Do you ever hold your tongue on facts to avoid arguments?

[yung.carl.jung]

Wait, warpus, what's this about Muslim lesbians?

I need to know, too. Never heard these two words combined in my life, actually.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'll catch crap from the ladies on the forum for this civvver. I'd have done better holding my tongue, but I'm not really good at that anyway.

Sorry for taking so long to give you crap for this post, but the browser ate my first post and then I got busy with trying to finish my NaNoWriMo entry before the deadline.

Consider it lobbed. I really dislike these attitudes about "all" women do this or "all" women think that (whatever it is). To this day I remember an argument that arose on the way to an SCA wargames event (weekend of camping, medieval style). One of the guys in the van decided to pontificate about how "all" women buy lots of pairs of impractical shoes. He was saying this to two of us who spent the weekend wearing either runners or boots under our long dresses.

My parents watch nothing but Fox News. So they think Canadians HATE their healthcare (which they probably don't like certain things about it, but that doesn't mean they would prefer our system)...

They're watching propaganda. Yes, we are frequently annoyed with our health care system, but it's quite an exaggeration to say we hate it (or at least those of us who are not rich don't hate it). It may take longer for some things, but at least I never need to worry about how I'm going to pay the doctor or hospital.

To add on to what I said earlier in the thread: A lot of the time I also just can't be bothered to educate someone. I don't get paid to educate people so if they want to walk around blissfully ignorant about certain matters, I'll let them continue on being blissfully ignorant. The fact that we live in an age where just about everyone has internet access and search engines that could answer just about any question they could think of asking has only reinforced this attitude in me. Now, my response to anyone who disagrees with something I know to be factually true is "fine, Google it if you don't believe me" and then I move on to another topic of conversation.

"Google it yourself" is considered really rude on some forums.

Even if it ends up in a big discussion about muslim lesbians.

Is that a topic of conversation that comes up on a regular basis in your parents' home?

My grandfather would sometimes go on a rant about Jews, and I finally had enough one day. I told him he'd better quit watching Star Trek and T.J. Hooker. When asked why, I informed him, "Because William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and Walter Koenig are Jewish. And you'd better stop reading my science fiction books, too. At least a third of them are by authors who happen to be Jewish."

I let him think it over as to how much of a hypocrite he wanted to be, and told him that if he kept on about this in the house I'd put away my books and if he wanted to read any science fiction, he could go get his own library card or buy them himself.

I followed through on that, and he quit - at least in my hearing.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

When I happen to enter politics with people in real life, I usually do. There are few circles I don't, but usually people I talk to are even far less informed and educated than I am, and that turns any wholesome conversation into a one-sided lecture both sides won't be happy to walk away from. In such instances, I use a balance of cynic snark and a bit of meat to stand my ground while keeping it light. Should I encounter a person where a more serious tone is worthwhile, I will know and can safely advance the discussion.

 

[Esperr]

I grew up in central California, which is basically just the south in the wrong location, I spent many years mastering the art of just not saying anything about politics. It was the kind of area where everybody was assumed conservative republican and racism was just a fact of life and thats the way things are. I now live in the "actual" south and its not nearly the same.

 

[CavLancer]

Thank you for lobbing Valka, nice toss. Generalizing is of course wrong, as am I to do so. :b:

 

[CavLancer]

I need to know, too. Never heard these two words combined in my life, actually.

I can just see getting together with family, sitting down at the big dining room table with the extra leaves all in, to a big turkey with all the trimmins, brother Bobby, his wife and six kids filling one end with with happy sounds of joy and celebration,and grandma and granpa and mum and dad getting in yet another conversation about Muslim lesbians. Oh the humanities, I mean enough is enough!

 

[Commodore]

"Google it yourself" is considered really rude on some forums

I was speaking in the context of face to face conversations. When I'm at any kind of social gathering, I'm usually there to relax and have fun, not spend time trying to educate people. I'm not a teacher, and whatever gathering I'm at isn't a schoolhouse, so I find it completely appropriate to tell people in such situations to "Google it themselves".

 

[luiz]

So my question is, in a situation like that would you insist on showing them the facts and risk angering people or would you just drop it cus who really cares?

