7 ms·

Those are the easy targets,its not intellectually interesting to me. It's like when atheists were obsessed with debating creationists online some years ago. My

Those are the easy targets,its not intellectually interesting to me. It's like when atheists were obsessed with debating creationists online some years ago. My point was that people don't have a clear view of what lying precisely is when they say they would never lie due to their morals. Your answer was to bring in Trump stuff. I don't care about Trump stuff. Sure there are overt lies. My point is everyone lies, but defines socially acceptable lines differently. People who are pathological truth tellers don't get far in life.

dragontamer 6y ago
> Those are the easy targets If they were easy targets, then my sister, my mother, my sister's husband, my sister's father in law, my uncles, and well over half my family wouldn't believe in those lies. Half my coworkers and over half of my family believes in these lies. I'm not interested in the philosophical, because I'm literally living in the pit of lies with no way to convince my family or coworkers that they've been mislead. I'm having to explain to my own mother, why having 20+ people (including people who were on flights from across the country) over for Thanksgiving is a bad idea. I'm having to explain to my sister why we shouldn't go out and eat at restaurants right now. I'm having to explain to my mom why its important to tell everyone at the Thanksgiving party about a certain partygoer's postive Test Result, and that my mom should help contact trace out of duty to this country alone. And I'm making the calculus of whether or not to expose myself to my own family, who fails to take precautions in this COVID19 era, because they believe in the misinformation. This is my life, and it has been for months. And now I learn my Sister is leaning anti-vax in addition to this whole shebang, because she doesn't seem to take the COVID19 threat on her own health seriously. Maybe your situation is different. Maybe you have time to wax philosophical. But I don't. I'm dealing with the surface level, because that's where the problem is.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  Maybe you should let go of the feeling that you are responsible for what these other people believe or chose to do. If you don't want to go to Thanksgiving with 20 people, simply don't go.
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    If my mother is no longer competent to reason on her own, it is my responsibility as the eldest male in the family to take responsibility. Is it not? This is the job of the middle-age: the turnover point where the children begin to take care of their parents (instead of parents taking care of children). As the elderly lose their mental capacity, it falls upon the shoulders of my generation to take care of them.
    - webmaven 6y ago
      > If my mother is no longer competent to reason on her own, it is my responsibility as the eldest male in the family to take responsibility. Is it not? Believing this particular set of lies is not, however, a reliable market for mental competence. You yourself note how widespread these ideas are among your family, most of whom are presumptively mentally competent adults. Any chain of reasoning that leads to a conclusion like "half of the country is mentally incompetent" should be suspect. In a way, this whole situation is where a whole suite of ideas like postmodernism, epistemological/cultural/moral relativism etc., come home to roost. After all, these are just alternative facts, and what we hear from so-called experts is just, like, their opinion, man.
      - dragontamer 6y ago
        I never claimed that. What I'm saying is: my mother's wellbeing will soon be my direct responsibility. Obviously I'd rather have my mom take care of herself... Less work for me. But her ability to handle money has appreciably degenerated, and now this COVID thing is proving to me that she is unable to fully analyze the news on her own.
        webmaven 6y ago
        What I am saying is that since mentally competent adults also believe these lies, you mustn't use that belief as evidence one way or another. Doing so is basically falling victim to confirmation bias. I suggest you try to base your decision on other evidence (such as the ability to handle money you mentioned) only.
- pdonis 6y ago
