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> I see it all the time in other fields and I just shake my head. If you ever find yourself saying "Why don't they just..?" you almost certainly don't understan

> I see it all the time in other fields and I just shake my head. If you ever find yourself saying "Why don't they just..?" you almost certainly don't understand the problem. A political corollary to this that I enjoy came from an old professor of mine- "If your political opinions require large amounts of people to be stupid or evil, you don't understand the issues well enough." (A rough quote, I don't remember exact phrasing.)

nineplay 5y ago
I wish that was the banner at the top of every political discussion forum. Maybe with some auto-flagging on posts which can be condensed down to "everyone who disagrees with me is an idiot" The world would be a better place.
codeisawesome 5y ago
Hmm. But isn’t there some merit to the idea that groups of people behave differently when put together vs. how they would act individually?
- deleted 5y ago
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bryanrasmussen 5y ago
this seems to discount historically known political movements in which almost everyone involved, with the benefit of hindsight, was obviously stupid or evil. Probably these are outliers, so also probably your professor's quote fits well enough most of the time, and only some of the time returns false when it should return true.
- Jensson 5y ago
  Usually those movements intend to remove "evil" people. "We weren't evil, how can attacking evil people be evil?" You can see people say things like this even today. The evil in these cases was done by the people convincing the masses that the other group really is evil and needs to be attacked, not by the masses. The masses will attack and punish whatever they think is evil, everyone knows that, doesn't mean that they are evil, rather it is always evil to label large groups of people as evil since it encourages the masses to attack those.
janto 5y ago
Never attribute to malice or stupidity that which is adequately explained by you not understanding all the variables involved.

nineplay 5y ago

I wish that was the banner at the top of every political discussion forum. Maybe with some auto-flagging on posts which can be condensed down to "everyone who disagrees with me is an idiot" The world would be a better place.

codeisawesome 5y ago

Hmm. But isn’t there some merit to the idea that groups of people behave differently when put together vs. how they would act individually?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

this seems to discount historically known political movements in which almost everyone involved, with the benefit of hindsight, was obviously stupid or evil. Probably these are outliers, so also probably your professor's quote fits well enough most of the time, and only some of the time returns false when it should return true.

Jensson 5y ago
Usually those movements intend to remove "evil" people. "We weren't evil, how can attacking evil people be evil?" You can see people say things like this even today. The evil in these cases was done by the people convincing the masses that the other group really is evil and needs to be attacked, not by the masses. The masses will attack and punish whatever they think is evil, everyone knows that, doesn't mean that they are evil, rather it is always evil to label large groups of people as evil since it encourages the masses to attack those.

janto 5y ago

Never attribute to malice or stupidity that which is adequately explained by you not understanding all the variables involved.