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> Meaning, what's the loss if it's not true? The loss is the truth. And in this context the truth about our prosperity relative to another nation. If this anec

> Meaning, what's the loss if it's not true? The loss is the truth. And in this context the truth about our prosperity relative to another nation. If this anecdote is false then the effect is simply to tell ourselves something flattering - that even the poorest of the poor Americans in the Great Depression were prosperous compared to people in the USSR. Delusional thinking is not healthy. The effects tend to compound. As people who lived under monarchies knew, which is how we ended up with a Constitution that tends to encourage adversarial confrontation and an open frank exchange of views. The USSR may be dead but correctly understanding why it failed is an ongoing and very much living project with relevance to the future ways in which we choose to reshape the prevailing capitalist order (particularly w/r/t industrial investment and planning and benefit schemes that might be compared to socialism like minimum basic income, universal health care, government provided housing etc)

themitigating 4y ago
"If this anecdote is false then the effect is simply to tell ourselves something flattering - that even the poorest of the poor Americans in the Great Depression were prosperous compared to people in the USSR. Delusional thinking is not healthy." You're assuming that after someone hears that anecdote they form or change a view. I also pointed out it matters what you do with the view. People in the US being better off compared to the USSR is subjective and could be true even if this information isn't true. So it may not matter. ", you absolutely should not take the NYT at its word." It's not "trust or not trust", it's a probability combined with what the information is being used for. If I see that it's going to be 75f outside I'm not going to double check that because the probability they are wrong is extremely low and the negative effects are minimal. Since every person, business, whatever has lied at least once using that as a bar makes no sense.
- emodendroket 4y ago
  What kind of reasoning is this? It's OK to include outright falsehoods in your writing because the conclusions they support might be true?
  - themitigating 4y ago
    Where did I say that? I'm talking about whether you should double check it.
    - kreetx 4y ago
      If one takes your view to the extreme then that seems to be what you are saying. I.e if all the rest you read is factually true then one lie probably won't make much of a difference, but if a lot of them are actually wrong then one's world view shifts into being more fictional.
      - themitigating 4y ago
        Yes, that's true. I didn't say it can't happen however your arguement uses hypothetical additional false information.
- eduction 4y ago
  People routinely go to the trouble of including dubious anecdotes to hammer home their points. It’s just an incredibly common pattern across journalism, public speaking, various forms of rhetoric. Politicians love this form of persuasion. I believe all these people do this because they think it will matter. It doesn’t make much sense to engage in this behavior otherwise.

themitigating 4y ago

"If this anecdote is false then the effect is simply to tell ourselves something flattering - that even the poorest of the poor Americans in the Great Depression were prosperous compared to people in the USSR. Delusional thinking is not healthy." You're assuming that after someone hears that anecdote they form or change a view. I also pointed out it matters what you do with the view. People in the US being better off compared to the USSR is subjective and could be true even if this information isn't true. So it may not matter. ", you absolutely should not take the NYT at its word." It's not "trust or not trust", it's a probability combined with what the information is being used for. If I see that it's going to be 75f outside I'm not going to double check that because the probability they are wrong is extremely low and the negative effects are minimal. Since every person, business, whatever has lied at least once using that as a bar makes no sense.

emodendroket 4y ago
What kind of reasoning is this? It's OK to include outright falsehoods in your writing because the conclusions they support might be true?
- themitigating 4y ago
  Where did I say that? I'm talking about whether you should double check it.
  - kreetx 4y ago
    If one takes your view to the extreme then that seems to be what you are saying. I.e if all the rest you read is factually true then one lie probably won't make much of a difference, but if a lot of them are actually wrong then one's world view shifts into being more fictional.
    - themitigating 4y ago
      Yes, that's true. I didn't say it can't happen however your arguement uses hypothetical additional false information.
eduction 4y ago
People routinely go to the trouble of including dubious anecdotes to hammer home their points. It’s just an incredibly common pattern across journalism, public speaking, various forms of rhetoric. Politicians love this form of persuasion. I believe all these people do this because they think it will matter. It doesn’t make much sense to engage in this behavior otherwise.