  Your problem here is not "lies" per se. Your problem is that you trust different sources of information from your family (or your coworkers). You believe all four of the claims you listed are lies because you were told it by sources of information you trust. Your family has the opposite belief about COVID because they were told it by sources of information they trust, and the sources they trust are different from the ones you trust. (Note, btw, that I personally agree with your "lie" judgment on only two of the four claims--the COVID claim is one of them, so I evidently have a different set of information sources I trust than either you or your family.) Your counter argument would probably be that the sources of information you trust are obviously more reliable than the sources of information your family trusts. But my response would be that, if we actually look at track records, no source of information available to any of us is all that trustworthy; all of them will purvey lies and misinformation if it serves their interests. While I suppose one could describe that problem as "lies", it's actually much worse than that simple term suggests: as I have just shown above, not only are we being told lies, but we can't even agree on which things we are being told are lies and which are not, because there are no sources of information that have maintained a good enough track record of trustworthiness to serve as arbiters to such disputes.
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    I chose specific examples because this is no longer abstract to me. * Is COVID19 a hoax? * Is Obama a Muslim from Kenya? * Will Hydroxychloroquine save you from COVID? * Are the November 2020 election's results under question? Quit hiding behind the "unreliable sources" excuse. We have actual issues at play here and ultimately determines the course of my family. Lets put it this way: do I go to New Years celebration or not with my family? Do I follow them to Disney World next month? How much should I work to convince my family that flying on an airplane is a bad idea? Do I just watch them recklessly endanger their lives to see Mickey Mouse? What I'm finding is that cutting myself off is counterproductive: they'll continue to perform recklessly and I simply lose my ability to communicate with them. A degree of balance is needed. But the lies perpetrated in the media are not helping me at all. "Shamelessness as a strategy". The lies perpetrated by those in power have an effect on my family. Politicians are shameless about it: they don't care about the personal effects its having.
- Bodell 6y ago
  I just wanted to say that regardless of how anyone defines a lie, I personally know what your going through and it really sucks. And for what it’s worth your not alone.
- strgcmc 6y ago
  I don't know if this will actually help, but I do think it's important to keep in mind two underlying principles: - People generally cannot be argued out of positions using facts/logic/science, if they didn't use facts/logic/science to come to that belief in the first place - As cold/brutal as it may seem, do not set yourself on fire to keep others warm: if the rest of your extended family is beyond saving and won't listen to reason, you must prioritize yourself, your partner, your children, etc. Now, with that being said, I think it's worth having a final "come to Jesus" type of talk, and adopting a very frank/blunt attitude. I would try something like this: "Mom, I'm not going to argue with you about whether COVID is real or not, how serious the risk is or not. What I want to do, is discuss how to handle your affairs, should you go into the ICU or die. Is your will in order? Which hospital do you want me to take you to (knowing that some are filling/full)? Do you have a burial plot picked out?". Make a last-ditch effort to shock them with the realities of how seriously you are taking things, how matter-of-factly you are preparing to deal with their likely illness or death. Don't make it a political debate, and just tell them, if you do things your way, I want to know how you want me to deal with the aftermath. It probably won't work, but I would say do your best to make them confront the likely consequences of their choices. And you could also try to show them more articles like these [1], [2], or [3], though I'm sure you've probably already tried. [1] https://news.yahoo.com/im-doctor-tried-plan-extremely-204117155.html https://news.yahoo.com/im-doctor-tried-plan-extremely-204117... [2] https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/31/judging-patients-covid-19-decisions-comes-easier-than-it-should/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/31/judging-patients-covid-1... [3] https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/how-talk-your-friends-family-about-covid-vaccines-wearing-masks-n1250631 https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/how-talk-your-f...
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    Fortunately, I'm still just a single male. So I only have myself to worry about. Given COVID's characteristics, I obviously don't want to get it... but its more important for my parents to not get it. The good news is I'm not entirely alone: only about half my family are on that thinking. I can lean with my younger-sister, who is a medical doctor, for the shock-and-awe strategy. She's seen the issues first hand and can describe them in more detail than I ever could. But these family COVID19 talks are non-trivial to talk about, and require strategy and preparation. Maybe others don't care what happens to their family and just ignore it, but I lack that level of apathy.

