#oversimplifying

[kenwhytock]

Educational Postcard: Types of Faulty Logic errors: False Cause by Ken Whytock Via Flickr: The background image for this comes from a modified photo of a picture in a magazine.

[squareroot-1]

So, I happened earlier to be looking at the summary for a course type thing on analyzing arguments.

And, I didn’t super look into it, but from what I saw it seemed to have, like, stuff on argument structure and logical fallacies and that kind of thing. Which I think is about what I would expect from something like it.

Argument dynamics are a thing I kind of think about a lot at least on a background level, because tumblr and stuff. Which makes me wonder - are there courses and materials like this that talk about the other kinds of stuff I tend to notice, that I think I don’t usually see mentioned places?

(Some examples, not in an organized fashion because I don’t have them that way:

A big one is like, what people are bringing to the argument that they don’t actually say in the argument. (Or, on the other end, what people are likely to read from it, that isn’t said in it.)

One major example is ‘what people mean when they say word X’.

Another one is connections-to-other-things, often by affiliation. So, I could say something using the jargon of a particular group and by this be communicating my association with that group (and some amount of their angles/viewpoints/approaches/other opinions.) Or, someone could read me saying something commonly associated with some other opinions on a different topic, and think I likely share that opinion. (And I could know about this and be communicating accordingly).

Another is earlier foundations of the ‘why’s’ of things someone might be saying, or conversely the fact that they haven’t given thought to them. (Like ‘this person subscribes to divine command theory’ and such).

Another big one is personal stuff - ‘if thing X is done, this would be bad for me’, or ‘people who want thing X done have been really horrible to someone I care about’, etc.

Another one relevant to connection/affiliation is things like ‘people who say thing X are disliked, I am afraid of that happening to me’. etc.

(And I think when I do see the concept of ‘things brought to the argument but not said in it’ brought up, it’s usually just ‘well that’s not good’, which I think is missing a lot of things. Like, a lot of this is too much information if you start trying to stick it in explicitly, or we don’t have good communication technology for actually doing so, or that’s too much for people to do. Some of it you kind of can’t stick in explicitly by definition. Which can still have negative effects etc (and totally does), but it’s considerably more complicated than ‘tell people not to do it’.)

)

[defythesky01]

I understand that Lionel Jefferies manipulated, murdered, and kept a bunch of people trapped in his basement to do experiments on them.

However his brother locked him up in a mental hospital where the doctors kept him chained up to a wall and never let him get up to move, eat, or use the bathroom.

So, I think his actions towards Madison were pretty justifiable.

[wordrummager]

Lessons from an enlightened weed Labels like “butterfly” or “moth” make some people confused. Flowers and weeds aren’t so conflicted. Conflict means you’re thinking too hard. Sway in the breeze your own way (just like everything else) and eventually, an end will present itself to all things and it will be a blessed relief.

[cytoplasmridiculum]

This is an over simplification

We breathe plant farts

[wetwareproblem]

“SGA” is compulsory homosexuality.

Edit: Okay, this post was ill-considered. I had a point, but it gets lost easily in the snarky one-liner and the inflammatory language. I was never trying to argue that “compulsory heterosexuality” is actually a thing; I’m starting to realize that one-liners don’t work for me.

[squidie23]

Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness", "joy", or "regret". Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feelings. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with ones fantasy." I'd like to show you how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants " as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, i need them more than ever.

Jeffrey Eugenides

[marwodumar]

I want to work in a museum when I graduate inshallah and I can already imagine what Somali people including my family are gonna say “she works in a shop that has pictures and statues that you can’t even buy”