Whoa, hold on. You're engaging in a worse version of exactly what you're accusing others of.
> Do you see the problem? Rob Bailey is calling Bhavye Khetan a hypocrite because Bhavye Khetan said something that contradicts something that "people" say.
Nobody called anybody a hypocrite (nor implied it for that matter) - you entirely put those words in his mouth. All he said was that people have a common complaint that contradicts what this person is complaining about. The implication is simply that VCs have contradictory demands placed on them, so they can't fully satisfy them all. If anything, that guy was asking for people to have some sympathy for VCs who are actually willing to have a call -- not trying to smear anyone as a hypocrite!
And I point this out specifically to illustrate how unrealistic it is to expect people to avoid making assumptions that might be wrong. It's normal and human to make common assumptions -- that's how progress is made without slowing everything down to a crawl. You're not immune to it any more than anybody else. The solution to being wrong isn't to always avoid making assumptions and beat people up who do so; it's to be reasonable in doing so, and to also be more generous on the receiving side and try to understand the point they were trying to make better.
> All he said was that people have a common complaint that contradicts what this person is complaining about. The implication is simply that VCs have contradictory demands placed on them, so they can't fully satisfy them all.
No, he told the author not to complaint. Why would this ask make sense? Because it's contradictory to complain about both of the opposite outcomes
> No, he told the author not to complaint. Why would this ask make sense? Because it's contradictory to complain about both of the opposite outcomes
No, it makes sense because you're a grown-up adult who can think beyond yourself and recognize when your demands would be irreconcilable with those of others, instead of a baby that complains the moment he doesn't get what he expected because his world only revolves around him. Does that make sense?
Of course not, this is pure nonsense wrapped in an emotional baby formula. And you forgot to establish the part where everyone should assume the others are not babies (complaining adults don't want to take their call) for this to even be plausible
> People will argue with an individual as if that individual is the spokesperson for a larger group. People will call someone a hypocrite not for contradicting themselves, but for contradicting other people.
This sums up what's become so exhausting about online discussion
Venkatesh Rao's "Internet of Beefs" article is useful here. He discusses how online feuds resemble battles between armies. How nameless foot soldiers enact brutal violence on other nameless foot soldiers. How after a while, the point of fighting is no longer to win, but to perpetuate violence.
I'm guilty of similar automatic responses as Rob's. Same goes for using "always" and "everyone" during arguments.
Now I'm trying to have a rule at home, that if we use "always/everyone" we automatically "lost" the argument and have to step back and rethink :)
Personally I find it hard to keep this in control and I know it takes away some ability to apply empathy (as in being in someones shoes, not pity). It's about finding a way to look at yourself from a distance. Preferably before I speak. Often it's not the case - I can do that, but in moments of relative comfort. So I'm still guilty of generalizing and blaming a person for group issues sometimes.
I'm wondering how others train themselves to increase that self awareness (and in the end practical empathy)?
Should I even try to improve it during stress/challenging situations, or rather eliminate that factor (for instance, by doing less on-the-fly calls) and try to have more talks when things are not rushed?
Social media makes it possible --- indeed there is a payoff for doing so --- to take extreme positions that most would not do face to face.
Getting a rise out of people is now ends to means. Getting recognition for outing a perceived flaw in other is ends for means. And it's all boils down to shadow boxing in a cage of symbolism measured by likes/followers.
Push back online drives ads, looks, traffic. Talking #^=×@@ or BSing a person face to face may not work or be attempted due to real world consequences.
Tribal modalities online in the large or niche sense is just a conventional way of doing it because it's auto magnifying. Why take a shot at one VC when you can take at shot at all VCs?
How do you point out to someone that they're doing this in a way they won't just like... knee-jerk deny and reverse? Is there no solution and this is ultimately a sign of bad-faith discussion? It feels more and more likely...
The affordances of social media don't make it easy for nuanced discussion:
- Broadcast messages "perform" better with a degree of generalization
- Algorithmic feeds warp our perceptions of any shared context
- Personal risk is mitigated if you talk about the opinions of the group
- You can avoid personal disclosure by speaking in broad terms
- Responding to a comment with a more general criticism side-steps personal attacks
I think our increased tribalism is at least partly a consequence of using media with characteristics like these. Eventually, you're not thinking in terms of individuals with balanced opinions but more in terms of tribal representatives because this is often our experience.
