I am going to mention some suggestions because of the nature of this conversation. They only have to do with the fact that the whole thing together has to do with things like logical fallacies, and tricks I picked up to do well in college and graduate school over the years, and other things that I learn as part of the package of assumptions.

They are simple things that I have no problem discussing, but because the whole thing together is one of those "This is my experience, this is what has worked and I can tell you why, I can say more if you want..."

Basically since I mentioned philosophy I am willing to take that seriously so if 1. I mess up something[/i] College level Philosophy, one class[u]you are allowed to point things out, ask questions of any type, and generally pretend this is a conversation and not feel like you are slowing anything down.

You can choose to use these rules on each other or not, but please keep in mind that I am not suggesting anything as a mod in this single thread. In fact I would say that 2. you should pretend that something in this single thread might be against the rules of Ponychan, and you are encouraged to ask which ones if you are not sure.


I let myself get overruled by my peers as a matter of knowing that you do that when you are involved in a non-casual relationship. So when relationships change a little bit you sometimes want to know the intentions.
Go practice in /b/, I mean that. This is friendly and the people in /dis/ want that. That is how I want this thread connected to me and you are allowed to ask questions. But I'm willing to give tips...

Otherwise I try to keep my morals out of how I moderate this board and let you all choose topics, and levels of sensitivity as much as I can. I know that some topics have tended up end up in /chat/ more often but you can ask the regulars from this board any questions that you might want. They have never given me any reason to think that they would avoid being truthful.


While I mentioned that I have some issues about the word truth, that has to do with how other people use it and 3. I don't make assumptions about the truthfulness of people I have never met.

From here this might get a bit stream of consciousness, but I do have about ten pages of notes so hopefully I can get this out neatly over as fast as I can before the weekend. So feel free to interrupt the posts with questions and whatever.

What is the end goal?

Well as I see it taking on a system of thought based on trying to learn about known reality, and learning what people who want to honestly exchange information look like does a very interesting thing to you over the long run. It makes you into a scientific control for dishonesty, deceit, and manipulation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_control

A lot of behavior is reinforced. Probably not all of it, and certainly not in a way that I can define with any authority that I can point to beyond the words of the experts themselves instead of their papers. For example many people think that venting anger is good. It can be if you vent in the right way. If you vent through aggression, including aggressive interactions in text, you may be undermining yourself.
http://www.athealth.com/consumer/disorders/angerproblem.html

So what do you think happens if you waste your mental development on lies, deception, aggressive interaction, and pack behavior? That is what you devote your limited cognitive space towards in terms of potential of action, priority of action and when "Jimmies Rustling Time arrives", that same part of the brain that makes logical fallacies natural and human has less when Fight or Flight becomes important and you actually want to create or preserve something instead of destroy it.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=of-two-minds-when-making
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory

Sure you need to understand it on some level, just like you need to spar with others in martial arts. But what are you programming into your System 1 through your actions? If you are what you do, what would you be like in an emergency, and what can you carve yourself into if you really wanted to.
If you focused everything on being able to define your conversation partner's opponent's objects and meanings, and describe it in your words, then they can see you as a person worth talking to get away with nothing because you see everything.

If you make yourself the opposite of deception in conduct, it becomes easier to see. When you focus on trying to have the force of reality behind the momentum of your arguments, your strikes become devastating as you increase in skill. "Seeing is believing" takes on a whole other context when you become good at summoning reality. With Ipads and phones that are essentially computers this will become even easier. "Agreeing to Disagree" sounds pathetic and hollow...

If I were to create a step one I would have to say that starting now you should try to do a few things.

*Try not to speak with authority on things you have not investigated I will discuss streamlining the investigation process and letting them do your work for you! We will cover creating your own "Research Tools" I will try to post a recontextualized set of mine before the night is out. In fact you would be surprised how often the other person does not have one and you can take advantage of that...

*Be willing to admit that you don't know something Ignorance is a universal flaw. Accept it and move on and it only empowers you.

*Be willing to answer questions as honestly as you can. You want to look like a stark difference against your opponent. Let them poison each other through mutual reinforcement.

*Be willing to take a source from someone, anyone. Over time that makes you respected, and feared...

*Start with one passion. Preferably one that is not controversial here while you hone your craft. It makes things A LOT simpler.



Feel free to comment, discuss (with each other as well) while I am getting this out over the next couple of days. I consider this a discussion area and it would be more difficult to make something off-topic when underlying issues need discussed, criticized...

Next up: My research tools and the scientific method (It's simpler than you think...). Hopefully before the end of the night.

Laptop is dying! Time to shop for a replacement :(

The Scientific Method
Ok, society scares people too much about this science crap. You do science all the time and you don’t even know it, you just don’t think of it that way. Here is all you need to do to be a scientist.

1. Have a explanation for a thing. Hypothesis

2. Think about what MUST be true/real if that explanation is correct. It needs to be something you can actually look for out in the world. Testability and Falsifiability

3. Look for that something. Experiment

4. If you find it, see if anyone has as wellIndependent Confirmation, see if it makes sense to other people Peer Review, and see if it is compatible with other, better supported explanations about the world because the new explanation has to be able to explain all the other stuff too Consistency with Known Reality.

5. Repeat FOREVER.

This is not a perfect process/philosophy, but to me it’s like playing darts in the dark with a dartboard that changes a sound to a higher pitch as you get closer and closer to the bull’s-eye. There will be mistakes and their mere existence is meaningless as an argument against the process. But it’s the best in my experience.

Here is science you can do
*Your energy bill is high. Hypothesis: you are leaking hot/cold air through seams and joints. If you use an infrared camera in the winter you will be able to see leaks and patch them.
*Your newspaper disappears every morning. The government is trying to make you insane by stealing your newspaper. If you set up a webcam you can catch the Men in Black
*The person you are trying to discuss politics with has no interest in an exchange of information. You start numbering your specific cited claims on paper (not in the comments) and counting the times that they actually reply to what you are saying. If they continue to avoid what you say while you actually respond to their points you will prepare a post highlighting the dishonest behavior.
*ETC…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review

After changing your approach to a reality-based one where you are interested in being correct and not "winning an argument", and getting used to scientific thinking, you need to develop your own research tool set. I am posting mine here as an example. Take them. Steal them. Share them. Change them. Give me credit or not.

The point is that looking for information is an art form and there are good and bad ways to do it. If a commitment to reality is your focus eventually you will find your best ways.


*************
If you can freely read this you are living in the best time to find the truth about reality for yourself. There is a way to discover almost anything that you might want to know. What you need are the directions tools for how to do it. That is no insulting statement either! Who knows how to do anything with no instruction? Even our parents had to teach us how to wipe our rears! While I am sure that mine could be improved somewhere, I will share them with you. I can't tell you the "right set". You will have to find that for yourself.


***TL;DR Theatre: My research tools. (I will add when I think of them)***
1. The first tool is something that gets called "Google-Fu" in some places (you can replace Google with other search engines). What it means is "Finding everything that is relevant to your question". That is better than an answer if you like being able to find things out for yourself because that is a sample of answers instead of just one. That way you can comparison shop.


Did you think a bias was a bad thing only? Bias is unavoidable and universal, expect it and deal with it honestly. What you need to do is make Google tell you what you want. Morality tells you why and how you tell Google what you want. Some of what I can think of, most of this is habit so this is always a work in progress my Google-Fu is to,
•Be as neutral as possible about everything because I do not want to fool myself. Logical fallacies are universal human flaws that we have to train ourselves out of. I’m sure I still do some of that crap.
•Ask a specific question. Google is not human and tries to figure out what I want, but is not me. It has algorithms that guess for you when it can based on what other people do, or anything else it knows you do. If you are trying to learn to think for yourself your old habits might follow you through Google.
•Use more “common language: or terms for things when looking for social information or non-technical opinions. Use technical terms everywhere else (below).
•When I need 2 or more things together anywhere, I put "and" in between. [Testosterone and violence and evolution].
•When I need something exact I put it in parentheses ["Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy"].
•When I need something technical I always use Jargon (the words the experts use). If you don’t know the jargon, try to find a single professional source and start a glossary for yourself. It’s the internet, you can learn ANYTHING!
•I am always specific, and I sprinkle liberally with words that bias my results towards interesting areas. Think of it like driving Google to interesting subsections of a library. Sometime replacing one word with another can transform everything.
o["Lauren Faust" and Feminism and "My Little Pony"] (Interesting stories about how she designs her material. I think it has neat implications.)
o[Nature and Nurture and "Hunter vs Farmer" theory and Epigenetics] (We have to design questions about how evolution interacts with psychology and society somehow)
o[Economics and "economic inequality" and "evolutionary physiology"] (These economic times did not come from nowhere. While evolutionary psychology is flawed, it lets us design questions.)
o[Homosexuality and epigenetics](I know I keep talking about that epigenetics thing, but the things it will tell us about ourselves will be interesting, and horrifying.)
o[Androphilia and "Gay Gene"] (There is interesting research that seems to show that what you look like, what you feel like, and who you want to have sex with are probably different things and can sort randomly in a population...)
I think you get the point. You care about things right? So if you want to try to improve something, or talk about something and demonstrate you know about it, getting the best information about it would be the best first step. Fast is better and that only comes with practice.



