[flagged]
If it had been airborne Ebola with the infectiousness of Measles it wouldn’t have been mass insanity at all.
Persuasion through status rather than argument
51–60 of 251 posts
Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're probably one of those people who read any criticism of capitalism as a cry for communism.
I don't read any criticism of capitalism because there is basically none. 99% of it is just people claiming that some abstract bad thing in human society is due to "capitalism" without any sort of argument that would actually rise to the level of what I would call criticism.
Playing into the articles points to gain higher status among "capitalists"?
Here is an easy one. Excess capital doesn't earn enough money to compensate for losses relating to depreciation, storage and maintenance costs i.e. the expectation is that capital income disappears in the long run. All further investment turns into consumption instead. That is kind of at odds with what people consider "capitalism" where the marginal productivity of capital is considered constant.
Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument
#53A better title could maybe be:
"Smart and successful people don't express their true opinion because they fear a loss of status"
The author explains, that the more status people gained in their life, the more they try to stick to the common sense of opinions people of their status hold. This behavior really stabilizes the status quo.
For me this also explains why the consequent climate change protests are mainly supported by young people. They presumably have acquired less status yet and therefor don't feel the fear of status loss if they express a new opinion.
Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument
#54I noticed some group think posts lately.
Perhaps some feel uncomfortable with the official assessments of the current wars.
Fortunately, everyone is capable of learning. Today's dogma is tomorrow's stupidity.
Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument
#55The majority of all argument, debates, polemics... it's all "hacks." We're all dirty tricks, if we're being honest.
Formalizing and naming templates of fallacies and dirty tricks... it's kind of a fallacious trick in itself.
Logically valid, convincing, and the way we actually think a completely different. There are places where these come together, often requiring a lot of effort.
The reality that we, all of us, way through the slush. None rise above it.
To take the least noxious example, stories work on us. Stories. Narratives. They're very central to communicating, central to how we make sense of things. Who is what in which story.
Telling the story, is unanimously agreed by all practitioners.. primary to convincing people, or even getting them to listen to you in the first place.
Is this logically sound? Is it conducive to keeping track of one's assumptions, presumptions and biases? Of course not. It is, how we work though.
The way formal logic works, and the way we think, talk and convince one another.. they are very far apart. That doesn't mean we can't grasp logic. We can. It does mean, that we don't employ it on its own very often.
The argument that would take, this post is the "central" path. The other half of this dichotomy. The assumed default state.
People say things for a lot of reasons, and then argue their way back.
Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument
#56Can the author provide example of dumb ideas? Or is it "dumb ideas" == "ideas I disagree with" More generally, it seems like the recipe of this breed of substack author is to take a basic object level opinion e.g. "I don’t like pronoun people" or "AI people are dumb" and turn it a whole pseudo intellectual rant without ever getting to the point.
I think it is a fair criticism. The title appears does not appear to match the content, which is not as opinion-based. It still reads like a rant, but I just happen to agree with some of the conclusions like self-censorship:
"They found that highly educated people are the most concerned about losing their jobs or missing out on job opportunities because of their political views".
If I was being charitable, I would say that title is trying to capture attention while sacrificing the expectation one may have of its content.
Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument
#57I think it's educational/cultural; the peripheral route seems particularly prevalent among Americans as opposed to say, continental Europeans, which are much more independent thinkers.
Now Americans apparently also have a weird relationship with education (highly status correlated and rejected by certain bands of society) and often appear to interpret the world through the lens of their binary political divide.
Coincidence?
Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument
#58A better title could maybe be: "Smart and successful people don't express their true opinion because they fear a loss of status" The author explains, that the more status people gained in their life, the more they try to stick to the common sense of opinions people of their status hold. This behavior really stabilizes the status quo. For me this also explains why the consequent climate change protests are mainly supp…
Would you have clicked on that title? Everyone says they hate clickbait (defined here as "titles people actually click"), but it's about the only way to get anyone to look at anything unless they're already familiar with your work, regardless of the merits.
Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument
#59Can the author provide example of dumb ideas? Or is it "dumb ideas" == "ideas I disagree with" More generally, it seems like the recipe of this breed of substack author is to take a basic object level opinion e.g. "I don’t like pronoun people" or "AI people are dumb" and turn it a whole pseudo intellectual rant without ever getting to the point.
The point is clear. He even summarized it neatly in the least three sentences or so. The rest is projection (and a rather transparent attempt to undermine the author’s message, dare I say reputation, by association fallacy).
Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're probably one of those people who read any criticism of capitalism as a cry for communism.
I don't read any criticism of capitalism because there is basically none. 99% of it is just people claiming that some abstract bad thing in human society is due to "capitalism" without any sort of argument that would actually rise to the level of what I would call criticism.
In an unregulated market, capital very naturally tends to accumulate more capital - while, if you have nothing, it's very hard to build up capital in the first place.
Which means that, if this continues indefinitely, more and more things belong to fewer and fewer people - which is exactly what we've been seeing over the last couple of decades.