Why do you assume people you disagree with are angry?
This could be unpacked in several ways: “Why do you always assume people you disagree with are angry?”, “Why do you sometimes but not always assume people you disagree with are angry?”, and an equivocation which pretends to the advantages of each statement.
“Why do you always assume people you disagree with are angry?”, would be silly for you to say after only having read my few LW posts. If true, it would be a severe reasoning flaw on my part.
“Why do you sometimes but not always assume people you disagree with are angry?”, in turn has several possible meanings. “Assumption” could mean an arbitrary prior I have before considering the subject I am analyzing, or alternatively it could mean an intermediate conclusion that is both reasoned and a basis for other conclusions. It may also mean something I’m not thinking of, and like other words, it of course may be an equivocation in which the speaker seeks to mean different parts of coherent but incompatible definitions.
If “assumption” means “prior”, your statement highlights that my assumptions may be silly for an additional reason than their being false, as read this way it would suggest that my reasoning is not just misaligned from the reality about which I am trying to reason, but that my reasoning isn’t even consistent, with my reasoning dependent on which of several arbitrary reading assumptions I select without considering the external world. As an analogy, not only do I attempt to map cities around mine without looking at them, my maps contradict each other by allocating the same space to different cities in an impossible way. “Prior” is often the intended way to interpret the word “assumption”, so a definition along these lines springs naturally to mind. However, you would have even less justification for this meaning than the previous one.
If “assumption” means “intermediate conclusion that is both reasoned and a basis for other conclusions”, which it sometimes does, then your statement wouldn’t be at all unflattering to me or relevant.
Something that would at first appear to be an equivocation might itself not be logically flawed, but its meaning might be difficult to track. For instance, one could say “Why do you think some people you disagree with are angry?” “Think” and “some” don’t presuppose anything about the reason behind the thought. Knowing that I think you are angry, you would be correct to use a term that encompasses me either assuming or concluding that you are angry, as you don’t know which it is.
“Why do you assume people you disagree with are angry?” depends on being interpreted as “Why do you sometimes think, whether as a prior or an intermediate conclusion, that some people you disagree with are angry?” to seem a grammatical question that does not make unreasonable assumptions. However, in the context of responding and trying to rebut a criticism of your thoughts, your statement only performs the work it is being called on to do if its answer casts doubt on my thinking.
“Why do you assume all people you disagree with are angry?”, “Why do you arbitrarily assume some people you disagree with are angry?”, and “How could you reasonably conclude all people you disagree with are angry?” are questions to which no one could give a reasonable explanation, taking for granted their assumptions. These are powerful rebuttals, if they can be validly stated without making any assumptions.
Though there is no explanation to them, there is an explanation for them, a response to them, and an answer to them, namely: you are making incorrect assumptions.
Here, your statement attempts to borrow plausibility from the true but irrelevant formulation without assumptions from which there is no conclusion that my thinking is flawed, while simultaneously relying on the context to cast it as a damning challenge if true—which a different sentence in fact would be. Your equivocation masks your assumptions from you.
As to why I think that...well, I started with the second paragraph, so we can start there.
It is based on bad pseudo-scientific research designed to prove that people are biased idiots. One of the intended implications, which the research does nothing to address...
(Pejorative) research you disagree with is designed to prove people are (pejorative). Supposed intended implications that you despise, which are so important they aren’t at all addressed...which of course would means that you have no evidence for them...and are confabulating malice both where and as an explanation behind what you do not fully understand or agree with.
You apparently sometimes assume people are angry on minimal evidence and without explaining your reasoning. You did it with me, and I don’t think this is a personal grudge but something you might do with someone else in similar circumstances. In particular, I think you may have tried to judge my emotional state from the on topic content and perhaps also style of my writing. I understand that in some cases, with some people, such judgments are accurate. I don’t think this is such a case, and I don’t think you had any good evidence or good explanation to tell you otherwise.
I think that you had some kind of reason for thinking I was angry, but that you left it unstated, which shields it from critical analysis.
The way I read your statements, you assumed I was angry (based presumably on unstated reasoning) and drew some conclusions from that, rather than asserting I was angry and arguing for it. E.g. you suggested that I got angry and it was causing me to do it wrong. (BTW that looks to me like, by your standards, stronger evidence that you were angry at me than the evidence of my anger in the first place. It is pejorative. I suspect you actually meant well—mostly—but so did I.)
(Pejorative) research you disagree with is designed to prove people are (pejorative).
People can dislike things without being angry. Right? If you disagree with me about the substance of my criticisms, ad hominems against my emotions are not the proper response. Right?