An example of Advanced GoogleFu involves trying to guess how everyone else is Googling to make arguments (Google Trends) or insults [Libertarians are] (and let Google fill in the rest) is an example about why argument ad populum is sometimes funny and self-destructive. It only works when the other person makes a different argument ad populum and says nothing about libertarian who do not make that logical fallacy.. There is other advanced Google-Fu but some secrets are valuable. Especially ones that can be abused.



2. The second tool is Wikipedia and the reason is because you can investigate an article to see if it is reliable. Wikipedia is the “kitchen sink”. It is supposed to be “everything relevant to a topic”. It lets you consider the “Forest” by collecting all the “trees” in one place. I’m sure you have seen a lot of people reject a Wikipedia article, but you can shut that down. Here is how:
*First and most importantly Wikipedia has standards and practices! Did the person who rejected your source read and say why they are not acceptable? Do you trust the encyclopedia company? The Dictionary company? Did they read their standards and practices? They might be more selective than they realize…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About#Strengths.2C_weaknesses.2C_and_article_quality_in_Wikipedia
(Or just Google [Wikipedia and standards and practices], practice!)
*Wikipedia links its sources. You need to go to the place where Wikipedia got the information and see if it is reliable. Is the source respected in the relevant communities? (Find out what their peers think about them) Is the source open to responding to criticism? Can the source be approached by you for questions/analysis? Here you need to learn to critically evaluate a source. You can link Wikipedia and just wait for them to complain. Setting traps…

*Wikipedia saves it’s revisions. Are you worried about the fact that anyone can edit Wikipedia? Look at the last couple of versions. There are people who care about this stuff and you can see how often there are fights over the content.

*Wikipedia has “battle arenas” for the contributors to argue about the appropriateness of parts of articles, or the whole damn thing (The “Talk Page” tab). Want to see some drama? Go to any controversial area and see who is arguing about what. “Theory of Evolution” for example. I started out arguing in this arena and the epic battles moved here in part. If you want to know the details of the “On the ground” conflicts over a point of disagreement (social or technical), the Wikipedia Talk Page is the place for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Evolution
Here is a good example of the kind of ultra-detailed, pedantic, minutiae-filled bickering that frankly helped me get really good at thinking about reality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Evolution/Archive_2#Eye_evolution

3. The third tool are Blogs. Experts are human too (also nice people but we are programmed to remember bad things more often) so when you combine them with google and Wikipedia you can get "their take on complicated issues" pretty easily. That is so important that I quoted and underlined it. Humans can always be counted on to be human. You can get all the professional analogs to bragging, drama, cat fights, name calling, lectures, "Holy crap look at this!" moments, touching moments, terrifying moments... They are social tools when you want the answers to social questions. Just be specific. Do you want to know law better? Google and professional blogs are the best tool you ever had. Everyone complains and shows off...


4. The fourth tool is Pubmed (www.Pubmed.org) and will need practice. When you are good at the first three you will be able to try actual current scientific papers for yourself. There is no reason why "regular folks" should not be able to see what science is up to right now. Just in case you want to get ahead of the game here are a couple of points. For a beginner there are two main kinds of papers that you will encounter, the article and the review. Also letters, exchanges, and lots of other things that are sometimes important enough to publish



The single claim paper may or may not actually be a single claim, but the best way of explaining it is that this is where an "experiment" as it is normally understood will be done. The authors will have an explanation for something, they will test it, and describe the results. This is what is normally thought of as a “regular science paper” and you want to stay away from them for now because it take some practice to learn to judge one for yourself. It took me a while.


This is not as useful to someone trying to learn about an entire field like "Human Gender" To understand a field you will need to look at a scientific review article which is where someone working in a field will summarize current knowledge about that issue. Naturally these folks are biased like everyone else so more than one review will sometimes be necessary to get a general grasp, but are a half dozen papers really too much? Pubmed lets you sort results by including reviews only, and free papers/reviews too!

More when I get home. I still have some parts to outline like "Ethical Laziness" (The person making the claim having the burden of evidence for example), some general observations about dishonest (knowingly or not!) and honest people and patterns of behavior, polishing your appearance...

At the end I will discuss hostility. That is where the controversy lies and it has to do with using Grappling as a combat analogy. The idea is to bring reality to bear as strongly and as simply as possible against the objects and meanings of the person (or people) that are poisonous to simple discussion. I say this as a person who violated and would have deserved to be abused by these techniques myself. Some of these principles actually came about because of past issues that some of the posters were here for. Emotional control will be part of this discussion , as well as being willing to flip the switch from "opponent" back to "discussion partner" if the other person lets you. You can't just be an ass for fun just as a martial artist can't go around beating up people without it being a mutually agreed upon match. Your emotions can consume you and system 1 is not your societies, or even your family's and friend's ally. It is meant to keep your body alive and not to make a world where everyone is as happy as possible.

Ok, maybe tomorrow. I want to get this laptop to last through January so I can get a tablet that I really want. Also beer possibly and I don't want to know what will end up in here under that situation.

>>68835
I like these a lot.

If you are allowed to choose your battles, invincibility is easy; never enter a battle which you aren't guaranteed to win.
Suppose someone flips a fair coin and asks you about the result. If you say "the coin will land heads", that is a battle you have an even chance of losing. The coin will land tails half the time. If you say "the coin will land heads with probability 0.5", that's a battle which you can at least expect to win, because what you said is perfectly in line with what you know about the coin, but it is still a battle which you might lose. Maybe your belief in the fairness of the coin is wrong. Now if you say "I believe the coin will land heads with probability 0.5", that's a battle you cannot lose. Your belief may turn out to be wrong, but you didn't claim that your belief was accurate, you only stated what it was.

If you talk about your map of the territory rather than the territory itself, your statements will always be true.


While desiring to speak only truths is good, paradoxically, you should not ever desire to win a fair discussion; you should want your beliefs to turn out to be wrong, or at least be even about it. If you don't lose often, what is more likely: that you're smarter than everyone else and happened upon complete accuracy about the world on your first try, or that you're wrong but good enough at debate and rationalization to avoid ever having to admit it? Not all changes to your beliefs are improvements, but all improvements to your beliefs are necessarily changes. The information that destroys your entire worldview is the most important piece of information for you to get on your search for truth. If you don't get it your worldview is still wrong, you just don't know it.

The single largest failures I observe in fair discussion, and I did these myself for quite a while, are inability to lose and inability to rephrase. If something you said was wrong or was phrased poorly, toss it aside. If your interlocutor is reasonable, they will not hold it against you that you are willing to admit that some of your points are incorrect so long as they see that you are updating on that new information (and you do actually have to update on that new information, by the way), nor will they hold it against you that you are willing to correct an indefensible phrasing for a more accurate one.


An unreasonable interlocutor will rhetorically eviscerate you for doing any of the things mentioned in this or Flutterguy's post. They themselves will speak with authority on topics they know nothing about, never claim uncertainty, never lose on any point, ignore or attack all sources that contradict them, and answer questions rhetorically and dishonestly.

>I like these a lot.

Thanks!
It's a little hard trying to think of a fair place to tell someone "Hey if you wanted to start changing how you behave in a specific way here you go!". We all get that message every day and I try to make mine very very neutral, obvious and useful. That way people can do this with at their own pace and with full awareness.
That has not always been the case, but I am trying. The whole "don't treat a person as an end to your meaning" thing. It's HARD in practice.


>If you are allowed to choose your battles, invincibility is easy; never enter a battle which you aren't guaranteed to win.

While none of us want society to be a battle, this is the natural result of what logic and rationality probably really are, symbolic ways to win against others with your social group. But it's neutral! So what matter is how you use it!

Sometimes exchanging ideas has to be approached in a fashion that is military in form, because evolution and history. Hundreds of millions of years of history. We don't have to hate it, just understand it and not let it control us.
"Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/arts/people-argue-just-to-win-scholars-assert.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0


Just keep in mind that evolutionary psychology is controversial. Many of the things discussed are more than one thing depending on a persons' social niche, also known as your life and culture (gender, behavior, structures, neurotransmitters...). The most general rule you could make is that the older the "named thing", the more deeply it is integrated into the whole human person, network, meat monster, whatever...

>Suppose someone flips a fair coin and asks you about the result. If you say "the coin will land heads", that is a battle you have an even chance of losing. The coin will land tails half the time. If you say "the coin will land heads with probability 0.5", that's a battle which you can at least expect to win, because what you said is perfectly in line with what you know about the coin, but it is still a battle which you might lose. Maybe your belief in the fairness of the coin is wrong. Now if you say "I believe the coin will land heads with probability 0.5", that's a battle you cannot lose. Your belief may turn out to be wrong, but you didn't claim that your belief was accurate, you only stated what it was.

I discovered a long time ago that learning about anything increase my probability of being correct. So I had to develop ways of getting answers as fast as I could. What complicates things is that having a broad base of knowledge helps because you are able to chain concepts Which are hierarchically connected to whatever else you know and vocabulary simultaneously. There really is a knowledge:Power connection but it is boosted by vocabulary, time and experience.

