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Only if the opposing side is an idiot who can't separate beliefs about separate things from one another. Naggum himself has a great rant on such "one-bit" peopl

by Jach 15y ago

Only if the opposing side is an idiot who can't separate beliefs about separate things from one another. Naggum himself has a great rant on such "one-bit" people: http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3225130472400367@naggum.net.html http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3225130472400367@naggum.... But then, if you're knowingly arguing with idiots, it's typically done more for some weird sense of fun than for the purpose of actually trying to change their mind. Even an argument between supposedly smart people (even those aware of Bayes' Theorem) doesn't result in mind changes all that often. Actually changing someone else's mind about something they already have a relatively firm belief on is at least as hard as changing your own mind.

vidarh 15y ago
So it's only a poor way to argue if the opposing side is a normal human, is what you're saying. If you think you can fully separate beliefs about separate things from another, there's a whole slew of psychology research that says you're deluded.
- kstenerud 15y ago
  This has piqued my interest. What specific research are you referring to?
gfodor 15y ago
The point isn't that they are unable to separate their beliefs, it's that if you give me a slew of arguments (all of which are tangentially related) and I happen to disagree strongly with one of them, I'm likely to focus on that one and argue against that point. At worst, it causes me to reply about my opinion on George W. Bush (and not about XML) and at best it is a distraction and makes me feel like your assumptions are wrong (since I disagree with them on the political plane) and hence there must be a flaw in your higher level argument tying them together. In my experience people who make such sweeping connections between disperate concepts, fields, events, etc usually have a very shallow understanding of the things they are tying together and tend to be conspiracy theorists, seeing patterns where none exist. Scroll through any "new age" section in your local bookstore and you will find books tying together religion, quantum physics, numerology, human health, evolution, poetry, and other areas in the hope that they are building up a wall of irrefutable evidence by sheer breadth alone. In the end, by their lack of focus, they end up having no deep argument at all and are generally profoundly wrong in at least one (if not all) of the areas they use in their arguments, deflating their entire point.

by Jach 15y ago

vidarh 15y ago

So it's only a poor way to argue if the opposing side is a normal human, is what you're saying. If you think you can fully separate beliefs about separate things from another, there's a whole slew of psychology research that says you're deluded.

kstenerud 15y ago
This has piqued my interest. What specific research are you referring to?

gfodor 15y ago

The point isn't that they are unable to separate their beliefs, it's that if you give me a slew of arguments (all of which are tangentially related) and I happen to disagree strongly with one of them, I'm likely to focus on that one and argue against that point. At worst, it causes me to reply about my opinion on George W. Bush (and not about XML) and at best it is a distraction and makes me feel like your assumptions are wrong (since I disagree with them on the political plane) and hence there must be a flaw in your higher level argument tying them together. In my experience people who make such sweeping connections between disperate concepts, fields, events, etc usually have a very shallow understanding of the things they are tying together and tend to be conspiracy theorists, seeing patterns where none exist. Scroll through any "new age" section in your local bookstore and you will find books tying together religion, quantum physics, numerology, human health, evolution, poetry, and other areas in the hope that they are building up a wall of irrefutable evidence by sheer breadth alone. In the end, by their lack of focus, they end up having no deep argument at all and are generally profoundly wrong in at least one (if not all) of the areas they use in their arguments, deflating their entire point.