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No, your point is perfectly clear. Some people have taken to replying "What is your point" as if it were a Jedi mind trick, as if by saying that they could mak

No, your point is perfectly clear. Some people have taken to replying "What is your point" as if it were a Jedi mind trick, as if by saying that they could make everyone else not see your point. Sometimes someone really didn't have a point, or stated it badly enough that it's not very clear. But more often, "What's your point?" is being used as a cheap rhetorical trick, to try to make everyone else not see the point that is being made, because the one who says "What's your point?" very much doesn't want anyone to see the point, or to acknowledge it as an actual point with any validity. Take comfort when you get asked that. You've made a point that they have no real response to, so all they can do is ineffectively try to get everyone else to ignore it. Now in this case, they did go one step further. They said that statistics disprove your anecdata. That's at least a bit of a rebuttal. But they didn't actually cite any statistics, so it's just this unsupported claim.

xyzelement 3y ago
Thank you for this supportive post. You're describing a real dynamic but there's a reason I replied to the person's post. If we're just talking debate styles then you're completely right. But this is more than that - this is real "life and death" in a way because how a person thinks about their situation (eg: being stuck in poverty vs looking for long-term ways out) has a huge impact on their outcomes. For some reason, for some people, it's very important to insist that "no, you can't change your own stickiness" - if you are poor, you are poor. If you are fat, you are fat. If women hate you, they will hate you. This reveals something about their own approach in life but worse, I worry that it can influence someone who's on the fence ("should I try to lose weight, should I try to better my economics, etc?") and being barraged with messages of impossibility is poisonous to them.
- jxramos 3y ago
  Self fulfilling prophecies of being defeated and stuck.
- Swizec 3y ago
  > being barraged with messages of impossibility is poisonous to them It is not your successful friends staying online all day posting negative messages. That’s the line I tell anyone who needs some unstuckitude and feels it’s impossible. Has worked well for me personally. The people bitching and moaning on Reddit are not the people busting their butts getting unstuck.
  - tsunamifury 3y ago
    This is a bit of a feel-good misnomer as well -- as now several of the richest men on the planet are known, active internet trolls.
    - xyzelement 3y ago
      Are they the ones saying everything sucks and nothing is possible?
      - anigbrowl 3y ago
        No, they're the ones ranting about 'blood poisoning' and 'great replacement' and indiscriminately calling immigrants vermin. (Anyone who is thinking of replying with emollient, nuanced interpretations of such rhetoric, please save your effort.)
- lupusreal 3y ago
  > For some reason, for some people, it's very important to insist that "no, you can't change your own stickiness" - if you are poor, you are poor. Commies want everybody to think that class warfare is the only solution to their problems. They lose their composure whenever somebody points out that individual determination and responsibility have proven effectiveness. I almost fell for their ruse and but pulled myself out of it and have turned my life around. Screw their crab bucket hell.
  - mancerayder 3y ago
    Because it's a foundational belief for many on the left to believe that a) the world is fundamentally unjust but b) because of a system that c) creates and perpetuates successful and unsuccessful people. If you counter the narrative that a 'system' is involved, it must be that you are some hyper individualist. The truth is that it is both true that there is a 'system' - in the sense that large groupings of independent organisms self organize into an emergent property that behaves with 'rules' that appear like a systemic thing - and also that individuals are not equal in capacity. From will, to intelligence, to resourcefulness, to bravery, to then the more nefarious luck, and many other factors, some people succeed and some fail. The 'systemic' emphasis, at the exclusion of any and all other factors, is the problem, here, as it's a reductionism. There is no objective scientific measure to disprove political ideals - you can't prove or disprove that capitalism, or socialism are good or bad. And you can certainly not falsify any claims of "systemic." These are claims of values masquerading as science and objective facts.
- mancerayder 3y ago
  You've hit a nerve, which is why this thread got big. What's happening is you're giving some agency to individuals, and that is for some a contrary view to the foundational belief that inequality is 'systemic', in fact one person above wrote "systemic racism." It's a dangerous game to enter into that debate, of course. I think there's a bit of individual / group culture that plays a role in relative success (such as immigrants often doing better than richer but still poor Americans) and also there is some systemic factors, residually. But here the systemic folks are going to lash out, because it is considered that not prioritizing the systemic factors is a lack of education, at best, and perhaps racism, at worst. It's a very complex problem.

xyzelement 3y ago

Thank you for this supportive post. You're describing a real dynamic but there's a reason I replied to the person's post. If we're just talking debate styles then you're completely right. But this is more than that - this is real "life and death" in a way because how a person thinks about their situation (eg: being stuck in poverty vs looking for long-term ways out) has a huge impact on their outcomes. For some reason, for some people, it's very important to insist that "no, you can't change your own stickiness" - if you are poor, you are poor. If you are fat, you are fat. If women hate you, they will hate you. This reveals something about their own approach in life but worse, I worry that it can influence someone who's on the fence ("should I try to lose weight, should I try to better my economics, etc?") and being barraged with messages of impossibility is poisonous to them.

jxramos 3y ago
Self fulfilling prophecies of being defeated and stuck.
Swizec 3y ago
> being barraged with messages of impossibility is poisonous to them It is not your successful friends staying online all day posting negative messages. That’s the line I tell anyone who needs some unstuckitude and feels it’s impossible. Has worked well for me personally. The people bitching and moaning on Reddit are not the people busting their butts getting unstuck.
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  This is a bit of a feel-good misnomer as well -- as now several of the richest men on the planet are known, active internet trolls.
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    Are they the ones saying everything sucks and nothing is possible?
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      No, they're the ones ranting about 'blood poisoning' and 'great replacement' and indiscriminately calling immigrants vermin. (Anyone who is thinking of replying with emollient, nuanced interpretations of such rhetoric, please save your effort.)
lupusreal 3y ago
> For some reason, for some people, it's very important to insist that "no, you can't change your own stickiness" - if you are poor, you are poor. Commies want everybody to think that class warfare is the only solution to their problems. They lose their composure whenever somebody points out that individual determination and responsibility have proven effectiveness. I almost fell for their ruse and but pulled myself out of it and have turned my life around. Screw their crab bucket hell.
- mancerayder 3y ago
  Because it's a foundational belief for many on the left to believe that a) the world is fundamentally unjust but b) because of a system that c) creates and perpetuates successful and unsuccessful people. If you counter the narrative that a 'system' is involved, it must be that you are some hyper individualist. The truth is that it is both true that there is a 'system' - in the sense that large groupings of independent organisms self organize into an emergent property that behaves with 'rules' that appear like a systemic thing - and also that individuals are not equal in capacity. From will, to intelligence, to resourcefulness, to bravery, to then the more nefarious luck, and many other factors, some people succeed and some fail. The 'systemic' emphasis, at the exclusion of any and all other factors, is the problem, here, as it's a reductionism. There is no objective scientific measure to disprove political ideals - you can't prove or disprove that capitalism, or socialism are good or bad. And you can certainly not falsify any claims of "systemic." These are claims of values masquerading as science and objective facts.
mancerayder 3y ago
You've hit a nerve, which is why this thread got big. What's happening is you're giving some agency to individuals, and that is for some a contrary view to the foundational belief that inequality is 'systemic', in fact one person above wrote "systemic racism." It's a dangerous game to enter into that debate, of course. I think there's a bit of individual / group culture that plays a role in relative success (such as immigrants often doing better than richer but still poor Americans) and also there is some systemic factors, residually. But here the systemic folks are going to lash out, because it is considered that not prioritizing the systemic factors is a lack of education, at best, and perhaps racism, at worst. It's a very complex problem.