People inherently like strong simple statements like monologues (I would sort-of call a monologue a series of commonly accepted assertions), but to make monologues that are likely to be correct requires, knowledge, experience, and time.

To have a "ring of truth" with words that means anything in reality requires a no BS approach. You choose to be an advocate and you mean it . So a really basic simplification is to pick one thing and start.



>If you talk about your map of the territory rather than the territory itself, your statements will always be true.
You also know Good old Knowledge you are being as honest as you can which helps along the way as you go, of course being surrounded by like minded individuals helps, and I say that knowing that not everyone will have the benefit of working in laboratories and academic environments. I wish everyone could but maybe a thread like this is a good next best option.


>While desiring to speak only truths is good, paradoxically, you should not ever desire to win a fair discussion; you should want your beliefs to turn out to be wrong, or at least be even about it.

I always mentally include the possibility. It's hard but making sure I am willing to accept that I might be wrong is very important. One should have a standard of evidence. I have to be willing to change my mind. I at least try to imagine what kind of evidence might mean I am wrong.


>If you don't lose often, what is more likely: that you're smarter than everyone else and happened upon complete accuracy about the world on your first try, or that you're wrong but good enough at debate and rationalization to avoid ever having to admit it?

I know that I have a good system for knowledge acquisition, good standards of accuracy, and I try to learn from my mistakes. That last is important because if you don't learn from your flaws, someone else will... Everyone makes mistakes. If my wife ever felt like posting here...


>Not all changes to your beliefs are improvements, but all improvements to your beliefs are necessarily changes. The information that destroys your entire worldview is the most important piece of information for you to get on your search for truth. If you don't get it your worldview is still wrong, you just don't know it.

...and someday you will meet someone with that little thing. They will have enough icons of reality (text, images, videos, whatever...) and they will stick a little pin in a crack that compartmentalization or rationalization can't fix and SNAP! They have you and they can sometimes maneuver you into it. It's better to be careful about fact statements for that reason. You show yourself to be a thoughtful person, but too many try to take advantage of thoughtfulness and it's nice to be prepared. But because you know you are prepared, you might as well have fun with them...


>The single largest failures I observe in fair discussion, and I did these myself for quite a while, are inability to lose and inability to rephrase. If something you said was wrong or was phrased poorly, toss it aside. If your interlocutor is reasonable, they will not hold it against you that you are willing to admit that some of your points are incorrect so long as they see that you are updating on that new information (and you do actually have to update on that new information, by the way), nor will they hold it against you that you are willing to correct an indefensible phrasing for a more accurate one.

But it's too personal to discuss serious things for far too many people, and many of those people think it's fine to destroy exchange of information in fact, while they use lots of fancy words to indicate that they are "joking", "kidding around", or deflect responsibility in some other fashion.

Mere emotional attachment is not necessarily a bad thing You can't have an interest at all without an "emotional connection" but if having your Jimmies Rusted affects your logical ability (which it does to everyone) what do you do? Use a strategy that builds in routine behaviors that help in a crisis and might help you to communicate well in a crisis.
*Research skills
*Broad knowledge base related to your passion in life
*Dependability because you actually worked up from something simple
*The ability to set your own direction in an effort
*???
*Profit!


>An unreasonable interlocutor will rhetorically eviscerate you for doing any of the things mentioned in this or Flutterguy's post. They themselves will speak with authority on topics they know nothing about, never claim uncertainty, never lose on any point, ignore or attack all sources that contradict them, and answer questions rhetorically and dishonestly.

These would be reasons why I have broadened my neurobiology obsession in a more broad context. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

The people are not my enemy. Their cognitive styles are. How do I fight that and be honest? I'm still learning that, I'm human too. But being a "Rhetorical Assassin" just might be an option.

I was intending to get to emotional control after some more on ethics related issues, but I think I need to move part of it up to here. Mostly because after some thought I realized I was inching toward one of my ethical boundaries.

I used the phrase "Jimmies Rustling Time". That is a little bit complicated.

I have spoken about having to "depersonalize neurobiology", well that is actually a subset of another general human problem that we all do. We read ourselves into everything we read, and all the information that we get to some extent. I have to depersonalize most of what I read by thinking carefully about what I write because literally nothing gets more personal than this.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Tourette%20Syndrome%20rage
A simple pubmed search on [Tourette syndrom rage].

>"Aripiprazole in children and adolescents with Tourette disorder with and without explosive outbursts."

>"Rage attacks and aggressive symptoms in Japanese adolescents with tourette syndrome." I'm pretty standard white American, it's a general human thing whatever TS is

>"Tourette's syndrome and the law."

>"Self injurious behaviour in Tourette syndrome: correlates with impulsivity and impulse control."

I have a level of bias that gives everyone the right to question my objectivity at any level on the issue of emotional control. When I say that I need to depersonalize something I pretty much mean that I have to spend time tearing my identity out of it in order to make sure that I am not lying to myself, or worse passing misinformation on to anyone here. The reason that I have to wait before posting sometimes is because my emotions skew my word choice, especially in the I/You, Me/They range ("Theory of Mind" issues). It's like having fishhooks in my head dragging me toward particular word choices and I need to have a space (minutes, hours, days depending).

So to define "Jimmies Rustling Time" for you I would say that it is a cognitive model that I am casually using that is not necessarily limited to rage or anger. In fact I believe (but do not know on many specifics) that when it comes to strong emotion where you "let yourself go", any of the traditional big ones (anger, fear, happiness, disgust, sexual bliss,...) can skew the connection between System 1 and System 2 when you are emotionally stimulated.

It's just in my case I have some experience with anger. In fact I can turn it on and off at will. I have a direct line to my inner beast and it led me astray once to the point where I no longer let myself post as Pinkie Pie. I am not sensitive to questions on this or any of the other items above. I'm pretty much letting you have free run in my head already...

Please let me know what you think, or if this is useful here! Sometimes I don't know if my writing sucks or not when no one says anything.

This is where the aggression may start when you start thinking strategically with the ideas in this thread.

Actually depending on the tactics and maturity level of your "conversation partner" they may already be getting aggressive. I have been assuming that you have had an honest partner until now. Or a partner of a more mature mindset.
Some people take the mere existence of an idea, or an idea that contrasts with something they hold very dearly as an attack automatically. "Jimmies Rustling Time" is VERY flexible by:
*Age
*Mental development and integrity
*Socio-economic status
*Culture
*Life experience
...and I would call it a graduated autonomic response in real-time.

This all affects the ethics of your choices in response progression, intensity, complexity, tone, and many more things.

This is reality and I don't ignore hard things. They are my first consideration because if your preparation has holes, you will have inconsistencies in your conceptual information hierarchy. I mean that literally.

These actually slow down your thoughts and efficiency. You are an advocate right? Be an Advocate like it is a proper noun. "Stopping to think" is almost a proper noun in the material I read.

And yes grammar and punctuation matters but let's face it, you have to take a reality based approach so that is POLISH. This is at the level of Facebook and people who use cell phones. You will piss off the second group with these techniques A LOT.

But we will discuss Grammar Nazis and Grammar because that shit matters when doing Rhetoric online. But you have to be subtle about it. I love you Grammar Nazis...[/?]


So aggression cannot be helped in many cases because lots of folks treat disagreement as attack, and lots of logical fallacies and other kinds of Rhetoric are designed to make conversation harder on you and easier on them regardless of what reality is like. So you may quickly find people raising the emotional tone.

Remember! They may not even be aware that they are doing any of these! Lots of folks get raised in families where this kind of discussion is considered normal. I am from an ADHD family and I assure you that this whole strategy (not just this point) can be seen as an attack on a person no matter how much you try to isolate behavior as your focus.

You may have to get used to focusing on your object and going back to it in a robotic fashion like they were a little kid until they give up or finally acknowledge your point.

Family is probably out of the question for most of you and that is just being realistic. Verbally because I am a moderator I have to use "Family Rules". Your family WILL vary...

Laziness...
How can something so serious be lazy? That involves knowing who has what job in a conversation and being able to point that out clearly and simply, with emotional emphasis if possible.

If the situation gets to aggression and there is no social cost to you, extra points if you can also mention how that is dishonest to the audience as well (characterize it as an attempt at deceiving everyone).


1. The Burden of Proof][b]
The person making a claim has to be the one offering the evidence. Maybe they are just a person on the bus, but you are still allowed to point out that in a world of people making claims, they will be ignored and should be ignored without evidence. Why should you not just merely disbelieve them, but also let them sit there and tell others that they should all be followers by accepting things for no reason?

You get to be lazy by pointing out that they are lazy. Fucking enjoy it.


Various Examples:
Prove Me Wrong
Basically telling everyone that they should go do work because he says so when he is making a reality claim.

Paraphrasing while Present aka, Exaggeration aka, [b]Lying.
Opponent describing your disagreement/disbelief as a false "paraphrase".
“Are you saying I'm stupid! He said I'm stupid!" (You used the word Ignorant and it was used correctly).

Just Because"
Simple statement of fact with nothing else. Most often in Video form.


