5 ms·

Is that actually a good example of what you mean? There is no contradiction? The first statement does not say that Joe drove drunk?

tptacek 5y ago
Obviously, it strongly implies that Joe drove drunk. That's the point of the hypothetical.
- hinkley 5y ago
  If you state two facts of equal import, they aren't necessarily linked. But if they are of different levels, and one happens before the other, only people who are implying a connection or who have a clinical condition lump those together. Yesterday my uncle died and my dog got hit by a car. versus: Yesterday my shoelace broke and my dog got hit by a car. Why am I bringing up the shoelace? And why first? For want of a nail the kingdom was lost? There are people who can't filter events by intensity. That's a separate diagnosis from BPD or NPD, but it's still something to keep an eye on. You either don't know you are saying something salacious, you do and you don't care, or you do and you are enjoying the buzz it creates.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    There's really just no amount of message board writing you're going to be able to do to make "Joe drank too much last night and we got in a car crash" not imply, to a reasonable audience, that Joe drove drunk. I get that you can have a lot of fun making a sport out of ever-more-elaborate arguments saying it doesn't imply that at all, or that we can't really know whether an intent to imply it was present, but none of that matters.
  - kempbellt 5y ago
    The only fair assumption from hearing either of those two statements is that yesterday contained two events. Either "uncle died and dog hit by car" or "shoelace broke and dog got hit by car". It's a common tendency to link related subjects together. So people infer that sharing a sentence/utterance means the two are directly related. Causing inferences like, "Oh, did he have a heart attack and run over your dog??". It is true that some people prey on these inferences and use them to lie/manipulate but it is also very possible that they are just two things that happened on the same day - related only by their traumatic impact. TLDR: Yesterday sucked because these two separate things happened... To a person who experienced these events, it's completely possible that you don't know people think your uncle ran over your dog. When he actually died in his sleep and your dog was run over by the neighbor.
    - GavinMcG 5y ago
      > it is also very possible that Yes, speaking strictly grammatically. But that's not how people communicate.
      - kempbellt 5y ago
        It is how many people communicate.
        tptacek 5y ago
        No. Your argument is a linguistic work-to-rules strike.
        kempbellt 5y ago
        "How was your weekend?" "Yesterday my uncle died and my dog got hit by a car" A lot of people communicate this way. I get the sense that you're on some vendetta against all of my comments for some reason, but I'm not on a weird strike against anything except poor assumptions. But, agree to disagree I suppose.
        selimthegrim 5y ago
        I have taken employment (probably IQ in disguise) tests that specifically look for people making this association (and mark them down for it). I imagine they thought it had some association with logical skills and success in computer programming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_fallacy
        GavinMcG 5y ago
        The conjunction fallacy has to do with evaluation of likelihood. It's completely unrelated to the conversation so far, which has to do with interpreting whether a conjunction is meaningful in itself.
  - DFHippie 5y ago
    Here's one thing to consider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevance_theory#The_two_principles_of_relevance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevance_theory#The_two_princ... Ordinary humans can predict what inferences their interlocutors will make. Their interlocutors know this. Therefore, both parties use this to communicate just as much as they do overt utterances. This being so, they can mislead with inferences as well as they can with overt utterances. This is not called lying, but ordinary users of language do not consider it less morally inculpating. In fact, they may consider it worse inasmuch as it leaves them less recourse when it is discovered.
    - hinkley 5y ago
      Thanks for the link. In reading about neurodiversity I’ve encountered several groups of people who struggle with relevance theory. Not understanding how this works can drive a pretty big wedge between you and the people you’re trying to bond with, especially if you don’t know you’re doing it.
citizenkeen 5y ago
Playing on people's inferences (which is different from implying) is a common tactic of the abusive.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  That’s also just what “lying” means. If you make a claim with the intention of deceiving someone that claim is a lie. It’s not like English is a formal language where you can say “ah but my statement technically passed the ‘Truth compiler’ so it’s not technically a lie.”
  - mthoms 5y ago
    Similarly, I like to say something along the lines of "lies by omission are still lies".
  - jiggawatts 5y ago
    The recent season 1 of the Wheel of Time television show reminded me of how the Aes Sedai are magically bound "To speak no word that is not true". Of course, they're all master manipulators, ironically able to lie better than the common people because they can leverage that apparent veneer of truthfulness to deceive even more completely.
  - tharkun__ 5y ago
    It's funny how this is actually how laws and official paperwork works. It is very important to look at every single word. And I don't think you are correct in saying that it is lying. It actually objectively isn't. And whether you'd argue it is or isn't very likely depends on which side of it you are on. Of course when reading over it in the regular fast way of reading through the comments, one might think there is a contradiction, because you said there would be one and so we read it that way. But there really isn't. It's an evasive manoeuvre. Of course they know what you're asking and they specifically do not want to lie and so they choose words you are going to very likely parse in a particular way. If you think about it, is the "there's a contradiction in the following sentence" way of stating this any different/worse/better than the original? I would argue it isn't. Same level just on opposite sides of the argument.
bena 5y ago
This one is more "distorted reality" rather than a contradiction. They present information in a way to get you to assume things that aren't true to either paint their desired victim in a bad light or them in a good light. And when presented with clarifying data, will try to act like its your fault that you misinterpreted what they said. Even though it's what they wanted. One tell is someone who seems to collect bad relationships. Who has a never-ending stream of stories of people just being awful to them. And their only admission of having done anything wrong is just some sort of vague platitude. It's always of the variety "I'm not perfect either" never "I shouldn't have cheated".
aidenn0 5y ago
It was not an example of a contradiction (I figured that's well enough understood to not mean an example). It was an example of selectively presenting facts in a way to distort reality.
- seattle_spring 5y ago
  My father with NPD would completely lie, not just lie by omission. He'd change the story even as it was happening.
- kempbellt 5y ago
  > I've dealt with someone with eBPD who was unable to get through a 45 minute therapy session without contradicting themselves. They also habitually selectively report facts to distort reality[1]. > 1: Here's an example with details changed... How is this not supposed to be an example of a contradiction? You pre-empted your "they distort reality" comment with the presumption that there are contradictions, then go on to give an example that doesn't contain any. It just contains lazy details, which justly lead to incorrect inferences. Whether this is indicative of intentional manipulative behavior or distorted views of reality is hard to say without more context.
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    I believe the word "also" should indicate that the behavior in the second sentence is distinct from the behavior in the first sentence. There are two behaviors here: - They contradict themselves. - They habitually selectively report facts to distort reality The footnote belongs with the second behavior which is why the [1] was on the second sentence.
    - kempbellt 5y ago
      You are using a supposed contradiction as evidence that they have a distorted view of reality. Without the contradiction (which I see none), the argument that they are distorting reality lacks premise. It banks on inferring, "Joe drank too much last night and we got in a car crash." to explicitly mean "Joe was driving drunk". It isn't a completely off-base interpretation, but it isn't rock solid either. More context is necessary before this conversation has any real value.

