this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
1307 points (96.2% liked)

196

17490 readers
1380 users here now

Be sure to follow the rule before you head out.


Rule: You must post before you leave.



Other rules

Behavior rules:

Posting rules:

NSFW: NSFW content is permitted but it must be tagged and have content warnings. Anything that doesn't adhere to this will be removed. Content warnings should be added like: [penis], [explicit description of sex]. Non-sexualized breasts of any gender are not considered inappropriate and therefore do not need to be blurred/tagged.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us on our matrix channel or email.

Other 196's:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

You've made many incorrect assumptions and setup several strawmen fallacies. Rather than try to converse with someone who is only looking to feed their confirmation bias, I'll suggest you continue your learnings by looking up the Dunning Kruger effect.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Can you point out and explain each strawman in detail? It sounds more like someone made good analogies that counter your point and you buzzword vomited in response.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Dissecting his wall of text would take longer than I'd like, but I would be happy to provide a few examples:

  1. I have "...corporate-apologist principles".

Though wolfram claims to have read my post history, he seems to have completely missed my many posts hating on TSLA, robber barons, Reddit execs, etc. I completely agree with him that AI will be used for evil by corporate assholes, but I also believe it will be used for good (just like any other technology).

  1. "...tools are distinctly NOT inherently neutral. Consider the automatic rifle or the nuclear bomb" "HOWEVER, BOTH the automatic rifle and the nuclear bomb are tools, and tools have a specific purpose"

Tools are neutral. They have more than one purpose. A nuclear bomb could be used to warm the atmosphere another planet to make it habitable. Not to mention any weapon can be used to defend humanity, or to attack it. Tools might be designed with a specific purpose in mind, but they can always be used for multiple purposes.

There are a ton of invalid assumptions about machine learning as well, but I'm not interested in wasting time on someone who believes they know everything.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I understand that you disagree with their points, but I'm more interested in where the strawman arguments are. I don't see any, and I'd like to understand if I'm missing a clear fallacy due to my own biases or not.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Many of their points are factually incorrect. The first point I refuted is a strawman argument. They created a position I do not hold to make it easier to attack.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I don't see it, as it seems like you are in fact arguing that tools are neutral. Giving counter examples isn't the same thing as a strawman, it's challenging your argument. Did you mean a different part of their argument?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Did you not read my previous post? The first point I refuted is a strawman argument. They created a position I do not hold to make it easier to attack.

If you don't believe this to be a strawman argument, please explain your logic.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I suppose you're talking about the part about your post history, which seems flimsy. Just because some of your posts agree with the other poster doesn't mean the ones specifically referred to don't exist. A strawman is putting your ideas up framed such that you do not support them, but arguing that you do in order to make a simpler argument. That doesn't appear to be happening, as lacking nuance isn't the same thing as a strawman. You do seem to be making the argument referred to, and having a nuanced position from other posts doesn't make that untrue. It also seems irresponsible to use that one point to discredit the entire argument, which broadly doesn't care about said point.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I am not a corporate apologist. I never said I was a corporate apologist. My post history backs up the fact that I am not a corporate apologist. There's nothing "flimsy" about this. It's clear cut if you're willing to objectively look at the logic of the arguments presented.

I'm not using that one point to discredit their entire post. I posted two examples and stated their wall of text was so full of false statements that I wasn't interested in debating every single point with someone who already had their mind made up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

You claimed they made several strawman arguments. The one you are pointing to is where they called your argument corporate apologia, which isn't a strawman, whether you are or are not l, as it's referring to the beneficiaries of your argument, which they argue to be corporations. The points they are making are sound.

For example (none of this is my actual beliefs), I could make an argument for unrestricted gun ownership. Someone, in disagreement with me, could say I need to take my gun lobby apologia and leave, after discussing why my position supports the gun lobby. In actuality, hypothetical me wants easier gun ownership for queer people and other marginalized groups. Me not supporting the gun lobby doesn't make that a strawman. They aren't making a strawman argument by saying because my argument supports the gun lobby, it is automatically invalid.

