Getting involved in the "wrong" communities

icirate said:

It's easy to draw a clear distinction between a critical analysis that provides justification for its conclusions and one that doesn't. It's easy to draw a clear distinction between a critical analysis that justifies its conclusions in a way that coherently traces back to aspects of the text and one that simply summarizes parts of a text before making illogical leaps from its premises to its conclusion.

There are metrics like that which can be used to effectively contrast an intelligent analysis from a noticeably less intelligent one. If that's not objectivity, it's still a good enough substitute for it; it's a good enough approximation of objectivity as far as any of us should be concerned.

Solipsistic said:
Neither I nor Auto is defending the use of IQ as a metric, or xE's lists. I think they should never have been made.

Solipsistic said:
Let me make sure I understand your worry: Are you saying that there is no objective way to decide whether one person's post reflects greater comprehension (of a given idea) than another person's post?

Solipsistic said:
Do you concede there is an objective way, but it doesn't matter because in the context of a club, the admin(s) can't be trusted to use it? Please clarify a little here.

Solipsistic said:
I think that once you concede there is an objective way to do that, it's a short step to say club admins could use it. Why? Because then, at least theoretically, the admins should be able to cite reasons for why they permit or deny entry of certain people. They could do things like cite specific posts by that person, that showed clear ability to comprehend complex arguments, not commit logical fallacies, etc.

Solipsistic said:
If you object that the admins’ evaluations would be subjective, I go back to my "logic is patent, but still technically deniable; that doesn't mean we should consider it subjective" point. The admin evaluations, done correctly, would be no more subjective than you explaining to someone why affirming the consequent is erroneous.

Solipsistic said:
I understand the general concept you are outlining. Let me see if I get how it fits into your dispute with Auto.
Auto says: club membership can depend on how strong and productive (s&p) a user’s arguments are. You say: whether arguments are s&p must depend to some extent (due to the band of variance) on how much they already comport with the views of the person evaluating whether they are s&p. Thus, a user’s arguments being s&p is a biased/subjective/arbitrary metric for club membership. Before I go any further, tell me if this is indeed your view.

Solipsistic said:
I thought I’d made it abundantly clear in the magic threads that I think no such definition has been given, by xe or anyone else. I was making the point that that is precisely the reason why the discussion got nowhere.

Solipsistic said:
Specious in more ways than I care to go into (which is the hallmark of your posts). For now, I’ll just say that this is an irrelevant objection to my point.

Solipsistic said:
There is still such a thing as erroneous reasoning in inductive arguments, and it is still patently recognizable (e.g. “I’ve never seen a non-white swan, therefore all swans are white”.) The principles of logical discourse still apply, and, again, are subjective only in the most trivial sense.

Solipsistic said:
Holy shit, it’s not beside the point at all. Cross-apply my 2nd and 3rd paragraphs (“Let me make sure….consequent is erroneous”) here. We don’t have to surrender our judgments to them; we can demand they reveal their reasoning behind why some arguments were poorly reasoned and some weren’t.

Solipsistic said:
Would you trust someone to recognize modus tollens being done correctly, when they had to be accountable to a group of people?

Solipsistic said:
Would you be worried that they’d be caught in a “herd mentality”, or would you trust that there are just some things, like whether modus tollens applies, that transcend consensus and are just…undeniably obvious, to the point where calling them subjective is ridiculous (even if the judgment does ultimately rest in an authoritative group’s hands)? (and if you bring up the deduction vs. induction thing again here, you’re really showing your ignorance).

Solipsistic said:
There it is. The most ironic paragraph I’ll ever read. My grandkids are gonna hear about this shit. And you must think you “won” each of those exchanges. You’re not a genius or the world’s greatest logician. You are just a skilled debater. Don’t take that as a compliment, necessarily. All that means is you are good at maintaining a cursory appearance of winning. Your style is such that it is painstaking and frustrating to unpack all the misrepresentations you make. Your narrow, line-by-line focus gives the illusion of rigor, but really just facilitates you obfuscating the bigger picture and letting you rack up apparent “errors” your opponent is making. You’re uncharitable in the extreme, content with never conceding an inch and grinding debates’ progress to a halt for the sake of your ego. You’re fine with making a mess of the discussion, relying on the fact that your opponents generally lack the competence/focus to clean up what you leave in your wake. You know and exploit the fact that it is easier to spew casuistry than correct it; easier to destroy than repair. You are absolute hell to deal with. Most people just get exasperated enough that they leave, and you smugly chalk those up as victories.

