MondSemmel comments on Generalizing From One Example - Less Wrong

259 Post author: Yvain 28 April 2009 10:00PM

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Comment author: lucidfox 28 November 2010 03:21:45PM 6 points [-]

My theory is that the women in this case are committing a Typical Psyche Fallacy. The women I ask about this are not even remotely close to being a representative sample of all women. They're the kind of women whom a shy and somewhat geeky guy knows and talks about psychology with. Likewise, the type of women who publish strong opinions about this on the Internet aren't close to a representative sample. They're well-educated women who have strong opinions about gender issues and post about them on blogs.

What statistical evidence do you have for this claim? It seems to me that this is a True Scotsman fallacy: either women behave the way the men in question ascribe to them, or they are "educated and opinionated" and thus don't count.

There are valid reasons why the discussion between "jerks" and "nice guys" turns the way it usually does. For example, both camps tend to see womens as goals to be conquered, like, I don't know, video game NPCs who respond to certain key phrases - as opposed to complex people like themselves. These so called "nice guys", as opposed to genuinely nice guys, think that if they treat a woman nicely, she's somehow obligated to fall in love with him. Reality, alas, does not work that way.

Comment author: MondSemmel 20 January 2014 01:24:07PM 1 point [-]

The delicious irony of Yvain (alias Scott) possibly committing a True Scotsman fallacy...