3 ms·

You missed the big one: If you can find reliable evidence across time, space and cultures that humans have complained about the same X, then complaining about

by dsr_ 3y ago

You missed the big one: If you can find reliable evidence across time, space and cultures that humans have complained about the same X, then complaining about X is part of human nature in, at least, cultures that leave durable evidence.

arp242 3y ago
Two datapoints is hardly enough for that, and out of the billions of people who have lived in the last 2,500 years an infinitesimal small percentage have complained about roughly the same thing, so "any and all arguments that touch on this must be invalid" seems just as much of an invalid non-argument to me. You can pick almost any topic and find people unfairly whinging about it "across time, space, and cultures" because if there is something that's part of human nature then it's that some people will unfairly whinge about stuff. That on its own says exactly nothing about any specific argument that's presented: it's just vague heuristic pattern matching at best, and bad faith dismissal at worst.
- wheybags 3y ago
  > out of the billions of people who have lived in the last 2,500 years an infinitesimal small percentage have complained about roughly the same thing I'm willing to bet that the majority of people have complained about being hungry, at some point in their lives. I would guess this practice began some time before the invention of language. Some things really are universal.
- whitexn--g28h 3y ago
  It’s specifically dismissing the idea that the problem is new. That this is the first time kids have been different, that workers wanted better conditions. Nobody wants to work “anymore”… The kids “these days”
  - happytoexplain 3y ago
    "Any more" and "these days" only imply an arbitrary amount of novelty. They are correct phrases whether we're observing a problem this year that wasn't present last year, or this millennia that wasn't present last millennia. Regardless, novelty is a straw man. The implication that it's wrong to complain about something because it's not new is fallacious. Yes, a person may compare younger people unfavorably to their own generation at the same age on some property they observe to be different when in fact it's only their perspective/memory that is different. But demonstrating that a complaint is not new is not evidence of that.

by dsr_ 3y ago

arp242 3y ago

Two datapoints is hardly enough for that, and out of the billions of people who have lived in the last 2,500 years an infinitesimal small percentage have complained about roughly the same thing, so "any and all arguments that touch on this must be invalid" seems just as much of an invalid non-argument to me. You can pick almost any topic and find people unfairly whinging about it "across time, space, and cultures" because if there is something that's part of human nature then it's that some people will unfairly whinge about stuff. That on its own says exactly nothing about any specific argument that's presented: it's just vague heuristic pattern matching at best, and bad faith dismissal at worst.

wheybags 3y ago
> out of the billions of people who have lived in the last 2,500 years an infinitesimal small percentage have complained about roughly the same thing I'm willing to bet that the majority of people have complained about being hungry, at some point in their lives. I would guess this practice began some time before the invention of language. Some things really are universal.
whitexn--g28h 3y ago
It’s specifically dismissing the idea that the problem is new. That this is the first time kids have been different, that workers wanted better conditions. Nobody wants to work “anymore”… The kids “these days”
- happytoexplain 3y ago
  "Any more" and "these days" only imply an arbitrary amount of novelty. They are correct phrases whether we're observing a problem this year that wasn't present last year, or this millennia that wasn't present last millennia. Regardless, novelty is a straw man. The implication that it's wrong to complain about something because it's not new is fallacious. Yes, a person may compare younger people unfavorably to their own generation at the same age on some property they observe to be different when in fact it's only their perspective/memory that is different. But demonstrating that a complaint is not new is not evidence of that.