Antiqued on the filter
I've often mentioned feeling irritated when a certain narrative doesn't pass my antiquated filter, and people then use the absurd authority argument such as "everyone says it" or "everyone knows it" or "yes and 'always done this way'”, “it's this way because he says so”. I would like to explain how it works, in general terms.
So, first of all, usually the things we talk about are things that cannot be observed directly. If a plant is dying on me, I can see it. If the dishwasher doesn't work, I can see it.
However, if someone tries to make me believe something, then things change. And the problem is not just the source or credibility. The problem is the thing itself.
For example: “what changes after the elections in Russia?”
At that point, the first thing my anti-bullshit filter reacts to it is .
Does the thing exist? Does it make sense in itself? Can it exist? It can happen? Is the definition acceptable?
In the case of “elections in Russia”, it is clear that this does not exist. It is therefore a fiction. What kind of fiction? Who is it intended for? If it is intended for the West, then the question will be "After an election that only sees the West, what will change in the West?"
If the thing exists, what exactly is it? Does it exist alone or does it have causes? Is it part of a larger phenomenon?
Example: “problem of illegal immigration”. Exists? Certain. Does it exist alone? No. It needs a collapsing Libya that receives the flows and does not stop them. The problem is therefore not "the problem of illegal immigration" it becomes "the problem of an out-of-control Libya".
if the thing exists and has causes, does it have equivalent definitions that allow us to arrive at more logical conclusions?
Can “the problem of global warming” be described as “the problem of pollution?”, for example? Can it be described as “the problem of industrialization?” . And if we do, do we notice discrepancies between the conclusions we get when talking about “global warming”?
if the thing exists alone, does it also have other names? By using other names, are the conclusions we arrive at the same?
“Briatore can't find young waiters” and “no young people want to work for Briatore” take us in the same direction?. Do “Apple disappoints stock analysts' forecasts” and “Stock analysts make Apple forecasts wrong” bring us to the same side?
After this first step, you will have filtered out almost all the dialectical expedients that want to take your thinking in a specific direction.
The causes are visible, we have a decent description of the thing, the effects of the thing are missing.
“Ukraine has run out of ammunition and men, the Russians could win”.
Now, the point is: we are saying that TODAY Ukraine has run out of weapons and ammunition. So, the Russians SHOULD win today. They advanced only 8-10 kilometers. If the nation is defenseless, that is, without men and without weapons, why have we not seen a lightning advance so far? Where are the effects of the thing?
the information is sold as verified
Often the newspapers have the headlines "in Putin's mind", or "Putin is afraid", "Now Biden is afraid that": unless they declared it – which still wouldn't be enough – how on earth would you have gotten this information? Was there a journalist from your newspaper in bed with Biden while he confided this to his wife?
When it is not possible that source X has such information, delete everything. It is unlikely that there will be a journalist from Resto del Carlino during the secret meetings of the Ukrainian general staff. Point.
speaking of secrecy, attributing credibility through occultism.
Occultism is the subject that studies occult, i.e. hidden, matters. The trouble with hidden things is that you can't find them in Travaglio's newspaper, or on Youtube. “Secret” means it is not public. If it were a secret, it wouldn't be on the front page.
The secret plans that end up in the newspapers leave me very perplexed: if it's on Youtube, it's not secret. So it's not a mystery. Therefore it does not inherit the air of fideistic credibility that is typical of the well-kept "secrets" that we read in the mass media.
Throw away secrets that aren't secrets.
My definition of "propaganda" is "use of free speech against free thought." That is, giving the news in a specific way so as to take away the possibility of thinking what you want, that is, pushing you to think something else.
At this point, the second antique filter starts. When you cannot remove or change the thing too much, or you have obtained a description ("a name") that is not misleading, the rest remains to be done. Propaganda generally works like this.
- I'm describing things badly.
- I'll give you a shitty reasoning
- I bring people to the conclusion I want.
Now let's get to the fucking reasoning.
It must be said, at this point, that in order to make any stupid arguments, one must first have "studied" the "thing" well. Otherwise the reasoning doesn't hold up.
If I say that Apple has failed to meet analysts' forecasts, then Apple has a problem, then it needs to fire people.
If I say that analysts have failed to predict Apple's future, then the analysts have a problem, and they shouldn't be listened to.
The fake reasoning "Apple has a problem so it has to fire people", which is still wrong, first of all holds up because we have described the problem badly. This is just to say that fake reasoning only works if you first mystify the matter.
