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> mostly bunk Does this style of post ever work? You are dismissive of all these things but you lack a single reason/argument. Is there a chain of logic that l

> mostly bunk Does this style of post ever work? You are dismissive of all these things but you lack a single reason/argument. Is there a chain of logic that leads you to this conclusion? It's a bit fascinating to me. I imagine the purpose of a post is to share ideas, to give people a chance to think more like you and that takes a persuasive argument.

fastball 5y ago
Not sure why the burden of proof is on me to demonstrate that they are bunk. Seems like the burden of proof is on anyone who asserts they exist in the first place, since "love languages" are not an objective thing.
- xyzelement 5y ago
  > Not sure why the burden of proof is on me There's no burden of proof here, the question is: what is the point of the post? I assume the goal is to help someone change their mind - to think more like you. And my observation is that you are not providing anything in your comment that would enable someone to follow a logical thread to reach the same conclusion as you. So the net effect is, whoever already agreed with you continues to agree with you, and anyone who doesn't already agree with you isn't given a reason to change their mind. In my mind that's a lost opportunity to persuade people, in which case what's the point of the comment?
  - fastball 5y ago
    Well first off it is entirely possible that there are people who have been introduced to the concept of love languages in a way where they never questioned them critically, and merely pointing out that I think they are "bunk" might start someone down that path of questioning. On top of that, however, I specifically compared love languages to other things which people might have already examined critically. Since this is HN, probably the most cogent item from my list is zodiac/horoscope, as techies tend to be fairly dismissive of it already, and therefore might have the realization (after reading my comment): "oh wow, I've been believing in love languages this whole time but been dismissive of zodiac, even though both have the same amount of evidentiary backing (~ 0)". However, I actually think "learning styles" is a better example because it is something a lot of people believe in (something like 90% from the surveys I've seen), even though in reality there is almost zero experimental evidence for them as well, despite many biased attempts to do so. My opinion is that love languages are very similar – people believe strongly that there are certain actions/behaviors that they are most receptive to when it comes to romance, but that fundamentally people just want to be loved in a much more generic way and that if the particular way in which love is expressed matters that much to you, you are probably focused on the wrong thing (missing the forest for the trees). To really spell out why this is bad, let's look back at learning styles: someone believes in learning styles, which don't exist[1]. Specifically, they believe they are a "visual learner". As soon as this belief forms, it almost instantly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy – they think they are a visual learner, so whenever they are faced with learning something in a non-visual way they don't try as hard, and therefore do not learn the material as well. They are effectively self-sabotaging by having this constrained picture of themselves in their head. There is no reason to believe that people who take love languages seriously will not suffer a similar fate. Imagine someone who thinks of themself as a lover whose primary love language is "physical touch", so when someone demonstrates love in a way that is not touch, they say to themselves (maybe not in an explicitly conscious way): "hmm, this isn't as compelling as it could be because I'm a physical touch lover – I wish my partner demonstrated their love with more touch". In essence, I feel that all of these things, love languages included, are artificial and mostly arbitrary labels (some more arbitrary than others) which only serve to constrain your breadth of experience and openness to new things, resulting in unfortunate self-fulfilling downsides with no clear upside. [1] https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/edu-a0037478.pdf https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/edu-a0037478.pdf
moogly 5y ago
I think the poster anchored their argument better than what the post they replied to did, by comparison to other things. The post they replied to stated something to be an absolute truth without any support whatsoever.

fastball 5y ago

Not sure why the burden of proof is on me to demonstrate that they are bunk. Seems like the burden of proof is on anyone who asserts they exist in the first place, since "love languages" are not an objective thing.

xyzelement 5y ago
> Not sure why the burden of proof is on me There's no burden of proof here, the question is: what is the point of the post? I assume the goal is to help someone change their mind - to think more like you. And my observation is that you are not providing anything in your comment that would enable someone to follow a logical thread to reach the same conclusion as you. So the net effect is, whoever already agreed with you continues to agree with you, and anyone who doesn't already agree with you isn't given a reason to change their mind. In my mind that's a lost opportunity to persuade people, in which case what's the point of the comment?
- fastball 5y ago
  Well first off it is entirely possible that there are people who have been introduced to the concept of love languages in a way where they never questioned them critically, and merely pointing out that I think they are "bunk" might start someone down that path of questioning. On top of that, however, I specifically compared love languages to other things which people might have already examined critically. Since this is HN, probably the most cogent item from my list is zodiac/horoscope, as techies tend to be fairly dismissive of it already, and therefore might have the realization (after reading my comment): "oh wow, I've been believing in love languages this whole time but been dismissive of zodiac, even though both have the same amount of evidentiary backing (~ 0)". However, I actually think "learning styles" is a better example because it is something a lot of people believe in (something like 90% from the surveys I've seen), even though in reality there is almost zero experimental evidence for them as well, despite many biased attempts to do so. My opinion is that love languages are very similar – people believe strongly that there are certain actions/behaviors that they are most receptive to when it comes to romance, but that fundamentally people just want to be loved in a much more generic way and that if the particular way in which love is expressed matters that much to you, you are probably focused on the wrong thing (missing the forest for the trees). To really spell out why this is bad, let's look back at learning styles: someone believes in learning styles, which don't exist[1]. Specifically, they believe they are a "visual learner". As soon as this belief forms, it almost instantly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy – they think they are a visual learner, so whenever they are faced with learning something in a non-visual way they don't try as hard, and therefore do not learn the material as well. They are effectively self-sabotaging by having this constrained picture of themselves in their head. There is no reason to believe that people who take love languages seriously will not suffer a similar fate. Imagine someone who thinks of themself as a lover whose primary love language is "physical touch", so when someone demonstrates love in a way that is not touch, they say to themselves (maybe not in an explicitly conscious way): "hmm, this isn't as compelling as it could be because I'm a physical touch lover – I wish my partner demonstrated their love with more touch". In essence, I feel that all of these things, love languages included, are artificial and mostly arbitrary labels (some more arbitrary than others) which only serve to constrain your breadth of experience and openness to new things, resulting in unfortunate self-fulfilling downsides with no clear upside. [1] https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/edu-a0037478.pdf https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/edu-a0037478.pdf

moogly 5y ago

I think the poster anchored their argument better than what the post they replied to did, by comparison to other things. The post they replied to stated something to be an absolute truth without any support whatsoever.