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> There has to be a name for this fallacy. It looks like plain old cherry picking to me. "Ask around here" ... well, no, this is just about the worst possible
by notacoward 5y ago
> There has to be a name for this fallacy.
It looks like plain old cherry picking to me. "Ask around here" ... well, no, this is just about the worst possible place to get a significant or even interesting sample. "Some do succeed" is just anecdata, no substitute for statistical reality.
Secondarily, we have a strawman. "If you’re looking for an excuse" ... you who? Anyone here? Nobody that I'm aware of has said it's not even worth trying. It's entirely possible to be aware of poor odds and still be willing to try. Some who do will even beat the odds, but that doesn't affect the overall reality. It doesn't mean privilege doesn't exist. Whether it exists for GP is irrelevant, but the level of preemptive defensiveness exhibited at the very idea has the counterproductive effect of putting the idea in people's minds.
- lamontcg 5y agoI read too much Asimov as a kid, though, and the thing that really sets me off every time I read that argument is that it tickles the "psychohistory cannot be applied to the actions of individuals" neurons in my brain. Happens all the time when I want to talk about the statistical mechanics of a large gas of people and conservatives/republicans/right-wingers always want to argue that any given particle can do whatever it wants and I'm just disincentivizing it.