On pendulums and society

[ajaxfetish]

I seem to recall mentioning there were millions of individuals, but please do keep denying inconvenient truths.

You claimed we were supporting a fallacy. If the averages are in favor of men, that doesn't mean individual men couldn't be worse off than women. This is true; however, it has nothing to do with your original argument, which is what Sasaki was pointing out. Individual men having it worse than individual women is no reason to mess with the pendulum. Only the averages should affect such choices.

Ajax

[Productivity]

I'm curious Rodion, if you had a choice would you prefer to be born male or female?

[Rodion Romanovich]

I guess it wouldn't matter, what matters isn't primarily what group you belong to, but what fate gives you as individual.

Of course the question is also a bit odd - being a male, the thought of being a woman seems absurd and strange to me. But I'm convinced that if I had been born as a woman and grown up as one, I probably would think being a man would be similarly absurd and strange.

[Rodion Romanovich]

You claimed we were supporting a fallacy. If the averages are in favor of men, that doesn't mean individual men couldn't be worse off than women. This is true; however, it has nothing to do with your original argument, which is what Sasaki was pointing out. Individual men having it worse than individual women is no reason to mess with the pendulum. Only the averages should affect such choices.

Ajax

Good, this is one of the comments I wanted to provoke: that a single pendulum is an over-simplification of reality, even if it seems accurate for measuring averages. The other comment I wanted to provoke was the realization that time delays from reading the value of the goal measurement as basis for making a change, to actually achieving that change in that same measurement, can screw up regulation a lot, and cause extremism even when you think you strive for neutrality/the midpoint.

In short, people should be treated as individuals and not as groups, and all people should always be on full alertness when a "pendulum" of average values per group is about to pass the midpoint, as there's a huge danger of creating new extremism in the other direction, or even gain greater speed than it already has. Points, which I believe have been illustrated now. I'm glad you agree that the statement I put in quotation marks above is a fallacy.

[Geoffrey S]

I'm curious. How then has this holier-than-thou attitude and overly long, pretentious posts led to anything more than stating the obvious?

[Rodion Romanovich]

Excuse me where did I have such an attitude?

As for stating the obvious, stating the obvious is the best thing one can do, as most mistakes and misconceptions are about forgetting the obvious.

[Gregoshi]

I'm glad you agree that the statement I put in quotation marks above is a fallacy.

The old Pit in the Pendulum fallacy.

[KukriKhan]

: "Do you know where you are Bartolome? You are about to enter hell. In hell Bartolome, IN HELL!: the dead world, infernal zone, damned house, tortures place, pandemonium, purgatory, avernus, fire, Satan, THE PIT!... and the pendulum."

from IMDB Pit and the Pendulum (1961). Gregoshi is right: the classics are always the best.