This Rob guy from the article is also using two classic techniques you'll see bullshitters use all the time, strawman arguments and appeal to authority (ad verecundiam).
I used to get wrapped around the axle about things like this and write analysis posts which I normally did not end up publishing. I stopped doing it because I realized it’s not helpful. This isn’t going to change anything or help anyone. People are going to continue to make dumb arguments and that’s fine. Not everything has to rise to the level of philosophy.
I guess if you legitimately enjoy meta-commentary of social media posts then keep doing you.
Ha, I'm certainly not expecting my writing to change human nature! I feel more like David Attenborough or something, watching nature from the outside and commenting on things for the edutainment of my audience. Maybe some of the people who read the post will change their own behaviour, but it would never be enough to make a dent.
This blog post was served an opportunity on a silver platter to explain what's wrong with the responding tweet and instead contains a highly irrelevant analogy.
Original Post: VCs respond if you say AI. VCS don't respond at all if you don't mention AI
Response: You should be happy that they only respond to AI and not respond if you don't have AI
OP calls the game rigged, but the response calls the game fair. That's where the contradiction lies.
I’m personally doubtful that venture capital is a socially beneficial or fair process [0], but I’m inclined to agree with the author of the post that the “experiment” isn’t a good basis for that conversation.
[0]: Yes, I realize the irony of posting that here.
I sympathize with this mistake because people are often very tribalistic, at least in certain online spaces, so it can feel useless to hear people out, especially when you don’t feel they will reciprocate.
That doesn’t justify it, of course, but I think it partially explains it.
it's rigged against people that dont have that background. because plenty of people dont have that background (possibly even equally impressive, or more hard working, better leadership experience, better ideas) and without the pedigree get passed over by vcs, but this guy could fake everything, not get vetted, and get an inbound meeting on the right credentialism.
I pointed out in the article that this is the system working as intended. Getting a meeting with a VC is not the same thing as getting an investment. And if you're getting thousands of emails, it makes sense to prioritize the most impressive-sounding people as opposed to choosing randomly or something.
There was also no control for this experiment, so we don't know what the alternative even looks like.
i think youre missing the point. because it is so utterly lazy, in many ways the signals that vcs are looking at might be antisignals, in the same way that being in "30 under 30" is not a great signal for potential but maybe a good signal for fraud/being great at getting coffee at morgan stanley.
and if it is, it's toxic because people get into entrepreneurship because they think they have a shot. if they don't, because stupid credential X is not in their pocket, why the fuck should they even try?
of course there is not control. this is a tweet, not a submission to PNAS
Everybody can fall into these traps, depending on the circumstances. There are some assumptions one should be careful to make when online:
1. Assuming you know how the person thinks from a small sample of comments they made. You may have missed the context (can happen on this platform sometimes since the reply may be very distant to the comment it replied to)
2. Assuming what you think they said is what they said for real. Topics that you dealt with can prime you to read certain things in certain ways. This can be bad if you mentally start adding words or sentiments that are not there.
3. Assuming someone is attacking you, personally. Most people don't know each other online, if someone responds critically to you the chances are very high they don't know you and are mostly focused on what you wrote. Maybe they have a point, maybe they read something into it and critque a point you didn't make or maybe they are a troll (so someone who is purposely inflammatory). But it is very rare for someone to attack a person for who they are. If you're attacked you're attacked for what you represent.
Also; most sex work as it happens is exploitative, but there is no reason why sex work must necessarily be exploitative. Criminalising sex work makes it far more likely that sex work is exploitative. So there is really no contradiction at all.
(Though as nations where sex work is legal show: decriminalisation is not sufficient to make most sex work non-exploitative)
Good post. I've definitely experienced this, though a sub-form of it, namely my non-conformance to a sterotype of an ideology I am associated with. The example in TFA doesn't appear to involve any stereotypes, because Bailey is talking about people in general. [0]
> hypocrisy by association
You had it right in your title and elsewhere in your post. Bailey isn't accusing Khetan of hypocrisy, which is a difference between one's words and one's actions; the example in TFA is about a difference between a group's words and an individual's words, which is contradiction; actions-vs-words is not being discussed. It's also not self-contradiction, since Bailey isn't accusing Khetan of contradicting his own earlier statements. [1]
This reminds of the phrase, "stay in your lane": "stay in" here means "speak according to a certain viewpoint"; and "your lane" is the beliefs of some group. "Stop disagreeing with people similar to you," is a ludicrous thing to say. It's even more ludicrous when "people similar to you" is "people in general"; there's billions of "people in general"; that group disagrees on every topic known to man and dog.
