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When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

theferrett.com

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Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#61

Post by daenz »

phil248 wrote: post #56
daenz wrote: post #6

I think this article indirectly highlights why mob rule and direct democracies are so potentially dangerous: people need to feel accepted, and will take many ideas on faith, even dangerous ones, than to risk having an opinion that causes them to feel the scorn of their peers.

That may miss the point slightly. These are people who are on the receiving end of scorn, and their decisions to dive deeper into fringe communities only opens them up to further scorn! The very opposite of the issue you are describing, which is a situation in which people conform en masse in order to avoid scorn.

It's just the other side of the coin. The key is the need for acceptance in what you believe. The groups in the article find it by seeking a communities that align with their beliefs, while the groups I am describing find it by conforming their beliefs to the group. The end result is acceptance in what they believe, and an avoidance of scorn.

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#62

Post by DoreenMichele »

It's not merely "lonely being wrong." It's lonely and you face a wall of open hatred and abuse for merely disagreeing or even wondering out loud if maybe the dominant view isn't 100% right and might have some holes in it.

That's completely unnecessary and also often openly breaks a lot of social rules, but people will justify their terrible behavior, the majority will have their back and tell the target of the abuse that they deserve it, it's their fault and the abuse will promptly stop if they will just "stop spouting nonsense."

Only it probably won't. Caving to the demand to pretend to agree will probably be permission to continue to be awful perpetually to someone who once openly disagreed.

The most abusive people typically claim they are being scientific, only they aren't. Because actual science is founded on the idea that we can't really prove anything. We can only disprove things and our current science is all the stuff we have some degree of confidence in because it has yet to be disproven and overturned by something better.

A good example of this is Bigfoot. There are people who believe strongly that Bigfoot absolutely doesn't exist and anyone who allows for the possibility that Bigfoot might be real gets treated like an idiot and a lunatic, never mind that you cannot prove a species absolutely doesn't exist and new species get discovered all the time.

Bigfoot Anti-Believers are typically far more fanatical than Bigfoot Believers, far less rational and far more out of line with scientific principles, yet will justify their terrible treatment of Bigfoot Believers -- or even people who say "I dunno. Could be." -- with claims that anti-belief is scientific.

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#63

Post by adamwong246 »

Sadly, being wrong DOES affect others. My fellow citizens vote and I am compelled by the laws they enact. Every friendly attempt to alter their worldview is ignored and every unfriendly attempt drives them further into a rabbit-hole of unreason. I'm left with only one choice- to isolate myself from the consequences of their actions, either forcing them out of my world, or leaving them in theirs.

and that's why I don't speak with my extended family anymore.

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#64

Post by dragonwriter »

slowhadoken wrote: post #33
Maximus9000 wrote: post #7

> "And if it was just flat-earthers, I’d say fine, it’s harmless. But you’ve got anti-vaxxers and Men’s Rights Advocates and anti-global warming folks and TERFs and incels out there, all fueled by one central pivot point of humanity – namely, that it’s lonely being wrong." It seems quite odd that he lumps "Mens rights advocates" in there. Are they crazy?

Yeah, I don’t like how the term “men’s rights advocate” is thrown around. Maybe some groups that use that term are crazy or something but men deserve rights and advocates for those rights. Men are often treated as second class citizens. People laughing at that is senseless.

Men are politically, economically, and socially dominant in pretty much every society on Earth, though there are a few where that has been reduced so that women are near parity.

Advocating for “Men’s rights” pretty much anywhere on Earth is like advocating for “White rights” or “Christisn rights” in the USA (and, in fact, there's substantial overlap between those groups.)

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#65

Post by UnFleshedOne »

kromem wrote: post #37

How about agree with them? And connect with them? I don't necessarily mean to agree that the Earth is flat. But maybe if you think that we don't know all the answers and finding out things we don't know is fun, you could find common ground even with flat-earthers. Probably 99% of humanity has one element of common ground: we all want to be happy. So start from there and work outwards. How does believing the Earth is…

"Observation" in quantum mechanics is not "people looking at stuff" though.

Here is a good video on quantum misconceptions [1]. Just ignore the part about the boxes. "Nobody understands the Alice and Bob analogy" (Richard Feynman)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7v5NtV8v6I

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#66

Post by dragonwriter »

Maximus9000 wrote: post #7

> "And if it was just flat-earthers, I’d say fine, it’s harmless. But you’ve got anti-vaxxers and Men’s Rights Advocates and anti-global warming folks and TERFs and incels out there, all fueled by one central pivot point of humanity – namely, that it’s lonely being wrong." It seems quite odd that he lumps "Mens rights advocates" in there. Are they crazy?

> It seems quite odd that he lumps "Mens rights advocates" in there. Are they crazy?

Crazy or not, MRA invariably is grounded in a worldview as at odds with facts as climate denialism or anti-vaxx advocacy. (Honestly, I think TERFs and incels, who are not categorically factually delusional, are the ones that don't fit, though it's possible the use of “wrong” was meant to encompass not only factual delusion but also what the author sees as moral error.)

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#67

Post by leereeves »

dragonwriter wrote: post #64
slowhadoken wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don’t like how the term “men’s rights advocate” is thrown around. Maybe some groups that use that term are crazy or something but men deserve rights and advocates for those rights. Men are often treated as second class citizens. People laughing at that is senseless.

Men are politically, economically, and socially dominant in pretty much every society on Earth, though there are a few where that has been reduced so that women are near parity. Advocating for “Men’s rights” pretty much anywhere on Earth is like advocating for “White rights” or “Christisn rights” in the USA (and, in fact, there's substantial overlap between those groups.)

And feminists in the US have managed to change the attitudes and laws that favor men while leaving the ones that favor women intact. That's not equality.

Many MRAs are men who were victims of domestic violence, or false allegations, or bias in the family courts or schools, who saw the system turn against them because of outdated assumptions that men are by default the guilty party.

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#68

Post by weddpros »

Are we witnessing the birth of a new idea, something like "there is no right or wrong if it hurts people's feelings"? will "non binary truth" emerge as law?

You have the right to say anything that's wrong, and nobody can say it's wrong because that would be discriminatory, but if you say something that's right, nobody should say it's right because it would be binary thinking and discriminating? yet you can say it's wrong, because it's hurting your feelings.

Let's try to abolish logic! It will surely lead to immense happiness.

We're at the tipping point where Idiocracy becomes real (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/)

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#69

Post by weddpros »

weddpros wrote: post #68

Are we witnessing the birth of a new idea, something like "there is no right or wrong if it hurts people's feelings"? will "non binary truth" emerge as law? You have the right to say anything that's wrong, and nobody can say it's wrong because that would be discriminatory, but if you say something that's right, nobody should say it's right because it would be binary thinking and discriminating? yet you can say it's w…

Special thanks to a down-voter who proved my point: would you have dared to down-vote my comment if I was a flat-earther?

Are you looking for truth or do you prefer to not hurt people's feelings?

Re: When Having Friends Is More Alluring Than Being Right

#70

Post by whenchamenia »

baron816 wrote: post #10

I’ve been thinking of starting a cult. Not a real cult. It would explicitly be a fake cult, and it would have rules to prevent all the evil stuff cults do. But there’s a reason that people join and become very committed to them (or religions). They provide a community, a sense of common purpose, and a support network. Artificially replicating that while cutting out the bad stuff, and scaling that to the level of the…

A cult is on some level total bullshit. A religion is just when that person who knows it is, dies. Use care when starting things larger than yourself.
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