Responses
You need quick answers and depending on the situation you can be dramatic, or not.
“Citation Please”
"Why?"
"Why?" (repeated over and over. When they demand why you are doing that tell them you are waiting for something that is not an opinion)
"I’m not you, that makes no sense for me to prove that I am not like [Name Here] says I am. All that works is time and interaction."
"That’s boring. I'm not doing your work to prove that. You prove yourself wrong first moron. You are doing the opposite of science which is really stupid."
“Explain my argument back to me. In your words with accurate contextualized quotes, and no exaggerating or be marked a liar."

That was just the first one.

>>69052

Just a quick comment about a little part of that last post.

>be lazy by pointing out that they are lazy

I've done this lately. I didn't really follow the rules though i.e. burden of proof. Then again I didn't make much of an assertion.

In a nutshell...

>article about vegetarian diets and possible ties to anti-cancer stuff or even full blown cancer recovery

>I make a comment saying that while I think a vegetarian diet is better than a non, my suspicion is that it is the source of food rather than what kind of food that should be the focus of the cancer & food discussion. Vegan foods may be healthy but they may be unhealthy when contaminated, just like animal meats can be clean when not.

Responder says something along the lines of

>“You know, you need this thing called evidence to refute well done research. The China Study conclusions have been available for 8 years to refute. Let us know what studies refute the mountains of studies which have been done for DECADES which show the same thing. Your objections are typically of Paleo/Atkins acolytes. Pulling things out of thin air (or elsewhere) do not constitute a rigorous testing of the conclusions. This is all sounding like conservatives decrying the expertise and research on global warming with... their gut!


So I invited responder to take first stab at presenting the 'facts' and 'data' and to point out where in my post those illustrate where I am wrong. I don't mind inviting for first criticisms because I know that the only real assertions I made were that a) vegetable foods can be contaminated just as b) animal foods can not be contaminated, and that I thought that the more important focus of the cancer-food relationship might be where the food comes from and what it comes with rather than just is it vegetable or animal. Responder is implying this whole paleo/atkins/conservative/whatever garbage.

>“You realize that you were supposed to present something to counter the research ALREADY presented in the article such as the China Study which I mentioned. Wow, that meat is sure slowing down the blood flow to your head!”

>Hey I don't make the rules up, these are your rules you are bringing into the conversation, not mine. Why will you not comply?

Probably could have executed a little better there but these things don't always happen according to plan.

What would you do if the person you're arguing/discussing with is being a bill o'reiley?

Being rude and interrupting you, mocking you, making fun of you, belittling you, not letting you finish sentences, warping your statements into things they aren't.

I haven't figured out how to deal with a bill o'reiley 'arguer' in my family, other than to just ignore his attempts and not give him anything to warp or twist or belittle or mock me for. I would like some better tools...

Going to go through this thread in some detail in the morning with coffee and re-approach that, but I figured I would just ask in case you have any ideas.

>>69057
>I've done this lately. I didn't really follow the rules though i.e. burden of proof. Then again I didn't make much of an assertion.

This is one of the little areas that I have not quite figured out what to think in terms of general philosophy. We do make assertions; in fact being able to make assertions and back them up is one of the things that make these techniques work because assertions (which I see as unsupported facts here) are parts of conversations and arguments. What matter is if the person can get past the mere assertions.


>article about vegetarian diets and possible ties to anti-cancer stuff or even full blown cancer recovery

>I make a comment saying that while I think a vegetarian diet is better than a non, my suspicion is that it is the source of food rather than what kind of food that should be the focus of the cancer & food discussion. Vegan foods may be healthy but they may be unhealthy when contaminated, just like animal meats can be clean when not.

>Responder says something along the lines of

> “You know, you need this thing called evidence to refute well done research. The China Study conclusions have been available for 8 years to refute. Let us know what studies refute the mountains of studies which have been done for DECADES which show the same thing. Your objections are typically of Paleo/Atkins acolytes. Pulling things out of thin air (or elsewhere) do not constitute a rigorous testing of the conclusions. This is all sounding like conservatives decrying the expertise and research on global warming with... their gut!


Let me see if I have this right.
*The other person had an article, you make a point about food contamination still being an issue.
*They come back by saying that because you have not presented studies that refute his sources conclusions, you are wrong.


>So I invited responder to take first stab at presenting the 'facts' and 'data' and to point out where in my post those illustrate where I am wrong. I don't mind inviting for first criticisms because I know that the only real assertions I made were that a) vegetable foods can be contaminated just as b) animal foods can not be contaminated, and that I thought that the more important focus of the cancer-food relationship might be where the food comes from and what it comes with rather than just is it vegetable or animal. Responder is implying this whole paleo/atkins/conservative/whatever garbage.

>“You realize that you were supposed to present something to counter the research ALREADY presented in the article such as the China Study which I mentioned. Wow, that meat is sure slowing down the blood flow to your head!”

>Hey I don't make the rules up, these are your rules you are bringing into the conversation, not mine. Why will you not comply?
>Probably could have executed a little better there but these things don't always happen according to plan.


This is the grappling analogy in action.
*You don’t necessarily have a problem with the general conclusions, but want to address a possible complicating variable, food quality. That is a reasonable assumption to me. You can probably google examples of contaminated food of the kind they are discussing easily.

*They completely ignore your point (don’t even pretend they looked at it) and pretend that you have to refute everything and argue what they want you to argue. (Misrepresenting you as opposing the conclusions of their paper which you are not and/or forcing you into only talking about what they want you to talk about).

*They then do the same thing again but now add this made up conversational rule more explicitly in order to create more distraction Is it possible they saw this as a derail?.


When considering this as a grappling analogy think of what your audience sees. They see two people with different objects, maneuvering around using different meanings.

*Your object is your associated point about food quality. Your meaning is seems to be an honest question about cancer being related to food quality and if their research has looked at that angle

*Their object is not your object and they will try to keep their object in the audience’s attention. In this case their object appears to either be making everyone pay attention to their primary message, or keeping the message in the paper free from successful criticism. It could be both because ignoring your point and pretending you are making another looks like an attempt to stay on a script.

The meanings used in this fight are the maneuvers that are used to hide or point to objects in front of the audience. Successfully identifying the other person’s true object is a good first step. That lets you figure out what kinds of meanings they are using to obfuscate.


Is this a helpful way of looking at this?

>>69110
>What would you do if the person you're arguing/discussing with is being a bill o'reiley?

Others might have different tactics, but in my case I would assume the conversation is no longer an honest one, say so openly and say it is because of their behavior. Followed by...

>Being rude and interrupting you, mocking you, making fun of you, belittling you, not letting you finish sentences, warping your statements into things they aren't.

Pointing this out and directly asking (with implied reference to the audience) why anyone should take them seriously when they obviously are not interested in honest conversation? That is one reason for my characterization about "winning" versus "being correct". Just point blank, "why should I respect someone who is being an asshole instead of a discussion partner?" If you can get away with it, at work or other situations might not work.

Another possibility is to try to have examples of evidence ready that you would accept as proving you wrong, and ask them for what they would accept as proving them wrong. If they have none you can imply that it's more likely that they would be willing to believe anything that people on "their side" would tell them and that they have no standards of evidence and are not worth listening to.

Also focus on the twisting of your words. Isolate and display the best example and directly ask why you should have any regard for the words of a dishonest person? One does not have to lie to be dishonest.

>I haven't figured out how to deal with a bill o'reiley 'arguer' in my family, other than to just ignore his attempts and not give him anything to warp or twist or belittle or mock me for. I would like some better tools...

It requires identifying their true object, unthinking defense of the position, and suppression of any opposition. You have already begun to define their tactics, now you can plan how to best undermine them. The ones involving setting yourself up as an honest counterpart, like having evidence that you accept as proving you wrong, can really help here. But you need direct and simple with O'reiley types because they all try to control the surroundings. After all Bill himself has control over his studio.

>Going to go through this thread in some detail in the morning with coffee and re-approach that, but I figured I would just ask in case you have any ideas.

Make a dissection table.

*Being rude
*Interrupting me
*Mocking me
*Making fun of me
*Belittling me
*Not letting me finish sentences
*Warping my statements into things they aren't

I'm going to resort them into categories based on the effect they have on honest conversation.

Tone of arena of battle (he created this tone I assume)
*Being rude
*Mocking me
*Belittling me

You are to be made into a non-person. You are not worthy of respect or consideration. You are a mere threat and as such the normal rules of decorum do not apply. Literally us versus them and you are not family. This is also posturing for himself and others around him. Your ideas are not a threat and he is being a show-off.

Undermining the mere appearance of your ideas
*Interrupting me
*Not letting me finish sentences
*Warping my statements into things they aren't

It's more important that he not even let you get your weapons out (from his perspective). He wants this to be over before it even starts so you have to assume that he will not fairly engage your ideas so you have to make them clear to the audience (if it applies).

What you think does not matter to him because you don't get to finish, and he sends back your ideas to you and they do not look like your ideas. You need to focus on family shame. He is acting like you are not part of the family by refusing to communicate. This is what enemies do to each other, it's misinformation and you need to demonstrate it.

>>69110
One other thing. Since he is acting in a tribalistic manner, you have to assume he will try to get the tribe involved when he defends himself. You have two ways to counter this that I can think of at the moment.