tptacek 5y ago

Obviously, it strongly implies that Joe drove drunk. That's the point of the hypothetical.

hinkley 5y ago
If you state two facts of equal import, they aren't necessarily linked. But if they are of different levels, and one happens before the other, only people who are implying a connection or who have a clinical condition lump those together. Yesterday my uncle died and my dog got hit by a car. versus: Yesterday my shoelace broke and my dog got hit by a car. Why am I bringing up the shoelace? And why first? For want of a nail the kingdom was lost? There are people who can't filter events by intensity. That's a separate diagnosis from BPD or NPD, but it's still something to keep an eye on. You either don't know you are saying something salacious, you do and you don't care, or you do and you are enjoying the buzz it creates.
- tptacek 5y ago
  There's really just no amount of message board writing you're going to be able to do to make "Joe drank too much last night and we got in a car crash" not imply, to a reasonable audience, that Joe drove drunk. I get that you can have a lot of fun making a sport out of ever-more-elaborate arguments saying it doesn't imply that at all, or that we can't really know whether an intent to imply it was present, but none of that matters.
- kempbellt 5y ago
  The only fair assumption from hearing either of those two statements is that yesterday contained two events. Either "uncle died and dog hit by car" or "shoelace broke and dog got hit by car". It's a common tendency to link related subjects together. So people infer that sharing a sentence/utterance means the two are directly related. Causing inferences like, "Oh, did he have a heart attack and run over your dog??". It is true that some people prey on these inferences and use them to lie/manipulate but it is also very possible that they are just two things that happened on the same day - related only by their traumatic impact. TLDR: Yesterday sucked because these two separate things happened... To a person who experienced these events, it's completely possible that you don't know people think your uncle ran over your dog. When he actually died in his sleep and your dog was run over by the neighbor.
  - GavinMcG 5y ago
    > it is also very possible that Yes, speaking strictly grammatically. But that's not how people communicate.
    - kempbellt 5y ago
      It is how many people communicate.
      - tptacek 5y ago
        No. Your argument is a linguistic work-to-rules strike.
        kempbellt 5y ago
        "How was your weekend?" "Yesterday my uncle died and my dog got hit by a car" A lot of people communicate this way. I get the sense that you're on some vendetta against all of my comments for some reason, but I'm not on a weird strike against anything except poor assumptions. But, agree to disagree I suppose.
        selimthegrim 5y ago
        I have taken employment (probably IQ in disguise) tests that specifically look for people making this association (and mark them down for it). I imagine they thought it had some association with logical skills and success in computer programming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_fallacy
        GavinMcG 5y ago
        The conjunction fallacy has to do with evaluation of likelihood. It's completely unrelated to the conversation so far, which has to do with interpreting whether a conjunction is meaningful in itself.
- DFHippie 5y ago
  Here's one thing to consider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevance_theory#The_two_principles_of_relevance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevance_theory#The_two_princ... Ordinary humans can predict what inferences their interlocutors will make. Their interlocutors know this. Therefore, both parties use this to communicate just as much as they do overt utterances. This being so, they can mislead with inferences as well as they can with overt utterances. This is not called lying, but ordinary users of language do not consider it less morally inculpating. In fact, they may consider it worse inasmuch as it leaves them less recourse when it is discovered.
  - hinkley 5y ago
    Thanks for the link. In reading about neurodiversity I’ve encountered several groups of people who struggle with relevance theory. Not understanding how this works can drive a pretty big wedge between you and the people you’re trying to bond with, especially if you don’t know you’re doing it.