Just drop it because nobody cares. Being right all the time is good on CFC, not in real life. To get along with people you can't really start an argument every time you disagree with something, even if you're 100% sure you're correct.

As an example, some good friends of my fiancée are very into homeopathy, traditional medicine, alternative therapies and all that crap. It's even what they do for a living. They always talk to me about it. And they are super nice people, always inviting us over for dinner and stuff. Why should I tell them that I think their freakin' profession is a fraud and they're no better than a witch doctor? What good exactly would that accomplish? They won't change their minds, but my fiancée would lose two friends, and I will have hurt the feelings of good people for no reason whatsoever.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Wait, what's wrong with witch doctors? Is there any good peer-reviewed reading material disproving that homeopathy has any kind of effect? I've seen it work and usually ascribed it to Placebo effect and/or wishful thinking, positive attitude and so forth improving the bodies self-healing rate. But is there actually a definite way to rule out that it works?

 

[luiz]

Wait, what's wrong with witch doctors? Is there any good peer-reviewed reading material disproving that homeopathy has any kind of effect? I've seen it work and usually ascribed it to Placebo effect and/or wishful thinking, positive attitude and so forth improving the bodies self-healing rate. But is there actually a definite way to rule out that it works?

Eh, science works the other way around. The problem with homeopathy and "traditional" medicine is that there's no evidence whatsoever that it works beyond the placebo effect. Large, controlled studies have found no measurable effects. I can argue that I own a magic shoe that prevents people who wear it from having cancer, and there's no scientific study proving that my magical shoe does not work - but I'm still not entitled to make that claim, because there's no evidence that it does work.

An I'm not even touching the elephant in the room which is that the whole theory behind homeopathy is horse crap and you have to be a complete idiot (or very prone to magical thinking) to believe that a small dose of pure water will cure anything because it has "memory" of some long-diluted poison. So we can rule out that it works based on the fact that there is no reason why it would work, and indeed it's impossible that it could work.

 

[Flying Pig]

That's worth saying, actually. It's easy enough to find a reliable relationship between things - see this recent study from China, which alleged that you can spot criminals by their facial features. There's definitely a link between being convicted of a crime and having a certain appearance - however, to make that remotely useful, you need to come up with an explanation for why that link exists that actually holds water. Otherwise, you'll be fooled into thinking that your criminal-detecting machine 'works' to pick criminals off the streets, when all that it actually does is pick on people from demographics that are arrested and convicted more often than others.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Eh, science works the other way around. The problem with homeopathy and "traditional" medicine is that there's no evidence whatsoever that it works beyond the placebo effect. Large, controlled studies have found no measurable effects. I can argue that I own a magic shoe that prevents people who wear it from having cancer, and there's no scientific study proving that my magical shoe does not work - but I'm still not entitled to make that claim, because there's no evidence that it does work.

An I'm not even touching the elephant in the room which is that the whole theory behind homeopathy is horse crap and you have to be a complete idiot (or very prone to magical thinking) to believe that a small dose of pure water will cure anything because it has "memory" of some long-diluted poison. So we can rule out that it works based on the fact that there is no reason why it would work, and indeed it's impossible that it could work.

I realize what the burden of proof is, but that is not what I asked. Personally I do not see a problem unless someone is dealing with a dangerous or life-threatening illness and still relies in homeopathy, traditional Chinese medicine or similiar techniques, because in that scenario it could actually do harm.

Furthermore I don't think what you described in your second paragraph is how homeopathy is actually supposed to work. Correct me if I'm wrong but the idea of Hahnemann was to cure diseases by injecting very small doses of often times poisonous or otherwise harmful substances that share the same symptoms.

I was not asking to say "You're wrong, prove that you're right!", I was merely curious whether you actually had some interesting literature to share on the subject. I myself have read studies that come to the conclusion that homeopathy does not work beyond autosuggestion, one only has to do a google search for that.

 

[luiz]

I realize what the burden of proof is, but that is not what I asked. Personally I do not see a problem unless someone is dealing with a dangerous or life-threatening illness and still relies in homeopathy, traditional Chinese medicine or similiar techniques, because in that scenario it could actually do harm.