1. Point out that he is being a coward by not keeping this personal after his behavior made this personal.

2. Point out to family that try to get you to change your behavior that he was the one who started it by acting rude and dishonest, and that asking you to let him treat you like a non-family member is horrible.

>>69148
>Is this a helpful way of looking at this?

yeah it is... in hindsight, I was wondering just how bad I had 'flopped' that discussion. I'm not much of a debater really, but I have a knack for pushing buttons with passive aggressive tactics that... is almost habitual in certain circumstances. I used those tactics a little and I'm not sure that i feel that great about how I handled that conversation.

Your point about derail is probably a key issue that I didn't handle properly. I was, more or less, issuing a derail of sorts. Its kind of my 'discussion nature' to try to keep discussions going by introducing new aspects or ideas and drawing them into the discussion. I do this pretty consistently, I notice it, you and other posters here probably have too. I notice it because when I throw something 'out of left field' into a discussion, sometimes it just doesn't belong or the people in the discussion don't care to impliment a new element that I've thrown out. Which over time, I've come to accept as my fault, not theirs, yet it doesn't bother me because I see the initiative on my part as attempting to further develop the conversation and expand it and, well... that just isn't always a great idea. Still, idea sharing and all... not a bad idea. It weighs out in the end, in my mind, at least most of the time.

>>69149

Thanks for this. Its nice to see the different parts separated into 'arena tone' and 'undermining ideas'. I'm going to have to mull this over just a bit, which is a good thing because that means its useful enough to me that its almost a new concept entirely.

>>69150
>assume he will try to get the tribe involved when he defends himself

Yes. This happens. Has happened several times. I've thought it a bit of cowardice myself but never mentioned it, especially when he attempts to make other members of the tribe afraid of me by sharing personal information about me that was not and never was open information for everyone to know. That in itself was really hurtful.

I have to stop myself from reacting and thinking back in terms of 'enemy' though, I don't want to participate in his game as he is doing it, and its just a little too appealing to the imagination at this time to run scenarios where I do just that using the info above. I think this will really help me to develop tools and adjust the ones I already have to better work at dismantling a 'conversational' assailant. Thanks!

>>69158
>yeah it is... in hindsight, I was wondering just how bad I had 'flopped' that discussion. I'm not much of a debater really, but I have a knack for pushing buttons with passive aggressive tactics that... is almost habitual in certain circumstances. I used those tactics a little and I'm not sure that i feel that great about how I handled that conversation.

You and everyone else. There are no "Sensi's" here. I am honestly a person learning to control his own emotions and I am speaking from my own experience of mistakes and interacting in very specific environments online through my life.
At this point I think that I am realizing that always hanging out in discussion forums has been some kind of defense mechanism to maintain knowledge about some level of human interaction. It's consistent with what I read about myself anyway.

That has actually been the point of this thread in a way, for people to show themselves at their own pace what kind of mistakes they are making. They get to define the mistakes on their own so anyone is free to disagree with any point of this since it is about things that society itself disagrees with.


"Derail"
>Your point about derail is probably a key issue that I didn't handle properly. I was, more or less, issuing a derail of sorts. Its kind of my 'discussion nature' to try to keep discussions going by introducing new aspects or ideas and drawing them into the discussion. I do this pretty consistently, I notice it, you and other posters here probably have too. I notice it because when I throw something 'out of left field' into a discussion, sometimes it just doesn't belong or the people in the discussion don't care to impliment a new element that I've thrown out.

BUT, this is one of those things where there is more than one definition of a derail. Letting OP decide is the pragmatic solution and an instinctual one since they started the conversation. Think of it like their house in a way. If they don't like what you are doing, stop. That supports the community and if you respond by starting your thread on that topic, you get your arena and add to the community interaction.

*If the point is interesting enough to everyone or stands a chance of becoming interesting and was proposed honestly. it supports and adds to the OP's main Object, and their meaning for that object.

*If the OP is an advocate and emotionally invested and less emotionally mature, it can be seen as an attack, or an attempt to suppress their information, or an attempt to take attention away from them. Lots of other factors influence this like:

*Nature of the community (Medical, Scientific, how serious and specific).

*Local community morals and standards: I'm an OLD PONY! I'm a FURGAG! Typing that made the substitute teacher in me panic!

*Other specific tolerances. Honestly the internet is testing the limits of our ability to cognitively handle an "Us" vs. "Them" mentality and I find that the less you use this mindset, the more threatening you get to certain people.


>Which over time, I've come to accept as my fault, not theirs, yet it doesn't bother me because I see the initiative on my part as attempting to further develop the conversation and expand it and, well... that just isn't always a great idea. Still, idea sharing and all... not a bad idea. It weighs out in the end, in my mind, at least most of the time.

Like I said above, start a new thread on your spin on the same board. You can even include it in the OP's thread in a comment, which will not be seen as an attack if you also take the time to give an on-topic response. Preferably one with things you like about their post, as well as other issues, criticisms and such. Humans are literally more critical than complimentary. After enough practice you discover constructive criticism on your own :)

>Thanks for this. Its nice to see the different parts separated into 'arena tone' and 'undermining ideas'. I'm going to have to mull this over just a bit, which is a good thing because that means its useful enough to me that its almost a new concept entirely.

It might be, or more likely it's just something that everyone can notice when they start looking for it. I'm sure there are communication specialists that could point these things out. I meant what I said about flipping a mental switch. You can see communication as a fair trade, until signs of hostility appear. At that point you might have to flip your switch. In reality it's a switch we all already have you just learn to recognize it, and when you tend to let system 1 flip it. Later you learn to negotiate a peace in a "flipped" conversation and such...

>I have to stop myself from reacting and thinking back in terms of 'enemy' though, I don't want to participate in his game as he is doing it, and its just a little too appealing to the imagination at this time to run scenarios where I do just that using the info above. I think this will really help me to develop tools and adjust the ones I already have to better work at dismantling a 'conversational' assailant. Thanks!

That is very important. Just remember that we all have a part of our mind that makes us see these things in an "enemy" fashion (quotes or semi-quotes?). So you have to learn to recognize it and control it. You are more lucky than most in this respect I think. Being on the spectrum that you are actually gives you the ability to consider your feelings more objectively, but the danger in being too objective is that you can lose the ability to be a "subject" for true social context.

>>69190
>*Local community morals and standards: I'm an OLD PONY! I'm a FURGAG!
I might have to start a separate topic about if w.o.r.dfilters are appropriate on /dis/. (yeah that filters to muffinshuffler on other boards)

The idea was to show how words and communities are a thing you always have to be aware of if you want to be effective. Sure some of you might not care so much right now, but this is a learned skill. It's won't come from nowhere. Do you want to learn it willingly and in an empowering way? Or through family, coworkers, or employers yelling at you? Remember you can learn these as things you can switch on and off. Some are easier than others (anger, disgust), but plain simple emotional control is WORTH IT. Every encounter is an emotional dance and we learn one way or another.

****Present***

The second way to make them work for you, and have it be completely reasonable and ethical is to have them tell you what they believe and where to look for their evidence. They being people on your side and people on their side. This is very important. If you can apply the same critical standards whatever you are using now to what you agree and disagree with you know you are a fair person and can prove it!

If you are now trying to be an Advocate in a way that assumes it is a proper noun, you will meet lots of advocates everywhere. What is an "advocate" versus an "Advocate"? An advocate is someone who is pretending to represent something they care about, but they don't know it. They do really support the thing, but emotionally so they have to dip into tactics that they do not realize are dishonest.

You will meet them far more than Advocates. The good news is that both versions do the same thing. They give you their best, most simple, bullet point arguments. Both for their position and against the competing positions.

You just received ammunition. With this list of simple, simple Things (you can't keep them from giving them to you!) you can do several things.
*Simplify your investigation process, see above instructions. They made your list for you.
*Discover who is honest (did they represent their competitors honestly?).
*Discover who is dishonest on your "side" because you are an honest person and want to help people realize what they are doing to themselves.
*More

That is just what I could think of right now. I'm sure you could do tons of other things with a simple organized list like that and your new investigation skills and logical thinking process.
A bonus is that you will meet honest people who disagree with you! They are some of the best people you can know and they will want to know you too! Because you will tend to automatically practice on each other! I have stayed up to 3am just doing random logical bullshit conversation with people in the army (My best friend was stationed at Ft. Lewis) and we all had a great time.

>>69158
How did your holiday and possible interactions with your uncle go? I'm curious if what I presented was any help to you.

>>69490
Still ongoing lol. I have run scenarios through my head a bunch though and I can see where I can do better. This is pretty helpful ^^ I have not had much time at home lately.

>muffinshuffler

sometimes the word filters here make me laugh...

So with what frequency do people who are dishonest misrepresent others? I am not sure they have a pressing need to be honest in describing the counter arguments etc. in the first place, so this suggests to me that maybe they do it nearly all the time. Who is there to correct them?

>>69522
>So with what frequency do people who are dishonest misrepresent others?

That is complicated. It is safest to assume that no one thinks they are being dishonest.

