[HN Gopher] Weak Men Are Superweapons (2014)
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Weak Men Are Superweapons (2014)
Author : skinkestek
Score : 100 points
Date : 2021-01-22 21:26 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.slatestarcodexabridged.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.slatestarcodexabridged.com)
| intrepidhero wrote:
| I found this enlightening, and disheartening at the same time. Is
| there any further discussion on how we can evolve past this, as
| individuals and as a society?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Individually, by being aware of it you can recognize it in your
| own statements more readily (though probably requiring
| deliberate attention). Then you can choose to use the form of
| argument or rewrite to avoid it.
|
| When seeing it in others you may be able to present better
| responses, especially if you're aware of how your response
| might be perceived.
| major505 wrote:
| I love that this start as an argument on tumblr and it only go
| foward with people being more and more offended with each other.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > The weak man is a terrible argument that only a few
| unrepresentative people hold, which was only brought to
| prominence so your side had something easy to defeat.
|
| This reminds me of the Buzzfeed story circa 2012 about how
| Christians were campaigning against Starbucks for their holiday
| cups unadorned with Christmas paraphernalia. It became a meme
| right away to the delight of people who already weren't very fond
| of Christians. I thought this was particularly strange because
| even my most conservative Christian friends held opinions in the
| vein of "If you're a Christian and are getting upset about these
| cups, you're way off". I was really curious to figure out who all
| of these Christians were that held this opinion and, lo-and-
| behold, it was one single Christian from Arizona. This particular
| "weak man" argument was the basis for much criticism of Christian
| culture for a couple of years.
|
| Maybe this seems less significant nowadays after the media has
| shown us consistently over the better part of the last decade
| exactly what level of depravity it will sink to in order to gain
| a click, but at the time it was really surprising.
| majormajor wrote:
| Here's that original story as seen from Fox:
| https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/internet-evangelist-says-...
|
| Something about it stuck with their audience, it seems, since
| here's them covering a new iteration in 2019...
| https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/starbucks-risks-more-war-...
|
| > Whether an aversion to using the word "Christmas" extends
| beyond Starbucks is difficult to measure. But in 2017,
| President Trump tweeted on Christmas Eve that Americans were
| "proud to be saying Merry Christmas again," since he took
| office.
|
| It's nice that your conservative Christian friends aren't so
| easily triggered, but that Trump quote points to the views of a
| sizable set of their peers.
| edbob wrote:
| I don't know the extent to which this is a problem (i.e., I
| don't want to make this into a "weak man"), but there are
| some legitimate reasons to be concerned with the replacement
| and/or minimization of traditional holidays. At least one
| important motive for the replacement was to create the
| foundation for violent revolution: "the creation of its own
| series of holidays all underscored Karenga's premise that
| 'you must have a cultural revolution before the violent
| revolution. The cultural revolution gives identity, purpose,
| and direction.'" [0]
|
| It's easy for people to laugh at such concerns when they
| don't see them as plausible, but when you also have people
| like Dick Costolo promising shootings and a violent
| revolution, it's hard to know who can be trusted. When the
| left spends a year "mostly peacefully" killing dozens of
| people and burning our cities, it becomes a lot easier to
| believe that they might want a full revolution. Again, not to
| say that these concerns are necessarily justified, but that
| it's very difficult to know whether they are or not. If one
| prefers to err on the side of caution and criticize Starbucks
| here, I think that's a legitimate position.
|
| (Kind of hoping that someone can give me a good way to debunk
| these concerns, so I'm just going to ignore any troll
| responses).
|
| [0] https://books.google.com/books?id=Vhgk72OGBRYC&pg=PA65#v=
| one...
| majormajor wrote:
| We're moving on quite a bit from the original post here,
| which was claiming that there was an overreaction to a
| position that supposedly didn't actually exist outside of
| this one person. I think it's pretty clear that that
| position _does_ exist, which your post lines up with ;).
|
| However, I think something significant to note here about
| if it's an overreaction or not is that even these cups are
| still traditional Christmas colors. We're a really long way
| away from them saying something like "it's not a holiday
| season at all," or "the actual holidays are some other
| time."
|
| So if on one side we have a "let's be a little more
| inclusive of our friends celebrating different holidays"
| and on the other side we have "let's replace your holidays
| to help encourage a future violent revolution" it seems to
| me that they've only taken the babiest of baby steps
| towards the former, not the latter. (One wonders what the
| reaction would be if they came out with Hanukkah colored
| cups - lets not forget that there are
| non-"replacement"-motivated other holidays out there...)
