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> I've been thinking a lot lately about blindspots. I think it works like this: blindspots are so hard to see, but if they are inconvenient, they will get pus

by Chris2048 6y ago

> I've been thinking a lot lately about blindspots. I think it works like this: blindspots are so hard to see, but if they are inconvenient, they will get pushback. great effort will be spent creating counter-arguments i.e. arguments against, but not so much arguments for. Effort will be spent repeating them so these counterarguments will become well-known, and accepted. Soon enough, there will be a lamp-shade effect; there are so many counter-arguments people will wonder if the value they see is something is real because they only hear talk of the harm of something, not the value; everyone thinks it's harmful, but no one speaks of the value. Soon enough, it becomes harder to defend something, and this means the path-of-least-resistance is to not defend something, or to attack those that try. Anyone defending it has to adopt a "contrarian" style and tone, and sometimes hedge a little with "provocateur" behaviour to give themselves an out in case things come back on them (I wasn't really serious, lol). I personally hate so-called "identity politics" because it gives people a personal, group-identity stake in things that not only bias their perspective, but often add a strong emotive current to topics that fuels the creation of stigmas and taboos as above. > This was how I "got sick of philosophy" at Uni. I did philosophy at uni. OMG stay away from the continental stuff. The (often American aka logical positivists) stuff that intersected with logic and mathematics was great though, although much of it seemed to be a study in semantics/language/meaning. Check out Rudolf Carnaps "philosophical nonsense" stuff: Such metaphysical sentences—into which we can be misled by the logical shortcomings of natural languages—are revealed to be pseudo-sentences by logical analysis. They are nonsense, in the sense of not having any theoretical content; they are not answers to any coherently expressible questions. TBH, I think the answer to such things might be: revise the traditional list of fallacies. what a task this would be though..

matwood 6y ago
> I personally hate so-called "identity politics" because it gives people a personal, group-identity stake in things that not only bias their perspective, but often add a strong emotive current to topics that fuels the creation of stigmas and taboos as above. This is why I'll never understand people who are crazy about <insert political candidate here>. No matter who they are, they will do something you disagree with. It's much easier to recognize what they did is wrong if you were never part of their group to start. Instead, I see people twisting themselves in knots to defend positions they would normally denounce. And not just too single out politics, but I see the same thing with companies (like Apple). I also don't want to sound holier than thou either, since I've recognized it in myself before. This joining a tribe is part of the human condition, so it's something I have to actively fight against.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  > Instead, I see people twisting themselves in knots to defend positions they would normally denounce. This is actually a rational behaviour (in an f-ed up system/incentive). Any admittance of failure will be used against your candidate, and the opposition will defend their candidate just as strongly. Consider how when celebs get involved in scandals their PR isn't always to admit fault. Its the same thing of "repeat a lie enough.."; even if the defence itself is not accepted, it can still soften the blow of the scandal by resisting the death-blow of unanimous condemnation. Humans are sometimes herd creatures, visible support is a universal defence in itself, even if only to threaten/dissuade attackers. In other words, this is how political theatre works.
  - throwmeaway_pls 6y ago
    You’re just rebranding a weakness as a strength.
    - Chris2048 6y ago
      vague concepts of "weak" and "strong" are closer to the semantics-free/nuance-free iconography of branding than my thoughts about political theatre. One sentence dismissals of a paragraph of text add little value to this thread, it would have been better to represent your disapproval with a downvote.

matwood 6y ago

> I personally hate so-called "identity politics" because it gives people a personal, group-identity stake in things that not only bias their perspective, but often add a strong emotive current to topics that fuels the creation of stigmas and taboos as above. This is why I'll never understand people who are crazy about <insert political candidate here>. No matter who they are, they will do something you disagree with. It's much easier to recognize what they did is wrong if you were never part of their group to start. Instead, I see people twisting themselves in knots to defend positions they would normally denounce. And not just too single out politics, but I see the same thing with companies (like Apple). I also don't want to sound holier than thou either, since I've recognized it in myself before. This joining a tribe is part of the human condition, so it's something I have to actively fight against.

Chris2048 6y ago
> Instead, I see people twisting themselves in knots to defend positions they would normally denounce. This is actually a rational behaviour (in an f-ed up system/incentive). Any admittance of failure will be used against your candidate, and the opposition will defend their candidate just as strongly. Consider how when celebs get involved in scandals their PR isn't always to admit fault. Its the same thing of "repeat a lie enough.."; even if the defence itself is not accepted, it can still soften the blow of the scandal by resisting the death-blow of unanimous condemnation. Humans are sometimes herd creatures, visible support is a universal defence in itself, even if only to threaten/dissuade attackers. In other words, this is how political theatre works.
- throwmeaway_pls 6y ago
  You’re just rebranding a weakness as a strength.
  - Chris2048 6y ago
    vague concepts of "weak" and "strong" are closer to the semantics-free/nuance-free iconography of branding than my thoughts about political theatre. One sentence dismissals of a paragraph of text add little value to this thread, it would have been better to represent your disapproval with a downvote.