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I think the term for this is "thought terminating cliche." There may be some of that in this thread, but reading those questions/concerns charitably I think mo
by catalogia 7y ago
I think the term for this is "thought terminating cliche." There may be some of that in this thread, but reading those questions/concerns charitably I think most people are curious, but perhaps a bit too busy/lazy to read the article in full before raising their concerns. The trope that being wrong on the internet is the best way to get somebody serve you the truth on a silver platter may also be in play, though I'd expect to a lesser degree. ("I wonder if they controlled for X" -> "I'll accuse them of not controlling for X, so that somebody will tell me whether they did.")
I don't really think it's productive to pathologise people as "denialists". People probably don't think of themselves using that term, so using it allows people to disassociate the critique from their own personal behavior. I think it's more useful to recognize that some tendency towards low-brow responses exists in all of us to some degree (particularly on sites with tempting point/karma/ranking systems), and we should all strive to do better.