"Contradicting humanity" wouldn't sound pithy, but that's what Bailey is accusing Khetan of doing. To your point, Bailey is accusing Khetan of "contradicting your group", which is undoubtedly a form of the Association Fallacy. [2]
Bailey is also engaging in performative contradiction, by demanding that Khetan agree with "people in general", while Bailey is not himself agreeing with "people in general", because that is an impossible task.
[0] Applying a stereotype to all people would be absurd, since a stereotype is about a sub-category of people; a stereotype is meant to highlight alleged differences between categories of people; to highlight the differences between A and A would be absurd -- there are none.
[1] Yes, Khetan is a member of "people in general", but Bailey is comparing Khetan's words to the words of "people in general minus Khetan" -- instance versus class-minus-that-instance. Okay, maybe Bailey isn't thinking that deeply about this, hence why TFA needed to be written.
[2] I could have lead with this, but I don't have enough time to re-write this.
>This reminds of the phrase, "stay in your lane": "stay in" here means "speak according to a certain viewpoint"; and "your lane" is the beliefs of some group
What? 'stay in your lane' means some variant of 'don't comment on stuff you don't know about' or 'mind your own business', it's got nothing to do with speaking in unity with a group.
Whoa, hold on. You're engaging in a worse version of exactly what you're accusing others of.
> Do you see the problem? Rob Bailey is calling Bhavye Khetan a hypocrite because Bhavye Khetan said something that contradicts something that "people" say.
Nobody called anybody a hypocrite (nor implied it for that matter) - you entirely put those words in his mouth. All he said was that people have a common complaint that contradicts what this person is complaining about. The implication is simply that VCs have contradictory demands placed on them, so they can't fully satisfy them all. If anything, that guy was asking for people to have some sympathy for VCs who are actually willing to have a call -- not trying to smear anyone as a hypocrite!
And I point this out specifically to illustrate how unrealistic it is to expect people to avoid making assumptions that might be wrong. It's normal and human to make common assumptions -- that's how progress is made without slowing everything down to a crawl. You're not immune to it any more than anybody else. The solution to being wrong isn't to always avoid making assumptions and beat people up who do so; it's to be reasonable in doing so, and to also be more generous on the receiving side and try to understand the point they were trying to make better.
> All he said was that people have a common complaint that contradicts what this person is complaining about. The implication is simply that VCs have contradictory demands placed on them, so they can't fully satisfy them all.
No, he told the author not to complaint. Why would this ask make sense? Because it's contradictory to complain about both of the opposite outcomes
> No, he told the author not to complaint. Why would this ask make sense? Because it's contradictory to complain about both of the opposite outcomes
No, it makes sense because you're a grown-up adult who can think beyond yourself and recognize when your demands would be irreconcilable with those of others, instead of a baby that complains the moment he doesn't get what he expected because his world only revolves around him. Does that make sense?
This is a strange response for someone demanding generosity and charity from others.
Of course not, this is pure nonsense wrapped in an emotional baby formula. And you forgot to establish the part where everyone should assume the others are not babies (complaining adults don't want to take their call) for this to even be plausible
> People will argue with an individual as if that individual is the spokesperson for a larger group. People will call someone a hypocrite not for contradicting themselves, but for contradicting other people.
This sums up what's become so exhausting about online discussion
Venkatesh Rao's "Internet of Beefs" article is useful here. He discusses how online feuds resemble battles between armies. How nameless foot soldiers enact brutal violence on other nameless foot soldiers. How after a while, the point of fighting is no longer to win, but to perpetuate violence.
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/16/the-internet-of-beefs/
The article is very useful. Reading it has inspired me to improve my own online behavior.
[dead]
I'm guilty of similar automatic responses as Rob's. Same goes for using "always" and "everyone" during arguments.
Now I'm trying to have a rule at home, that if we use "always/everyone" we automatically "lost" the argument and have to step back and rethink :)
Personally I find it hard to keep this in control and I know it takes away some ability to apply empathy (as in being in someones shoes, not pity). It's about finding a way to look at yourself from a distance. Preferably before I speak. Often it's not the case - I can do that, but in moments of relative comfort. So I'm still guilty of generalizing and blaming a person for group issues sometimes.
