FSTDT Forums
Community => Society and History => Topic started by: rageaholic on November 11, 2014, 12:30:48 pm
-
What does everyone think of this expression?
It's said by SJWs and I can see both sides of the coin.
On one hand, it seems like a cop out; a way to get out of providing any evidence. It's also counterproductive. If they're not here to 'educate' anyone, than what the hell are they here for? Chewing out bigoted idiots? Okay, I can get behind that, but a lot of the time the SJW assumes that a person is a bigoted idiot when they could just be confused by their rambling. Then they pull the, "I'm not here to educate you or make friends" shit. At which point, they're just assholes.
But, seeing some of the willfully ignorant people out there, I can see how frustrating it is trying to get their point across. I can't help but think that some of these folks who ask for studies and crap to prove things are just trying to nitpick. Example, Vox Day once asked someone to provide statistics proving that rape is more harmful to society than wimmimz in the workforce. Now how the hell do you even communicate with someone who can't see that rape is very harmful to society? Some of these people are like that. They'll ask for studies on how gays are discriminated against or how women are sexually harassed and seeing these comments just makes me facepalm. A lot of the time, those leaving comments end up nitpicking or finding minor flaws to distract from the issue at hand.
So yeah, I can sympathize with SJW's to an extent in that a lot of people are just fucking with others, but I won't deny how fucking obnoxious they are in the process. It's like that quote from the Big Lebowski "You're not wrong, you're just an asshole".
-
Every time I've seen it, its always come across as "I'm not going to bother actually EXPLAINING my ideas, I'm just here to shout gibberish incessantly at random passersby," so that's what I assume it means whenever I read it, though I'm always happy to be proven wrong.
-
Every time I've seen it, its always come across as "I'm not going to bother actually EXPLAINING my ideas, I'm just here to shout gibberish incessantly at random passersby," so that's what I assume it means whenever I read it, though I'm always happy to be proven wrong.
This.
I've yet to find anyone who said "I'm not here to educate you" who actually had a clue what they were talking about.
-
Every time I've seen it, its always come across as "I'm not going to bother actually EXPLAINING my ideas, I'm just here to shout gibberish incessantly at random passersby," so that's what I assume it means whenever I read it, though I'm always happy to be proven wrong.
This.
I've yet to find anyone who said "I'm not here to educate you" who actually had a clue what they were talking about.
I've found exactly one.
-
As with almost any phrase, whether the usage is good or not depends on the context. If someone asks to explain why, say, using they/them pronouns is offensive to the given person, then replying with "I'm not here to educate you", while possibly technically correct, just comes off as rude and unnecessarily abrasive. If, on the other hand, that same person is demanding statistics to prove that rape is harmful to society, then they're probably a troll and the phrase is just a good way to say "fuck off", which is the right thing to do.
-
This argument type surely deserves its own logical fallacy: the argument from erroneously claimed better knowledge. Or perhaps it should be the argument from unearned arrogance?
I typically respond by pointing to their bare-ass ignorance of the subject, and then identifying a few foundational or introductory books they could read on it.
There's another that annoys me even more. Your average conservative, when challenged to provide a citation for his claims, will typically demand that you provide that citation (the phrase used is "I won't do you research for you"). How do people respond to this fallacy? For me, it's typically just screaming.
-
I simply inform them that if they refuse to back up their claims, then that's all they are. Baseless claims, with no truth value at all.
-
I simply inform them that if they refuse to back up their claims, then that's all they are. Baseless claims, with no truth value at all.
Contempt is also quite good.
-
It seems basically like a "The information is out there, I don't want to have to repeat myself 50 million times, and if you're actually wanting to know, you'll find the information yourself. Fuck off."
Which would be decent if it wasn't for the fact that directing people to Google is just another way to direct them to a million sites you probably don't actually want them to look at, instead of the one site you do want them to look at.
Like, finding NARTH instead of a GSA website.
-
This argument type surely deserves its own logical fallacy: the argument from erroneously claimed better knowledge. Or perhaps it should be the argument from unearned arrogance?
I typically respond by pointing to their bare-ass ignorance of the subject, and then identifying a few foundational or introductory books they could read on it.
There's another that annoys me even more. Your average conservative, when challenged to provide a citation for his claims, will typically demand that you provide that citation (the phrase used is "I won't do you research for you"). How do people respond to this fallacy? For me, it's typically just screaming.
Isn't it just a bog standard case of shifting the burden of proof? They make a claim and when asked to provide evidence, they essentially say that that's your responsibility rather than theirs.
-
This argument type surely deserves its own logical fallacy: the argument from erroneously claimed better knowledge. Or perhaps it should be the argument from unearned arrogance?
