Reasonable People #33: A post from the mindhacks.com archives on sacred values and taboo trade-offs, research on the downstream effects of hype over misinformation. And chipmunks.
Well, the measurement would allow us to speak to your suggestion that the rate of incoherence had increased
As for arguments being incoherent, or not, isn't there an issue that arguments aren't completely contained, like logical syllogisms, but rely on tacit assumptions, general knowledge, inferences and additional (unspoken) warrants? So something that seems incoherent to one audience may make sense to another audience, with different assumptions
I heard a joke yesterday: a father said to his child "Your shoes are on the wrong feet". The child said "These are the only feet I have". If you know what the father *means* then he makes sense. If you read what he actually says - as the child does - he doesn't
I don’t know if you take requests but another worrying form of political irrationality is the ever greater lack of internal coherence of the arguments that are used both on the left and on the right. Lots of examples on demand.
Aha, but can you think of any way of measuring the rate of internal coherence of arguments, as it changes across time? I am sure there are lots of 2022 examples, but also sure we could find 1992 examples, and 1892 examples etc
I still rather disagree with you on this. To me the issue was not that people tried to explain what had happened but that they were using the riots as an opportunity to attack policies they disagreed with in the first place, without the slightest shred of evidence that they were linked to the riots let alone had caused them. The most generous explanation I can imagine for this is confirmation bias. Most of us would have no difficulty seeing this type of reasoning as ridiculous if the « explanation » had been for instance the racial makeup of the rioters.
I am sure that happened, because that always happens, but - from what I can remember - the tone of some of the commentary, including the Daily Mail piece I quoted, was fairly directly aimed at people who sought to explain the reason for the riots. Maybe, as you suggest, the point of this commentary was not to condemn explaining per se, just bad explaining based on existing hobbyhorses
Yes you are right, you can measure the frequency. As for arguments relying on assumptions, I agree, but you factor that in.
I’m not sure it needs measurement. An argumentation is either coherent or not.
Well, the measurement would allow us to speak to your suggestion that the rate of incoherence had increased
As for arguments being incoherent, or not, isn't there an issue that arguments aren't completely contained, like logical syllogisms, but rely on tacit assumptions, general knowledge, inferences and additional (unspoken) warrants? So something that seems incoherent to one audience may make sense to another audience, with different assumptions
I heard a joke yesterday: a father said to his child "Your shoes are on the wrong feet". The child said "These are the only feet I have". If you know what the father *means* then he makes sense. If you read what he actually says - as the child does - he doesn't
I don’t know if you take requests but another worrying form of political irrationality is the ever greater lack of internal coherence of the arguments that are used both on the left and on the right. Lots of examples on demand.
Aha, but can you think of any way of measuring the rate of internal coherence of arguments, as it changes across time? I am sure there are lots of 2022 examples, but also sure we could find 1992 examples, and 1892 examples etc
I still rather disagree with you on this. To me the issue was not that people tried to explain what had happened but that they were using the riots as an opportunity to attack policies they disagreed with in the first place, without the slightest shred of evidence that they were linked to the riots let alone had caused them. The most generous explanation I can imagine for this is confirmation bias. Most of us would have no difficulty seeing this type of reasoning as ridiculous if the « explanation » had been for instance the racial makeup of the rioters.
I am sure that happened, because that always happens, but - from what I can remember - the tone of some of the commentary, including the Daily Mail piece I quoted, was fairly directly aimed at people who sought to explain the reason for the riots. Maybe, as you suggest, the point of this commentary was not to condemn explaining per se, just bad explaining based on existing hobbyhorses