I'm wondering how others train themselves to increase that self awareness (and in the end practical empathy)?
Should I even try to improve it during stress/challenging situations, or rather eliminate that factor (for instance, by doing less on-the-fly calls) and try to have more talks when things are not rushed?
Social media makes it possible --- indeed there is a payoff for doing so --- to take extreme positions that most would not do face to face.
Getting a rise out of people is now ends to means. Getting recognition for outing a perceived flaw in other is ends for means. And it's all boils down to shadow boxing in a cage of symbolism measured by likes/followers.
Push back online drives ads, looks, traffic. Talking #^=×@@ or BSing a person face to face may not work or be attempted due to real world consequences.
Tribal modalities online in the large or niche sense is just a conventional way of doing it because it's auto magnifying. Why take a shot at one VC when you can take at shot at all VCs?
How do you point out to someone that they're doing this in a way they won't just like... knee-jerk deny and reverse? Is there no solution and this is ultimately a sign of bad-faith discussion? It feels more and more likely...
The affordances of social media don't make it easy for nuanced discussion:
- Broadcast messages "perform" better with a degree of generalization
- Algorithmic feeds warp our perceptions of any shared context
- Personal risk is mitigated if you talk about the opinions of the group
- You can avoid personal disclosure by speaking in broad terms
- Responding to a comment with a more general criticism side-steps personal attacks
I think our increased tribalism is at least partly a consequence of using media with characteristics like these. Eventually, you're not thinking in terms of individuals with balanced opinions but more in terms of tribal representatives because this is often our experience.
This Rob guy from the article is also using two classic techniques you'll see bullshitters use all the time, strawman arguments and appeal to authority (ad verecundiam).
I used to get wrapped around the axle about things like this and write analysis posts which I normally did not end up publishing. I stopped doing it because I realized it’s not helpful. This isn’t going to change anything or help anyone. People are going to continue to make dumb arguments and that’s fine. Not everything has to rise to the level of philosophy.
I guess if you legitimately enjoy meta-commentary of social media posts then keep doing you.
Ha, I'm certainly not expecting my writing to change human nature! I feel more like David Attenborough or something, watching nature from the outside and commenting on things for the edutainment of my audience. Maybe some of the people who read the post will change their own behaviour, but it would never be enough to make a dent.
This blog post was served an opportunity on a silver platter to explain what's wrong with the responding tweet and instead contains a highly irrelevant analogy.
Original Post: VCs respond if you say AI. VCS don't respond at all if you don't mention AI
Response: You should be happy that they only respond to AI and not respond if you don't have AI
OP calls the game rigged, but the response calls the game fair. That's where the contradiction lies.
I’m personally doubtful that venture capital is a socially beneficial or fair process [0], but I’m inclined to agree with the author of the post that the “experiment” isn’t a good basis for that conversation.
[0]: Yes, I realize the irony of posting that here.
The blog isn't about the responding tweet. Or even about any tweets. It's just using them as examples of a communication pattern the author noticed.
I have personally no interest in the actual debate the two were engaged in.
I sympathize with this mistake because people are often very tribalistic, at least in certain online spaces, so it can feel useless to hear people out, especially when you don’t feel they will reciprocate.
That doesn’t justify it, of course, but I think it partially explains it.
Not exactly the point of the article, but I didn't understand how this guy lying and getting a couple meetings implies that "the game" is rigged.
It's not what you know but who you know/where you studies/who you worked for.
Are these legitimate signals of success or signs that "the game is rigged" to advantage those with existing privilege? Both perhaps?
it's rigged against people that dont have that background. because plenty of people dont have that background (possibly even equally impressive, or more hard working, better leadership experience, better ideas) and without the pedigree get passed over by vcs, but this guy could fake everything, not get vetted, and get an inbound meeting on the right credentialism.
And the irony is, the vc couldnt see it either!!
I pointed out in the article that this is the system working as intended. Getting a meeting with a VC is not the same thing as getting an investment. And if you're getting thousands of emails, it makes sense to prioritize the most impressive-sounding people as opposed to choosing randomly or something.
