Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Anecdotes vs eyewitness report

Once in a while we argue on the Internet, and then afterwards we realise why that other person was so annoying. I am not going to give you the exact link here, but just offer a general example, because this is a common come-back that claims your argument is flawed - while the come-back is even more so.

The "It's anecdotal evidence" argument, #1

In a discussion concerning the borderland of identity politics and nationalism - so not a happy place to discuss to begin with, I used eyewitness reports of bad behaviour to support my argument. This was immediately rejected, as it was anecdotal evidence, and the person rejecting it had seen with his own eyes that it did not happen. Sometimes, these discussions are best to walk away from, so I did, but the lack of logic in the response bothered me, so here we are. What was wrong with this situation?

1: I had eyewitness reports of something happening.
2: When reported to others, these were now hearsay, which meant they lost impact.
3: My claim was that these things occasionally happened.
4: The other person had seen more than one situation where these things did not happen.
5: The other person used this to claim that these things never happened.

If I had been acting as a researcher, I would have had proof of the eyewitness reports to offer an ethics committee, but I didn't, so it was still hearsay. I also didn't want to link to the blogs of friends who had experienced this behaviour, so there went that possibility. Why not? Well, this was the internet, and we all know how incredibly horrible people can be online. I'll rather swallow my pride than bring the hater hordes down on friends. This means that I can't really play the fact-card here. The question is, can the person I am arguing against do so?

If we look at the claims, the other party has a much heavier burden of proof to carry than I did. Where I claimed that they occasionally happened, where one or two observations or experiences would be enough, the other person claimed this never happened. They used a hasty generalisation:
Hasty Generalization: This is a conclusion based on insufficient or biased evidence. In other words, you are rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts. Example:
Even though it's only the first day, I can tell this is going to be a boring course.
In this example, the author is basing his evaluation of the entire course on only the first day, which is notoriously boring and full of housekeeping tasks for most courses. To make a fair and reasonable evaluation the author must attend not one but several classes, and possibly even examine the textbook, talk to the professor, or talk to others who have previously finished the course in order to have sufficient evidence to base a conclusion on.

 The original topic was something which is impossible to prove from your own experience. Even if you did a thorough research project on it, had observers in every nook and cranny of the country, and asked the entire Norwegian population, report errors, method weaknesses and sheer time and space would work against you. Proving that something has never happened is impossible. The other person could say "This never happens where I am", and that I'd be happy to believe. It still won't disprove the possibility that it could have happened somewhere else.

So what are we left with? This is the Internet, so some methodological wobbling is to be expected.  But the kind of keyboard warriors that aim at winning arguments through superior logic don't always have the firmest of grasps. And next time somebody rejects my hearsay, I'll hopefully be able to politely point out that they can doubt my claim, but they can't disprove it.

And yes, this made me feel better, which is what hindsight is all about. Arguing on the Internet is  after all good practice in the study of fallacies. And if somebody for some reason recognises the discussion, I am going to admit that my original post was aiming for a slippery slope fallacy - if they mean A, let's just hope they are as aggressive in this thinking when they see B happen.
Slippery Slope: This is a conclusion based on the premise that if A happens, then eventually through a series of small steps, through B, C,..., X, Y, Z will happen, too, basically equating A and Z. So, if we don't want Z to occur, A must not be allowed to occur either. Example:
If we ban Hummers because they are bad for the environment eventually the government will ban all cars, so we should not ban Hummers.
In this example, the author is equating banning Hummers with banning all cars, which is not the same thing.
I stopped at B though, but yeah, it could have ended with banning all cars if I hadn't gotten siderailed by being annoyed at discussion logic. But then, as is the nature of the 'net, the original discussion was a slippery slope as well. If they take this freedom from us, any moment now we will all be brainwashed...

Monday, November 27, 2017

Can he give you a hug?

The #metoo campaign took off, and now certain men worry about whether or not they can approach women without having their intentions misunderstood. They fear just being a man will victimize them, and worry about the skewed balance of society, now that women have retaliated against some of the more powerful abusers.

I feel for them. I really do. It is never fun to know that your gender will make others take advantage of you. Women know that feeling very well, and I sympathize with all who are now afraid that their good intentions will be misunderstood. If you invite a friend in for coffee, for instance, and suddenly this friend thinks you were inviting them in for sex, and you say no, but they say yes, and there you go, non-consensual sex happens. Also known, frequently, as date-rape, and something the perpetrator statistically gets away with, because if you invite somebody in for coffee, everybody knows that means sex. Or rather, if you need it spelled out: The person knew that society would trust them if they said they misunderstood your intentions, but not trust you. The person then used this knowledge of how society would interpret the situation to their advantage if you accused them of rape later on, and accused you, the victim, of sending mixed signals, or being a tease, or not being clear enough. It is awful. Nobody likes it.

Or, perhaps you are walking home in the evening, after a fun night with your friends, and you wanted to make an impression on a special someone, so you dressed a bit more enticing than you normally do. But if you dress for one person, it means you invite everybody, so when you are approached and dragged off into the back of a car and raped, the fact that you're a woman wearing a short skirt and high heels is misunderstood for a woman who wants to be sexually abused by random people passing by, and so it's ok to ask about what you were wearing that night and if the clothes could have caused a random stranger to believe you wanted to have sex with them.

Or you give a guy a hug after the company dinner, and he thinks you want to sleep with him, so he starts groping and kissing, and you just wanted to hug because you liked him, and now you really don't like him any more! Yes, Jan Guillou, it's tough to just want to give another person a hug, and be misunderstood. And now some guys start to understand that gender makes a difference for how you are perceived. It's what those pesky, bitchy, whiny, angry, aggressive (hey, misunderstood and bedeviled because of gender much) feminists have been trying to say for a very long time. Gender matters.

And no, being an older man is not the worst thing you can be. But being a powerful, established man who uses his power to take advantage of men and women who need his approval and then abuse them sexually? That is a pretty disgusting thing to be, and you really shouldn't try to defend them just to be allowed to hug one or two pretty young girls after the Christmas party. Keep your hands lightly on their shoulders, don't push your tongue down their throats and don't grind your hips into theirs, and you should be perfectly fine. It's all we ask, really. Shouldn't be that hard. It helps if you hug the older, ugly female colleagues, and your male colleagues, and the transgender ones, too. It demonstrates that you are just happy and friendly and want to let the world know it.

Personally, like I have done since I was old enough to get the rules, I will dress modestly, not drink too much, avoid flirting with men I am not sure can understand a no, and go home while thinking about how to stay safe. I do that regularly in order to not have to accuse some older man of sexual misconduct in social settings. I have tried to avoid that for years. You're welcome.

PS: The Mary Sue has an article concerning male anxiety about sexualised behaviour, with some solid advice.
Being paranoid about past sexual actions or habits should only be used as a way to ensure you do not make the same mistakes in the future. Do not use it as a way to turn yourselves into victims because you have a notion of women as manipulative people who just decided if something was or wasn’t assault on a whim. Flirt with people who are into you, and take no for an answer. Life is not a movie and kissing someone out of nowhere for dramatic tension is not something that happens. Don’t masturbate in front of women. Don’t ask out people who work for you. If you can’t hold your liquor, don’t go drinking with co-workers. If a woman isn’t responding to you in any way just move on.