dragontamer 6y ago

> Those are the easy targets If they were easy targets, then my sister, my mother, my sister's husband, my sister's father in law, my uncles, and well over half my family wouldn't believe in those lies. Half my coworkers and over half of my family believes in these lies. I'm not interested in the philosophical, because I'm literally living in the pit of lies with no way to convince my family or coworkers that they've been mislead. I'm having to explain to my own mother, why having 20+ people (including people who were on flights from across the country) over for Thanksgiving is a bad idea. I'm having to explain to my sister why we shouldn't go out and eat at restaurants right now. I'm having to explain to my mom why its important to tell everyone at the Thanksgiving party about a certain partygoer's postive Test Result, and that my mom should help contact trace out of duty to this country alone. And I'm making the calculus of whether or not to expose myself to my own family, who fails to take precautions in this COVID19 era, because they believe in the misinformation. This is my life, and it has been for months. And now I learn my Sister is leaning anti-vax in addition to this whole shebang, because she doesn't seem to take the COVID19 threat on her own health seriously. Maybe your situation is different. Maybe you have time to wax philosophical. But I don't. I'm dealing with the surface level, because that's where the problem is.

throwaway201103 6y ago
Maybe you should let go of the feeling that you are responsible for what these other people believe or chose to do. If you don't want to go to Thanksgiving with 20 people, simply don't go.
- dragontamer 6y ago
  If my mother is no longer competent to reason on her own, it is my responsibility as the eldest male in the family to take responsibility. Is it not? This is the job of the middle-age: the turnover point where the children begin to take care of their parents (instead of parents taking care of children). As the elderly lose their mental capacity, it falls upon the shoulders of my generation to take care of them.
  - webmaven 6y ago
    > If my mother is no longer competent to reason on her own, it is my responsibility as the eldest male in the family to take responsibility. Is it not? Believing this particular set of lies is not, however, a reliable market for mental competence. You yourself note how widespread these ideas are among your family, most of whom are presumptively mentally competent adults. Any chain of reasoning that leads to a conclusion like "half of the country is mentally incompetent" should be suspect. In a way, this whole situation is where a whole suite of ideas like postmodernism, epistemological/cultural/moral relativism etc., come home to roost. After all, these are just alternative facts, and what we hear from so-called experts is just, like, their opinion, man.
    - dragontamer 6y ago
      I never claimed that. What I'm saying is: my mother's wellbeing will soon be my direct responsibility. Obviously I'd rather have my mom take care of herself... Less work for me. But her ability to handle money has appreciably degenerated, and now this COVID thing is proving to me that she is unable to fully analyze the news on her own.
      - webmaven 6y ago
        What I am saying is that since mentally competent adults also believe these lies, you mustn't use that belief as evidence one way or another. Doing so is basically falling victim to confirmation bias. I suggest you try to base your decision on other evidence (such as the ability to handle money you mentioned) only.
pdonis 6y ago
Your problem here is not "lies" per se. Your problem is that you trust different sources of information from your family (or your coworkers). You believe all four of the claims you listed are lies because you were told it by sources of information you trust. Your family has the opposite belief about COVID because they were told it by sources of information they trust, and the sources they trust are different from the ones you trust. (Note, btw, that I personally agree with your "lie" judgment on only two of the four claims--the COVID claim is one of them, so I evidently have a different set of information sources I trust than either you or your family.) Your counter argument would probably be that the sources of information you trust are obviously more reliable than the sources of information your family trusts. But my response would be that, if we actually look at track records, no source of information available to any of us is all that trustworthy; all of them will purvey lies and misinformation if it serves their interests. While I suppose one could describe that problem as "lies", it's actually much worse than that simple term suggests: as I have just shown above, not only are we being told lies, but we can't even agree on which things we are being told are lies and which are not, because there are no sources of information that have maintained a good enough track record of trustworthiness to serve as arbiters to such disputes.
- dragontamer 6y ago
  I chose specific examples because this is no longer abstract to me. * Is COVID19 a hoax? * Is Obama a Muslim from Kenya? * Will Hydroxychloroquine save you from COVID? * Are the November 2020 election's results under question? Quit hiding behind the "unreliable sources" excuse. We have actual issues at play here and ultimately determines the course of my family. Lets put it this way: do I go to New Years celebration or not with my family? Do I follow them to Disney World next month? How much should I work to convince my family that flying on an airplane is a bad idea? Do I just watch them recklessly endanger their lives to see Mickey Mouse? What I'm finding is that cutting myself off is counterproductive: they'll continue to perform recklessly and I simply lose my ability to communicate with them. A degree of balance is needed. But the lies perpetrated in the media are not helping me at all. "Shamelessness as a strategy". The lies perpetrated by those in power have an effect on my family. Politicians are shameless about it: they don't care about the personal effects its having.
Bodell 6y ago
I just wanted to say that regardless of how anyone defines a lie, I personally know what your going through and it really sucks. And for what it’s worth your not alone.
strgcmc 6y ago
I don't know if this will actually help, but I do think it's important to keep in mind two underlying principles: - People generally cannot be argued out of positions using facts/logic/science, if they didn't use facts/logic/science to come to that belief in the first place - As cold/brutal as it may seem, do not set yourself on fire to keep others warm: if the rest of your extended family is beyond saving and won't listen to reason, you must prioritize yourself, your partner, your children, etc. Now, with that being said, I think it's worth having a final "come to Jesus" type of talk, and adopting a very frank/blunt attitude. I would try something like this: "Mom, I'm not going to argue with you about whether COVID is real or not, how serious the risk is or not. What I want to do, is discuss how to handle your affairs, should you go into the ICU or die. Is your will in order? Which hospital do you want me to take you to (knowing that some are filling/full)? Do you have a burial plot picked out?". Make a last-ditch effort to shock them with the realities of how seriously you are taking things, how matter-of-factly you are preparing to deal with their likely illness or death. Don't make it a political debate, and just tell them, if you do things your way, I want to know how you want me to deal with the aftermath. It probably won't work, but I would say do your best to make them confront the likely consequences of their choices. And you could also try to show them more articles like these [1], [2], or [3], though I'm sure you've probably already tried. [1] https://news.yahoo.com/im-doctor-tried-plan-extremely-204117155.html https://news.yahoo.com/im-doctor-tried-plan-extremely-204117... [2] https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/31/judging-patients-covid-19-decisions-comes-easier-than-it-should/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/31/judging-patients-covid-1... [3] https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/how-talk-your-friends-family-about-covid-vaccines-wearing-masks-n1250631 https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/how-talk-your-f...
- dragontamer 6y ago
  Fortunately, I'm still just a single male. So I only have myself to worry about. Given COVID's characteristics, I obviously don't want to get it... but its more important for my parents to not get it. The good news is I'm not entirely alone: only about half my family are on that thinking. I can lean with my younger-sister, who is a medical doctor, for the shock-and-awe strategy. She's seen the issues first hand and can describe them in more detail than I ever could. But these family COVID19 talks are non-trivial to talk about, and require strategy and preparation. Maybe others don't care what happens to their family and just ignore it, but I lack that level of apathy.