A genetic fallacy is a claim that something is true/false based on its origin. It’s a catch-all term for ad hominem, appeal to authority, appeal to novelty/tradition, etymological fallacy, so goes on.
Users in both Reddit and Lemmy really, really love to engage in this fallacy. I don’t know why, but if I had to take a guess, it’s because taking into account the origin of a claim in a non-fallacious way prevents them from voicing certainty on a matter, and plenty here/there have an irrational hatred against doubt.
Ah interesting, never heard that term. I was thinking it was believing that x race has a smaller brain or something, but I was gonna say I hadn’t run across too many white supremacists on lemmy.
Yeah, the “genetic” there isn’t related to our chunks of DNA, it’s there for “origin”. Think on it as “the fallacy of the genesis of the argument”.
When it comes to racism Lemmy is way better than Reddit, since the typical user here has better reading comprehension. In Reddit you can outright say something racist and nobody will bat an eye, as long as you avoid easy-to-spot words like slurs; here it doesn’t work. Same deal with transphobia, misogyny etc.
I am not sure if reading comprehension is the reason hate gets to stay on Reddit. I think it’s genuine denial and/or acceptance from the mods, and especially acceptance from admin.
You can use sources to strengthen a claim in a non-fallacious way, through inductive² reasoning. However, most people in Lemmy and Reddit don’t; they want to eat the cake (use deductive¹ reasoning) and have it too (use the origin of a claim as part of the argument), and that’s the genetic fallacy.
And, if I had to take a guess on why they do it, it’s probably because:
inductive reasoning doesn’t allow you to claim certainty or knowledge
inductive reasoning is messy, and it requires you to take multiple factors into account, to weight the likelihood of a certain statement to be true or false
even when dealing solely with inductive reasoning, it’s better to look at why the sources are claiming something than to use the claim directly
So inductive reasoning introduces a lot of complexity and doesn’t let you vomit certainty. And yet both userbases are full of people who want to lie to themselves that they know something and that reality is simple.
And that’s actually a big deal. Because, when you accept the genetic fallacy as solid reasoning (it isn’t), you’re opening the door to a lot of shitty manipulative tactics.
Notes/clarification:
Deductive reasoning: if you start with true premises, and follow a correct logic, then your conclusion will be always true. For example: X is always true when A is true. We know that A is true, thus X is true
Inductive reasoning: you basically “weight” a bunch of factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of a certain statement to be true. Even with optimal factors and reasoning, there’s a chance that your conclusion might be incorrect. For example: *X is often true if A is true. X is sometimes true if B is true. X is usually false if C is false. We know that A and B are true, and that C is false, thus X is likely true." (emphasis on “likely”)
I think I know what you’re saying, though maybe an example might help. But we’re talking about comments on the Web here, not a scientific paper. Most of us can not be subject matter experts and must use inductive reasoning to get by in life. And often have to depend on other sources like articles from trusted sources or scientific papers we’re not very equipped to vet to shape our understanding of the world.
Just saying maybe your expectations are too high for a public Web forum.
I tend to be skeptical of folks when I know they’re incentivized monetarily, emotionally, or socially to believe a certain thing but I do my best not to discount them out of hand. I think most people have a tendency to write folks off completely when it’s more useful to accept uncertainty. To know that a piece of information might be right even if it challenges my worldview. Unfortunately uncertainty is kinda hard work.
For instance, the US has a lot of incentive to make alternative economic systems seem awful. Anytime a pro US media source like Radio Free Asia says something negative about China. I have to accept that:
They’ve lied in the past
They’re incentived to lie again
It’s still possible they’re telling the truth
I have to accept that balance.
This works well for situations that don’t effect me personally. On the other hand, if there’s a person who has a predatory reputation in my friend group, I don’t have the luxury of giving them the benefit of the doubt. They are a present danger to myself and the people around me.
If people were using inductive reasoning, that would be fine. They aren’t - as I said they’re trying to eat the cake and have it too: “expert said so, then it’s true/false lol lmao”.
And in the process they rush towards certainty on things that might be completely false, often because they’re being manipulated to do so - because it’s trivially easy to claim authority over a subject, or to stain someone else’s authority over it.
Just saying maybe your expectations are too high for a public Web forum.
My expectations - not just for web forums, but also for real life - is that, when we don’t know something, we shouldn’t claim that it’s true or false. It’s fine to conjecture, it’s fine to say what you think/guess, but not to make a hard statement, unless you have good grounds to do so.
And inductive reasoning does not give you those good grounds to claim certainty.
However, I think that in web forums this rubs your typical user the wrong way. They want to believe that they know something, but aren’t willing to spend the necessary effort to do so.
I would appreciate more people discussing things with these ideas in mind.
Between the echo chamber sentiment, and people’s difficulty with empathy or accepting there could be other view points, it’s hard to maneuver around hot topics and learn anything.
The extreme left sentiment has been repeatedly mentioned, but I’m honestly still hoping to learn other people’s perspectives here.
Ad hominem - taking a claim as automatically false because of who said it:
[Alice] “The Sun is a star, like any other.”
[Bob] “People, disregard what Alice said. Alice is no astronomer, so of course the Sun is not a star.”
Ad autoritatem - taking a claim as automatically true because of who said it:
“See that scientist there? He has a PhD, and he claims that anthropogenic climate change is not a big deal. Thus we can safely disregard it as people making shit up.”
