[adventured]

I've found the lack of an ability to use basic logic to be extremely widespread down to simple conversational matters. It severely impedes and distracts conversations (online and off). I wish it were primarily a problem when dealing with theoreticals, as I find it's a problem just about any time you converse where there are many people. Emotionalism is rampant.

I have yet to find a forum - in ~25 years of near daily discussions on forums online - where incredibly obvious logic failures don't happen persistently. And I'm only talking about the basics, nothing complex.

The worst and most common, I believe, is: because you said X, therefore you must believe / endorse / be implying Y. It's some kind of emotional transitive property of logic failure.

Example concepts:

I say: Bush did X. Response: Yeah but Obama did a thing, he's worse, how can you support him?!? (Obama isn't part of the conversation at all, there was no statement endorsing Obama whatsoever)

I say: the US did X. Response: Yeah but Russia (or China etc) is evil and did a thing, they're even worse because of a thing! (the other countries aren't part of the conversation at all, I never suggested the other countries are good or bad or did or didn't do a thing).

I say: I'm in favor of an immigration system like Canada or Australia. Response: how can you support internment camps and murdering children at the border? Or more calmly: why are you against immigration? (there was no mention of being against immigration at all, Canada allows plenty of immigration via their approach)

Some of it is obviously an emotional attempt at diversion, an irrational reflex to change the conversation away from what it's pointing at for one reason or another. Logic is in part about self-control and my observation is that it's a rare quality.

I've yet to find a forum where this doesn't happen constantly, basically in every large thread. You spend half your effort on forums either trying to pre-empt very primitive logic failure responses via how you structure what you write so you don't have to waste your time later correcting people, or you have to waste time responding after the fact and noting that no, in fact you didn't endorse x y z.

[afiori]

I always feel ambiguously about this kind of arguments. I agree that there is a lack of rational discussion, but on the other hand if someone really cares about Y then they will be quite protective of perceived attacks on X, a tangentially related topic.

Ideas and subcultures are in a constant fight for mindshares, I disagree with how pervasive and hypocrite this battle is, but it is not like there is no reason for it.

[mercer]

I suppose this is a fundamental flaw of 'online communication' having low bandwidth when it comes to conveying information.

We humans spent most of our history interacting with people in a more direct way, and having out 'gut' conclude things about another person based on what they say, do, how they look, how they sound, and so on, was and is important to our survival.

If I meet a person face to face who says 'Bush did x', I might also notice the tone of voice, that the have a Southern drawl, that they're wearing camo and a red hat with MAGA on it. In this situation I'm not likely to conclude that they're pro-Obama despite their critical statement wrt Bush.

I've noticed this flaw in myself as well, and it's frustrating and takes effort to counter. When I see a politically loaded comment on HN, I really have to make an effort to not jump to conclusions.

All that said, I have a little plugin that allows me to tag users and while plenty of commenters surprise me, I find that most are almost shockingly consistent when it comes to which 'bucket' I put them in (right, alt-right, conservative, liberal, socialist, libertarian, evangelical, etc.). So perhaps it's not so strange or inaccurate that many of us jump to conclusions based on very limited information.

(not that I think it's a good thing to do so. I do agree with your comment.)

[austincheney]

> If I meet a person face to face who says 'Bush did x', I might also notice the tone of voice, that the have a Southern drawl, that they're wearing camo and a red hat with MAGA on it. In this situation I'm not likely to conclude that they're pro-Obama despite their critical statement wrt Bush.

Stereotypes are convenient when you need to make decision in a pinch, but they are horribly ignorant and misguided when talking to people. You can easily dispel your ignorant bias by asking a single pointed question.

As far as politically loaded hyperbole and labeled stereotype buckets I find Bush and Obama far more in common than Trump and that Trump and Clinton have far more in common. When I look at these people I don’t care what their politics are or how charming they are. I am trying to examine their motivations and how they interact with people. I am not sure which labeled bucket that would put me in and I don’t really care because I despise political labels.

[ZeroGravitas]

There's another deeper level here.

Like with stocks, the price depends on what other people think the price is, so you can be correct and lose your shirt because everyone else thinks something that is wrong. (Which also makes them right!)

Similarly, it's likely that common illogical arguments like whataboutism persist exactly because they are effective in convincing non-logical people and may be a logical strategy if you actually want to achieve some kind of political change.

[Unsimplified]

This is why options are dangerous. Other people set the price of the stock.

That said, stocks are fundamentally safer. If you own company X and they succeed/profit well longterm, you receive great dividends regardless of the stock price.

[afiori]

Not directly a forum, but...

https://slatestarcodex.com/about/