#false equivalence

[bikiniarmorbattledamage]

This is truly stiff competition for the worst case of willful false equivalence we've ever seen.

So, for those not aware: Ongoing embarrassment to gamers and the gaming industry, Mark Kern (former lead on FireFall), has been desperately trying to get Gamergate 2 going on X/Twitter... well after others have given up. If you need to get caught up on Mark, I recommend this video by documentary maker and experienced game developer, Dead Domain:

One of the latest fiascos in this mix has been the comparison of responses to character designs from Hades 2 (Aphrodite, left) and Stellar Blade (protagonist Eve, right). The post isn't by Mark, but is part of the general harassment campaign he's trying to lead.

If you're somehow not familiar with Aphrodite, she's the Ancient Greek goddess of love, lust and hot girl shit. It is absolutely perfect characterization for her to show up to a battle (or anything else) nude but for her hair teasingly covering the intimate parts of her body. But the buried lede here is, you don't fight her in Hades and nothing about Hades 2 indicates she'll fight there either, she just likes the aesthetic and has no reason not to indulge.

Stellar Blade will release on 26 April 2024, so we can't really give an informed discussion of her character. But what we do know is the studio head is the illustrator from Blade & Soul, Eve is described as being a member of "the 7th Airborne Squad" engaged in an "operation to reclaim the planet from the Naytiba", and the promotion material promises "an enthralling narrative filled with mature themes, mystery and revelation. Embrace the relentless pace, with no time to pause between moments where critical, story-changing decisions are made."

It's to be compared to games like Nier: Automata, Devil May Cry 5, Jedi: Fallen Order and Sekiro. And the screenshots look like this:

And yeah, unlike Bayonetta she's not supposed to be an unstoppable force of nature (and fashion) who is immune to self-doubt, she's supposed to be the scrappy underdog last survivor of her team.

Weird they gave her a costume that conveys... the opposite of literally everything they're supposed to be trying to tell you about her.

-wincenworks

[tangents-within-tangents]

Yellow = yellow

Bananas are yellow, does this mean that yellow = banana?

No, yellow = yellow

Yellow =/= banana, does this mean bananas aren't yellow?

Lemons are yellow, does this mean lemon = banana?

Lemon =/= banana, does this mean lemons aren't yellow?

Some apples are yellow, does this mean yellow = apple?

Some apples are red or green, does this mean apples can't be yellow?

Some apples are red, some apples are yellow, does this mean red = yellow?

Lemons and apples are round but bananas aren't, does this mean bananas aren't yellow?

Apples and bananas are sweet, does this mean lemon's aren't sour? Or that sourness is bad?

Bananas, lemons, and apples are fruit, does this mean mustard isn't yellow?

No, yellow = yellow

A category groups things that share a commonality despite their differences. The differences coexist within that commonality without redefining the category.

Other similarities coexist within, and without, the commonality without redefining the category either. The fact that it doesn't redefine the category does not mean those similarities don't hold significance of their own.

If not for the commonality, it wouldn't be a category. If not for the differences, it wouldn't be a category either.

Okay? Cool

Asexuality = experiencing little to no sexual attraction

[creature-wizard]

Critical thinking tip: Beware of false equivalencies!

A false equivalence is a claim that two or more things that might appear superficially similar are actually the same, when in reality they aren't really comparable at all.

An example of this is when young Earth creationists (who proclaim that Earth is only 6000 years old and everything in Genesis happened literally) claim that they are simply just interpreting the same facts differently from other scientists, as if it's just like the famous rabbit-duck illusion where one is equally justified in seeing either a rabbit or a duck.

But the reality is that young Earth creationism simply doesn't work like this. Instead, their "science" is based on cherry picked data and ad hoc reasoning to try and dismiss the many facts real scientists discover that constantly show that young earth creationism just isn't very likely. Radiometric dating, tree ring data, and geological data consistently show that the Earth is quite a bit older than 6000 years. YEC responses to this often boil down to "well maybe physics just worked differently back then" (here's one example of this), and of course they never do any real tests or research to show that this is a real possibility. Moreover, they invent some absolutely bizarre claims to supposedly disprove evolution - like falsely claiming that the Second Law of Thermodynamics prohibits it.

All of this shows us that YECs aren't just scientists who interpret the data correctly - they are politically-motivated spin doctors using the aesthetic of science to make themselves look more credible. This is why when someone claims that their fringe idea is just as scientifically credible as a mainstream one, you have to ask yourself if that's really true. Are they following the scientific method and accepting results that don't align with what they wanted? Or are they engaging in special pleading and relying on fake evidence?