There was also no control for this experiment, so we don't know what the alternative even looks like.
i think youre missing the point. because it is so utterly lazy, in many ways the signals that vcs are looking at might be antisignals, in the same way that being in "30 under 30" is not a great signal for potential but maybe a good signal for fraud/being great at getting coffee at morgan stanley.
and if it is, it's toxic because people get into entrepreneurship because they think they have a shot. if they don't, because stupid credential X is not in their pocket, why the fuck should they even try?
of course there is not control. this is a tweet, not a submission to PNAS
Isn’t it obvious? It happens because we’re lazy. We’re just looking for the cheapest way to validate our existing worldview.
And xir just did the exact same thing ...
Iron should be mandatory ages 4-12 to avoid these situations.
Everybody can fall into these traps, depending on the circumstances. There are some assumptions one should be careful to make when online:
1. Assuming you know how the person thinks from a small sample of comments they made. You may have missed the context (can happen on this platform sometimes since the reply may be very distant to the comment it replied to)
2. Assuming what you think they said is what they said for real. Topics that you dealt with can prime you to read certain things in certain ways. This can be bad if you mentally start adding words or sentiments that are not there.
3. Assuming someone is attacking you, personally. Most people don't know each other online, if someone responds critically to you the chances are very high they don't know you and are mostly focused on what you wrote. Maybe they have a point, maybe they read something into it and critque a point you didn't make or maybe they are a troll (so someone who is purposely inflammatory). But it is very rare for someone to attack a person for who they are. If you're attacked you're attacked for what you represent.
Great read
Thank you!
[dead]
I’d restate the sex work argument as:
Why should someone who thinks sex work be decriminalized be automatically be thrown into the feminist camp?
> Oh, you think sex work should be decriminalized? I was under the impression you feminists thought sex work was exploitative?
They aren't mutually exclusive. I can think that sex work is exploitive and at the same time not want sex workers to go to jail.
In the same way I can think drugs are bad, but locking up drug abusers is also bad.
It doesn't solve any problems and people I view as victims are the ones getting punished.
Also; most sex work as it happens is exploitative, but there is no reason why sex work must necessarily be exploitative. Criminalising sex work makes it far more likely that sex work is exploitative. So there is really no contradiction at all.
(Though as nations where sex work is legal show: decriminalisation is not sufficient to make most sex work non-exploitative)
Good post. I've definitely experienced this, though a sub-form of it, namely my non-conformance to a sterotype of an ideology I am associated with. The example in TFA doesn't appear to involve any stereotypes, because Bailey is talking about people in general. [0]
> hypocrisy by association
You had it right in your title and elsewhere in your post. Bailey isn't accusing Khetan of hypocrisy, which is a difference between one's words and one's actions; the example in TFA is about a difference between a group's words and an individual's words, which is contradiction; actions-vs-words is not being discussed. It's also not self-contradiction, since Bailey isn't accusing Khetan of contradicting his own earlier statements. [1]
This reminds of the phrase, "stay in your lane": "stay in" here means "speak according to a certain viewpoint"; and "your lane" is the beliefs of some group. "Stop disagreeing with people similar to you," is a ludicrous thing to say. It's even more ludicrous when "people similar to you" is "people in general"; there's billions of "people in general"; that group disagrees on every topic known to man and dog.
"Contradicting humanity" wouldn't sound pithy, but that's what Bailey is accusing Khetan of doing. To your point, Bailey is accusing Khetan of "contradicting your group", which is undoubtedly a form of the Association Fallacy. [2]
Bailey is also engaging in performative contradiction, by demanding that Khetan agree with "people in general", while Bailey is not himself agreeing with "people in general", because that is an impossible task.
[0] Applying a stereotype to all people would be absurd, since a stereotype is about a sub-category of people; a stereotype is meant to highlight alleged differences between categories of people; to highlight the differences between A and A would be absurd -- there are none.
[1] Yes, Khetan is a member of "people in general", but Bailey is comparing Khetan's words to the words of "people in general minus Khetan" -- instance versus class-minus-that-instance. Okay, maybe Bailey isn't thinking that deeply about this, hence why TFA needed to be written.
[2] I could have lead with this, but I don't have enough time to re-write this.
>This reminds of the phrase, "stay in your lane": "stay in" here means "speak according to a certain viewpoint"; and "your lane" is the beliefs of some group
What? 'stay in your lane' means some variant of 'don't comment on stuff you don't know about' or 'mind your own business', it's got nothing to do with speaking in unity with a group.