difficult work for me, on both sides of that, and it's extra difficult to try to do both sides.

    So I do some amount of filtering. And there's some criticisms that I'll usually disregard because, while they're frequent, they're also frequently signs of thoroughly inaccurate readings of my intent/thoughts/whatever. And a few that are bad enough that I will tend to consider them evidence that a source is bogus. But there's a decent-sized pool of people who get to bypass that filter.
     
  18. Petra

    Petra space case

    Yeah I mean I wouldn't take your opinion as a professional diagnosis but 'these things you are reporting experiencing are abnormal and symptomatic of a condition which is generally treatable' is at least a good push to go talk to a professional if possible, because maybe you're completely wrong but it's likely something is going on. But giving that advice only really works if people trust you or if they're specifically looking for advice. Shrug??
     
  19. local troublemaker

    local troublemaker professional tumblrina

    tumblr_oghmc3rtRO1tpri36o1_500.jpg
     
    • Like x 8
  20. seebs

    seebs Benevolent Dictator

    And some day, someone may come along who has similar opinions, but who can read entire paragraphs and advance arguments that go from evidence through reasoning to conclusions. And then I'll find out whether there was merit to the complaints. In the mean time, I haven't got any way to even find out what they are, just a persistent small population of people who form almost exactly the same conclusion about how I think, none of whom can translate it into anything I can parse.

    I actually sort of suspect that this isn't a coincidence or anything, because while the criticisms don't seem to me to relate to anything I'm actually doing, they're eerily similar to each other. This isn't like randoms accusing me of "homophobia" on tumblr; I can think of at least three people who have pretty much exactly the same criticisms of me-as-admin, one of them with those criticisms dating back to... I dunno, probably 2007ish? And none of them are people who are able to engage in a disagreement with me that results in any kind of effective communication. And that's a relatively rare trait.

    So there's these two traits, both of which I've encountered in this fairly small pool of people, with 100% overlap...
     
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