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One of the things I find most depressing about 2020 is watching people at every level negotiating with the truth to land a point.
It's a rhetorical device that requires the user to make vast assumptions about their audience.
Will THIS change their mind? No. But an overstatement or obfuscation or omission will, and I'm right, so it's worth it, because the upshot is that my audience will land on the truth.
Will THIS change their mind? No. But an overstatement or obfuscation or omission will, and I'm right, so it's worth it, because the upshot is that my audience will land on the truth.
Probably it doesn't feel insulting or like an abusive power-play. It feels like war, it feels necessary. You do what you can to land on the truth.
But the moment you've decided someone needs a lie instead of facts, you've decided you're intellectually superior.
But the moment you've decided someone needs a lie instead of facts, you've decided you're intellectually superior.
I see it in the strangest of places.
I have a tumor on my pituitary; it nearly killed me last year. I'm part of a few pituitary tumor support groups and in two of them is the same spirited debate: can we call our pituitary tumors "brain tumors?"
I have a tumor on my pituitary; it nearly killed me last year. I'm part of a few pituitary tumor support groups and in two of them is the same spirited debate: can we call our pituitary tumors "brain tumors?"
Note: the pituitary gland is a useful lil guy that sits right in the middle of your noggin. It's right against your brain. But it's not brain tissue, which is important, because pituitary tumors are nearly never cancerous . . . a very different statistic than brain tumors.
This isn't to say that pituitary tumors can't have vast consequences (like I said, mine nearly killed me, and they blind others in short order). But the argument is that unless we call them brain tumors, people won't take us seriously enough.
That's an example of negotiating with the truth to manage other people's behavior.
You're assuming they won't process the raw data correctly, so you aim high and hope to land on reality.
You're assuming they won't process the raw data correctly, so you aim high and hope to land on reality.
And I see it happening all over the place in 2020, from people I really respect (also from people I don't, but that hurts my soul less), and I hate it.
I'm going to go walk a dog.
I'm going to go walk a dog.