(By the way, I recommend Gutsick Gibbon's YouTube channel as a resource debunking YEC claims!)

Another form of false equivalence is when someone claims that mystical experiences and intuition are just as valid for determining what's going on in the world as genuine scientific research. But when we consider that something as wrong as World Ice Theory came from an apparently mystical dream, we have to consider that these kinds of experiences can be extremely misleading. We also know that professional psychics' yearly predictions have a high rate of failure. (Some examples. More examples. And some more examples. And even more examples!) We know that a tool such as the Ouija board can enhance memory recall, but when we're really honest about the accuracy of mystical information-gathering means, we have to admit that they're just no substitute for research and study.

So when someone asserts that two things are basically the same, or are fundamentally equivalent or fungible, ask yourself - are they really, though? And then do the research to find out!

[contemplatingoutlander]

The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information. [...] The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it. --Chris Quinn, Editor of cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer

THIS is the kind of attitude that journalists and editors should have regarding reporting on Trump!

Chris Quinn, the editor of cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer wrote this excellent column explaining to his readers why opinion columns on his platforms are so critical of Donald Trump. His response is a credit to his integrity as a journalist/editor, and should be emulated by others in the mainstream media. Below are some excerpts:

A more-than-occasional arrival in the email these days is a question expressed two ways, one with dripping condescension and the other with courtesy: Why don’t our opinion platforms treat Donald Trump and other politicians exactly the same way. Some phrase it differently, asking why we demean the former president’s supporters in describing his behavior as monstrous, insurrectionist and authoritarian. I feel for those who write. They believe in Trump and want their local news source to recognize what they see in him. The angry writers denounce me for ignoring what they call the Biden family crime syndicate and criminality far beyond that of Trump. They quote news sources of no credibility as proof the mainstream media ignores evidence that Biden, not Trump, is the criminal dictator. The courteous writers don’t go down that road. They politely ask how we can discount the passions and beliefs of the many people who believe in Trump. This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who write me in good faith. I’ve started it a half dozen times since November but turned to other topics each time because this needle hard to thread. No matter how I present it, I’ll offend some thoughtful, decent people. The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information. The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse. This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw, but our eyes don’t deceive. (If leaders began a yearslong campaign today to convince us that the Baltimore bridge did not collapse Tuesday morning, would you ever believe them?) Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it. The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it. As for those who equate Trump and Joe Biden, that’s false equivalency. Biden has done nothing remotely close to the egregious, anti-American acts of Trump. We can debate the success and mindset of our current president, as we have about most presidents in our lifetimes, but Biden was never a threat to our democracy. Trump is. He is unique among all American presidents for his efforts to keep power at any cost. Personally, I find it hard to understand how Americans who take pride in our system of government support Trump. All those soldiers who died in World War II were fighting against the kind of regime Trump wants to create on our soil. How do they not see it? [emphasis added]

I encourage you to read the entire column. It is worth it.

[theconcealedweapon]

"But what about people who had gatherings for Thanksgiving and Christmas and had the cops called on them? They're just like Anne Frank too."

Fuck off. No one called the cops on you. The worst that happened was that you were called a selfish asshole for ignoring the deadly plague that was happening. People regularly posted pictures and videos on the internet of their gatherings. Imagine if Anne Frank did that.

[transgwender616]

I wish more people online knew what context and nuance is

"You shouldn't nail rats to strangers."

"Oh so your saying nailing is always wrong even if i'm making a house?"

"No i'm saying you shouldn't nail rats to strangers."

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The first thing to say about the hate and scorn currently directed at the mainstream US media is that they worked hard to earn it. They’ve done so by failing, repeatedly, determinedly, spectacularly to do their job, which is to maintain their independence, inform the electorate, and speak truth to power. While the left has long had reasons to dismiss centrist media, and the right has loathed it most when it did do its job well, the moderates who are furious at it now seem to be something new – and a host of former editors, media experts and independent journalists have been going after them hard this summer.

Longtime journalist James Fallows declares that three institutions – the Republican party, the supreme court, and the mainstream political press – “have catastrophically failed to ‘meet the moment’ under pressure of [the] Trump era”. Centrist political reformer and columnist Norm Ornstein states that these news institutions “have had no reflection, no willingness to think through how irresponsible and reckless so much of our mainstream press and so many of our journalists have been and continue to be”.

Most voters, he says, “have no clue what a second Trump term would actually be like. Instead, we get the same insipid focus on the horse race and the polls, while normalizing abnormal behavior and treating this like a typical presidential election, not one that is an existential threat to democracy.”