Cutting out the fucking reasoning is complicated. There are some guides to "logical fallacies", but the problem is that they introduce general rules… which don't always work.
“Avoid IPSE DIXIT,” for example, seems sensible. Until we stumble upon scientific consensus, which in academic terms is built with peer review (which smacks a lot of "because they say so" rather than "because he says so"), and until we go to say that we believe in global warming because the "scientific consensus" leads us to this.
Even "it's not good to attack the person" is a big risk: we would have avoided a lot of trouble if, listening to Hitler, someone had shouted "you're just a failed painter, you know nothing about Jews, war, economy, society, history, treated and you have never even been abroad.” Is pointing out that a person is completely incompetent an attack on the person? Yes. Is it ALWAYS wrong? No. In fact, in the case of competence I would lean towards the opposite.
So, personally I use tools that I feel are more "formal" to skim the bullshit.
Associating things is not useful for reaching correct conclusions.
I can say that if I throw a black cat and a light bulb out a window, I notice that they land at the same time. It's correct. But I cannot deduce that bad luck travels at the speed of light, because I am bringing up an association process, associating the black cat with bad luck and the light bulb with light.
It does not work.
etymology is NOT a GOOD way to investigate reality.
Supporting an argument with the fact that the word means this or that does not help us reach correct conclusions. Not everything that applies to fruit applies to sea bream just because the word “peach” exists. The newspapers, especially in the cultural inserts, are full of them: "such and such a thing, as the root of the name says, comes from the word XYZ, and therefore we are talking about this"
No. Based on the etymology we could very well replace aviation and ornithology, or at least we would struggle to divide them. So we would have "aviation, as the etymology of the word says, it is what concerns birds, so we are talking about ornithology". But also not.
analogies must be well formed.
First of all, “you look like your father” is not an analogy. It's a relationship between two things. Analogies are reasoning between FOUR things. For example: beer without alcohol is like porn on the radio.
What do we have here? We have four “things” {beer, alcohol, porn, radio} and the analogy {is like}. BUT it's not enough. We ALSO need a transformation that is sustainable.
What does it mean? It means that beer without alcohol is a relationship (without) between beer and alcohol. Porn on the radio is a relationship between “porn” and “radio” (broadcast on). To change domain, that is, from the table of a pub to the microphones of a radio, I need a relationship that is preserved, and that converts "without" with "transmitted to".
We can then convert the saying:
we note that “broadcast on the radio” –> “without images”, and:
“beer without alcohol is like porn without images”, and so the two relationships are the same. Now, the “and how” relationship works. So the analogy is correct.
If we call R the “without” relation, and the analogy function as “F”, we can write:
F(beer R alcohol) = (porn R images).
So the analogy works. But if “R” had not been preserved, that is, if “R” had not been the same (=without) on both sides, the analogy would have collapsed.
Necessary conditions and sufficient conditions are not the same thing.
absurd reasoning is often introduced by inverting the two things. For example: “since rapists are all men, then all rape is a problem for all men”. But also not. Necessary conditions are being confused with sufficient ones.
That all rapists are men is necessary to support the next claim, but not sufficient. If not all rapists were men the necessary condition would clearly be missing, but EVEN if all rapists are men it is not enough to say that all men are rapists.
stop magical thinking immediately.
there are many constructs that are sold as true just because we can coin a term and give it a clear definition. Santa Claus is one example, patriarchy is another, but also "internalized racism" or other senseless nonsense.
Magical thinking starts from the hypothesis that for something to exist it is enough to define and describe it clearly. If you read the Congressus cum Daemone by Henry Cornelius Agrippa, you will find dozens and dozens of demons described with extreme clarity, and each one has its own symbol (seal in the book) described with extreme care in detail. The trouble is, none of them exist.
When an argument goes "this is due to patriarchy", since patriarchy should exist to have effects, the question is "but does patriarchy exist?". But if you ask about its existence you will hear the answer with its definition, followed by the effects attributed to it…. if only it existed. Without any proof of its existence. Magical thinking stops by asking what things are, “precisely and practically.”
How do you enter patriarchy? How is it organised? Who's the Boss? How is he elected?
entities that cannot be measured and quantified disqualify reasoning.
reasoning is not accepted as referable to reality if the entities that "exist" are not quantifiable. For example, "it's the mentality's fault" means nothing. HOW MUCH mentality does it take to cause consequences? And how much is there? What is it measured in? Ampere per Liter? fahrenheit per capita? How is it measured, and what are the units of measurement?
