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That’s a nice little Kafka trap you’ve constructed to disregard the people who change their minds away from what you think. So every time someone changes their

by mw888 5y ago

That’s a nice little Kafka trap you’ve constructed to disregard the people who change their minds away from what you think. So every time someone changes their mind and uses their previous opinion as informative you are going to non-committally imply it’s “evangelism?”

z3c0 5y ago
Seems like a reworking of the "everybody has an agenda" retort you see so often these days. It's a slippery slope that only leads to dying a curmudgeon, as all chances for new perspectives were rebuked as agendas/evangelism/propagandist/etc.
- antifa 5y ago
  Or, it's a slippery slope that only leads to keeping all your BTC/ETH and missing out on what getting scammed 20 times a year feels like.
  - z3c0 5y ago
    Strange, I've managed to do all of that without being needlessly cynical.
    - antifa 5y ago
      99% of random new cryptos have been scams or useless, so if anything the user was too generous with their politeness.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      Me too: I'm only cynical because it is needed.
hooande 5y ago
stating that you used to be a non believer isn't necessary. he could have made all those points about blockchain without that piece of information. the GP's point is that the decision to add it is worthy of suspicion
saalweachter 5y ago
It's not really a trap -- it's more a rhetorical tactic. The trick is that when you say "I used to believe X, but now I've realized I was wrong and believe Y", you can get away without giving evidence for why X was wrong and Y is right. You appeal to a commonality between you and your audience (your audience believes X, you used to believe X) and by presenting your change you imply that they are being left behind, that they have missed something you have seen. It's such an effective rhetorical tactic that speakers will sometimes make up a conversion experience to use in their evangelism, even if they have always been a member of the faith. There's nothing wrong with changing your mind, with adapting to new evidence. But you shouldn't confuse someone's declaration that they have changed their mind with evidence for the position they have adopted; that's where logic and rhetoric diverge. (And again, I'm not trying to start something with the GP; I am fascinated by the universal utility of the rhetorical device more than this specific case.)
- samhw 5y ago
  Thank you for writing this: it crystallises something that’s always annoyed me about the trope-ridden evangelist shtick. You’re absolutely right.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - crdrost 5y ago
    Late to the party but FWIW I used to be an atheist and then a Buddhist and am now a Christian... My attitude is very different from the evangelist’s, it says “look that was an important part of my journey and if that’s the direction you’re going, don’t let me dissuade you. I can tell you why those didn’t work for me but I can’t hold up my present consciousness as “the only correct thing, believe as I do or else you are irrational or anything like that. Heck I am sure that we are both irrational in innumerable ways and why would I pretend I’m more sane than you?” This fatalism also infects a lot of how I teach things like physics, I tell people a lot that “learning is pain—or more precisely, learning abstractions relieves a pain and chaos and difficulty such that you can only truly absorb the abstraction when you have felt the confusion it addresses. So I can no longer pretend that ‘now that I have suffered through all of that, here is the Right Perspective so that you don't have to!!’... I’d have to take you through the suffering to get to the teaching on the other side.”
Sholmesy 5y ago
S/he's not disregarding the people who change their mind, he's pointing out the emptiness the trope of "I use to be X, so I know what it's like". Changing one's mind should be encouraged.
TomSwirly 5y ago
If the comment gave any actual reasoning, it wouldn't be open to that criticism, but as it is, it's empty hype which deserves all the criticism it gets.

by mw888 5y ago

z3c0 5y ago

Seems like a reworking of the "everybody has an agenda" retort you see so often these days. It's a slippery slope that only leads to dying a curmudgeon, as all chances for new perspectives were rebuked as agendas/evangelism/propagandist/etc.

antifa 5y ago
Or, it's a slippery slope that only leads to keeping all your BTC/ETH and missing out on what getting scammed 20 times a year feels like.
- z3c0 5y ago
  Strange, I've managed to do all of that without being needlessly cynical.
  - antifa 5y ago
    99% of random new cryptos have been scams or useless, so if anything the user was too generous with their politeness.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    Me too: I'm only cynical because it is needed.

hooande 5y ago

stating that you used to be a non believer isn't necessary. he could have made all those points about blockchain without that piece of information. the GP's point is that the decision to add it is worthy of suspicion

saalweachter 5y ago

It's not really a trap -- it's more a rhetorical tactic. The trick is that when you say "I used to believe X, but now I've realized I was wrong and believe Y", you can get away without giving evidence for why X was wrong and Y is right. You appeal to a commonality between you and your audience (your audience believes X, you used to believe X) and by presenting your change you imply that they are being left behind, that they have missed something you have seen. It's such an effective rhetorical tactic that speakers will sometimes make up a conversion experience to use in their evangelism, even if they have always been a member of the faith. There's nothing wrong with changing your mind, with adapting to new evidence. But you shouldn't confuse someone's declaration that they have changed their mind with evidence for the position they have adopted; that's where logic and rhetoric diverge. (And again, I'm not trying to start something with the GP; I am fascinated by the universal utility of the rhetorical device more than this specific case.)

samhw 5y ago
Thank you for writing this: it crystallises something that’s always annoyed me about the trope-ridden evangelist shtick. You’re absolutely right.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- crdrost 5y ago
  Late to the party but FWIW I used to be an atheist and then a Buddhist and am now a Christian... My attitude is very different from the evangelist’s, it says “look that was an important part of my journey and if that’s the direction you’re going, don’t let me dissuade you. I can tell you why those didn’t work for me but I can’t hold up my present consciousness as “the only correct thing, believe as I do or else you are irrational or anything like that. Heck I am sure that we are both irrational in innumerable ways and why would I pretend I’m more sane than you?” This fatalism also infects a lot of how I teach things like physics, I tell people a lot that “learning is pain—or more precisely, learning abstractions relieves a pain and chaos and difficulty such that you can only truly absorb the abstraction when you have felt the confusion it addresses. So I can no longer pretend that ‘now that I have suffered through all of that, here is the Right Perspective so that you don't have to!!’... I’d have to take you through the suffering to get to the teaching on the other side.”

Sholmesy 5y ago

S/he's not disregarding the people who change their mind, he's pointing out the emptiness the trope of "I use to be X, so I know what it's like". Changing one's mind should be encouraged.

TomSwirly 5y ago

If the comment gave any actual reasoning, it wouldn't be open to that criticism, but as it is, it's empty hype which deserves all the criticism it gets.