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> As one HN member to another, please don't do this. There is nothing wrong with generalizing - in fact it is normal and healthy behavior. > Your statement wo

> As one HN member to another, please don't do this. There is nothing wrong with generalizing - in fact it is normal and healthy behavior. > Your statement works equally well as "Some think that intelligent people make highly informed decisions...." No it doesn't. That's not at all what I was trying to say - I was summarizing the general sentiment, in my experience, of the current HN community. Look I could be wrong - but in that case please debate the point.

grzm 9y ago
> "in that case please debate the point" You're the one making an argument that your generalization is warranted: it's on you to back it up. I'm not sure how you'd be able to do so. It's not 100%, unless you yourself hold this opinion. Everyone except you? I have a hard time believing that. I've seen plenty of comments (perhaps not in this thread) about irrationality and bias in human behavior regardless of intelligence (some I've made myself). Most? How do you quantify this? What percentage? How are you going to support it? If you do have some kind of quantitative data, I'd very much like to see it. It would certainly be interesting and a good starting point for a substantive discussion. Such generalizations do no one any good, other that reducing people to some caricature that weakens your own point. What you describe as "normal and healthy behavior" is what supports the tribalistic behavior that leads to polarization. That's certainly not healthy.
- sheepmullet 9y ago
  > it's on you to back it up. I'm giving an experience report - if you do disagree with my point let me know and I can happily expand - but it feels like you disagree with me making a generalization rather than the particulars. > It's not 100%, unless you yourself hold this opinion. Everyone except you? I have a hard time believing that. I'm not sure you understand what a generalization is. > Such generalizations do no one any good That's a generalization and it's not a very accurate one. We rely upon generalizations all the time - it's a healthy and necessary behaviour. > other that reducing people to some caricature that weakens your own point Another unsubstantiated generalization. Reducing to a caricature helps focus the conversation on the caricature. > is what supports the tribalistic behavior that leads to polarization. How? It doesn't even make sense most of the time - for example I'm not defining or helping create an in-group vs out-group with my comments. Secondly, what makes polarization or even tribalistic behavior inherently bad/unhealthy? The vast majority of group behaviour is not easily quantified and is based on thousands of generalizations. It's not the problem you make it out to be.

grzm 9y ago

> "in that case please debate the point" You're the one making an argument that your generalization is warranted: it's on you to back it up. I'm not sure how you'd be able to do so. It's not 100%, unless you yourself hold this opinion. Everyone except you? I have a hard time believing that. I've seen plenty of comments (perhaps not in this thread) about irrationality and bias in human behavior regardless of intelligence (some I've made myself). Most? How do you quantify this? What percentage? How are you going to support it? If you do have some kind of quantitative data, I'd very much like to see it. It would certainly be interesting and a good starting point for a substantive discussion. Such generalizations do no one any good, other that reducing people to some caricature that weakens your own point. What you describe as "normal and healthy behavior" is what supports the tribalistic behavior that leads to polarization. That's certainly not healthy.

sheepmullet 9y ago
> it's on you to back it up. I'm giving an experience report - if you do disagree with my point let me know and I can happily expand - but it feels like you disagree with me making a generalization rather than the particulars. > It's not 100%, unless you yourself hold this opinion. Everyone except you? I have a hard time believing that. I'm not sure you understand what a generalization is. > Such generalizations do no one any good That's a generalization and it's not a very accurate one. We rely upon generalizations all the time - it's a healthy and necessary behaviour. > other that reducing people to some caricature that weakens your own point Another unsubstantiated generalization. Reducing to a caricature helps focus the conversation on the caricature. > is what supports the tribalistic behavior that leads to polarization. How? It doesn't even make sense most of the time - for example I'm not defining or helping create an in-group vs out-group with my comments. Secondly, what makes polarization or even tribalistic behavior inherently bad/unhealthy? The vast majority of group behaviour is not easily quantified and is based on thousands of generalizations. It's not the problem you make it out to be.