You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

polymathwannabe comments on [Open Thread] Stupid Questions (2014-02-17) - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: solipsist 17 February 2014 05:34AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (136)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 20 February 2014 05:34:44PM 1 point [-]

Most of my friends are big fans of heavy metal, but I abhor it ardently. I can match your example by saying heavy metal is unduly overrated, plus I do happen to think it sucks. One part of my head feels inclined to say that a judgment of sucking is a necessary component of the judgment of overratedness. However, I also think Finding Nemo is overrated, but I don't think it sucks. This leads me to think there are degrees of overratedness; i.e. my tastes place Finding Nemo on a much higher position of enjoyability than all of heavy metal.

My friends who love heavy metal will accuse me of committing your proposed fallacy; they could say I'm not justified in saying heavy metal sucks just because it fails to please me. But if someone else says Finding Nemo sucks, I won't blame them, even if my dislike for it doesn't go that far.

It's difficult to name a formal fallacy of personal tastes. It's one thing to detect a flaw in matters of true/untrue, but quite another to say that there can be flaws in matters of like/dislike.