This is packed full of manipulative language. It reads like propaganda.
that's because it's the outline. It's comparable to Jacobin.
The magical thinking of guys who love logic
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Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#12> squished together in a vague Play-Doh ball of smug superiority
kind of describes the article itself.
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#13This is packed full of manipulative language. It reads like propaganda.
You have to be funny to be read. One of the ways to be funny is to make fun of the people you are writing about.
The style and the language don't make the point false though. Logic can only tell you what you can't be possibly sure of. That does not provide as great foundation for people with strong opinions as they claim.
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#14The author has a couple valid points. E.g.
> But for the Logic Guys, the purpose of using these words — the sacred, magic words like “logic,” “objectivity,” “reason,” “rationality,” “fact” — is not to invoke the actual concepts themselves. It’s more a kind of incantation, whereby declaring your argument the single “logical” and “rational” one magically makes it so — and by extension, makes you both smart and correct, regardless of the actual rigor or sources of your beliefs.
However, like other commenter noticed, it uses a bit of manipulative language making "guys" = "white males". Also it makes a disregarding assumption that those who criticise postmodern philosophers haven't read them. So here is a problem: one thing is being claiming that you are rational and your opponents are not, another thing is being openly opposed to the idea of reason which seems to be the common denominator amongst postmodernists (yes, I've read some of them).
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#15So this turns out to be the article about U.S right-wing "logic" and the word "guys" = white males. It's not about the actual logic and "cargo culting", instead it's about the youtube-politics videos, this title seems like some click bait to me.
I was also hoping it will be about something else. I'm a very logical person but I'm prone to magical thinking when I do DIY projects. For example when I expect that holes drilled with a hand drill without any sort of template will land where I want them to be just because I put a dot on the material and aimed the drill at the dot.
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#16While the author has come across somewhat passive-aggressive throughout the article, I do agree with the premise. I have many male friends who have quite clearly been gripped by YouTube's recommendation algorithms, and they have no interest in sensible discourse. I've had to distance myself from them because they have become almost religiously zealous in their praise of various right-learning, far-right, and alt-righ…
As a foreigner, when I read reddit I feel exactly the same way about left-wing politics. Reading subreddits such as /r/politics or /r/worldnews feels like people are so caught up in their bubble that they refuse to see anything other than what they have already decided upon. Edit: I'm sure the same applies to right wing subreddits, but I don't run into explicitly right wing ones too often. I think that this is not re…
Gee, left-wing politics on reddit! I immediately went to /r/politics to see for myself.. Every story on the landing page is Trump-related.. I looked at one story, the comments are all juvenile, mindless Trump-bashing. Utter waste of time reading it. That is 'left-wing politics'?! I was very disappointed.
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#17Well, that was an irritating read. Every sentence felt manipulative, and the ones I knew something about mostly seemed misleading or wrong.
I highly recommend JR Saul's Voltaire's Bastards, which is (among many things) a history of reason and rationality, from about 1800 to the late 20th C. (Rationality isn't the good guy here that you might expect) One of the best books I've ever read. It's also about Paoli, technocrats, Nazi science, military strategy, democracy, and 50 other things. His next books after it are an attempted solution to the problems described. If it sounds dry, it's not at all. Very dark, thrilling, mind-blowing - wonderful writing.
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#18Reminds me of programmers who like to think of themselves as hyper-rational fact processors; it allows one to deny that one is even capable of having biases.
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#19> They are also massive fans of declaring that they have “facts,” that their analysis is “unbiased,” that they only use “‘reason” and “logic” and not “emotions” to make decisions. Ha! So true. I’ve yet to meet a single individual repeatedly mention their “logic” and “unbiased analysis” without basking in utter self-satisfaction over it.
Do you ever fall into the same trap yourself? Everyone (hyperbole) thinks that they are unbiased, but it’s rare to find someone who actually is.
Realistically it is far better to own your biases; they are ineradicable, and often fundamental to your personality, taste, relationships and values. But you should know what they are so you don't get led too far astray by them.
Re: The magical thinking of guys who love logic
#20Reminds me of programmers who like to think of themselves as hyper-rational fact processors; it allows one to deny that one is even capable of having biases.
Some of them could actually be an hyper-rational fact processor.
It would be perceived by fellow humans as an anomaly and mistreated.
That's what usually happens to people suffering from high functional autism.
They can't get a lot of the nuances of non verbal human communication, so they are usually more unbiased, but are perceived as cold-hearted, because people are usually very biased towards those different from them.