Alice: I get upset when people criticize EA on Twitter and in my life, and I feel the need to defend it.
☝️ That is the crux of what Alice needs to explore. Is Alice upset by criticism of EA (the principles), or by criticism of someone’s actions who is—in some way—associated with EA? The two are very different.
I think the argument here is that these two cannot be / are not distinguished, which bothers her. When a community is so strongly interlinked to its values that they are one and the same to the “general public” (i.e. outsiders), criticism of individuals of that community tends to be directed toward the community as a whole as well as the underlying values. I can relate to this being frustrating.
Conflating the actions of a person with the values of a group is a fallacy. It contains elements of Cherry Picking, Fallacy of Composition, and Ad Hominem.
I wasn’t saying that it’s correct to do so. My point is precisely that the public tends to not distinguish, and I think it’s perfectly legitimate to be bothered by this and feel especially frustrated because your views are being invalidated by the wider public due to an incorrect assumption.
I think you and I have different interpretations of the word “legitimate.” Oxford says “conforming to the law or to rules; … able to be defended with logic or justification.” I guess it is technically true if you are allowing for the possibility of fallacious logic.
Yes, people make faulty logical conclusions all the time. I’m not saying those people are bad or internally inconsistent. But if such a stance drives someone away from a cause area in which they could have had a tangible positive impact, that is a suboptimal outcome.
Dave, now you are cherry picking.
Oxford also states “for which there is a fair and acceptable reason. SYNONYMS valid, justifiable.”
And there are “fair and acceptable reasons” to be bothered by people that don’t care about the impact that predictable, “faulty logical” conclusions of the public have on their behavior resulting in “suboptimal outcome”.
It’s a fair assumption that a great proportion of the general public does not distinguish between people and cause. If you truly want the cause to succeed—or have optimal outcome—you should care about mitigating that risk and not blame suboptimal outcome on logical fallacies of others.
Please don’t “should” on me—or anyone else for that matter—Julian. It’s disrespectful.
I feel that educating people about logical fallacies is the way forward. But I am curious to hear what you or others propose that doesn’t simply enable people to perpetuate existing behaviors.
☝️ That is the crux of what Alice needs to explore. Is Alice upset by criticism of EA (the principles), or by criticism of someone’s actions who is—in some way—associated with EA? The two are very different.
I think the argument here is that these two cannot be / are not distinguished, which bothers her. When a community is so strongly interlinked to its values that they are one and the same to the “general public” (i.e. outsiders), criticism of individuals of that community tends to be directed toward the community as a whole as well as the underlying values. I can relate to this being frustrating.
Conflating the actions of a person with the values of a group is a fallacy. It contains elements of Cherry Picking, Fallacy of Composition, and Ad Hominem.
I wasn’t saying that it’s correct to do so. My point is precisely that the public tends to not distinguish, and I think it’s perfectly legitimate to be bothered by this and feel especially frustrated because your views are being invalidated by the wider public due to an incorrect assumption.
I think you and I have different interpretations of the word “legitimate.” Oxford says “conforming to the law or to rules; … able to be defended with logic or justification.” I guess it is technically true if you are allowing for the possibility of fallacious logic.
Yes, people make faulty logical conclusions all the time. I’m not saying those people are bad or internally inconsistent. But if such a stance drives someone away from a cause area in which they could have had a tangible positive impact, that is a suboptimal outcome.
Dave, now you are cherry picking. Oxford also states “for which there is a fair and acceptable reason. SYNONYMS valid, justifiable.”
And there are “fair and acceptable reasons” to be bothered by people that don’t care about the impact that predictable, “faulty logical” conclusions of the public have on their behavior resulting in “suboptimal outcome”.
It’s a fair assumption that a great proportion of the general public does not distinguish between people and cause. If you truly want the cause to succeed—or have optimal outcome—you should care about mitigating that risk and not blame suboptimal outcome on logical fallacies of others.
Please don’t “should” on me—or anyone else for that matter—Julian. It’s disrespectful.
I feel that educating people about logical fallacies is the way forward. But I am curious to hear what you or others propose that doesn’t simply enable people to perpetuate existing behaviors.