If a poster is wrong more than half the time, would you take them seriously?

The BBQ Pit
1

I ask because as may of you know, I’m wrong a lot. I make dumb arguments, I recite facts from memory that turn out to be laughably wrong. Some would say that because of that, I’m not worth being taken seriously. Some have even accused me of bad motives. And I’m not alone. It seems to be a common thread throughout the internet that if you disagree with someone, they are obviously an idiot or evil. Of course not everyone does this, but too often vitriol is directed at posters just for being wrong.

It’s a stupid, immature thing to do, because most people are wrong a lot. But let’s assume that those who cast the stones are without sin. What if they were shown that many of the people they do take seriously, or even admire, are also wrong more often than they are right?

You’re all familiar with Politifact’s Truth-O-Meter. But I’d like you all to look at it in a new light. It’s amazing how often pundits and politicians say incredibly stupid things. And Politifact isn’t even measuring gaffes, but statements of fact that are 99% of the time from prepared statements, often vetted by other very well educated people. I’ve said before that Town Square veterans often have a better command of the facts and make better arguments than politicians, but if you look at the Truth-O-Meter I think it proves it.

Take the President for example:

He’s wrong more than half the time he opens his mouth. If we’re generous and give him credit for half true statements, he’s still wrong a quarter of the time.
Paul Krugman, a Nobel economist who a lot of people admire, and who can’t resist calling those who disagree with him idiots, doesn’t have the greatest record either:

He’s right more often than he’s wrong, but he’s had a couple of laughers himself.

Really, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who looks good when measured in this way. So basically, this is a call for civility. Everyone gets things wrong. The best response to dumb arguments or facts that are pure malarkey is to correct it, move on, and let people draw their own conclusions about whether a poster is worth paying attention to. Engaging in a campaign of condemnation and belittling says more about the poster doing it than the target.

I realize that this is the opposite of a pit thread, but I figured it was the best place for it.

2

Nope, not buying it, the problem is that in virtually all the previous discussions you never come back to acknowledge the wrong information. That is precisely a demonstration of immaturity* and a big reason why many do not take you seriously.
*This is even more evident by many times seeing you come back with one liners that only attempt to ridicule a cite that showed that you were wrong and then no evidence is posted to support your one liner.

3

Math fail… Seriously…selective interpretation of data doesn’t make it say what you want it to say - except to people who are easily persuaded of things by a slick presentation and a careful arranging of the data.

“See, see, those people are wrong a lot too, and they’re still respected!”
Maybe it’s because they’ve done a lot of other things to garner the amount of respect necessary to make followers look the other way when they’re wrong? Key components here - “respect” and “followers”. If you ain’t got neither, then you’re not going to be forgiven your incorrect statements, because the internet’s a tough, mean, troll-faced bitch.

FWIW, I don’t even know you, barely recognize your poster name, and on this one post alone I can imagine it would be extremely tough to hold a rational debate with you. You’re trying to present numbers in a way contrary to what they actually say, and using that as a point to defend your “position”, which is essentially - “Please stop being so mean to me, even though I’m wrong a lot, and say things that are later found to be wrong with extreme conviction!”

Maybe what you could do, is approach a topic (about which there may be many many differering opinions) from a new angle - not “These are the facts, and I know so” but instead “Hey, this reputable source says X, maybe that’s worth looking at and should affect our opinions?” Everybody believes their opinions are facts, and gets butthurt when disagreed with. Stop doing that, and you won’t be so butthurt.

4

Again, casting stones. Most people do not admit when they are wrong, because most arguments revolve around competing sets of facts and a difference of opinion about the analysis of those facts.

For example, many times I’ve cited one thing, then you cite something only vaguely related as a “refutation”. While your cite might be completely valid and perhaps a better cite than mine, that’s a long way from refuting it since they are not directly related.

A better example from just tonight is me citing net migration rates and being “refuted” by Chimera posting percentage of foreign born residents. Now maybe after a few more rounds of discussion we could find out that foreign born residents is a better measure of how liberal a country’s immgration policy is compared to net migration rate, but Chimera didn’t get that far. He just posted his cite as a refutation of mine even though it was only partially related, and then called me an idiot.

5

Well, it’s not my arrangement, so your beef there is with Politifact. Although any fact checking site is going to show that people you probably take very seriously say some incredibly dumb things that aren’t even gaffes. Or just outright lie, although that’s hard to prove.

Wrong is wrong whether it comes from a Nobel Prize winner or a 4th grader. You seem to be arguing that people with credentials deserve a dispensation, whereas people who just go on discussion boards should be viciously slagged. Which turns logic on its head, because a Nobel Prize winner or President has people to help make sure he doesn’t get the facts wrong. and supposedly, he’s smarter.

I wasn’t aware that being wrong was a sin that needed forgiveness. Yes, the internet is mean, I think we’re all used to that. I’m just pleading for a higher standard of civility on what should be one of the best discussion boards on the internet.

