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Persuasion through status rather than argument

robkhenderson.com

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Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#111

Post by mikeyouse »

Tainnor wrote: post #92
gms wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, completely unregulated would lead to that. We need laws to protect against coercion and adjudicate in the case of disagreements between parties. Warring tribes where physical force wins is not a good place to be.

I don't think you're seeing the whole picture if you think only about physical force. People who are well off have more opportunities to start other ventures that make them even more well-off, and if they're especially powerful, they can use that influence to further their benefit. I don't think that's particularly controversial.

To wit, I live in a mid sized town in the Midwest - about 80 years ago a family started a business that was pretty successful and is on its third or fourth generation of ownership now — that’s all well and good but it’s insane how much of the town is owned or directed by them now. Do you want to buy a car, foreign or domestic? Host a convention? Rent a hotel room in the urban core? Put on a concert? How about go to the hospital or buy health insurance? Go to college? Send your kid to preschool? Build a commercial building?

Capital begets capital.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#113

Post by naveen99 »

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #98
carlosjobim wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communism is one of the worst ideas, with the worst track records, and have always captured the most intelligent people, even today. A casual browse through HN comments is enough evidence.

> > Communism is one of the worst ideas Communism is the idea that in order to be successful you have to kiss asses at the location where you want to eventually become someone, for example a government agency or a political party. Capitalism is the idea that in order to be successful you should be able to kiss asses wherever and however you can and be able to move the provents from the aforementioned ass kissing at s…

> ass kissing arbitrage

ROFL.

Minus the last paragraph. Remember primes are infinite. Improvements are infinite, the slow down is only to log speed, still plenty fast.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#115

Post by carlosjobim »

habinero wrote: post #36
carlosjobim wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communism is one of the worst ideas, with the worst track records, and have always captured the most intelligent people, even today. A casual browse through HN comments is enough evidence.

[flagged]

Communism as defined by Marx and as practiced by the Soviet Union, China, and the DDR. But you can expand to socialism in the widest sense if you like. Still a bad idea that attracts some very smart people.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#116

Post by lapcat »

shannifin wrote: post #105

Is there a way to self-evaluate whether or not your belief is the product of social status preservation? If not, what good is it to recognize the possibility, save for accusing others of it?

There's a past-oriented and a future-oriented question you can ask with regard to your beliefs.

Past: How did I come to believe what I currently believe?

Future: How skeptical should I be about what I currently believe?

The past-oriented question is difficult to answer; it's a causal story that may have a number of different factors, and of course it depends on your brain wiring.

It seems to me that that the future-oriented question, on the other hand, is much easier to answer: if your beliefs personally benefit or comfort you, then you should be very skeptical of them.

This is a natural corollary of “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#117

Post by the_only_law »

Apocryphon wrote: post #21
biscuits1 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cold fusion is posted here every few months. Does it fall in this category?

On that note, the entire LK-99 debacle.

The funniest part of that whole debacle was watching side liners in HN get their ego personally hurt when it was exposed.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#118

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

naveen99 wrote: post #113
JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Communism is one of the worst ideas Communism is the idea that in order to be successful you have to kiss asses at the location where you want to eventually become someone, for example a government agency or a political party. Capitalism is the idea that in order to be successful you should be able to kiss asses wherever and however you can and be able to move the provents from the aforementioned ass kissing at s…

> ass kissing arbitrage ROFL. Minus the last paragraph. Remember primes are infinite. Improvements are infinite, the slow down is only to log speed, still plenty fast.

> > Improvements are infinite, the slow down is only to log speed

Yeah but the brain gets more excited going from 0 to 10mph on a self built skateboard than from mach1 to mach2 on the Concorde, because you are in the exciting part of the S-curve.

Also because skateboard you singlehandedly crafted and it's yours, Concorde you need a million people give or take to build and billions of man hours and you get to rent 1/160th of it for about 3 hours. And those 3 hours cost some serious ass kissing to acquire.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#119

Post by DangitBobby »

jacquesm wrote: post #89
XorNot wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would contend that everyone discussing LK-99 took it very rationally. The idea that there were people "falling for it" is made up post-facto by a group who want to feel smugly superior about everything. Cynicism isn't wisdom though.

No, lots of people were falling for it and were twisting themselves into all kinds of knots that were not supported by evidence. And lots of people were similarly twisting themselves into all kinds of knots to claim it couldn't possibly true. And neither position was supported by evidence or physics.

You should go back and read the comment threads. People were incredibly level headed (actually tripping over themselves to make sure everyone knew how skeptical they were).

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#120

Post by M95D »

lapcat wrote: post #82

The author is trying to push a consistent narrative throughout the article, and unfortunately this results in the omission of alternative explanations for the phenomena discussed. For example: > Likewise, in a fascinating study on the collapse of the Soviet Union, researchers have found that university-educated people were two to three times more likely than high school graduates to say they supported the Communist P…

> researchers have found that university-educated people were two to three times more likely than high school graduates to say they supported the Communist Party

Ignorant researchers.

Those kind of people were required to be members of the Party or else they could not get jobs according to their education. Also they were the most actively monitored by state security. Phones tapped, spied by neighbors, required to speak in public in support of the Party, etc.

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