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I've complained about this before, but "if you actually believed X, you'd be doing Y" is almost never a valid inference. In almost every case, including your co
by Analemma_ 3y ago
I've complained about this before, but "if you actually believed X, you'd be doing Y" is almost never a valid inference. In almost every case, including your comment, it's a failure to understand what your opponents actually believe and instead just projecting your own misunderstandings onto them to feel smug and think that they can be dismissed. Comments of this form should just be downvoted by default as unproductive.
- renewiltord 3y agoI think it is a reasonable conclusion that if someone claims they care very much about some thing X but does nothing about that thing when possible routes out exist that any accurate model of their behaviour does not place a high coefficient on their belief about X. In practice, in conversation, this is about smiling and nodding. If pressed, I might say "I don't believe you" but that would be socially ungraceful and, since most statements X subject to this condition are meant to be a socially graceful way to deflect, it is unlikely that I would have to do this. So, sure, I'm not going to challenge anyone but I'm not really going to expect you to behave like an environmentalist if you say you care about climate change but then do nothing about it. And I probably won't believe anything about your reasons for why you don't want kids.