I typically respond by pointing to their bare-ass ignorance of the subject, and then identifying a few foundational or introductory books they could read on it.
There's another that annoys me even more. Your average conservative, when challenged to provide a citation for his claims, will typically demand that you provide that citation (the phrase used is "I won't do you research for you"). How do people respond to this fallacy? For me, it's typically just screaming.
Isn't it just a bog standard case of shifting the burden of proof? They make a claim and when asked to provide evidence, they essentially say that that's your responsibility rather than theirs.
I guess you could see it like that in once sense, but I think it goes beyond that. This isn't like asking an atheist to disprove the existence of the fairy at the bottom of the garden, it's demanding they prove the existence of them! Or else they're "lazy" or "ignorant" or whatever.
Oh, that's another one. Whenever a person disagrees with a conservative, this must be because they are ignorant. It cannot possibly be a legitimate difference of views, or even a fuckup on the part of the ignorant conservative; you're either ignorant or in agreement. Those are the two possibilities.
-
The way I look at it is: if someone is explicitly unwilling to have any productive dialogue e.g. "I'm not here to educate you.", then I don't have to give them an audience by listening to their rant.
Freedom of speech works both ways like that.
-
The way I look at it is: if someone is explicitly unwilling to have any productive dialogue e.g. "I'm not here to educate you.", then I don't have to give them an audience by listening to their rant.
Freedom of speech works both ways like that.
Appropriate comic is appropriate:
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/free_speech.png)
-
I think they have every right to say it, but it's counter-productive to their cause.
Many ideas that are common knowledge in social justice circles sound ridiculous to people not used to them (sometimes because people lack context or haven't heard the arguments for them, sometimes because they actually are ridiculous). When people encounter an idea that sounds strange because it's outside their usual frame of reference, and they ask you to explain it, you are being given a golden opportunity. You have someone who has not yet made up their mind on something asking you to give them the first impression on it.
Ideas have a huge first mover advantage. People don't change their minds easily; once you believe something, the natural inclination is to continue to believe it and you will be more sceptical of anything (and anyone) that disagrees. And so, convincing someone who has no opinion on the matter is much easier than convincing someone who already disagrees with you. You can present the most favourable arguments and evidence, you can frame it in the way most convenient to you, etc.
The problem being, of course, that not everyone who asks questions is genuinely curious. People who have already made their minds up can still pretend to be "just asking questions". (They used to call it "JAQing off", not sure if that's still in the Official Social Justice Lexicon). And so social justice people get soured on those assholes and assume everyone who doesn't know that thing they think is obvious* is a troll being deliberately obtuse.
Which doesn't change my original point. It's a waste of a good opportunity to get people to take you seriously, rather than being annoyed that you refuse to explain and looking up the first hit on google, which can as often as not be from your ideological opponents. Does it mean you occasionally have to deal with assholes? Yes, and that sucks. If you don't want to deal with another asshole on the off-chance it's a case of genuine curiosity, it's your trade-off to make.
*and if you hang out with one group enough, it gets harder to see why its memes are obvious to you but not to other people.
There's another that annoys me even more. Your average conservative, when challenged to provide a citation for his claims, will typically demand that you provide that citation (the phrase used is "I won't do you research for you"). How do people respond to this fallacy? For me, it's typically just screaming.
Depends. If I'm feeling especially epistemologically virtuous, I might just do the research myself and see if I find anything interesting. Argue to learn and all that. If not, I'll politely inform them that refusing to present evidence is not the way to convince people. Should that fail, I'll declare the argument a waste of time and leave. Might or might not tell them to fuck off, depending on my mood.
-
Oh, that's another one. Whenever a person disagrees with a conservative, this must be because they are ignorant. It cannot possibly be a legitimate difference of views, or even a fuckup on the part of the ignorant conservative; you're either ignorant or in agreement. Those are the two possibilities.
That one cuts both ways. Look at how often people on this board call conservatives stupid or uneducated.
-
Oh, that's another one. Whenever a person disagrees with a conservative, this must be because they are ignorant. It cannot possibly be a legitimate difference of views, or even a fuckup on the part of the ignorant conservative; you're either ignorant or in agreement. Those are the two possibilities.
That one cuts both ways. Look at how often people on this board call conservatives stupid or uneducated.
I'm very careful to acknowledge when there is some area of legitimate disagreement. This is quite rare. I can't speak for anyone else.
-
I'm willing to give credit where credit is due, and even conservatives have important parts of an overall working mechanism. The problem is people who engage in willful ignorance, even when presented with ample facts and evidence to refute their claims. Just because someone is in [insert party with which I disagree here] doesn't mean they're stupid, they and their claims might be more suspect than if they were of a more agreeable political persuasion, but you can't fight human nature THAT much.