Solipsistic said:
Your antagonist title is a rightly deserved mark of shame. You’re so mired in hostility that I doubt you can even conceive of all I just said as anything but a personal attack that you have to outmaneuver, rather than genuine suggestion for how to be better at discussions. Take the advice, or take the bait. We both know which one you’ll choose.

Solipsistic said:
edit: all this being said, i can forgive you being a little short with me, considering the shite you're having to deal with in the magic threads. keep fighting the good fight there.

NicoIsPathetic said:
But again, there is no exact answer as to which interpretation is correct, unless the author himself or herself says so. Once again, your own work is your own objectivity, yet that does not mean it is inherently objective in substance and form if another person tries to disprove an author's intentions that don't align themselves with what the author says. No need to guess ulterior motives in that situation.

xEmptiness said:
Well he's just wrong. Sure you can't tell the difference in writing quality between Nabokov and Dazai or something, but the entry criteria to Dane isn't even close to that level. If you're able to string together a chain of coherent thought, you'll have no problem in here.

Like I said before, the entry criteria's so low that several users have PMed me about starting an actual elitist club.

Solipsistic said:
It's not about whether a critical analysis perfectly matches what some authority (in this case, the author) says. The point is that, even if we never get to talk to the author to settle it, it will still be possible to say some critical analyses are less justified/"intelligent" than others, because the book itself is an objective reference point, and any analysis ultimately has to be grounded in the text.

Solipsistic said:
if i had munny i'd giv u leddit gold xDD pls except dis insted m'good sir ~tips fedora~

xEmptiness said:
Using intelligence as a metric for any group is not only very productive, but it's what you unconsciously do anyway. Quality and exclusivity always go hand in hand.

xEmptiness said:
We could leave someone more qualified to justify their views on this matter.

katsucats said:
Then can we say that neither of us are qualified to authoritatively judge writing quality?

xEmptiness said:
Duh?... What's your point exactly?

xEmptiness said:

Back at you. Use your brain and think:

If we agree that there is a difference between judging quality for self, and judging quality as an authority, then what can the proposition "you are stupid" possibly mean?

katsucats said:
Now, are you unconsciously dense, or are you deliberately putting yourself into that position?

Immahnoob said:
hypocritical and dense at the same time.

katsucats said:
Autocrat used the word "intelligence" plenty of time in his posts. Intelligence can only be measured by IQ. I don't know how you can deny one thing and assert the other.

katsucats said:
I don't have a worry, it doesn't influence me in the slightest.

katsucats said:
No. Why should I concede anything when you have no argument?

katsucats said:
Do you consider that xEmptiness' argument for "magic" is replete with logical fallacies? Who gets to decide this?

katsucats said:
Once again, demonstrating that you don't know the limitations of deductive logic. I think I'm a great judge of consistency, but to assert that one person could reliably, and objectively, do it for everyone else is absurd.

katsucats said:
"Affirming the consequent" is so irrelevant here. We're not talking about syllogisms, but consistency between an argument and external, empirical facts and world views. Hint: Induction. Using Latin words like modus ponens isn't impressive when it's not relevant.

katsucats said:
That is what I said with regards to "strong and productive".

katsucats said:
Then I fail to see the relevance. I'm capable of defining all the significant terms in my arguments.

katsucats said:
This debate is so easily settled by xEmptiness' list….We can all make a such a list and see if everyone has the same list. If so, then you are correct about everything.

katsucats said:
You are making the "edge of the gradient" argument that Icarate (sp?) made, which I've objected on account of irrelevance. We don't need to point to some absurdly reductive argument about white swans. We only need to look at arguments that are right in front of us, like this one, and "magic".

katsucats said:
God, stop saying modus tollens or modus ponens….No, I'm showing that I know what deduction is, whereas you don't.

