What can we do when something is too vast to provide representative examples for?
What can we do when something is too vast to provide representative examples for?
I feel like often people ask me "Oh yea? Name some examples." and the burden is on me to prove something by providing representative examples. But often it's so overwhelming how many examples there are for something that I feel obligated then to either list everything, or try extra hard to find good examples, and even then I feel like I could be misrepresenting the case by not providing enough examples. Basically I feel like I would have to give many, many examples, or none at all, otherwise anything in the middle could be non-representative of the true trend.
Ironically, now you will want me to give examples of situations that I'm talking about. But for this I will provide 2 examples and rest on good faith that you will believe me (given the context of this post) that this happens much more often than I care to provide examples for.
So one example is when you are attempting to prove to someone that a certain thing is scientifically proven or is agreed upon as scientific consensus. You can look to the generally agreed hierarchy of evidence and provide what it considers to be high-quality evidence, such as meta analyses and systematic reviews, but even then there can be disagreement between specific reports, and there can be outliers that disagree with the overall most common trends or findings. So the only way to really prove something is to provide many, many different instances of scientific evidence to the point where the other person would be unable to find the same level or amount of evidence to the contrary by virtue of the fact that it doesn't exist to the same overwhelming degree, essentially proving the scientific fact. But again, this takes either an enormous amount of high quality evidence from various different sources, or nothing at all and simply an assertion that something is in fact scientifically proven or agreed upon as scientific consensus, because anything else in the middle could misrepresent the case and make it seem less substantiated than it actually is. It's either "all or nothing".
And now I'll provide a specific anecdote about someone who argued that there are no decent stories with a female main protagonist. I am so sure and believe it to be so obvious that there is an extensive history of great female main protagonists and female-driven stories, in all forms of storytelling, that I found this an overwhelming task to attempt to prove when the person asked for specific examples. How can I make the case of the wealth of good stories with female main characters without providing an exhaustive (or highly numerous) list? Even if I pick a few great examples, the person can always make the objection that "Those are an exception, and they don't represent the overall trend." and I risk misrepresenting that trend if the examples chosen aren't the best ones available, too. How can you possibly prove something like that without a very long and well-thought out and extensively researched list? Again, it seems like it's either attempt such a daunting task, or don't engage with the request for examples at all and just assert the claim that there are many examples, without specifying any to avoid the risk of taking on the burden of proving it and possibly misrepresenting the trend.
I hope this made any sense at all.
You are definitely over-thinking this.
Your hearts in the right place, but this is the Internet, you're not going to convince anyone of anything. You can have all the best examples, but people are just going to waste your time asking for more, or shooting down your examples with bullshit. There are no right answers, because everyone's looking to hear what they want and are eager to let you know when they disagree.
That's what debating atheists is like in a nutshell
That's funny, I had the opposite in mind while writing it.
LOL. Why would you care to debate atheists? Assuming you follow an Abrahamic religion, you have your bipolar sky wizard with his bizarre, inconsistent mythos, while we have standards of evidence for what we believe.
While we do poke fun at the religious, most of us ultimately don't care what you believe. We do care about the batshit actions taken by the ostensibly religious to enforce their personal beliefs on others, presented in the guise of religion. If the latter isn't you, we're typically not concerned. So why do you care?
Most of the time, these people are not arguing in good faith. It's called sealioning.
I think you’re talking to some people who, in bad faith, are demanding “proof” when they need to learn how to acknowledge “evidence.” Someone with a fixed attitude will keep moving goalposts and cherry picking outliers until the cows come home, and you need to be able to say: your bias is overwhelming in the gymnastics you perform to avoid the clear evidence. The process of science most often doesn’t produce black and white results. Anti-vaxxers are gonna anti-vax and you can’t “persuade” them.
That said, if you can’t provide 7-8 stories with female protagonists, which are very popular, you’re not even trying. His Dark Materials. Moana. The Fault in Our Stars. The Fablehaven series. Frozen. Labyrinth. Heathers. The Force Awakens. Silo. Mulan. Legend of Korra and the Kyoshi novels. The Sarah Connor Chronicles. 16 Candles. Star Trek Voyager. Anne of Green Gables. Watchmen (2019 series). Jane Eyre. Pippi Longstocking. Captain Marvel. Aliens. Amelie. Arrival. Gravity. Little House on the Prairie. Game of Thrones. Coraline. You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.
If you’re really talking to someone who says “there are no stories with…” then here’s enough to easily force them to change their position to “there are far less stories with…” and at that point they would in fact be correct.
You simply can't convince people who are willfully ignorant. I'm sorry you wrote all that for such a lame response but it's the fact of the matter. Their minds might change slowly over the years but they'll never switch on a dime.
When it comes to arguments about science most people don't understand how science works. Stop thinking you have to conduct a PhD defense for shitty trolls. In your other example you won the argument and fell for a shifting of goalposts.
I'll join the chorus.
If something is scientifically proven, just tell them to read the books.
If someone says there are no strong female protagonists, just name three and walk away.
Don't engage with negative people
Naming three is the issue
Alien, Aliens, Alien Resurrection!
I'm also a fan of 1960s comic strip/pulp novel heroine Modesty Blaise, a teenage refugee turned crime boss turned spy.
Games: Tomb raider, Life is strange, Control
Movies: Taking lives, Bone collector, Silence of the lambs
Movies (just because the first three that I thought were all the same genre): Carrie, Alien, Arrival
Movie franchises: Hunger games, Twilight, Star wars episode 7-9
Tv shows: Law and order SVU, Bones, Sabrina
Books: Monstrous Regiment, Alice in wonderland, The handmaid's tale
Comics: Coraline, Wonder woman, Supergirl
These are just the first 3 of every category I thought of.
it seems like you are trying to have genuine debates with people who just want to argue. what happens on the flipside? do people provide you with evidence/examples when you ask? does it change your mind?
You can lead someone to knowledge but you can't make em think.
Can you hit them with the book?
"Well, since you are over 20 years old and are still unaware of any examples, you obviously cannot comprehend the examples that most of the adult society already knows. I'll let you know when I find a toddler's coloring book about this."
You are asking how to argue with someone arguing in bad faith. You don't. You ignore them, or if you think you are pretty good with words you could belittle them for the people watching, but you won't convince them.
Okay I just had this happen to me. Someone just commented "citation needed" to something I said. Instead of engaging them on this comment I merely replied. Asking them if there was anything meaningful they wish to add. It worked wonders, no reply and they were hit with some nice down voting.
Dowvotes don't mean shit. They probably never replied since they have better things to do, than to argue with someone who goes "I need to find your comment meaningful, don't post if I don't"
"It is vast, easy to reach, do it yourself if you care"
I like that.
Intelligence is knowing you can beat someone in a debate. Wisdom is knowing when not to bother.
More people always read the top-level comment
Certainly cite sources when relevant but never argue with a reply
Give it a name. Describe it as "ineffable" or "incomprehensibly vast". Easy.
We talk about stuff that we don't understand all the time. We don't even need to have a reason.