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I don't find "it _could_ have been true! " to be a very good
| justification for publishing caricatures, moreover I don't
| think "the Trump Supporter" was a breed that existed in 2012.
| Not only was Trump not a conceivable candidate at the time,
| but even the caricatures of conservatives (never mind
| Christians) didn't resemble our caricature of Trump
| supporters.
| majormajor wrote:
| The story was 2015, not 2012, so Trump supporters
| definitely existed. And Trump wouldn't be speaking to his
| base in 2017 about "bringing back Christmas" if that wasn't
| an issue that had existed long before him.
|
| If we're even less lazy, we can click through to more 2015
| articles, such as this other Fox one
| https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/not-everyone-thinks-
| starb... which does the "both sides" thing in a nice
| convenient not-just-an-example-from-Arizona-dude way:
|
| > An article posted to Breitbart London even called the
| plain red cups part of the "War on Christmas."
|
| > "This is a denial of historical reality and the great
| Christian heritage behind the American Dream that has so
| benefitted Starbucks," wrote Andrea Williams of the U.K.'s
| Christian Concern.
|
| > But not all Christian groups feel the same way. Paul
| Batura, vice president of communications at Focus on the
| Family, said snowflakes and carolers are not symbols of
| Christmas.
|
| > "I wonder if we're not overthinking or overanalyzing
| this," he said. "Christmas isn't found in a cup or in a
| snowflake. Instead, it's found in the hearts and minds of
| those of us who believe that God sent His only son to earth
| in the form of an innocent, helpless baby."
|
| Growing up in evangelical media, these aren't caricatures.
| devwastaken wrote:
| If you live in rural areas plenty of people tout the "bring
| merry Christmas back" mantra. The origin of the cups story may
| be one person but it's reflective of a larger group.
| brundolf wrote:
| There's a famous tweet (since made private, but screenshotted):
|
| "Twitter is 90% someone imagining a guy, tricking themselves
| into believing that guy exists and then getting mad about it"
|
| I think you could substitute "Twitter" with just "social media"
| defen wrote:
| The New York Times (and other outlets, I'm sure) is notorious
| for writing trend pieces based on the fact that two or three
| people the reporter knows are doing some thing. Which then
| often turns it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
| chc wrote:
| I don't know if this is a great example, because Fox News
| actually incorporated Starbucks' lack of Christmas messaging
| into the weird "War on Christmas" narrative it tries to
| manufacture every year.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I don't know how that would invalidate the example; that
| still doesn't show that there were Christians who felt that
| way, rather that Fox believed the BuzzFeed story and leaned
| into it.
| Spivak wrote:
| Yeah, assuming that Fox News is representative voice for
| Christians seems way off. They are just as hungry for
| manufactured outrage and clicks at everyone else.
|
| Fox running a bit telling their viewers they should be
| angry about something isn't evidence that anyone was
| actually angry.
| mikestew wrote:
| _This particular "weak man" argument was the basis for much
| criticism of Christian culture for a couple of years._
|
| When I see my neighborhood adorned in coroplast signs every
| year reminding me that "it's okay to say Merry Christmas", it
| becomes believable that someone will get butt-hurt about a
| Starbucks cup. Then again, perhaps the weak man argument here
| is of those that are against saying "merry xmas".
| Brendinooo wrote:
| Yeah! I use this same example often in the same way.
| jariel wrote:
| Our media industry industry operates this by virtue of Twitter.
|
| "People are saying such-and-such" and then showing a Tweet from
| some random nobody (i.e. 'weak man') to validate the fact - is
| how so many narratives are created.
|
| Or - by simply taking the tiniest, most innocuous bit of human
| interaction ('some guy on a plane did what?') and blowing it up
| into a national story, as though it is in any way representative
| of anything.
|
| This is how in a sea of actual facts, the general truth can
| easily be distorted, and they are, all day long.
|
| Part of the reason for this is because we connect with human
| stories, not data.
|
| Steven Spielberg's advice to Mike Bay about Transformers, was 'It
| should be about the relationship between a teen boy and his car'.
|
| We like Judge Judy and TMZ, just all frazzled up in ornamental
| ideology that makes us feel smart for reading the New Yorker.
|
| If we were really boring and sober, the world would be a
| different place. (I'm looking at you, German politics, which
| someone maintains it's sanity even with 'actual Nazis' in the
| midst, not these America yahoo versions.)
| ndiscussion wrote:
| Interesting, and not what I expected. I presumed it was something
| about slave morality ala Nietzsche's Will to Power. Useful idiots
| and all that.
|
| It seems the strongest way to win arguments nowadays is to simply
| go on the offensive and ignore their claims. The opposite side
| has millions of tricks.