Would you trust someone to recognize modus tollens being done correctly, when they had to be accountable to a group of people? Would you be worried that they’d be caught in a “herd mentality”, or would you trust that there are just some things, like whether modus tollens applies, that transcend consensus and are just…undeniably obvious, to the point where calling them subjective is ridiculous (even if the judgment does ultimately rest in an authoritative group’s hands)?

katsucats said:
I don't "win" arguments. I just tell the truth, and people get frustrated.

katsucats said:
With that said, do you feel better now that you've gotten this off your chest?

katsucats said:
You can call it "taking the bait", but most of us know passive aggression when we see it.

katsucats said:
Do you mean short in length? Verbosity is counter-productive in lengthy posts, and can get picked apart on technicalities by some pedants in this thread (not you). Typing long-winded poetic posts isn't necessarily a sign of superiority. It's more like a sign that I can't take a person seriously enough to be direct.

katsucats said:
For the last fucking time. There are formal fallacies (e.g. affirming the consequent) and informal fallacies (e.g. appealing to emotion, god of the gaps). The former only applies to deductive arguments. Not every argument ends up in an Immahnoob caricature with someone pointing out someone else' obvious fallacies. You can point to examples of fallacies that would give us no pause.

katsucats said:
That itself, ironically, could be rejected on account of irrelevant to the obvious fact that two people could come up with very detailed arguments and still never reach one singular conclusion. The mere occurrence of this argument between us, also ironically, invalidates your entire argument.

Solipsistic said:
Are you autistic? Do you need everything spelled out for you? My point should be incredibly obvious, but here it is put simply anyway: stop having a stroke over induction/deduction. The whole point is that affirming the consequent, AND appeal to emotion, god of the gaps, etc., are all easily recognizable and fairly undeniable when they're cited and explained clearly by a skilled logician/debater (which the club admin would be). You say not every argument ends up this way, but honestly, they generally could be reduced to it. Look at how I simply phrased your dispute with auto on s&p subjectivity, for instance. I put it into a format clear enough that any competent observer could spot any fallacies (informal, formal, doesn't matter) present.

Solipsistic said:
I addressed this too. It's not about whether people actually agree on a conclusion. It's that you can spot errors in their reasoning (snip)

Solipsistic said:
If we were to keep going, we'd eventually get to the stripped-down premises that really constitute our positions

Solipsistic said:
, and at that point your continual resistance to reason

Solipsistic said:
needs to be taken no more seriously than someone resisting modus ponens.

Solipsistic said:
Once again, even if two people have 2 very detailed, seemingly irreconcilable positions, I firmly believe that it's possible to have an objective third party

Solipsistic said:
Look, if you want to end this quickly, address this distilled question: Is there no objective way to decide whether one person's post reflects greater comprehension (of a given idea) than another person's post?

katsucats said:
You clearly had no idea what kind of intelligence you were referring to when you said "managerial intelligence". Is that a liquid or crystallized intelligence? Is it visual-spatial, mathematic, naturalistic, existential? Your "intelligence" is akin to the intelligence of jumping off cliffs and clipping nails. It's only a straw man if it misrepresents your position. When I have your position nailed, it isn't a straw man, but an autocrat.

katsucats said:
In most circumstances, no.

Democracy said:
Back when I played Final Fantasy 14 ARR I realized my small Free Company(guild) wouldn't be able to handle the hardest end-game content so I joined a L33T group. It was a fucking nightmare and everyone spent more time criticizing each other than playing. If you played fine and didn't mess up they'd bitch about your computers specs, if you were playing on a console they'd blame your "shortcomings" on the console, if that didn't work they'd criticize each others bandwith or mbps blegh it was always some excuse. Eventually I just said fuck it and spent my last few months building the guilds house and left them a few million Gil to do whatever they wanted with.

katsucats said:
The mere occurrence of this argument between us, also ironically, invalidates your entire argument..