Example: They see it more like"I just posted a link to a guy saying a bunch of terrible things about Obama and this is a reason to vote for Romney!" You need to tell me specifically I would want to vote for Romney, you only gave me a reason not to vote for Obama.
They don't see it as dishonest. They also believe that what they are doing is a moral good.

Alternatively they are repeating something a family member said, or someone they really care about said and they honestly don't know if this person is correct, but it sounds like something they already believe or want to believe.

It is much more rare to meet the person who knows they are being dishonest. Most folks actually get by on aggression, pity, or other things that they don't see as dishonest. Just rude at worst and that can be modified by family culture, ethnic culture and more.

This is politics at it's most basic. I honestly believe that every human psychological problem has a social correlate and I'm only feeling the "ripples" a little bit differently.

>I am not sure they have a pressing need to be honest in describing the counter arguments etc. in the first place, so this suggests to me that maybe they do it nearly all the time. Who is there to correct them?

Other people they interact with on a daily basis. This is "regular folks". This is why I make the "Win" versus "Being Correct" Distinction. Trying to be correct is a process or a philosophy depending on how seriously you take it.

How polite you are is totally based on the social situation and what you can get away with. Phrasing, knowledge, vocabulary, synonyms, antonyms...

How good is your non-literal language use? It's aggression or "show boating" or just plain language depending on how good you are at adapting to the meanings of others and remembering your audience. There are a thousand formulas and it really depends on your life and interactions.

>>69534
Well, one reason I brought this up is that I have had friends who have been deemed 'pathological liars' by others before, and they're typically somewhat right.

Although it doesn't always occur to them that they're being dishonest, it certainly seems they could not harbor the viewpoint that they are being entirely honest either. One for instance has a habit of making every story extreme, every account more dangerous or action packed, every one night stand is a threesome or something. He literally will lie over and over and over again if you were there at all for the original content, and this is typically to impress women.

And it works. And they then think him the worst person in the world once they wake up to it for having misled them.

But to someone like me, I just don't see how you could believe it unless you're not really listening to the story but enthralled as a whole with the story-telling and probably looking to get laid or something. Once this happens though, some time after when the 'wake up' happens, he goes from being mr perfect who can do no wrong to the worst guy in the world with that one little realization.

>Being correct vs winning

I'm fine with this concept. I'm not a competitive person, so having 'assured victory in the facts' is a bargain I'll trade 'looking like the winner' for.

However, what is the point of neither winning nor being correct if you don't get a solid opportunity to change the way the other person perceives ? And if you aren't doing this for the audience either?

It seems to me that the final goal in a discussion or argument is to change a belief or behavior in the opposition, or at least try.

>How good is your non-literal language use?

Uhm... I don't really know. Possible that it is decent. I mange to somehow be both eloquent and inarticulate at different times. I am good - or bad if you don't like the practice - at producing imagery and contrasts with it, usually as a metaphorical play. Not sure if you're familiar with much bible scripture but if you can recall some of Jesus' sermons and how he preached, he would tell stories or scenarios that were supposed to be interpreted and carried over into a kind of 'lesson' of sorts. I do that pretty often, even have some fun with it by making some really odd contrasts. I get the idea not everyone appreciates it though lol.

>>69543
With respect to your friend, it can depend on how anyone sees it in their heads with respect to their memories. There is a difference between the events and the quality of the events, this is where the imagination can play.

People use non-literal language use all the time and what is the difference between exaggeration, embellishment, hyperbole, and lying? This is where I worry about the kinds of habits that people can let themselves get into and what it can turn them into over a lifetime.

Yet non-literal language is neutral too! While it can be used to misrepresent reality, it can also be used to convey parts of reality in ways that bridge knowledge gaps. Like analogies. "Speaking analogically" is something I try to do when it comes to what I know about how characteristics of minds would logically come from aspects of brain function.

You have convinced me to do a Non-Literal Language section here. This is why I like the conversation. It tells me what I need to do when giving others information! Things I had not even thought of.

Maybe it started as only talking about the good parts of situations and not the bad. Maybe punches got just a little more impressive, and feats a little more daring. Maybe they "forgot" the times they were worried about part of the situation.

If brains have structure, morality likely has internal "baselines". If one were to get used to a different one with respect to making your inside world and outside world different on purpose (like any deviation from reality:lying), even for a little while, it can become normal. That leaves room for new deviations and the inside/outside dichotomy is nothing to mess around with in level of seriousness.

>However, what is the point of neither winning nor being correct if you don't get a solid opportunity to change the way the other person perceives ? And if you aren't doing this for the audience either?

In my mind winning as a goal involved defeating your opponent so they are out of the way. I speak of being correct as personal philosophy. This makes it easier to look like conflict is not your goal. I know it's a fine distinction, but to me it's crucial.

But you don't necessarily want to act like you want to change the other person's mind either. You do want to know what they know partly because it's a conversation and polite, and below...). You want to be as sure as possible about what you believe. But it is dangerous to go around thinking that you are 100% right. It's actually a pretty valuable thing to learn to be comfortable with only being as sure as societies best methods to determine. That is a skill worth learning and a section I should write too

The most important reason for that is just because, you might be wrong, I might be wrong. If the other person has information exchange as a goal (the ideal) you don't need to worry, they won't be treating it like a fight. But if the other person is interested in making it a battle (knowingly or otherwise, tribalism is neutral too), well I just think we all need to be prepared for that and treat it like the monkey fight that it is. The benefits of expanding into primate research in my spare time lol...

Acting like you don't "Know that you are right" is the the only thing that can work sometimes. This is where the taking the Form of Winning comes into play. When they think acting like 100% sure is what you have to do, the only way you can respond the same is if you have done your homework on your area of activism, and are comfortable with the fact that there is no such thing as absolute knowledge and acting like it is a good idea.

Otherwise you can get by on being a reasonable person, and maybe getting your family's help with unreasonable people. But remember the kind of people my techniques are meant for. Most of the time you can stay "switched off".

>It seems to me that the final goal in a discussion or argument is to change a belief or behavior in the opposition, or at least try.

Unless you are lucky enough to discover a discussion forming between you and your uncle. That is when you go back to exchanging information, and thinking about it. I'm actually pretty convinced that most people don't change their minds after a single conversation, and especially during one. It happens later after new ideas get internalized. Sometimes that takes sleep.

Otherwise you have to realize that "the point" to the people who act like your uncle is for their group/idea/philosophy whatever is to win. To be dominant over yours regardless of the accuracy of it. They act like they "Are Right 100%". It's political warfare, not conversation. Some people eventually treat both as the same in many situations.

>Not sure if you're familiar with much bible scripture but if you can recall some of Jesus' sermons and how he preached, he would tell stories or scenarios that were supposed to be interpreted and carried over into a kind of 'lesson' of sorts. I do that pretty often, even have some fun with it by making some really odd contrasts. I get the idea not everyone appreciates it though lol.

See my above comment, we are already on the same page there. I can't say how long it will be until I do a non-literal language section I teach this in middle and high schools, a section on how we talk about accuracy of knowledge I have taken statistics and I KNOW Royal Night Guard could say something here if he wanted, and maybe I should also do a section on primate psychology and politics. I would have to plan for a while to make sure I was accurate on that last one though.

Ok this one is a little different, maybe its a logic thing, but it happens in arguments and if you have heard or read anything along the lines of gun control in the recent past you've probably heard this.

The statement bothers me, I think it is fallacious in some way shape or form, I'll try to illustrate and see if someone can revise and correct or back me up.

The statement is in regards to gun control, and it is an argument against gun control or more gun control which is mostly irrelevant: here's the statement though

(gun control won't work because) "Criminals don't follow gun laws."

I've been mulling this one over and here is where I think its wrong.

1) It attempts to form a 'straw man' group called 'Criminals' which is not indicative of the actual classification of people who are 'criminals'.

2) defines criminal as one who doesn't follow laws, which is not true

3) doesn't consider the legal process and how criminal status is assigned, further assuming it is arbitrarily just and correct in doing so

Let me know where I'm wrong and right here...

>>69718
I completely agree that the group "Criminals" is abused in politics all the time. From the kitchen to congress. It is both accurate and a straw man at the same time unless defined. But I personally see the statement itself as potentially one that can be supported by facts.

Remember: I see the "Form of Winning" and rhetoric as neutral. What matters is if there is anything to back it up. Your conversation partner will back it up and you will find an interesting person to talk to. Your opponent will abandon that defense and try to erect another.



We have massive disagreement when it comes to lots of crime and we always hear how crime is a problem. The label "criminal" or "crime" is one of those things where you see politicians get less specific as you approach an election season. That list of issues is also usually the things friends and family "agree to disagree" on.

If your conversation partner wants to swap symbols (to create understanding on terms) you will not have a problem.

But if your opponent want to create a criminal boogyman you need to do something.

*Define a group of real humans that they would not want to see be hurt by their position. (gets them toward acknowledging that reality is more complex).

This is a specific way of giving advice to define a general set of real observations that make any attempt to generalize part of the issue look bad (mentally you need to define that part if you know your opponent. ignore your conversation partner because they are honest and don't need hostile strategy). This works on every issue where the other person wants to win, or wants their group to win over reality.

