Friend Infected With Right Wing Brain Worms - What to Do?

The new villain on season 3 Jessica Jones is this guy. It's a little too on the nose.

pretty sure you establish your intellect by learning, but I could have that wrong

alt-right dude i know is a logic king, he's big on how logical arguments are a sign of strength vs the weakness of emotional arguments.

mostly his cold logic manifests itself in insanely emotional outbursts of transphobia and "don't believe women" posts

Lemme guess: dude ain't real big on Socratic method.

funny how these geniuses are oblivious to the crucial function emotions play in survival, decision-making, etc huh

speaking as someone who has never felt themselves to be a strong logician, I've come to believe that most people wildly misapprehend what constitutes 'logic'

generally, being very logical means you keep arguing and talking until the other person gives up or leaves

logic is just an excuse to treat people coldly and remorselessly sometimes

there was a period in my past where my ways were definitely very "logical," and in retrospect, it was very much based in a lack of self-confidence and inability to deal with ambiguity

Even Spock sometimes cries.

Yeah but he's half oh hang on

Like I know this is a huge generalization but I also don't think it's too huge a generalization to say that people who lean heavily on the crutch of cold logic do so at least in part to mask an epic vortex of painful emotions they'd rather not deal with directly thankuverymuch.

My cousin seems to have set aside logic, after I asked for explanations of very. abstract statements. Now it appears facts are of secondary importance, and 'narrative' is making a strong showing,. If data or facts suggest x well thats not actually that important because narrative suggests y. Narrative doesn't really need supporting. evidence. and just 'is' - the event horizon of pure tautology is imminent, words and their meanings can be free from each other finally

aggravating people=asshole
wanting to 'establish one's intellect'= insecure asshole
this appears to be very otm wrt that guy and everyone i know who subscribes to this philosophy of aggravation

he also complains about his dates on facebook which is beyond nagl imo -- i don't care how anonymous he thinks it is, that's disrespectful on a basic humanity level. he also claimed that "white male privilege" doesn't exist on a number of grounds, all of them shaky

what omar and OL say rings true to me. seems like they're ashamed of their own emotions. feel "weak" by having them.

never underestimate the variety of manifestations of self-loathing

i think that's true too
logic is "hard"
emotions are "soft"

he also complains about his dates on facebook which is beyond nagl imo

I never really understand when people do this, but it's also a huge tell -- there's no way they're friends with anyone they've previously dated. not necessarily a red flag, but sometimes it really is

the "emotions = soft" thing reminds me of something i read awhile back about how men much more than women don't like to bring non-disposable grocery bags to the store since it seems wussy, and in fact how green initiatives register the same way with many men.

which makes complete sense when you think about this bullshit culture

LL very otm

the other thing "logical" people never really grasp is that even if you're somehow making a completely objective case for whatever garbage you're saying, the reason you feel compelled to make those arguments is based in emotion

convincing everyone you're technically correct (the best type of correctness, natch) is worthless if you're also convincing everyone you're a jerk who just can't drop it

also, the thing that is being argued is very seldom the actual issue! it's usually a misconception of what someone said, so you're arguing about something that wasn't what was really said

wanting to feel smart and logical and wanting to win an argument all stem from emotions too!

even within emotions, there's "hard" and "soft ones. or masculine and feminine. when they criticize liberals for being ruled by emotions, they mean the softer, feminine emotions. because holy hell are they rule by emotions like fear, anger, disgust etc

I can't speak for everyone but I know in my case that, having been raised under a cloud of toxic masculinity and repression, talking about feelings is hard! I mean just engaging in the conversations to begin with, sure, but also just finding the words when you'd never been encouraged to learn or use them. I've had to slowly build a rudimentary emotional vocabulary as an adult to address the things going on inside me, and it's an intentional process, and it's hard. So I understand and, to an extent, sympathize with those who default to leaning on tools they know how to use and that aren't as likely to leave them suddenly weeping out of the blue for reasons they don't understand and can't articulate. It certainly doesn't excuse awful behavior but it's an underaddressed symptom of the culture which is rapidly becoming comorbid with a whole bunch of other festering illnesses.

absolutely key point

Well said OL

It is hard! It’s hard for women too.

what omar and OL say rings true to me. seems like they're ashamed of their own emotions. feel "weak" by having them.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger),

While this may often be true, I think with many people exhibiting brain worm like syndrome its actually something more fundamental - a lack of empathy

I don't mean this in a moral sense but in a practical sense. My cousin for example (and my dad) can't really conceive of what another person in a situation might want, which gives them incorrect readings of a situation, and a wrong reason of what that person might actually do

When the other person does something entirely expected, it reads wrong to a brain-wormed person because they couldn't put themselves in their shoes. This often is to the disadvantage of the brain worm. How to explain what happened? the other person was 'erratic' or 'emotional', they deviated from the brain-wormed picture, not from reality

The reason the brain-wormed is always logical, or objective, is that they are centred in the picture, not out of egotism. but just in a more general sense

They are a truly neutral reference point - possibly the only one!

