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Maybe the world has changed but when someone says something stupid and someone else calls them on it, backing it up with facts, and they double down on the stup

Maybe the world has changed but when someone says something stupid and someone else calls them on it, backing it up with facts, and they double down on the stupid... shouldn't there be a population of people out there that see this as a desperation move on the part of the original poster? Or a sign of closed-mindedness? Correcting someone in a public venue isn't for the audience of one that is spouting stupid things, it's for the rest of the world that is reading the thread. So a fact-based correction that causes more stupid to be posted is doing it's job, really. If the response happens to reference the facts that were posted, well, now you've got a conversation going. I would also like to point out that stupid is in the eye of the beholder sometimes. Something can sound stupid on first blush yet turn out to be true.

HPsquared 5y ago
See the 1% rule: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture) The vast majority of people are lurkers and only read the content.
Nursie 5y ago
It's certainly a sign of closed mindedness. AFAICT most discussion on the internet is pretty closed-minded though, people have their preconceptions, and they argue them. Rarely is anyone enlightened, or are minds changed. It is common to see such a person be corrected on a point of fact but then go on to repeat the same falsehood in another place or on another day. This is likely because to them the narrative is important, the emotions, rather than correctness. > Correcting someone in a public venue isn't for the audience of one that is spouting stupid things, it's for the rest of the world that is reading the thread. I hope so, but I'm not sure it works like that either, as the legions of spouters seem to grow by the day :/
- Nasrudith 5y ago
  I suspect "spam filter heuristics" also contribute to close mindedness. If something is repeated ad nauseam and the observer finds it false every time then they mentally downgrade the reliability to "known bullshit, not worth listening to". The process is agnostic to any objective truth and could apply to stubborn flat-earthers taking "against intuition and the ability to easily comprehend like a flat map" as false.
everdrive 5y ago
I think a lot of people can't see through the noise. Find a video of two pundits arguing, and I guarantee that you can find videos which alternately claim that each side "destroyed" the other. It's not just that people can't integrate all the different information out there. (this is part of the problem, too, of course) Frankly, I think we have underestimated the degree (or at least I underestimated it quite a bit) to which many people never really understand the validity of an argument, but simply adopt it when it becomes "mainstream." Of course the problem now is that there is not really a "mainstream." There are many small competing and conflicting "mainstreams." And so people adopt many of these ideas.
- Verdex 5y ago
  It's even worse than that. I went to a evolution vs creationism debate once when I was in college (it was put on for the students there). Everyone in that auditorium was an atheist and everyone was a young earth creationist. The difference was in which speaker had just made a really good sounding point. The people on the extremes each believe that their side won but as far as I could tell all the people in the middle believed in both as they crossed some "sufficiently cool" threshold.
  - xwolfi 5y ago
    I think it's fine, opinions area fluid, there's little inherent truth. Atheist too because it s the most likely, but I dont feel bad an unprovable fallacy gets some traction: after all maybe a loving designer is looking at me while I pooptype this. The US gains more raising credit card consuming drones than revolutionary philosophers
  - smolder 5y ago
    Everyone was a creationist AND everyone was an atheist? It's a little unclear what that sentence was supposed to say.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      What it sounds like is that the person relating the tale mistook cheering for a particular line delivered in a debate performance with agreement (even if momentary) with the broader position it meant to advance.
throwaway803453 5y ago
Often the words "I, you, my, your" are as bad as swear words when correcting someone. One sure way to anger someone and have the double down is to hurt their ego by using one of those words (e.g., your code has a bug, vs the code has a bug). Avoid those words and disagreements become a lot more productive.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- drdavid 5y ago
  Some years back, before I sold my business and retired, I tried something and I've stuck with it ever since. I pretty much never say 'should', in the sense that someone 'should do' something. Instead, I use the word 'could.' "Well, you could try doing it this way." "As you're not having any success with this method, you could use this method." The difference in responses was great enough for me to develop the habit and stick with it. I'd call it a success. There are other things I don't say. I don't say "I understand." Instead, I say something similar to, "I can relate." Again, the differences in responses that I get from people have made it worth developing the habit.
  - rrauenza 5y ago
    Are you suggesting we could all try doing this too?
    - drdavid 5y ago
      If you want people to be more receptive, you could try it.
      - rrauenza 5y ago
        Yes, I could. (Not sure if you missed the original joke...) But I really appreciate your insight here. I've already suggested it to someone else and will try to use this myself.
pjc50 5y ago
> Maybe the world has changed but when someone says something stupid and someone else calls them on it, backing it up with facts, and they double down on the stupid... shouldn't there be a population of people out there that see this as a desperation move on the part of the original poster? Did you miss the entire Trump presidency? People love that sort of thing. Facts are difficult, inscrutable things that have to be dug out of observations and carefully safeguarded. They often tend to be disappointing. Whereas lies and fantasies? Those are theatre. Oh, and algorithmic timelines make this worse: correcting someone is promoting their original views to other people.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  The problem is that there is too much information. For (almost) any position, there are some facts that support that position. There are other facts that oppose the position. The evidence (the sum of all the facts) often leans one way or the other - either supporting or opposing the position. But someone arguing in bad faith can often find enough facts to look somewhat convincing, which lets them persuade at least some others that their position is correct.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Our interpretation of what actually supports what is incorrect because of our limited perspectives
orev 5y ago
Something missing in this type of analysis is the future actions of the person being corrected. One might say something wrong, be corrected, then argue (because being corrected makes you feel bad and angry). But the next time they say something, they might consider it more, or maybe not be as extreme, as they want to avoid the bad feelings caused by negative feedback. It’s easy to see this in action on this very site — nobody likes to be downvoted, so the conversations stay somewhat more civil than other sites.
- tacitusarc 5y ago
  I thought that is exactly what the researchers were looking at
mgh2 5y ago
“Truth is so obscure these times, and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.” - Blaise Pascal Unfortunately, the odds are against us. Lying is inherent in human nature. Even if you point out the facts, most people will be deluded again because the majority drowns everything, especially in an anonymous environment such as the internet.
- 1cvmask 5y ago
  But what are the facts? WMDs in Iraq and the myriad of other lies our governments throw at us. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me ten thousand times and shame on everyone.
  - drdavid 5y ago
    >WMDs in Iraq Some interesting reading regarding this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#2003_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destr... It turns out that there really were some WMDs after all. I'm not sure they were enough to justify war, but I don't suppose that matters at this stage.
    - tacitusarc 5y ago
      I don’t see any hard evidence there, only speculation on chemical weapons. But maybe I missed it?
      - drdavid 5y ago
        There's a bunch of reports (keep scrolling and reading). I'm not sure what you want for 'hard evidence'. You'll see things like - "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent" (among others). As I said, I'm not really sure that justified the war, but they did exist. They also had a bunch of yellowcake and stuff like that.
BeetleB 5y ago
> Maybe the world has changed but when someone says something stupid and someone else calls them on it, backing it up with facts, and they double down on the stupid... shouldn't there be a population of people out there that see this as a desperation move on the part of the original poster? Or a sign of closed-mindedness? What you describe is pretty ordinary behavior. To the extent that standard books on negotiation and communication (going back decades) caution you about it. If you want to change someone's mind, throwing facts at them is, on average, a very poor strategy.
maze-le 5y ago
> shouldn't there be a population of people out there that see this as a desperation move on This part of the population has left twitter a long time ago...
sameerds 5y ago
> Correcting someone in a public venue isn't for the audience of one that is spouting stupid things, it's for the rest of the world that is reading the thread. Whenever I have seen this happening, the rest of the audience generally viewed the negative feedback as "unnecessarily punishing" the original poster. From their perspective, the original poster was "just human", and the one who corrected was just trying to "show off".