citizenkeen 5y ago

Playing on people's inferences (which is different from implying) is a common tactic of the abusive.

tshaddox 5y ago
That’s also just what “lying” means. If you make a claim with the intention of deceiving someone that claim is a lie. It’s not like English is a formal language where you can say “ah but my statement technically passed the ‘Truth compiler’ so it’s not technically a lie.”
- mthoms 5y ago
  Similarly, I like to say something along the lines of "lies by omission are still lies".
- jiggawatts 5y ago
  The recent season 1 of the Wheel of Time television show reminded me of how the Aes Sedai are magically bound "To speak no word that is not true". Of course, they're all master manipulators, ironically able to lie better than the common people because they can leverage that apparent veneer of truthfulness to deceive even more completely.
- tharkun__ 5y ago
  It's funny how this is actually how laws and official paperwork works. It is very important to look at every single word. And I don't think you are correct in saying that it is lying. It actually objectively isn't. And whether you'd argue it is or isn't very likely depends on which side of it you are on. Of course when reading over it in the regular fast way of reading through the comments, one might think there is a contradiction, because you said there would be one and so we read it that way. But there really isn't. It's an evasive manoeuvre. Of course they know what you're asking and they specifically do not want to lie and so they choose words you are going to very likely parse in a particular way. If you think about it, is the "there's a contradiction in the following sentence" way of stating this any different/worse/better than the original? I would argue it isn't. Same level just on opposite sides of the argument.

bena 5y ago

This one is more "distorted reality" rather than a contradiction. They present information in a way to get you to assume things that aren't true to either paint their desired victim in a bad light or them in a good light. And when presented with clarifying data, will try to act like its your fault that you misinterpreted what they said. Even though it's what they wanted. One tell is someone who seems to collect bad relationships. Who has a never-ending stream of stories of people just being awful to them. And their only admission of having done anything wrong is just some sort of vague platitude. It's always of the variety "I'm not perfect either" never "I shouldn't have cheated".

aidenn0 5y ago

It was not an example of a contradiction (I figured that's well enough understood to not mean an example). It was an example of selectively presenting facts in a way to distort reality.

seattle_spring 5y ago
My father with NPD would completely lie, not just lie by omission. He'd change the story even as it was happening.
kempbellt 5y ago
> I've dealt with someone with eBPD who was unable to get through a 45 minute therapy session without contradicting themselves. They also habitually selectively report facts to distort reality[1]. > 1: Here's an example with details changed... How is this not supposed to be an example of a contradiction? You pre-empted your "they distort reality" comment with the presumption that there are contradictions, then go on to give an example that doesn't contain any. It just contains lazy details, which justly lead to incorrect inferences. Whether this is indicative of intentional manipulative behavior or distorted views of reality is hard to say without more context.
- aidenn0 5y ago
  I believe the word "also" should indicate that the behavior in the second sentence is distinct from the behavior in the first sentence. There are two behaviors here: - They contradict themselves. - They habitually selectively report facts to distort reality The footnote belongs with the second behavior which is why the [1] was on the second sentence.
  - kempbellt 5y ago
    You are using a supposed contradiction as evidence that they have a distorted view of reality. Without the contradiction (which I see none), the argument that they are distorting reality lacks premise. It banks on inferring, "Joe drank too much last night and we got in a car crash." to explicitly mean "Joe was driving drunk". It isn't a completely off-base interpretation, but it isn't rock solid either. More context is necessary before this conversation has any real value.