|
| First, they hope you are stupid. If not, they will pretend to be
| stupid, and not understand what you are talking about. And even
| if you refute them, they may come back the very next day and
| claim that they won the argument.
|
| When you post online, hundreds of lurkers may read your comment.
| If you don't even dignify the enemy with a response, they are
| much more likely to buy in to your emotional rhetoric.
| motohagiography wrote:
| This "weak man," tactic is taught in undergrad, the idea is to
| destabilize an opposing view to neutralize the person holding it.
| The emphasis is on "neutralize," because the underlying strategy
| is based on the premise that there is no truth, only power, and
| for an opponent to be neutral, or do nothing, means there is no
| resistance to your agenda.
|
| When "everything is political," it is sufficient to isolate an
| opponent from a conversation because in that view, all power
| comes from attention and approval of others, because they have
| been trained to be psychologically actuated by shame. It's why,
| "not a good look," has become a standard put down, even among
| some men. This idea of litigating for power is why many people
| don't like lawyers, and when half the middle class is educated to
| act like the seediest of prosecutors, you get that thing that's
| wrong with someone you just can't put your finger on. I have some
| actual friends like this, and we find a way, but part of why
| there is so much hostility in the culture is because one side
| never thought they would need a new bare-metal up critical
| framework to conceive of how awful we've educated some people to
| become. One of the SSC rules was "be charitable," which is the
| value that the weak-man style of argument throws out. It's
| basically being uncharitable. So glad to see Alexander articles
| on HN lately.
| leetcrew wrote:
| a couple random responses.
|
| I don't think I hear "not a good look" the same way you do. in
| particular, I don't hear it as a putdown, more of a cynical
| comment that expresses something like "I don't necessarily
| oppose what you are saying/doing, but I hope for your sake that
| other people don't notice".
|
| > This "weak man," tactic is taught in undergrad, the idea is
| to destabilize an opposing view to neutralize the person
| holding it. The emphasis is on "neutralize," because the
| underlying strategy is based on the premise that there is no
| truth, only power, and for an opponent to be neutral, or do
| nothing, means there is no resistance to your agenda.
|
| I'm having trouble fitting this in with what I currently see in
| the world. it doesn't seem like either "side" would be content
| with my neutrality/silence. they seem to want nothing less than
| full and vocal alignment on every issue.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| I find your comment somewhat amusing in the context of this
| discussion. Was it intentional?
|
| > This "weak man," tactic is _taught in undergrad_ , the idea
| is to destabilize an opposing view to neutralize the person
| holding it. [emphasis added]
|
| _Where_ is this taught?
|
| > when _half the middle class_ is educated to act like the
| _seediest of prosecutors_ [emphasis added]
|
| So you're bringing in economic class now, and for some reason
| explicitly assigning this behavior to prosecutors.
| jxramos wrote:
| _Central examples_ , that's a great concept, the "average joe"
| basically but with an emphasis on abstract categories.
| [deleted]
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Good article just want to make one point. Approximately 72% of
| Americans are Christians.
|
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/200186/five-key-findings-religi...
|
| 40% of Americans not only 40% of Christians are young earth
| creationists.
|
| This means 55%, a majority, of Christians in America are young
| earth creationists.
|
| To use his term which I love ignorant people who believe crazy
| things are the center of the category.
| matthberg wrote:
| A few of the details of the construction of this argument make me
| uneasy (in a roughly parallel way to the discomfort mentioned in
| section V). Particularly the assertion (end of section IV) that:
|
| > Likewise, when a religious person attacks atheists who are
| moral relativists, or communists, or murderers, then all atheists
| have to band together to stop it somehow or they will have
| successfully poisoned people against atheism.
|
| This seems like a bit of a major step. While I agree that "weak
| men" are a slippery trick to argue against a movement, I don't
| think that they necessitate a total defense of all aspects of the
| movement. Saying that atheists should defend murderers or
| Christians should defend the Westboro Baptist Church because they
| share the label of Christian is taking a good base idea and
| following it to false conclusions. What I took out of the
| argument around "weak men" was that communities need to be more
| self-policing rather than more broadly defensive. I was waiting
| for the point where Scott Alexander would say "thus Christians
| must declaim the Westboro Baptist Church instead of allowing
| themselves to be lumped under the same label." Additionally,
| there are parallels drawn between feminism and mens rights ideas
| that seem to be false-equivalencies, or at least false-parallels.
|
| In the comments I encountered a blog post that addresses some of
| these uneasy feelings I had
| https://heartheretic.blogspot.com/2014/06/talking-about-prob...