Lamenting the state of the media recently on X, Jeff Jarvis, another former editor and newspaper columnist, said: “What ‘press’? The broken and vindictive Times? The newly Murdochian Post? Hedge-fund newspaper husks? Rudderless CNN or NPR? Murdoch’s fascist media?”

These critics are responding to how the behemoths of the industry seem intent on bending the facts to fit their frameworks and agendas. In pursuit of clickbait content centered on conflicts and personalities, they follow each other into informational stampedes and confirmation bubbles.

They pursue the appearance of fairness and balance by treating the true and the false, the normal and the outrageous, as equally valid and by normalizing Republicans, especially Donald Trump, whose gibberish gets translated into English and whose past crimes and present-day lies and threats get glossed over. They neglect, again and again, important stories with real consequences. This is not entirely new – in a scathing analysis of 2016 election coverage, the Columbia Journalism Review noted that “in just six days, The New York Times ran as many cover stories about Hillary Clinton’s emails as they did about all policy issues combined in the 69 days leading up to the election” – but it’s gotten worse, and a lot of insiders have gotten sick of it.

In July, ordinary people on social media decided to share information about the rightwing Project 2025 and did a superb job of raising public awareness about it, while the press obsessed about Joe Biden’s age and health. NBC did report on this grassroots education effort, but did so using the “both sides are equally valid” framework often deployed by mainstream media, saying the agenda is “championed by some creators as a guide to less government oversight and slammed by others as a road map to an authoritarian takeover of America”. There is no valid case it brings less government oversight.

In an even more outrageous case, the New York Times ran a story comparing the Democratic and Republican plans to increase the housing supply – which treated Trump’s plans for mass deportation of undocumented immigrants as just another housing-supply strategy that might work or might not. (That it would create massive human rights violations and likely lead to huge civil disturbances was one overlooked factor, though the fact that some of these immigrants are key to the building trades was mentioned.)

Other stories of pressing concern are either picked up and dropped or just neglected overall, as with Trump’s threats to dismantle a huge portion of the climate legislation that is both the Biden administration’s signal achievement and crucial for the fate of the planet. The Washington Post editorial board did offer this risibly feeble critique on 17 August: “It would no doubt be better for the climate if the US president acknowledged the reality of global warming – rather than calling it a scam, as Mr Trump has.”

While the press blamed Biden for failing to communicate his achievements, which is part of his job, it’s their whole job to do so. The Climate Jobs National Resource Center reports that the Inflation Reduction Act has created “a combined potential of over $2tn in investment, 1,091,966 megawatts of clean power, and approximately 3,947,670 jobs”, but few Americans have any sense of what the bill has achieved or even that the economy is by many measures strong.

Last winter, the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who has a Nobel prize in economics, told Greg Sargent on the latter’s Daily Blast podcast that when he writes positive pieces about the Biden economy, his editor asks “don’t you want to qualify” it; “aren’t people upset by X, Y and Z and shouldn’t you be acknowledging that?”

Meanwhile in an accusatory piece about Kamala Harris headlined When your opponent calls you ‘communist,’ maybe don’t propose price controls?, a Washington Post columnist declares in another case of bothsiderism: “Voters want to blame someone for high grocery bills, and the presidential candidates have apparently decided the choices are either the Biden administration or corporate greed. Harris has chosen the latter.” The evidence that corporations have jacked up prices and are reaping huge profits is easy to find, but facts don’t matter much in this kind of opining.

It’s hard to gloat over the decline of these dinosaurs of American media, when a free press and a well-informed electorate are both crucial to democracy. The alternatives to the major news outlets simply don’t reach enough readers and listeners, though the non-profit investigative outfit ProPublica and progressive magazines such as the New Republic and Mother Jones, are doing a lot of the best reporting and commentary.

Earlier this year, when Alabama senator Katie Britt gave her loopy rebuttal to Biden’s State of the Union address, it was an independent journalist, Jonathan Katz, who broke the story on TikTok that her claims about a victim of sex trafficking contained significant falsehoods. The big news outlets picked up the scoop from him, making me wonder what their staffs of hundreds were doing that night.

A host of brilliant journalists young and old, have started independent newsletters, covering tech, the state of the media, politics, climate, reproductive rights and virtually everything else, but their reach is too modest to make them a replacement for the big newspapers and networks. The great exception might be historian Heather Cox Richardson, whose newsletter and Facebook followers give her a readership not much smaller than that of the Washington Post. The tremendous success of her sober, historically grounded (and footnoted!) news summaries and reflections bespeaks a hunger for real news.

Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

Sometimes, I have the dumbest White people responding to my posts...