Sometimes authorities are wrong. The likelihood of being wrong might be smaller than the one of a random nobody, but it’s still there. You can’t simply deal with it as “authority said so then it’s true”. (Check what I said about inductive logic in the other comment.)
There’s more, but they all boil down to “you aren’t analysing the claim, you’re analysing where the claim is from”.
One example that happens quite often is “look, Uyghurs are in forced labour camps in China”, and the genetic fallacy response is “nooo that was reported by the New York Times which is an organ of western imperialism so it’s all bullshit you’re a westoid goon”
A genetic fallacy is a claim that something is true/false based on its origin. It’s a catch-all term for ad hominem, appeal to authority, appeal to novelty/tradition, etymological fallacy, so goes on.
Users in both Reddit and Lemmy really, really love to engage in this fallacy. I don’t know why, but if I had to take a guess, it’s because taking into account the origin of a claim in a non-fallacious way prevents them from voicing certainty on a matter, and plenty here/there have an irrational hatred against doubt.
Ah interesting, never heard that term. I was thinking it was believing that x race has a smaller brain or something, but I was gonna say I hadn’t run across too many white supremacists on lemmy.
Yeah, the “genetic” there isn’t related to our chunks of DNA, it’s there for “origin”. Think on it as “the fallacy of the genesis of the argument”.
When it comes to racism Lemmy is way better than Reddit, since the typical user here has better reading comprehension. In Reddit you can outright say something racist and nobody will bat an eye, as long as you avoid easy-to-spot words like slurs; here it doesn’t work. Same deal with transphobia, misogyny etc.
I am not sure if reading comprehension is the reason hate gets to stay on Reddit. I think it’s genuine denial and/or acceptance from the mods, and especially acceptance from admin.
Seems to me that for validating information on subjects that one isn’t an expert in, source would be important.
You can use sources to strengthen a claim in a non-fallacious way, through inductive² reasoning. However, most people in Lemmy and Reddit don’t; they want to eat the cake (use deductive¹ reasoning) and have it too (use the origin of a claim as part of the argument), and that’s the genetic fallacy.
And, if I had to take a guess on why they do it, it’s probably because:
So inductive reasoning introduces a lot of complexity and doesn’t let you vomit certainty. And yet both userbases are full of people who want to lie to themselves that they know something and that reality is simple.
And that’s actually a big deal. Because, when you accept the genetic fallacy as solid reasoning (it isn’t), you’re opening the door to a lot of shitty manipulative tactics.
Notes/clarification:
I think I know what you’re saying, though maybe an example might help. But we’re talking about comments on the Web here, not a scientific paper. Most of us can not be subject matter experts and must use inductive reasoning to get by in life. And often have to depend on other sources like articles from trusted sources or scientific papers we’re not very equipped to vet to shape our understanding of the world.
Just saying maybe your expectations are too high for a public Web forum.
I see what you mean. I’ll try to give an example.
I tend to be skeptical of folks when I know they’re incentivized monetarily, emotionally, or socially to believe a certain thing but I do my best not to discount them out of hand. I think most people have a tendency to write folks off completely when it’s more useful to accept uncertainty. To know that a piece of information might be right even if it challenges my worldview. Unfortunately uncertainty is kinda hard work.
For instance, the US has a lot of incentive to make alternative economic systems seem awful. Anytime a pro US media source like Radio Free Asia says something negative about China. I have to accept that:
I have to accept that balance.
This works well for situations that don’t effect me personally. On the other hand, if there’s a person who has a predatory reputation in my friend group, I don’t have the luxury of giving them the benefit of the doubt. They are a present danger to myself and the people around me.
If people were using inductive reasoning, that would be fine. They aren’t - as I said they’re trying to eat the cake and have it too: “expert said so, then it’s true/false lol lmao”.
And in the process they rush towards certainty on things that might be completely false, often because they’re being manipulated to do so - because it’s trivially easy to claim authority over a subject, or to stain someone else’s authority over it.
My expectations - not just for web forums, but also for real life - is that, when we don’t know something, we shouldn’t claim that it’s true or false. It’s fine to conjecture, it’s fine to say what you think/guess, but not to make a hard statement, unless you have good grounds to do so.
And inductive reasoning does not give you those good grounds to claim certainty.
However, I think that in web forums this rubs your typical user the wrong way. They want to believe that they know something, but aren’t willing to spend the necessary effort to do so.
I would appreciate more people discussing things with these ideas in mind.
Between the echo chamber sentiment, and people’s difficulty with empathy or accepting there could be other view points, it’s hard to maneuver around hot topics and learn anything.
The extreme left sentiment has been repeatedly mentioned, but I’m honestly still hoping to learn other people’s perspectives here.
I’m not sure I really get what you mean, could you give an example?
I’ll use some silly examples.
Ad hominem - taking a claim as automatically false because of who said it:
Ad autoritatem - taking a claim as automatically true because of who said it:
Sometimes authorities are wrong. The likelihood of being wrong might be smaller than the one of a random nobody, but it’s still there. You can’t simply deal with it as “authority said so then it’s true”. (Check what I said about inductive logic in the other comment.)
There’s more, but they all boil down to “you aren’t analysing the claim, you’re analysing where the claim is from”.
Thanks for clarifying! :)
One example that happens quite often is “look, Uyghurs are in forced labour camps in China”, and the genetic fallacy response is “nooo that was reported by the New York Times which is an organ of western imperialism so it’s all bullshit you’re a westoid goon”