HPsquared 5y ago

See the 1% rule: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture) The vast majority of people are lurkers and only read the content.

Nursie 5y ago

It's certainly a sign of closed mindedness. AFAICT most discussion on the internet is pretty closed-minded though, people have their preconceptions, and they argue them. Rarely is anyone enlightened, or are minds changed. It is common to see such a person be corrected on a point of fact but then go on to repeat the same falsehood in another place or on another day. This is likely because to them the narrative is important, the emotions, rather than correctness. > Correcting someone in a public venue isn't for the audience of one that is spouting stupid things, it's for the rest of the world that is reading the thread. I hope so, but I'm not sure it works like that either, as the legions of spouters seem to grow by the day :/

Nasrudith 5y ago
I suspect "spam filter heuristics" also contribute to close mindedness. If something is repeated ad nauseam and the observer finds it false every time then they mentally downgrade the reliability to "known bullshit, not worth listening to". The process is agnostic to any objective truth and could apply to stubborn flat-earthers taking "against intuition and the ability to easily comprehend like a flat map" as false.

everdrive 5y ago

I think a lot of people can't see through the noise. Find a video of two pundits arguing, and I guarantee that you can find videos which alternately claim that each side "destroyed" the other. It's not just that people can't integrate all the different information out there. (this is part of the problem, too, of course) Frankly, I think we have underestimated the degree (or at least I underestimated it quite a bit) to which many people never really understand the validity of an argument, but simply adopt it when it becomes "mainstream." Of course the problem now is that there is not really a "mainstream." There are many small competing and conflicting "mainstreams." And so people adopt many of these ideas.

