= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
SaidAchmiz comments on White Lies - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (893)
If by "brain isn't working properly" you mean "person has the usual array of cognitive biases; intelligence at the human average or not far above it; and common personality traits such as vanity", then yes, I agree. Of course, this describes most of humanity. And it's all that's required for behavior like what I describe. And saying such people aren't relevant to the hypothetical means limiting the hypothetical to an awfully small percentage of the human population.
That's not what I mean. It's a matter of basic perception.
For example, imagine if you went out to a normal bar with a friend who happens to be a dwarf, and they ask you "am I shorter than everyone else here?"
Clearly, there's something wrong with your friend's perception which is why I would either ask them to clarify the question since the answer is obvious to any reasonable person, and if they persist, then I should probably tell them that yes, they are significantly shorter, to help whatever processing problem is going on in their brain.
This is why I made sure to point out that I took the original term to mean "unquestionably fat."
That is quite a false equivalency, since the term "fat" is loaded with all sorts of normative connotations and judgments, which the word "short" is not.
If you take "fat" to mean something like "in the Nth percentile of mass to height ratio, for some appropriate N", then you are misunderstanding how most people use the term. When your friend asks you "do I look fat in this dress", she most certainly is not asking you about the physical facts of her weight in pounds, and how that number relates to relevant population measures. If you answer "yes", you have not merely provided your best assessment of a physical measurement.
Hi Said,
It would be a false equivalency if I wasn't continually stressing "unquestionably fat." Meaning that the person is fat within the judgements of almost all reasonable people and thus removing most of the gray area.
In that case, I would indeed compare it to someone who is "unquestionably short" (short can of course depend on the population, and who is being compared as well, but there is certainly a range of height that is also well outside any reasonable measure of average) asking if they were short.
Hopefully thus, you can see how unquestionably short can make the question of "am I short" seem as bizarre or indicative of a perception problem as unquestionably fat can make "do I look fat" in my eyes.
Don't be so sure of that.. I'll grant that it isn't quite as widespread or vocal, but it's definitely there.
On a lighter note, "I expected someone taller".