70 upvotes, 4 direct replies (showing 4)
View submission: What is your favorite paradox?
Oh I hate this fallacy. I'm sure there is a proper name for it, I just don't know it.
In essence: Some people seem to think that the statement "I think X is bad" is the same as "I think X is the worst possible thing that could possibly ever be". In other words, their scale of good-to-bad somehow has only one value for "bad". I don't get it!
Obviously it's not a contradiction to consider something bad, and something else as even worse. Here's an example: I go for a walk in the woods, and end up with a nail in my foot. Obviously that's bad. But a landmine would've been worse.
Likewise, it's also possible that *every* option is bad: "Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time" as Winston Churchill said[1].
1: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill
People are awful with scales.
Comment by [deleted] at 26/06/2020 at 17:26 UTC
8 upvotes, 0 direct replies
There's a psychology phenomenon called "splitting" that's a lot like that. Maybe it's best to just call it "black and white thinking" though. That's fairly self explanatory. Super common on social media and in politics, unfortunately.
There was a whole freaking novel-length blog post that centered around exactly that idea. It was an interesting read, to day the least.
https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/12/political-disney-world.html
Comment by xm202OAndA at 27/06/2020 at 06:25 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
People are awful ~~with scales~~
Comment by [deleted] at 26/06/2020 at 14:49 UTC*
3 upvotes, 3 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by DeseretRain at 27/06/2020 at 00:34 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I really don't think that's what's going on in this fallacy, it's not that they objectively, rationally think that they're terrible but that everyone else is even worse. It's just that they're mentally ill so their irrational thinking is making them have low self esteem (hating themselves) and their illness also causes some level of narcissism (thinking they're better than everyone.) They simultaneously think they're better than everyone and worse than everyone, because mentally ill thinking isn't rational.