Verdex 5y ago
It's even worse than that. I went to a evolution vs creationism debate once when I was in college (it was put on for the students there). Everyone in that auditorium was an atheist and everyone was a young earth creationist. The difference was in which speaker had just made a really good sounding point. The people on the extremes each believe that their side won but as far as I could tell all the people in the middle believed in both as they crossed some "sufficiently cool" threshold.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  I think it's fine, opinions area fluid, there's little inherent truth. Atheist too because it s the most likely, but I dont feel bad an unprovable fallacy gets some traction: after all maybe a loving designer is looking at me while I pooptype this. The US gains more raising credit card consuming drones than revolutionary philosophers
- smolder 5y ago
  Everyone was a creationist AND everyone was an atheist? It's a little unclear what that sentence was supposed to say.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    What it sounds like is that the person relating the tale mistook cheering for a particular line delivered in a debate performance with agreement (even if momentary) with the broader position it meant to advance.

throwaway803453 5y ago

Often the words "I, you, my, your" are as bad as swear words when correcting someone. One sure way to anger someone and have the double down is to hurt their ego by using one of those words (e.g., your code has a bug, vs the code has a bug). Avoid those words and disagreements become a lot more productive.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
drdavid 5y ago
Some years back, before I sold my business and retired, I tried something and I've stuck with it ever since. I pretty much never say 'should', in the sense that someone 'should do' something. Instead, I use the word 'could.' "Well, you could try doing it this way." "As you're not having any success with this method, you could use this method." The difference in responses was great enough for me to develop the habit and stick with it. I'd call it a success. There are other things I don't say. I don't say "I understand." Instead, I say something similar to, "I can relate." Again, the differences in responses that I get from people have made it worth developing the habit.
- rrauenza 5y ago
  Are you suggesting we could all try doing this too?
  - drdavid 5y ago
    If you want people to be more receptive, you could try it.
    - rrauenza 5y ago
      Yes, I could. (Not sure if you missed the original joke...) But I really appreciate your insight here. I've already suggested it to someone else and will try to use this myself.

pjc50 5y ago

> Maybe the world has changed but when someone says something stupid and someone else calls them on it, backing it up with facts, and they double down on the stupid... shouldn't there be a population of people out there that see this as a desperation move on the part of the original poster? Did you miss the entire Trump presidency? People love that sort of thing. Facts are difficult, inscrutable things that have to be dug out of observations and carefully safeguarded. They often tend to be disappointing. Whereas lies and fantasies? Those are theatre. Oh, and algorithmic timelines make this worse: correcting someone is promoting their original views to other people.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
The problem is that there is too much information. For (almost) any position, there are some facts that support that position. There are other facts that oppose the position. The evidence (the sum of all the facts) often leans one way or the other - either supporting or opposing the position. But someone arguing in bad faith can often find enough facts to look somewhat convincing, which lets them persuade at least some others that their position is correct.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Our interpretation of what actually supports what is incorrect because of our limited perspectives

orev 5y ago

Something missing in this type of analysis is the future actions of the person being corrected. One might say something wrong, be corrected, then argue (because being corrected makes you feel bad and angry). But the next time they say something, they might consider it more, or maybe not be as extreme, as they want to avoid the bad feelings caused by negative feedback. It’s easy to see this in action on this very site — nobody likes to be downvoted, so the conversations stay somewhat more civil than other sites.

tacitusarc 5y ago
I thought that is exactly what the researchers were looking at

mgh2 5y ago

“Truth is so obscure these times, and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.” - Blaise Pascal Unfortunately, the odds are against us. Lying is inherent in human nature. Even if you point out the facts, most people will be deluded again because the majority drowns everything, especially in an anonymous environment such as the internet.

1cvmask 5y ago
But what are the facts? WMDs in Iraq and the myriad of other lies our governments throw at us. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me ten thousand times and shame on everyone.
- drdavid 5y ago
  >WMDs in Iraq Some interesting reading regarding this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#2003_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destr... It turns out that there really were some WMDs after all. I'm not sure they were enough to justify war, but I don't suppose that matters at this stage.
  - tacitusarc 5y ago
    I don’t see any hard evidence there, only speculation on chemical weapons. But maybe I missed it?
    - drdavid 5y ago
      There's a bunch of reports (keep scrolling and reading). I'm not sure what you want for 'hard evidence'. You'll see things like - "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent" (among others). As I said, I'm not really sure that justified the war, but they did exist. They also had a bunch of yellowcake and stuff like that.

BeetleB 5y ago

> Maybe the world has changed but when someone says something stupid and someone else calls them on it, backing it up with facts, and they double down on the stupid... shouldn't there be a population of people out there that see this as a desperation move on the part of the original poster? Or a sign of closed-mindedness? What you describe is pretty ordinary behavior. To the extent that standard books on negotiation and communication (going back decades) caution you about it. If you want to change someone's mind, throwing facts at them is, on average, a very poor strategy.

maze-le 5y ago

> shouldn't there be a population of people out there that see this as a desperation move on This part of the population has left twitter a long time ago...

sameerds 5y ago

> Correcting someone in a public venue isn't for the audience of one that is spouting stupid things, it's for the rest of the world that is reading the thread. Whenever I have seen this happening, the rest of the audience generally viewed the negative feedback as "unnecessarily punishing" the original poster. From their perspective, the original poster was "just human", and the one who corrected was just trying to "show off".