I’m not angry. Why do you assume people you disagree with are angry?
What kind of words do you think should be used to describe the contents of theories? e.g. take
You think that’s anthropomorphic and should be replaced by what sentence?
This could be unpacked in several ways: “Why do you always assume people you disagree with are angry?”, “Why do you sometimes but not always assume people you disagree with are angry?”, and an equivocation which pretends to the advantages of each statement.
“Why do you always assume people you disagree with are angry?”, would be silly for you to say after only having read my few LW posts. If true, it would be a severe reasoning flaw on my part.
“Why do you sometimes but not always assume people you disagree with are angry?”, in turn has several possible meanings. “Assumption” could mean an arbitrary prior I have before considering the subject I am analyzing, or alternatively it could mean an intermediate conclusion that is both reasoned and a basis for other conclusions. It may also mean something I’m not thinking of, and like other words, it of course may be an equivocation in which the speaker seeks to mean different parts of coherent but incompatible definitions.
If “assumption” means “prior”, your statement highlights that my assumptions may be silly for an additional reason than their being false, as read this way it would suggest that my reasoning is not just misaligned from the reality about which I am trying to reason, but that my reasoning isn’t even consistent, with my reasoning dependent on which of several arbitrary reading assumptions I select without considering the external world. As an analogy, not only do I attempt to map cities around mine without looking at them, my maps contradict each other by allocating the same space to different cities in an impossible way. “Prior” is often the intended way to interpret the word “assumption”, so a definition along these lines springs naturally to mind. However, you would have even less justification for this meaning than the previous one.
If “assumption” means “intermediate conclusion that is both reasoned and a basis for other conclusions”, which it sometimes does, then your statement wouldn’t be at all unflattering to me or relevant.
Something that would at first appear to be an equivocation might itself not be logically flawed, but its meaning might be difficult to track. For instance, one could say “Why do you think some people you disagree with are angry?” “Think” and “some” don’t presuppose anything about the reason behind the thought. Knowing that I think you are angry, you would be correct to use a term that encompasses me either assuming or concluding that you are angry, as you don’t know which it is.
“Why do you assume people you disagree with are angry?” depends on being interpreted as “Why do you sometimes think, whether as a prior or an intermediate conclusion, that some people you disagree with are angry?” to seem a grammatical question that does not make unreasonable assumptions. However, in the context of responding and trying to rebut a criticism of your thoughts, your statement only performs the work it is being called on to do if its answer casts doubt on my thinking.
“Why do you assume all people you disagree with are angry?”, “Why do you arbitrarily assume some people you disagree with are angry?”, and “How could you reasonably conclude all people you disagree with are angry?” are questions to which no one could give a reasonable explanation, taking for granted their assumptions. These are powerful rebuttals, if they can be validly stated without making any assumptions.
Though there is no explanation to them, there is an explanation for them, a response to them, and an answer to them, namely: you are making incorrect assumptions.
Here, your statement attempts to borrow plausibility from the true but irrelevant formulation without assumptions from which there is no conclusion that my thinking is flawed, while simultaneously relying on the context to cast it as a damning challenge if true—which a different sentence in fact would be. Your equivocation masks your assumptions from you.
As to why I think that...well, I started with the second paragraph, so we can start there.
(Pejorative) research you disagree with is designed to prove people are (pejorative). Supposed intended implications that you despise, which are so important they aren’t at all addressed...which of course would means that you have no evidence for them...and are confabulating malice both where and as an explanation behind what you do not fully understand or agree with.
To clarify the part you were curious about:
You apparently sometimes assume people are angry on minimal evidence and without explaining your reasoning. You did it with me, and I don’t think this is a personal grudge but something you might do with someone else in similar circumstances. In particular, I think you may have tried to judge my emotional state from the on topic content and perhaps also style of my writing. I understand that in some cases, with some people, such judgments are accurate. I don’t think this is such a case, and I don’t think you had any good evidence or good explanation to tell you otherwise.
I think that you had some kind of reason for thinking I was angry, but that you left it unstated, which shields it from critical analysis.
The way I read your statements, you assumed I was angry (based presumably on unstated reasoning) and drew some conclusions from that, rather than asserting I was angry and arguing for it. E.g. you suggested that I got angry and it was causing me to do it wrong. (BTW that looks to me like, by your standards, stronger evidence that you were angry at me than the evidence of my anger in the first place. It is pejorative. I suspect you actually meant well—mostly—but so did I.)
People can dislike things without being angry. Right? If you disagree with me about the substance of my criticisms, ad hominems against my emotions are not the proper response. Right?