That phrase annoys me in general. “Saying this does not make it true” can be a reply to just about any descriptive claim someone can make? Taken at face value, it suggests the previous speaker was being dumb in a weirdly specific way that in this case (and IME usually when the phrase is used) we have no reason to think they were. Like, Villiam might be wrong about MIRI/CFAR being a cult, but he’s probably not wrong because he thinks saying they’re not a cult makes them not a cult.
My sense is that it’s mostly used to just mean “[citation needed]” but it comes across more condescending than that?
But “[citation needed]” isn’t as good either, because Ilya’s original comment was pointing at a specific possible failure mode, that I’d put in long form as something like: “people who are in cults think they’re not in cults too, so this is the kind of thing we should be especially careful about not simply believing on the strength of the normal sorts of evidence that make people believe things”. I do think this is in general good to remember. (But just because Villiam didn’t specifically acknowledge it doesn’t mean he’d forgotten it. Also, some people might go full “well I guess I’ll never know if my monthly casual D&D meet is a cult, it doesn’t feel like one but” and that would be a mistake.)
To compress again, my suggested replacement for Ilya’s comment would be simply: “what does being in a cult feel like from the inside?” Which, yeah, I still wouldn’t like as a comment, it’s still dismissive and I think not very insightful. But I think it’s at least less aggressive, and still gets across what value I think is there.
(Possibly relevant: I don’t recognize the term “space monkey” and don’t know what it means either denotatively or connotatively, except that the connotation is clearly negative. Something drug related?)
(Possibly relevant: I don’t recognize the term “space monkey” and don’t know what it means either denotatively or connotatively, except that the connotation is clearly negative. Something drug related?)
I think your suggestion doesn’t work as well.
That phrase annoys me in general. “Saying this does not make it true” can be a reply to just about any descriptive claim someone can make? Taken at face value, it suggests the previous speaker was being dumb in a weirdly specific way that in this case (and IME usually when the phrase is used) we have no reason to think they were. Like, Villiam might be wrong about MIRI/CFAR being a cult, but he’s probably not wrong because he thinks saying they’re not a cult makes them not a cult.
My sense is that it’s mostly used to just mean “[citation needed]” but it comes across more condescending than that?
But “[citation needed]” isn’t as good either, because Ilya’s original comment was pointing at a specific possible failure mode, that I’d put in long form as something like: “people who are in cults think they’re not in cults too, so this is the kind of thing we should be especially careful about not simply believing on the strength of the normal sorts of evidence that make people believe things”. I do think this is in general good to remember. (But just because Villiam didn’t specifically acknowledge it doesn’t mean he’d forgotten it. Also, some people might go full “well I guess I’ll never know if my monthly casual D&D meet is a cult, it doesn’t feel like one but” and that would be a mistake.)
To compress again, my suggested replacement for Ilya’s comment would be simply: “what does being in a cult feel like from the inside?” Which, yeah, I still wouldn’t like as a comment, it’s still dismissive and I think not very insightful. But I think it’s at least less aggressive, and still gets across what value I think is there.
(Possibly relevant: I don’t recognize the term “space monkey” and don’t know what it means either denotatively or connotatively, except that the connotation is clearly negative. Something drug related?)
I would guess it’s a reference to the movie Fight Club.