Since you are interested in being correct, the person who wants to win does not see an interesting set of facts, they see a wave of hostile claims. "Criminal" was a convenient way to avoid the thing that you now assault them with, your supporting facts and arguments.

They may now move to something else if their real goal is to avoid the conversation, subject, or your information.
****************

As an aside the reason why I have no personal problem with the phrase "Criminals don't follow gun laws." is because:

*There are criminals that would simply not care about the laws.
*Criminal ingenuity is never ending and any gun control law is simply a new challenge.


But I do accept your points. I think that rhetoric exists as a way for us to start exchanges. We can't deal with a problems as a species if they are not spoken about. Important and difficult words get their own special kinds of language where lots of information is packed into as tightly concentrated a set of words as possible. Monologues, political speech, it unfortunately works so since it is biology we have a problem with here, we assume neutrality and find ways to make it work for us as a group. At least that is my goal...

>>69757
Oh and just in case...

How could I possibly have a thread about discussion/debating/arguing without being willing to back up anything I say? That level of hypocrisy should be lethal...

>>69757
I did similar as you suggested: I brought up a group of 'exception' criminals whom would not 'fit the bill' and then undermined the definition of 'criminal' by displaying injustices in the justice department.

Unfortunately instead of clarifying definitions his response was to mute me, but all the same... it felt a little unresolved because of that so I thought it might belong here.

There was some support from readers on my comments, so I don't feel like my point was wasted or failed to be made.

There also seems to be some 'unmentioned element' of the statement that I can't quite put my finger on. I feel like asking of the statement "Criminals don't follow gun laws" - "So, what?"

So then we shouldn't make them, or... so then we should do something about said non-law-abiding-criminals.

What I"m also worried about is the implication that criminals don't follow (gun) laws and hence should not be allowed the opportunity to break them, or something. This sounds like pre-crime in action. Predictive Policing via Future Prediction based on a rhetorical packaging of 'criminals'.

Its kind of a leap but... maybe I'll just ask the next person who repeats that statement - so, what then?

>>69785
>Unfortunately instead of clarifying definitions his response was to mute me, but all the same... it felt a little unresolved because of that so I thought it might belong here.

How did they "mute you"? Was this on a phone, in public? Either way the strategy they employed was to avoid your point for now. I would have responded with something like "I need to read that and let you know what I think". They might have the same idea, but if they want to be an opponent they will essentially avoid the information somehow.

"So what?" is a good response. Because they were the ones who brought up that point, they need to justify it's importance. If they don't say why then you point out that they are essentially expecting you to accept an assertion that their point was important without evidence.

The weakest part in my mind is the implication that if the statement was used in the way you suggest, then maybe it will also be useful to point out that taking that approach means we should not have any control on any area of crime because "criminals don't follow any laws".
Or alternatively we assume all criminals will avoid following all laws so we should crack down harder in every area.

It does not matter which side you are on, using any "bumper sticker phrase" without a willingness and an ability to explain yourself can make you a rhetorical victim. The reason I like the phrase is that it reminds you of the thing you are working against, but without digging deeper I can imagine anyone on either side using it. But it is usually used as an objection to gun control.

But additionally, what is "gun control"? My 2 year old wants a grenade launcher...

Last edited at Mon, Jan 7th, 2013 09:42

>>69794
>How did they "mute you"? Was this on a phone, in public?

Was in a chat like function where you can do that: a fb page.

>"So what?" is a good response.

Sweet. /)^3^(

So, I had kind of an odd discussion with previously mentioned relative last night. It was short, it wasn't much of an argument at all, but what he said has been bugging me ever since. I want someone else to take a pass at what he's 'really saying' even though I'm pretty sure its obvious... its just strange to me...

So the conversation went like this...

M / T / 3= me and they and 'third party' who only has one line in this anyway

M: I used to work with a big, jolly, black jamacian guy... who was really nice and I felt bad for him sometimes because at work, once in a while, he'd get a phonecall and the person on the other line would say "I don't talk to no pakis" and hang up.

3: I wonder why that is...

M: I dunno, general ignorance or racism...

T: Well, a lot of people don't like pakistan because they hid Osama Bin Laden

M: Yeah but we have no way of knowing if the person on the other end of the phone did that.

T: You don't think they were hiding Osama Bin Laden?

M: He was hiding in Pakistan, sure, but you can't hold some random person on the phone accountable for that.

T: Well Pakistan is in league with the terrorists.

M: Even if they are, theres no way you can hold the person on the phone responsible for that. They can't and won't even take responsibility for it anyway, so its pointless to try to shoulder responsibility on them.

-----

And thats it.

That was the end of it... but its bugging me. I feel like there is some sort of failure to exchange or recognize ideas here, or my relative got absolutely hung up on the osama bin laden/terrorist thing as soon as I mentioned pakistan and the rest of the ideas/conversation didn't really register. I don't know, it wasn't even an argument, its not like we disagreed... but its just bothering me...

>>70341
I can identify with this because there was a situation in a class I was subbing in during the election where there was an opportunity to talk about it because there was no work left, and it was similar. I mentioned that one reason I can't vote for Obama (even though I can imagine why other would) was because of the situation with the drone strikes. I can't support a tactic that kills innocents, especially one where the president does not have the courage to even acknowledge it, and our government actively suppresses efforts for family of victims to get any recognition at all.

The most common response were things along the lines of,
"They started it with 9-11!"
"They killed us first!"
And no matter how much I tried to point out that you can't equate a small group of people who planned and organized 9-11 with a whole country or ethnic/cultural group, it was robotic the way that some of these kids refused to go beyond "They".
I even asked the question "do you think that a five year old in Pakistan is somehow responsible for 9-11?" and the solution I saw get used was to simply refuse to answer and go back to some other kind of redirection so that they did not have to try to think about it. I did not press this because you can only go so far with this kind of think in a class room

From the way you present it, it looks like T thinks it's OK to judge an entire social group because of the crimes of some of its members. Or its at least an acceptable excuse for bigoted behavior. If you want to pursue this you need to force them to confront the connection with people in those countries can't be responsible and actually acknowledge to you that they understood you. One way involves what I tried to do with the kids above. Another would be asking if the reverse were true.
*Can you blame all Americans for non-terrorist deaths in drone strikes (or phrase it with your opponent instead of Americans).
*Can you blame all Christians for abortion clinic bombings or the actions of Christian sects in Africa?
*Can you blame all Conservatives/Republicans for the Grover Norquist pledge situation or the decision to choose Romney as a candidate?
*Can you blame all Liberals for ineffective regulations or social programs that don't work as advertised?
*Can you blame all Atheists for the actions of Stalin and Mao?

There are people out there than either can't or won't differentiate between a larger group that is united by something that does not involve choice (your culture, ethnicity, or country of birth), and a smaller group that does. It is easy to think about moral issues when it is just US versus Them. That is why I talk about being able to mentally switch to "US versus Them" in form when it comes to debate on some occasions (you have to be able to define Them in accurate terms if they ask you to though or you lose advantage).

What are you intentions here?

>>70364
Thats what I gathered, your school setting sounds like a very comparable incident.

My approach was to illuistrate that you can't hold some individual talking about television ratings on the phone with you responsible for terrorism and such, and that further, holding them responsible has no real product in regards to attempting to hold them responsible. No real product that is desirable anyway: dismissing the fact that the guy was from Jamacia in the first place, there's just no way some random person on the phone even CAN be held responsible much less that they will accept responsibility, but I probably could have turned that one around and done one of those examples.

The first one that came to my mind was a cuban holding him (T) responsible for the bay of pigs, as he's kind of a military guy and an anti communist guy, this may have illuistrated properly or possibly not if that Us vs Them mentality kicked in and 'cubans = communists = our enemies' took over.

>What are your intentions here?

None really, was just making idle chit-chat. It might have been more interesting as an argument though. I am not entirely sure the task of changing a persons mind is going to be accomplished with this individual. My guess is that the 'us and them' mentality is so heavily ingrained in this person that they cannot discard it in favor of a more cosmopolitan perspective. Just as an example, I've been told/chastised that the occupy movement, code pink (if you're aware), and a local group 'st pete for peace' are all terrorist organizations and being funded by terrorists, but 'at least the terrorists are creating jobs and obama isn't'. He's quite serious too.

My suspicion about their mind being unchangable comes from a few different things - this incident is an example. The previous one where they would interrupt, mock, and belittle me is another. The fact that he is baptist pastor is another and I am familiar with the church organization which he is a pastor at because I went to school there... it is VERY us vs them mentality. They even go so far as to establish 'them' as other divisions of christianity such as catholocism and the Ba'hai(though I can understand why the last part is irksome to a baptist, its just 'too progressive' to be anything other than satanic).

And there lies another less cosmopolitan, more rigid aspect - the whole 'everything that isn't biblican and us is satan' perspective, which is heavily pushed at that baptist church. If it isn't biblical or christian as per their baptist viewpoint it IS most definitely satanic.

Plus, I've actually called this person out for lying before several times and they seem to think that they aren't lying or are 'just forgetting and so it isn't a lie' - but I've caught them intentionally lying aka 'little white lie' type stuff too. They still insist they never lie.