This is literally false equivalency becos Palestinians are literally being killed and displaced by Israel? Mainly listening to their voices on their oppression by Israel is not the same as centering Israeli opinions on Palestinian sovereignty?? That's like centering White voices on racism 🤦🏻‍♀️ Also, I merely said we should be centering Palestinian voices, I didnt say we should only be listening to Palestinians. But trust that some White people don't seem to think that people of colour can be capable of nuance admidst criticism 🤷🏻‍♀️

Also, why is it weird to, in his words, center only Palestinian voices? It's not as if Palestinians are themselves a diverse community of people with a diversity of beliefs and opinions on Israel 🤷🏻‍♀️

- mod sodapop

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Charlotte Clymer at Charlotte's Web Thoughts:

Every year, Pride Month comes with renewed efforts by anti-LGBTQ extremists to downplay, diminish, and undermine its importance. Sad, insecure clowns—mostly straight men (some of them likely closeted)—flood the zone to feed each other outrage and claim the Queer Agenda is out to destroy them all. This year is certainly no different. Amidst all the wonderful Pride posts online from sports teams and companies and elected officials, there’s been a widespread effort by extremists to claim our military and veterans and their families are being ignored and that June should be solely dedicated to honoring them, not the LGBTQ community. As a queer person and proud military veteran, I find this all quite curious. Truth be told, I can’t help but find it amusing. Are these people unaware of the sheer calendar space dedicated to our nation’s women and men who have served and are currently serving?

Most folks know about Memorial Day (the last Monday in May, dedicated to those who made the ultimate sacrifice) and Veterans Day (Nov. 11th, dedicated to all who have served), but those are just the tip of the iceberg. Let’s start with the easy ones: the month-long observances. April is Month of the Military Child. May is both National Military Appreciation Month and Month of the Military Caregiver. June is PTSD Awareness Month, which isn’t exclusively for the military and veterans but obviously has a pretty strong military connection. November is both Veterans & Military Family Month and Warrior Care Month. Then you have the long list of specific day observances throughout the year.

There are the military branch and component birthdays/observances: Army (June 14th), Army Reserve (April 23rd), Navy (Oct. 13th), Navy Reserve (March 3rd), Air Force (Sept. 18th) Air Force Reserve (April 14th), Marine Corps (Nov. 10th), Marine Corps Reserve (Aug. 29th), Coast Guard (Aug. 4th), Coast Guard Auxiliary (June 23rd), National Guard (Dec. 13th), and Civil Air Patrol (Dec. 1st).

There are the various days specifically honoring military families, caregivers, and surviving loved ones: Gold Star Spouses Day (April 5th), National Military Brats Day (April 30th), Military Spouse Appreciation Day (Friday before Mothers Day), Children of Fallen Patriots Day (May 13th), Gold Star Mother’s Day (last Sunday in September), National Day of the Deployed (Oct. 26th), and—because families carry the greatest burden here, I’ll include it in this section—National POW/MIA Recognition Day (third Friday in September). There are the days honoring those who earned specific military decorations: National Medal of Honor Day (March 25th), Silver Star Service Banner Day (May 1st), and National Purple Heart Day (Aug. 7th).

There are the days honoring specific groups of veterans and those who paid the ultimate sacrifice: K-9 Veterans Day (March 13th), National Vietnam War Veterans Day (March 29th), National Former POW Recognition Day (April 9th), V-E Day (May 8th), Women Veterans Day (June 12th), National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day (July 27th), National Buffalo Soldiers Day (July 28th), Agent Orange Awareness Day (Aug. 10th), Navajo Code Talkers Day (Aug. 14th), V-J Day (Sept. 2nd), and National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (Dec. 7th). Outside of those distinct categories, there are some others: Four Chaplins Day (Feb. 3rd), USO Birthday (Feb. 4th), National Salute to Veteran Patients (week of Feb. 12th), Seabee Birthday (March 5th), American Legion Birthday (March 15th), National Rosie the Riveter Day (March 21st), National Hire a Veteran Day (July 25th), Department of Defense Birthday (Aug. 10th), National Airborne Day (Aug. 16th), Veterans of Foreign Wars Day (Sept. 29th), and Wreaths Across America Day (Dec. 18th). Oh, and Armed Forces Day (May 20th), which falls at the end of Armed Forces Week (which begins on May 13th). I hope I didn’t miss any?

At least 120 days on the American calendar are dedicated to honoring our military, fallen service members, veterans, and their families — about a third of the full year. [...] The past five months have seen members of the military and veterans who are women, Black people, people of color generally, and LGBTQ people broadly erased from any recognition by the Trump Administration and the Department of Defense specifically. This month, thousands of transgender service members and their families will be kicked out, their lives uprooted, their service cruelly degraded, their characters slandered, all because of a senseless and bigoted policy created to placate anti-trans extremists, signed by a coward who avoided military service.

