> People will argue with an individual as if that individual is the spokesperson for a larger group. People will call someone a hypocrite not for contradicting themselves, but for contradicting other people.

This sums up what's become so exhausting about online discussion

Whoa, hold on. You're engaging in a worse version of exactly what you're accusing others of.

> Do you see the problem? Rob Bailey is calling Bhavye Khetan a hypocrite because Bhavye Khetan said something that contradicts something that "people" say.

Nobody called anybody a hypocrite (nor implied it for that matter) - you entirely put those words in his mouth. All he said was that people have a common complaint that contradicts what this person is complaining about. The implication is simply that VCs have contradictory demands placed on them, so they can't fully satisfy them all. If anything, that guy was asking for people to have some sympathy for VCs who are actually willing to have a call -- not trying to smear anyone as a hypocrite!

And I point this out specifically to illustrate how unrealistic it is to expect people to avoid making assumptions that might be wrong. It's normal and human to make common assumptions -- that's how progress is made without slowing everything down to a crawl. You're not immune to it any more than anybody else. The solution to being wrong isn't to always avoid making assumptions and beat people up who do so; it's to be reasonable in doing so, and to also be more generous on the receiving side and try to understand the point they were trying to make better.

I'm guilty of similar automatic responses as Rob's. Same goes for using "always" and "everyone" during arguments.

Now I'm trying to have a rule at home, that if we use "always/everyone" we automatically "lost" the argument and have to step back and rethink :)

Personally I find it hard to keep this in control and I know it takes away some ability to apply empathy (as in being in someones shoes, not pity). It's about finding a way to look at yourself from a distance. Preferably before I speak. Often it's not the case - I can do that, but in moments of relative comfort. So I'm still guilty of generalizing and blaming a person for group issues sometimes.

I'm wondering how others train themselves to increase that self awareness (and in the end practical empathy)?

Should I even try to improve it during stress/challenging situations, or rather eliminate that factor (for instance, by doing less on-the-fly calls) and try to have more talks when things are not rushed?

The affordances of social media don't make it easy for nuanced discussion:

- Broadcast messages "perform" better with a degree of generalization

- Algorithmic feeds warp our perceptions of any shared context

- Personal risk is mitigated if you talk about the opinions of the group

- You can avoid personal disclosure by speaking in broad terms

- Responding to a comment with a more general criticism side-steps personal attacks

I think our increased tribalism is at least partly a consequence of using media with characteristics like these. Eventually, you're not thinking in terms of individuals with balanced opinions but more in terms of tribal representatives because this is often our experience.

How do you point out to someone that they're doing this in a way they won't just like... knee-jerk deny and reverse? Is there no solution and this is ultimately a sign of bad-faith discussion? It feels more and more likely...

Social media makes it possible --- indeed there is a payoff for doing so --- to take extreme positions that most would not do face to face.

Getting a rise out of people is now ends to means. Getting recognition for outing a perceived flaw in other is ends for means. And it's all boils down to shadow boxing in a cage of symbolism measured by likes/followers.

Push back online drives ads, looks, traffic. Talking #^=×@@ or BSing a person face to face may not work or be attempted due to real world consequences.

Tribal modalities online in the large or niche sense is just a conventional way of doing it because it's auto magnifying. Why take a shot at one VC when you can take at shot at all VCs?

And xir just did the exact same thing ...

Iron should be mandatory ages 4-12 to avoid this sort of situations.

I sympathize with this mistake because people are often very tribalistic, at least in certain online spaces, so it can feel useless to hear people out, especially when you don’t feel they will reciprocate.

That doesn’t justify it, of course, but I think it partially explains it.

Not exactly the point of the article, but I didn't understand how this guy lying and getting a couple meetings implies that "the game" is rigged.

Isn’t it obvious? It happens because we’re lazy. We’re just looking for the cheapest way to validate our existing worldview.

This Rob guy from the article is also using two classic techniques you'll see bullshitters use all the time, strawman arguments and appeal to authority (ad verecundiam).

I used to get wrapped around the axle about things like this and write analysis posts which I normally did not end up publishing. I stopped doing it because I realized it’s not helpful. This isn’t going to change anything or help anyone. People are going to continue to make dumb arguments and that’s fine. Not everything has to rise to the level of philosophy.

I guess if you legitimately enjoy meta-commentary of social media posts then keep doing you.

This blog post was served an opportunity on a silver platter to explain what's wrong with the responding tweet and instead contains a highly irrelevant analogy.

Original Post: VCs respond if you say AI. VCS don't respond at all if you don't mention AI

Response: You should be happy that they only respond to AI and not respond if you don't have AI

OP calls the game rigged, but the response calls the game fair. That's where the contradiction lies.

Great read

[dead]

I’d restate the sex work argument as:

Why should someone who thinks sex work be decriminalized be automatically be thrown into the feminist camp?

Good post. I've definitely experienced this, though a sub-form of it, namely my non-conformance to a sterotype of an ideology I am associated with. The example in TFA doesn't appear to involve any stereotypes, because Bailey is talking about people in general. [0]

> hypocrisy by association

You had it right in your title and elsewhere in your post. Bailey isn't accusing Khetan of hypocrisy, which is a difference between one's words and one's actions; the example in TFA is about a difference between a group's words and an individual's words, which is contradiction; actions-vs-words is not being discussed. It's also not self-contradiction, since Bailey isn't accusing Khetan of contradicting his own earlier statements. [1]

This reminds of the phrase, "stay in your lane": "stay in" here means "speak according to a certain viewpoint"; and "your lane" is the beliefs of some group. "Stop disagreeing with people similar to you," is a ludicrous thing to say. It's even more ludicrous when "people similar to you" is "people in general"; there's billions of "people in general"; that group disagrees on every topic known to man and dog.

"Contradicting humanity" wouldn't sound pithy, but that's what Bailey is accusing Khetan of doing. To your point, Bailey is accusing Khetan of "contradicting your group", which is undoubtedly a form of the Association Fallacy. [2]

Bailey is also engaging in performative contradiction, by demanding that Khetan agree with "people in general", while Bailey is not himself agreeing with "people in general", because that is an impossible task.

[0] Applying a stereotype to all people would be absurd, since a stereotype is about a sub-category of people; a stereotype is meant to highlight alleged differences between categories of people; to highlight the differences between A and A would be absurd -- there are none.

[1] Yes, Khetan is a member of "people in general", but Bailey is comparing Khetan's words to the words of "people in general minus Khetan" -- instance versus class-minus-that-instance. Okay, maybe Bailey isn't thinking that deeply about this, hence why TFA needed to be written.

[2] I could have lead with this, but I don't have enough time to re-write this.