They do this exact same thing against your argument. They argue the points that your beliefs ultimately support corporations, not that your opinion is automatically invalid because you support corporations. If all they said was that last line about corporate apologia, you'd have a point, but they don't. You're simply misusing and diluting the strawman fallacy. You also claimed they made several strawman arguments, but failed to demonstrate the one example you pulled. I don't even really care about your arguments or theirs in regards to my response, as others have covered my beliefs already, I only am concerned in discussing the improper use of logical fallacies to discredit people you disagree with.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

EDIT: now I understand. After going through your comments, I can see that you just claim confirmation bias rather than actually having to support your own arguments. Ironic that you seem to show all of this erudition in your comments, but as soon as anyone questions your beliefs, you just resort to logical buzzwords. The literal definition of the bias you claim to find. Tragic. Blocked.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Blocking individual on Lemmy is actually quite pointless as they still can reply to your comments and posts you just will not know about it while there can be whole pages long slander about you right under your nose

I’d say it’s by design to spread tankie propaganda unabated

[–] [email protected] -3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

You know what? They can go ahead and slander me. Fine. Good for them. They've shown they aren't interested in actual argument. I agree with your point about the whole slander thing, and maybe there is some sad little invective, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing", further belittling my intelligence to try to console themself. If other people read it and think "yeah that dude's right", then that's their prerogative. I've made my case, and it seems the best they can come up with is projection and baseless accusation by buzzword. I need no further proof of their disingenuity.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Least you ought to care about is who thinks what about your comments. I mean I don’t wanna tell you what to think but it seems sane to just ignore that

This forum means nothing, nothing we or anyone says here is of any importance. It’s not even something that is saved anywhere in the long run but is merely some speck of digital dust that will fly away as soon as you turn off your phone

It’s the most meaningless words you will ever write, here

So you know, you either enjoy drama or memes or some arcane knowledge or what is exactly you are doing on the internet dear stranger? I hope you aren’t thinking what you say here has any meaning because no one cares and I can assure you I won’t remember about any of this in 10 minutes tops

I feel like you are trying to say something serious here and I assure you this is inherently absurd. Whatever you wanna change or whatever you want to cope with start outside the phone/tablet/laptop

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

A take with which I disagree, but mostly a fair one. If you want to live an unexamined life, it's not like that's any of my business. You are absolutely correct on your read of me. I am committed to arcane esoterica, so that's what I'm doing here. I'm here to discuss, and to learn, and I genuinely want to explore the limits of my understandings, identify my biases, and catch my fallacies, so when someone throws out some take that seems spectacularly inane, like "all technologies are tools, and all tools are the same", I want to know if I'm missing something.

As far as why I dare to be so "absurd": I'm inclined to wonder why you have decided that your personal nihilism means that no-one else should be able to have a serious discussion of any kind. That's kind of sad.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

You are on the internet how do you want to have serious discussions when you don't even know who are you talking to. I may be a toddler for all you know it or some kind of psychotic serial killer chilling with a cigarette after the job well done. Like seriously people get the heck out of social media and do something actually that matters

How am I supposed talk seriously when you call my common sense a nihilism too lol. Just focus your capacity of seriousness for real life, thats the only sane way to go around. Or feel free to go insane on the internet discussing geopolitics with toddlers and ai and drunk college dropouts.

Enjoy getting baited every 5 seconds and probably be angry and miserable daily because you treat your phone with funny digital people so firkin seriously

Even this is getting too serious lol, like cmon I can't believe I am actually doing this and every fiber of my being recoils right now saying "run, there's nothing productive here, get the frick away and rain missiles from afar instead of getting involved in the pointless trenches of internet keyboard warfare"

Remind me to kill myself if I reply once more

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I'm a science teacher. I have serious conversations with unserious children every day. It's what I do.

Don't kill yourself. Engagement with people through a digital medium is not a sin.

Also, if I mischaracterized your position in calling it nihilism, I'm sorry. It seemed like your primary thesis was "none of this matters, and to think it does is inherently absurd, so you should do nothing". To me, that sounds like nihilism.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

You don’t understand it, you are naive as a fresh leaf on a spring morning. Internet is not a platform for serious issues. If you have seen what I seen and know what I know from 20 years or more web surfing experience you wouldn’t harbour so much benefit of doubt towards whatever composted filth internet is made of.