Furthermore I don't think what you described in your second paragraph is how homeopathy is actually supposed to work. Correct me if I'm wrong but the idea of Hahnemann was to cure diseases by injecting very small doses of often times poisonous or otherwise harmful substances that share the same symptoms.

I was not asking to say "You're wrong, prove that you're right!", I was merely curious whether you actually had some interesting literature to share on the subject. I myself have read studies that come to the conclusion that homeopathy does not work beyond autosuggestion, one only has to do a google search for that.

Oh, OK. As for literature disproving homeopathy, Wikipedia does a pretty good job of putting it all together in a place.

About the principle of homeopathy, it's a "poison" related to the thing that causes the illness, but dilluted over and over again. Modern studies have found there is not even a molecule of the original substance in the final homeopathic medication - so it's pure distilled water. Of course, even if there were traces of the substance, the whole theory would make no sense. But as it is, it's people thinking pure water will cure anything.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I am not mean about it, but if it's a dispute over facts then I do not allow things to get in the way of facts when I can help it.

My take on it is if they feel that strongly, it is not rational to shy from the facts. If they don't, it shouldn't turn into an argument in the first place.

That said, my immediate family and even in-laws of siblings are not the types that would get upset over being shown that an internet search confirms someone is correct. I still remember a conversation about whether polar or grizzly bears are larger that wound up turning into a Wikipedia type search spam on bears and bear behavior variance in general. I do my best to avoid people who would actually get upset over being incorrect on the facts about something and corrected...being mistaken on the facts is not something us mere mortals trivially avoid, and I'm not a fan of basking in ignorance against evidence.

When it's harder to determine a fact for certain, I usually let it go pretty fast myself instead. I'm annoyed by lack of easily attainable facts that influence important decisions, but that's not the fault of anybody near me and discussing something while I know I'm ignorant of important information isn't worth my time.

 

[warpus]

Wait, warpus, what's this about Muslim lesbians?

lol .. well, last time I hung out with my parents, aunt, uncle, grandmother, etc. we were all drinking and they were talking about lesbians and how they shouldn't be able to marry or adopt. So I mean, of course I had to say something, because that's just wrong. At some point the conversation turned towards refugees and Trump and how it makes sense to limit the immigration of Muslims or whatever. Then we were back to lesbians. But muslims would pop back into the conversation every once in a while too.

Technically there was no discussion about muslims who are also lesbian, but in my mind that's all these people want to talk about. Muslim lesbians. It's so much nonsense that I might as well call it that and tell them "Sorry guys, I don't want to waste 6 hours sitting with you talking about Muslim lesbians, I have better things to do, I will see you another time"

 

[Sommerswerd]

Holding your tongue on facts to avoid arguments is almost a prerequisite when dealing with religious fundamentalists... so if you have them in your family you pretty much have to make peace with doing this, if you want to continue to have a relationship with them.

EDIT:My post is not a response to warpus above... just my random response to the OP. I didn't even see warpus' post when I was posting

 

[warpus]

My family doesn't have anyone that is overly religious, but we're all Polish and so Catholicism is basically a part of our culture and a part of who we are. A lot of people in my family are highly educated, my parents both have physics degrees, my aunt teaches math, we almost never discuss God, I'm not convinced that half the people in my family even believe that God exists. My mom probably does, my dad and uncle it's hard to say, my aunt, who knows. It's just not talked about because God is not the important part of religion. And yet, the church is an important aspect of these people's lives and they can't see a life without the church in it. It's simply a part of who they are. The pay lip service to what the church preaches even though they might not really care if somebody says "God doesn't exist". I mean, yeah, they would care, but that's a philosophical matter to them and not something "on the ground" that affects their lives. They care a lot more if somebody says "I don't want to be catholic anymore" or "I don't want to participate in this baptism ceremony". The church's conservative values rub off on them, and they grew up in a homogenous culture, which explains a lot of their views, but they are very far from religious fundamentalists (Not that you ^^ were saying that they are, I know you weren't addressing them specifically) so I am able to sit down with them and question their points of view and we can have a rational discussion about it.