Charlotte Clymer wrote an excellent piece debunking the BS anti-LGBTQ+ narrative that "gays get a month, while the veterans only get a day." In fact, there are far more days and months of military observances in some form on the calendar than LGBTQ+ ones. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[dougielombax]

No!

Blowing up the Death Star did NOT make the rebel alliance “evil” or worse than the empire!

The empire used the cursed thing to blow up a whole planet and to nuke another one, as well as a small, densely populated moon!

Miss me with that false equivalency SHITE!

[icedsodapop]

Kayleigh Donaldson, I usually like your articles but I seriously hope you aren't implying that what happened to Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave, who got blacklisted by right-wing conservative institutions, is the same as people getting angry at Dolly Parton for collaborating with a transphobic and racist asshole 😮‍💨

Link to article:

[elder-millennial-of-zion]

[spot-the-antisemitism]

Around November or December of 2023, an incredible leftist who I had been following for a year and more said "Kanye was right" (not paraphrasing, this is what they said) and their apology was "I'm mentally ill and my grandmother was Jewish" (a lie because this person said they were not Jewish and had no Jewish heritage) and the comments were like you are right Zionists make you act this way. Does this count as "the devil made me do it"?

I think the whole "Zionists are the reason for antisemitism" is a form of "the devil made me do it" but yh😭

Dear anon,

it does not!!!

‘I think the whole "Zionists are the reason for antisemitism" is a form of "the devil made me do it" but yh’ I have NEVER disagreed on something with someone who I agreed with ideologically with more.

“The Jews made me do it” would be someone doing something antisemitic, blaming Jews but apologizing or saying it would be wrong if Jews weren’t so pogrommable. I have NEVER seen an influencer either apologize or double down. The only exception is STA who claimed that Zionists being friends with Hindus is what drove them to antizionism but psyop Georg is an outlier and should not be counted

but also if you cannot see how “I’m Jewish and can do no wrong ” and “ the Jews were just so ****-able, I had no choice but to give in to my urges” are not the same thing nor are followers saying that (BTW I refuse to believe they said that until I see a screenshot)

also if they think a Black neo-nazi is right they’re not an incredible leftist but by definition a useful idiot

ooops all false equivalency,

Cecil

[getpaulhoward]

Go ahead, TRY and think of something Republicans specifically did to benefit Americans… I’ll wait.

[coldalbion]

Both sides the same: False equivalences suck

I'm not going to agree or disagree with any argument re: who US (or UK) folks might or might not vote for. I am however going to stick my neck out and point out there is a difference between a 99% and a 100% of anything and that's a mathematical and social certainty. Like, if there was no difference, it'd be 100. And since there is difference, it means that what happens under conditions of 99 is materially different than 100. It may be tiny. But that difference is philosophically and materially where EVERYTHING happens. And this goes beyond politics. It's a fundamental issue where noticing possibility happens. The assumption that everything that looks like X, is X, and cannot be otherwise - and that X+1 is mostly X so we can just say X? That's essentialism. You know, the stuff that says that you're either M/F, Gay, Straight, that conjures binaries all over the place? That says: A Man is A, Woman is B, Child is C, that all people who are Ethnicity/Social Class/Gender are/do/experience Z. And I know that it's hard to look for the difference that makes the difference (Bateson) outside of familiar domains. I know it takes a massive cognitive load. I struggle too. But we have to realise that that difference is vital, and look for it as well as checking in with our usual heuristics. I'm not telling you what to choose. But I am BEGGING for people, particularly those who view themselves as queer-aligned, or on the left, to look for those differences which have brought you joy and some level of liberation, and internalise the fact that this can and does exist in every damn domain. Don't unthinkingly fall into the trap of essentialism in biology or politics, or anything else. Now, if you want to jump in that pit, go ahead. But admit it to yourself and others.

[tomorrowusa]

The news media notoriously engages in bothsiderism. Biden's verbal stumbles are bizarrely equated with Trump's unhinged racist and dictatorial rantings.

But even if you ignore the vile and incendiary stuff Trump says, he still beats any other president for incomprehension – including George W. Bush.

^^^ I will concede that this particular statement is at least accurate – unlike 30,000+ false assertions he made during his term. Of course Trump helped speed up those deaths by doing nothing for seven weeks from late January to early March of 2020 as the COVID-19 virus was insidiously spreading throughout the United States.