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Gondolinian comments on Open thread, Jan. 19 - Jan. 25, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Gondolinian 19 January 2015 12:04AM

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Comment author: Gondolinian 19 January 2015 01:24:17AM *  10 points [-]

One kid, who had a younger sibling, picked the thesis statement: "Being an older sibling is hard." Another kid did "Being the youngest child is hard." Yet another did "Being the middle child is hard", and someone else did "Being an only child is hard." I find this as a rather humorous example of how people often make it look like they're being oppressed.

Taken at face value, the four statements aren't incompatible. Saying that being X is hard in an absolute sense isn't the same as saying that being X is harder than being Y in a relative sense, or that X people are being oppressed.

Comment author: B_For_Bandana 20 January 2015 06:16:58PM *  1 point [-]

Sure, but the point is that the same argument applies to the flipside: everyone could've written essays like "X is fun" or "Y is fun" without contradiction. But they chose "hard" instead. Why?

Comment author: Gondolinian 20 January 2015 06:53:27PM *  0 points [-]

Sure, but the point is that the same argument applies to the flipside: everyone could've written essays like "X is fun" or "Y is fun" [...] But they chose "hard" instead. Why?

There were sixteen other students in the class. For all we know, theses about fun things could have been in the majority.

without contradiction.

If you accept what I wrote in the GP, where do you see a contradiction in the four statements? And if you don't, could you try to articulate why?

Comment author: B_For_Bandana 20 January 2015 09:36:09PM 0 points [-]

There were sixteen other students in the class. For all we know, theses about fun things could have been in the majority.

Yeah, maybe.

If you accept what I wrote in the GP, where do you see a contradiction in the four statements? And if you don't, could you try to articulate why?

No, no I don't think you had a contradiction either. I was just saying that you could do the same thing with "fun." And maybe other kids did, as you say.

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