After all this is the very reason of why we are failing as a species. It would be crazy to still treat it in any serious way after it literally implodes democracy worldwide from insane tribalism.

Internet must burn and people must lose the disillusionment that they have any sort of power or that their internet speak matters when it is only a box to yell at and thus be silent irl. We must collectively touch grass. We must burn this place and any other, such is the duty of those who know

And yes, Ted Kaczynski was right, at least partially though he had wrong methods

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I appreciate your response. If you think that the invention of the internet is why we are failing as a species, that it is the thing destroying our planet, then it seems I have much more work to do. Corporate greed and political corruption are what is literally destroying our planet. I agree: talk is cheap. Go find a way to make corporations, billionaires, and corrupt politicians fear the people.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Somehow our world has gone to shit after invention and adoption of social media. Imagine that. Obviously it is something that needs to burn. Lemmy is the last thing to switch off but still it’s shit because it cannot be not. This illusion that social media can be valuable is the most dangerous thing to our society. Making us not fight the eternal struggle as we used to but use up our mental strength on pointless shit because of the illusion that it matters.

We set up echo chambers and circlejerks to feel good about ourselves and change nothing, we disarm ourselves

The corporate greed was always there and we always were fighting and struggling but now we can just make an angry post and forget about it or even feel good from the likes. No, we must burn social media to the ground.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Your definition of the internet as just modern social media is, in my opinion, deeply reductive. There is so much beautiful, useful and enlightening stuff out there on the internet, much more than any one person could ever hope to even delve, let alone hold within their mind. And yes, corporate interests have been behind social media from the first "like". Does that mean that maybe people should go out and touch grass? Yes, of course it does. Does that mean that all social media is inherently evil? I mean, maybe? I'm willing to be convinced that even somewhere federated might be irredeemably corrupted by purpose and intent as a tool, much like the rifle and bomb up above. (I actually agree with your earliest point about how the block feature on Lemmy was likely implemented in that way to allow for minority opinions to have the last word, often to the benefit of Tankies.) But the entire technology of the internet as nothing more than the opiate of the masses? No. Just because you seem to be disillusioned by it doesn't mean that all effort to use digital connections is futile, let alone that that is somehow causing all of the world's problems. The problems we're seeing today are just the consequences of the political and regulatory decisions of the last 100 years, from Ratfucking to the failure of Antitrust, from climate change to corporate capture. Certainly sped up by the vast acceleration in information transfer rates from the 90s to now, but none of them caused by it. Even the existence of Billionaires is a symptom, not the cause. The root cause is debatable, but I would posit that it is the laissez-faire capitalist perspective of most governments in the world with respect to corporate regulation in all respects.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Humans always been struggling against the odds and only through collective effort maintained a comfortable world. Hard times make strong people, strong people make Easy times, Easy times make weak people make Hard times and ad nauseam.

Social media addicted resident is prime definition of weak and pathetic, unable to do anything. Creating hard times for us all.

Only preserverance and intense struggle and determination can create a good world to live in. Make people lazy sitting doomscrolling and what happens is regression. We are lazy. We are weak. We are entitled. We are allergic to effort. We are stupid. Time for some wars I reckon.

It’s no longer time for doomscrolling but rather time to savour the last moments of peace delecting yourself in as many hedonistic activities you can gather. Sex, drugs, meaningful connections, money if you have it. Who cares if a cop takes your driving license for weed driving if the world is ending? Use it all to the maximum. Fuck like a rabbit, drive like a madman, spend like a king. Each day a bite of a fine meal. Change your gender twice even, maybe every other time. Get married, divorce. Get a dog. Go to casino once if you weren’t

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Blocking means that you don't have to devote your time and thoughts to that person. That's pretty valuable. And even if they decide they are going to attack you, not-responding is often a good strategy vs that kind of crap anyway - to avoid getting pulled into an endless bad-faith argument. (I'd still suggest not announcing that you've blocked them though. Just block and forget about it.)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Maybe but it’s like putting your head in the sand here. You actually restrict yourself by doing it and not the other way around. Benefits are dubious