It also helps that we all grew up in a society where you were expected to question authority figures and be skeptical of them. So I think my family can at least appreciate my pov even though they believe that the liberal left has been co-opted by idiots (which in some ways it has)

 

[Lexicus]

Holding your tongue on facts to avoid arguments is almost a prerequisite when dealing with religious fundamentalists... so if you have them in your family you pretty much have to make peace with doing this, if you want to continue to have a relationship with them.

Heh, you better believe it. There was a time, pretty recently, when I'd have answered the OP's question with a resounding No.
And that's ultimately the question. It's possible to correct people on facts without being a jackass about it, but there are also situations where social skill demands that we not fall on certain swords. I'm reminded of that anecdote you related once upon a time where you said you receive the Jehovah's Witnesses into your house, and have a nice talk with them, even though you don't believe a word of what they're preaching.

Ultimately I think my relationships with people matter more than being right on the facts all the time. And even when you're right, there's different ways to go about correcting people or explaining why they're wrong - more and less tactful ways, more and less respectful ways, etc.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Wait, what's wrong with witch doctors? Is there any good peer-reviewed reading material disproving that homeopathy has any kind of effect? I've seen it work and usually ascribed it to Placebo effect and/or wishful thinking, positive attitude and so forth improving the bodies self-healing rate. But is there actually a definite way to rule out that it works?

Let's see... there are parents currently on trial here for treating their kid's meningitis with dandelion tea. There's another couple where the man is in jail and I don't recall what sentence the woman got, for treating their kid's meningitis with a mixture of horseradish, some kind of oil, and various other stuff. People kept telling them to take the kid to the hospital, but they didn't. The kid died, and they were convicted of failing to provide the necessities of life (ie. proper medical care).

So I'd say that's a good indication that if your child has meningitis, dandelion tea and horseradish are not going to work.

It also helps that we all grew up in a society where you were expected to question authority figures and be skeptical of them. So I think my family can at least appreciate my pov even though they believe that the liberal left has been co-opted by idiots (which in some ways it has)

I grew up with a grandfather who expected me to never question authority figures (namely himself and my grandmother). The man of the house was automatically right, and so was anyone older than me. It caused some pretty nasty family fights when I finally did start getting out of the house more and started questioning, being skeptical, and rebelling.

It's possible to correct people on facts without being a jackass about it, but there are also situations where social skill demands that we not fall on certain swords. I'm reminded of that anecdote you related once upon a time where you said you receive the Jehovah's Witnesses into your house, and have a nice talk with them, even though you don't believe a word of what they're preaching.

Ultimately I think my relationships with people matter more than being right on the facts all the time. And even when you're right, there's different ways to go about correcting people or explaining why they're wrong - more and less tactful ways, more and less respectful ways, etc.

The only time I ever socialized with a JW was when I spent 5 weeks in the hospital (15 years ago), overheard a nurse address another patient, thought to myself, "I knew someone by that name in school, I wonder if this is a relative" - so I asked him and he said, "That's my son." So we got talking and I am sure some folks here are not going to believe that I managed to hold my tongue when he said he was Jehovah's Witness and started writing down bible verses he wanted me to read (the hospital kept a copy of the bible in the patients' lounge). It was a lot harder when he started pontificating about what a waste of money the space program was, considering that he was being kept alive by some of the technology that arose as a result of that.

But I didn't go beyond polite disagreement with him, because my grandfather taught me that it's not right to call an 85-year-old an idiot. We got along fine for the rest of it, and once I was more mobile, we'd visit and take short walks now and then. I never did bother reading those bible verses.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

That's worth saying, actually. It's easy enough to find a reliable relationship between things - see this recent study from China, which alleged that you can spot criminals by their facial features. There's definitely a link between being convicted of a crime and having a certain appearance - however, to make that remotely useful, you need to come up with an explanation for why that link exists that actually holds water. Otherwise, you'll be fooled into thinking that your criminal-detecting machine 'works' to pick criminals off the streets, when all that it actually does is pick on people from demographics that are arrested and convicted more often than others.

Facial features are closely related to hormone levels. I imagine they will match all kinds of statistic behavioral tendencies.