Things that do not have quantities and units of measurement are NOT useful for investigating reality. Things that are NOT quantifiable CANNOT be referred to as “causes”. Magical thinking is inserted through cause-effect reasoning in which the quantitative relationship between causes and effects is not mentioned : HOW MANY causes obtain HOW MANY effects?
Latin proverbs do not support any reasoning
“Si vis pacem para bellum”. This at most explains the quantity of wars on Rome's borders. You basically continue. Qui prodest? sorry! Moreover, “cui prodest scelus is decisit” starts from the hypothesis that the entire universe is rational: based on this maxim, if you manage to be happy after the death of your wife, you must necessarily have killed her.
“DE GUSTIBUS NON DISPUTANDUM EST”, tastes cannot be disputed, seems completely false to me. From the recipe for pure carbonara to discussions about gays, it seems to me that the vast majority of the most violent disputes are based on taste.
It is time to understand that the Latins did not possess any particular wisdom, and that it would not be wrong to define them as a bunch of violent and warmongering sadists, slavers and imperialists. But definitely not infallible.
habits are not reasoning.
“Everyone says it” or “it's always been done” are neither reasoning nor proof. Bullshit has always been done and if even the last imbecile in the country says something, it's probably bullshit. Everyone says it, but everyone who? Leonardo da Vinci or GAsparri? And how many people do you know, exactly?
And then, what is the probability that everyone agrees on the same topic, or that in history no one has ever broken a rule? These are clearly unacceptable reasoning.
Once we have passed this initial filter, we are now relatively confident that we are talking about things that exist, that are clearly expressed, and that have reasoning that stands up. Let's go to the conclusions, which are often highly criticisable.
There are many "educated reasonings" that don't stand up and that help you clear up the bullshit.
things are not the same as their opposite
reasoning, no matter how cultured, for example, cannot demonstrate that fascism and anti-fascism are the same thing. This is because the prefix anti- acts like “NOT”, and is even stronger if we dig.
We cannot say that A = `A. It does not work. Therefore, if an argument ends by saying that something is equal to its opposite, then the argument must be discarded.
So "anti-mafia is a form of mafia" and other educated reasoning fall through the cracks: you cannot accept reasoning if the conclusions are paradoxical. In that case, we don't even care to ask where the mistake is. If it leads to paradoxical consequences, it is wrong.
Is the conclusion inevitable? Is it the only possible one?
Let's go back to the forecasting example. Apple failed to meet analysts' predictions. This is Apple's problem, which therefore needs to be fired.
We have already seen the first three filters that are activated:
=> This is fallacious. The fact that analysts got their forecasts wrong says nothing about Apple
=> The reasoning is fallacious. The fact that Apple doesn't perform better is not necessarily Apple's problem.
=> The conclusion is fallacious: therefore he must fire employees.
The conclusion is fallacious because it is not inevitable. It depends on the problem. Maybe he should fire the CEO. Maybe it should make new products. Maybe he should wait for a cold war to end. Why fire employees at all?
the conclusion is inevitable, but obvious.
Example: “there is no water, the solution is to consume less”.
Aha. Why, did you have an alternative? Could you have consumed more? Could you have continued as now? Are you capable of creating water? This is a case where the conclusion is inevitable, but adds nothing. I call it a "fake conclusion", because it adds nothing. Or if you prefer, the final concept of "solution" is wrong.
conclusion is senseless, if not ridiculous, only if you write it in different terms.
There's one going around these days, along the lines of “Rocco Siffredi, a life of suffering”. It's clear that living under a rain of pussy and money is definitely a tragedy. The pain must have been immense. After all, he had been condemned to live under that regime of forced blowjobs and compulsory bank transfers, so he couldn't change his life and had to accept his cross.
When a conclusion comes in this form, to the point of mocking it, you can safely assume that the thing has been faked and the underlying reasoning is pure bullshit.
absurd pascientific conclusions.
For example, we hear today that there is a “sex addiction”. It is an absurd scientific conclusion, because a natural function cannot be presented as a pathology. Any species has the goal of surviving and reproducing. Saying that a person is addicted to the reproductive act is like saying that he or she is sick if he or she does not survive . It has “the habit of existing”. He goes into oxygen withdrawal if he doesn't breathe.
Seriously? Many conclusions that are represented as "scientific" are in reality completely illogical. In other words, growing old is not a bad habit.
Well, when someone wants me to believe something, I typically use these criteria to filter. Any attempt to force my way becomes irritating, unpleasant and fuck-worthy for me.
Uriel Fanelli
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