So this persons viewpoint is probably one that cannot be shook up without incurring their righteous wrath, of which I have had levied at me before i'm fairly convinced. Typically you do not ask people who feel they are acting out of righteousness to compromise as that is offensive and a devestating breach of and insult to their values, belief/religion, and morals to do so, and in his case I'm fairly certain this is exactly whats going on.

My main goal when interacting with this person and when we seem to have a difference of opinion is to make sure that 'righteous attitude' stays out of whatever exchange we have. So far so good lately, but have no expectations of them having a flexible mind. We're still in the '6000 year old earth' zone with this guy, no offense to creationists.

Last edited at Sun, Jan 20th, 2013 13:44

>>70366
There is something I wanted to say about this. But I have this thing where I don't address certain topics at all mentally while I am thinking about other things. I'm coming back to this now that I have the gears to spare.

Its not the religion so much as its the Authoritarianism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism

Not all religions or religious groups are Authoritarian. There are lots of religious cultures out there that teach their children and members things like I'm not saying that you don't know this, it more of a "for everyone":
*How to disagree
*How to understand someone elses point of view
*How to compromise

They live in a world where they are taught to trust in higher members of the social order in everything, not just religion. Politics, science, whatever. I honestly think that some of them really don't know how to do the things I mentioned, and some of what you are seeing is the psychological defense mechanisms that are parts of their personality.

>Plus, I've actually called this person out for lying before several times and they seem to think that they aren't lying or are 'just forgetting and so it isn't a lie' - but I've caught them intentionally lying aka 'little white lie' type stuff too. They still insist they never lie.

Because they are an authority. They are right about everything and showing that you can be wrong is a weakness. They will avoid admitting even accidental dishonesty because that is weakness. Its even possible they really don't believe they were dishonest. I will admit to being very pattern sensitive and good at spotting deceptive tactics but I'm not willing to make any sure claim about what is in the head of Authoritarians. I don't know enough to make many hard claims.

>So this persons viewpoint is probably one that cannot be shook up without incurring their righteous wrath, of which I have had levied at me before i'm fairly convinced. Typically you do not ask people who feel they are acting out of righteousness to compromise as that is offensive and a devestating breach of and insult to their values, belief/religion, and morals to do so, and in his case I'm fairly certain this is exactly whats going on.

In related news the Republican party is still imploding. I don't trust the Democrats either but they do have less Authoritarians.

>My main goal when interacting with this person and when we seem to have a difference of opinion is to make sure that 'righteous attitude' stays out of whatever exchange we have. So far so good lately, but have no expectations of them having a flexible mind. We're still in the '6000 year old earth' zone with this guy, no offense to creationists.

That is an area where offense is almost impossible to prevent. There is not a single biology topic where I won't offend a Creationist because I will always be able to directly discuss comparisons in research that would be impossible without the theory of evolution. Comparisons that actually let us advance science on a regular basis. Especially in areas like Neuroscience. This is also my primary area of expertise when it comes to why I understand primate verbal combat. I have been arguing with Creationists for over ten years online.

I have taken to presenting the offense like this.
1. Religious individuals see nothing wrong with using vocabulary that assumes that what they believe is true.
2. I am used to this and have no problem dealing with hearing things that I might find offensive all the time.
3. I should have the right to use vocabulary that assumes what I believe is true.
4. Religious individuals owe me the same courtesy of learning to suppress offense when I speak my beliefs.

It worked on my aunt and uncle about six years ago anyway...

Last edited at Sun, Feb 10th, 2013 16:46

Note: in this one you will see a pattern I tend to use more than other folks. I capitalize things more often than most because I refer to proper nouns a lot. So when I say “Non-Literal Language” I mean it in its most general objective sense

In here I'm going to discuss something else that is completely natural, neutral, and useful. This is the use of Non-Literal language. This one is a little tough because at its base because Non-Literal Language is just not giving the exact precise description of something.

At a first look this does not seem so bad because life would be boring if we always used precise terminology for everything. Most of you are probably wondering what is wrong with not being exact about everything. We want to be able to talk about things without knowing every little detail about them. We also want to be able to talk about things that we have no personal expertise with like medical issues, or what is going on in that country over there.

But since it is not the literal thing, and is instead a version of the thing, the problem is that many of you are almost entirely dependent on the person you are talking to when it comes to accuracy. We have to participate in society and you just trust that "your side" fact checks everything possible Read: they fact-check every thing they care about and that's it.


At its most basic Non-Literal language use is the use of words to represent reality differently from what it really is. What matters is how and why that is happening. We do this all the time and most examples of it are things we celebrate and love about ourselves. Music is full of non-literal language that serves to get across near-universal human pains and loves. History is full of speeches and documents that use non-literal language to rouse passions and proclaim the intentions and beliefs of groups of people. Philosophy and religion is filled with non-literal language use intended to proclaim morals, beliefs, axioms, assumptions, and codes of behavior. Sadly politics too is filled with non-literal language where entire groups and ideas are characterized in the most brilliant, and dishonest, ways that are humanly possible as the best and worst we are as a species is paraded around.

How and Why, a hypothesis.
As a species we are faced with a big problem. We can't know everything about everything and everyone so it's impossible to be correct about everything no matter how hard we try. So in order to keep from killing each other over the slightest inaccuracy, somewhere along the line we gained or emphasized the ability to refer to the same things in different ways.
When the same thing has more than one term the ability to develop mental categories is an obvious side benefit. This lets you develop accuracy in meaning as a real cognitive skill.

If you can be accurate about what you are saying while not knowing everything about it, you can still talk about it and not hurt anything or anyone. You can get close to the meaning of another to understand the person faster and more accurately, or to confirm that you understand them at all. You can spread a message faster if you can summarize it in general accurate, but not specific terms.

But...
Naturally one persons tool is another person's weapon. The ability to categorize information can be used to move someone farther from reality instead of closer to it and as long as it sounds like you are talking about the same thing, most of us won't even know what is happening. Do you care if someone around you might be doing this? I certainly do.

"Nuts and Bolts"
Here is a list of things that I got off of a sheet meant for middle school students Don't be insulted. We forget a lot of what we used to know and face it, lots of street interviews on different programs make us look terrible as a species. "Are you smarter than a 5th grader" anyone?.

Simile: Comparison that uses like or as.

Metaphor: a word or phrase meaning one thing that is used in place of another to suggest a similarity between them.

Hyperbole: extreme exaggeration used to make a point.

Personification: Giving something non-human or inanimate human qualities.

Alliteration: The repetition of a sound at the beginning of two or more neighboring words (as in wild and wooly, or babbling brook).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q6mQzVC2iA

Onomatopoeia: The use of words whose sound suggests the sense (as for poetic effect).

Allusion: A reference make to something that is not directly mentioned.

Idiom: An expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but must be learned as a whole ("I watch it for the plot", is an idiom).

Repetition: a literary device that may suggest order to add special meaning to a piece of literature, poetry or song.

Rhyme: A close similarity in the final sounds of two or more words or lines of verse.


How Non-Literal Language use can fuck-up your life
Now what I want you to do is to apply another layer of category on the concept of non-literal language in your head. Approach vector to reality. What is a vector? In physics you learn about vectors right after you learn about speed. Once you have a distance per time you have to specify a direction for speed to be meaningful in an analytical context. So any piece of non-literal language you encounter is going to have a vector to reality, period.
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/1dkin/u1l1b.cfm

Does the non-literal language get us towards reality, or away from it? Note that this is completely independent from how the language makes you or anyone else feel. If you believe in an objective reality than our symbolic systems can only do three thing with respect to reality: toward, away, no movement.

Towards reality
This is what we all act like we are doing and I have no idea how many of us believe it and how many of us don't. I find it safer to assume that everyone is honest and good intentioned until I see differently And I find out more before I flip any switches. When we encounter non-literal language that moves us towards reality, the purpose is usually in one of the following groups (feel free to suggest more):
*Paraphrasing or summarizing what someone else is saying to efficiently convey general ideas. Think about how people try to communicate in an emergency.
*The same paraphrasing/summarizing, but instead used to see if you understand what another person is saying, or them seeing if they understand you. Saying the same thing with your words essentially.
*Creating universal emotional connections with messages that are part of what we are as a species. Examples include relations between partners with all the complications we constantly hear about, tragedy that takes loved ones from us, unifying messages that serve to emotionally tie people into common actions and many others.
*Teaching! Using ideas that are more commonly understood as conceptual bridges to explain other ideas where elements of the concepts are similar in form and structure. I try to be good at that one.


Away from reality
The same ones. I hate to say it but our systems for Non-Literal Language use seem almost equally suited for moving another person towards reality as they are at getting us away from reality and towards tragedy. Almost because of an important concept that is at the heart of defending yourself from the deceptive use of Non-Literal language, Consistency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistency
If you have kept up to this point, know that I have already included lots of information above that helps you look for consistency.

>>71122
>It worked on my aunt and uncle about six years ago anyway...

I might try that if I need to, that sounds useful!

>>71123
Reality Vector is an interesting factor that I've generally not always paid attention to.

And you ARE a good teacher!