Being wrong doesn’t bug me. Being disagreed with doesn’t bug me. Other people being blindingly idiotic doesn’t bug me. What bugs me is direct attacks on posters for what is actually just disagreement. Most of the time when I see a poster get attacked, the poster doing the attacking has not actually proven what they think they have proven.

6

That would give a warming to Chimera, so I have to assume that you are misleading here. I guess (as there is no cite) that he or she just called what you claimed to be something ignorant to say, and if you can not see the difference between that and being called an idiot… Well, I think you **still **need a better dictionary.

7

There’s a simple piece of advice for you: Slow down. There’s no reason for you to cite facts from long-ago memories. You should have learned by now to how to look up things online. Do serious amounts of research on the facts that you cite. Do you think that your opinions are so absolutely vital that for you to put off posting them would seriously hurt the flow of conversation here? No? Then don’t post your opinions immediately. Always take some time to look up the ideas that you post to get some verification for them.

8

He might have called me an idiot in the Pit, which would be no foul.

However, even claiming my argument was ignorant would have been too much at that early stage of the debate. responding to a cite with another cite is not the point in an argument where you tell someone they are ignorant, or even wrong. I hope none of these types are attorneys, they’d be calling the opposing lawyer a moron after opening arguments.

9

That’s good advice. But even if I blithely ignore that advice, it’s no call for a beatdown. As I said, sinners shouldn’t throw stones, and we’re all sinners. Everyone assumes that something is absolutely right and just posts it from time to time without bothering to verify. If I’m not sure of a fact, I do look it up. If I am sure, it just gets put out there, sometimes to my embarrassment.

But 90% of the time, I’m not getting slagged for actually being wrong. I’m getting it because another poster THINKS I’m wrong and doesn’t have the patience to actually prove it. Just as you say that no thread needs my input so much that I can’t take the time to verify a fact, no thread needs insults and accusations of bad faith before such things are actually proven. Again, I deliver cite 1, another poster comes along with cite 2, and then the accusations of stupidity start flying.

10

Actually I found the thread you are referring about Chimera and the immigration thing.

It is In My Humble Opinion section, it was not in the pit, and your run with **Chimera **was just as I described.

Over here a few hours ago and starting around post #188 on page 4
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=700828&page=4

Now why you did not point to that and you had to say that “maybe it was in the pit” when it happened a few hours ago? If you were correct then denouncing it would had generated a warning to he/she. In reality your accusation was pumped up. What I see is just shifty behavior attempting to tell others that a poster insulted you when he/she only pointed at your ignorance and it was not early in the discussion, this already got to 4 pages.

So yeah, I do not trust your “car salesman” act. You are not a model to follow. We need to get your cites and sources for what you claim.

11

adaher writes:

> But even if I blithely ignore that advice, it’s no call for a beatdown.

Beatdown happen pretty regularly on the SDMB. You should go out of your way to avoid them from now on. Be very careful to look up your facts and cite your sources from now on.

12

It should.

Being wrong is something that should make you feel embarrassed and shamed. If you’re using incorrect information to support your position, finding out the correct information should cause you to question that position. It should bother you that you were arguing for a position using incorrect information, spreading falsehoods as if they were the truth.

13

He said “stop being ignorant about everything” in the IMHO thread, and called me stupid in the Pit thread. I’m not asking for moderation, just pointing out that it was an example of jumping to the personal attack before even proving I was wrong. The fact that the discussion had gone on four pages is irrelevant. He posted one cite in response to my cite and then acted as if that proved his case. That’s a much more disturbing kind of ignorance, IMO.

14

We’re all wrong. We’re all wrong a lot. Not all of us are nasty. Being wrong should bring a certain amount of embarrassment and chagrin. Attacking a poster for doing what we all do should go beyond embarrassment due to the extreme hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness that such an act demonstrates.

15

What pit thread?

It was not a personal attack, once again your peculiar dictionary is fooling you.

Beside telling us He/she had insulted you, you claimed it was early in the discussion, whereas you do not like it, items like those are evidence on why you are not taken seriously.

You are just doing a psychological projection, look it up in a better dictionary.

16

Amen Cheesesteak.

Nothing in a conversation is as irritating as someone who as just proved themselves disingenuous by CONTINUING to claim a point that has been thoroughly discredited.

You’re not an inquisitive poster Adaher.

You’re a propaganda machine…

17

It was early in that part of the discussion, the tangent on immigration rates.

And saying, “Stop being so ignorant about everything” is personal. It doesn’t cross the moderation line, but it’s still personal.

18

Sounds more like, “You made an argument, I made an argument, I win, WHY ARE YOU STILL ARGUING! ADMIT YOU’RE WRONG!”

90% of the claims that are “thoroughly discredited” are nothing of the sort.

19

As the other pit thread and the evidence coming from others show, it was very spot on.

20

Even if it is, it’s hypocritical and unnecessary. Chimera proved his or her own ignorance at the same time. When you tell someone they are ignorant when you haven’t proved it, it makes you look doubly stupid. I could be wrong ten times as often as the worst poster on this board and I’d still consider myself a more useful poster as long as I never told a poster they were an idiot because I thought they were getting something wrong.