| brundolf wrote:
| The only solution I think is to not engage. Focus on long-lived
| relationships with people who actually have gotten/will get to
| know you. Save your complex and nuanced thoughts and feelings for
| those people; random strangers will always see you through a
| cartoonized lens. When you do have micro-interactions with
| strangers - which, never forget, includes all public social media
| posts whether you want it to or not - keep things inoffensive. If
| someone else inflames the situation, quietly and diplomatically
| withdraw from it.
|
| Beyond just being a strategy for individuals, doing this
| contributes in a tiny way to lowering the temperature of the
| whole room.
| wcerfgba wrote:
| The superweapon post:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20121007160623/http://squid314.l...
|
| because it is now behind an authwall.
| wcerfgba wrote:
| I don't think the take on feminism in this article is
| particularly good. The author discusses feminism as "a memeplex
| that provides a bunch of pattern-matching opportunities where a
| man is in the wrong and a woman is in the right", but feminism
| is about analysing the power dynamic between the _classes_ of
| 'man' and 'woman'. Any system of class-based power analysis can
| be abused by supposed adherents to attack _individuals_ in a
| given class, but that doesn't mean that the system isn't itself
| valuable as a critique of power dynamic that exists between the
| classes.
| [deleted]
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Unless the system is actually open to inverting the power
| relationship, then it's just pattern matching and isn't
| anything more powerful than a slightly fancier way of saying
| "X > Y". Everything else is window dressing and post-hoc
| vindication.
|
| Or to put this another way, there are people in my orbit who
| feel perfectly comfortable spouting "Men are the worst!" and
| "all men are stupid!", but would be extremely upset with you
| if you swapped the gender in those statements.
| colechristensen wrote:
| The way to "win" an argument these days is to make a claim which
| is more complex to refute than the attention span of the
| audience. You achieve this by making claims which are somewhat
| true and not particularly representative of reality.
|
| These tend to be the vast majority of arguments that people see
| because controversy gets clicks and the more reasonable people
| are straight up afraid to appear to support the other side by
| disagreeing with the more unreasonable folks with a shared
| alignment.
| john-shaffer wrote:
| This is very perceptive. Attempts at honest discussion often
| seem to be derailed in exactly this way. Discussion of the
| actual issue is avoided by loud assertions that take a lot of
| time to refute. Which "side" derails it does seem to depend on
| who the "weak man" would hurt.
|
| Is there any way to avoid this?
| the_only_law wrote:
| > The way to "win" an argument these days is to make a claim
| which is more complex to refute than the attention span of the
| audience.
|
| This is a good description of something I've failed to put into
| words myself. Thanks for this.
| hi5eyes wrote:
| to a degree i think zoomers parody this phenomenon with memes
| using a wall of text/dense and almost indecipherable text with
| the caption of "leftist memes be like"
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| A family member of mine is interested in what makes the worst
| cultures in the world tick, and according to him, Daesh memes
| be like that too.
| korethr wrote:
| I had to look it up again to check, but does this not fall
| under the dictionary definition of sophistry[1]? It seems
| especially appropriate to call it that given the 2nd definition
| of sophisticated[2] as something at a high degree of
| complexity, and "sophisticate"'s common root with "sophistry".
|
| By making a complex argument, you deceive others into thinking
| that you have refuted another argument, when in fact you have
| not done so; the fallacy of your argument was hidden by it's
| complexity.
|
| 1. "the use of fallacious arguments, especially with the
| intention of deceiving." -- Oxford languages, via Google;
| https://www.google.com/search?q=sophistry (retrieved
| 2021-01-22)
|
| 2. "(of a machine, system, or technique) developed to a high
| degree of complexity." -- Same as [1], above.
| Leszek wrote:
| I don't necessarily disagree, but there's a certain irony in
| presenting a claim of "how things are these days" in such a
| matter-of-fact way. I certainly wouldn't know how to refute
| your statement in a sufficiently short way. Thus, is it the
| presentation of claims that is the issue, or is it their
| content? Or both? I struggle with avoiding hypocrisy when
| trying to pinpoint the underlying problem.
| deeviant wrote:
| It doesn't seem to me that its most often making a "more
| complex" claims, but making so many claims as to overwhelm any
| attempt to refute them, aka "Gish gallop".
| l0b0 wrote:
| Original post: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-
| are-superweap...
| d--b wrote:
| I've been saying things like this to my family for years! These
| arguments are everywhere, all the time, and they work so well!
|
| It definitely shouldnt be called "weak-man" though, it should be
| called something like "evil synecdoque"...
| brundolf wrote:
| It's a horrible name; I thought this article was going to be
| about something wildly different
|
| "False majority" seems descriptive
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