There is often a lot of projection going on and ppl can't see how they are bringing with them their own privilege or financial/ familial/ logistical circumstances and background of how previous decisions worked out for them.

so "in that situation I would do X; I can't understand why/it's illogical that someone else would do Y"
when you are only able to do X/ benefit from X because of your personal circumstances.

then you also get arguments like
why don't poor people buy lentils instead of high-calorie food; I would
why don't abused women just leave; I would

I'm not quite caught up on the conversation but in reference to the obsession with "logical arguments"... I think a lot of these guys also get fixated on memorizing those lists of fallacies that are all over the internet (usually with stupid little icons for each, if you search by images). Then anytime there's a debate at all, they're waiting for an opportunity to yell the name of the first fallacy they think they hear. It plays into them keeping everything at arms length and looking at issues as coldly and robotically as possible.

https://static.existentialcomics.com/comics/fallacyMan1.jpg

The rest here:

https://existentialcomics.com/comic/9

existential comics is good

And lest we forget – his video was mercifully taken off YT, but this archetypal screenshot remains:

https://i.redd.it/j1zbow89212z.png

i was definitely once seduced by a list of fallacies. probably by an atheism FAQ i found on usenet in 6th grade or something. took me a while to completely shake that, it's very appealing to imagine yourself in possession of a sort of book of spells that reveal everyone else to be wrong and you to be smart. it's also genuinely important and useful to not be seduced by logical fallacies!

The amount of sheer deductive logic contained in that frame is simply too much to bear for a female child.

xp

That might be the finest photograph produced by Western civilization.

A lot of energy, albeit mostly in the soda.

The watermark in the bottom right corner is kvlt af.

it's also genuinely important and useful to not be seduced by logical fallacies!

― Good morning, how are you, I'm (Doctor Casino), Thursday, June 27, 2019 11:44 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes! Don't get me wrong. It's really good to understand them. I agree.

I'm going to paraphrase a friend's recent facebook post here since we're not 77, but he related an anecdote about his own family:

"Similarly, I was raised by people that insisted that their way was the only way to do anything, and if anyone did it differently, they were wrong and were to be shunned. This belief extended to everything from how housework to holidays should be done."

it was juxtaposed with a quote from a Joseph Campbell book he's reading:
https://scontent-ort2-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/65195991_10218585290678639_6120980664893308928_o.jpg?_nc_cat=109&_nc_oc=AQmw9kI6lOwMzqCqvgP1-_ZTNS2GQ8qncHV3qCPeVdeC-qFotQOuN8Z5xCSJgna4vog&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-2.xx&oh=0e5abebb593d00765d9f62438622c989&oe=5DB6E1AC

hmm that probably failed to embed, but this was the quote:

On the other hand, like most of the rest of us, one may invent a false finally unjustified image of oneself as an exceptional phenomenon in the world--not guilty as others are, but justified in one's inevitable sinning, because one represents the good. Such self-righteousness leads to a misunderstanding, not only of oneself, but of the nature of both Man and the Cosmos.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_bias

This is great on bogus appeals to logic and reason:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/05/the-worlds-most-annoying-man

The great benefit of understanding logical fallacies for me is that it gives me the opportunity to see when people are, consciously or no, arguing in bad faith and _disengage_. Look, there's plenty of research to show that proving to people that they're wrong isn't effective, so why would I do it?

The thing that frustrates me is identity issues. As much shit as the "cling to guns and religion" comment got, it was mostly clumsily phrased rather than actually untrue. Personally I do see it as sort of pseudo-identity politics. I don't think that being a gun owner is an identity issue the way that, say, being queer or a person of color is, but a lot of gun owners do see it that way. At that point things are irreconcilable and, you know, something has to give.

Relevant to this thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDMjgOYOcDw

That dude is annoying and that video is 70 minutes long. I lasted three.

i don't even know who the target audience is for these types of videos

extremely earnest young men i suppose