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Something that I have noticed on these boards, well it's a few individuals actually, is that they come on here to complain about something and then their complaint is proven to be inaccurate so they "move the goalposts" in order to validate their argument.
Let's take the numerous "Fighter" threads for example. We have all seen the constant "Fighter Sux", or "Fighter doesn't have this Unique ability", or "Fighter can't do anything outside of Combat", etc...
Now it's funny when people start posting builds that prove them wrong, then out come the corner case scenarios that puts the fighter into a precarious situation, but then someone comes along with a build that debunks that scenario. Well after that another scenario and another and another until this wild and crazy corner case comes along that probably no class could get out of and then we hear: "Ha, see I told you that the fighter sucks".
What is it with some people on these boards? Why not just accept that you were wrong on the matter? Why continue to do that until you finally come across a situation where a class will be stumped?
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So, presenting evidence is the same as moving goalposts?
That's a rather interesting opinion you've got there on the matter.
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Something that I have noticed on these boards, well it's a few individuals actually, is that they come on here to complain about something and then their complaint is proven to be inaccurate so they "move the goalposts" in order to validate their argument.
There is a good reason that Pride is often cited as the greatest sin.
For many people, admitting that they are wrong diminishes their sense of self worth. As such, people will do almost anything to refute, deny, or silence that which would show them to be wrong in order to protect their self image.
1. They don't always show corner cases as evidence.
2. For all I know, he calls even the more blatant examples corner cases.
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I am personally a fan of defining goal posts very early on, and then locking them into place.
It is the job of the person who is stating something is a "fact" to defend it, and it is the job who is stating it is "unclear" to disprove it.
It is always easier to be in the "unclear" position.
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A great number of people come here not looking for debate but validation. When they dont get the validation they seek its upsetting to them. They dont want to be convinced of anything so they wont be, they then when faced with a mountain of contrary opinion resort to logical fallacies, moving goal posts, Strawmen, and Reducta ad Absurdem to attemp to "win". As though its some sort of competetion.
A great number of people come here not looking for debate but validation. When they dont get the validation they seek its upsetting to them. They dont want to be convinced of anything so they wont be, they then when faced with a mountain of contrary opinion resort to logical fallacies, moving goal posts, Strawmen, and Reducta ad Absurdem to attemp to "win". As though its some sort of competetion.
That pretty much what I was going to say...that why I usualy ignore those threads.
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A great number of people come here not looking for debate but validation. When they dont get the validation they seek its upsetting to them. They dont want to be convinced of anything so they wont be, they then when faced with a mountain of contrary opinion resort to logical fallacies, moving goal posts, Strawmen, and Reducta ad Absurdem to attemp to "win". As though its some sort of competetion.
Unsurprisingly, they are often the same people who try to "win" the game.
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I only need one thing, just one thing, Validation. If I can get validation and respect, wait, two things.
I need two things, validation and respect. I’ve always felt that as long as I have validation, respect and love. I can get by and survive…
Three things, validation, respect, and love, yes, that’s it. When you put your life into a focus, look hard at what you really need to survive, and it’s different for everyone, I suppose, but I’m just saying that with validation, respect, love and laughter there probably isn’t anything I can’t face with a…
FOUR, four things, okay, hold on, four things are what I’m talking about, validation, respect, love, and laughter, and trust. Five, no, six, six things, validation, respect, love, laughter, trust, sympathy, passion, and forgiveness, wait, that’s, hold on, one, two, three…
Okay, let me just start over from the beginning.
And this chair...
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the game.
You bastard.
the game.You bastard.
I have gone years.
YEARS.
without losing.
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It's an interesting development we're seeing. In this age of short clips, shorter moments of fleeting interest and fluid social connections that could nevertheless lead to VERY lasting loss if someone managed to film something sensitive, very few people dare admit that they are wrong.
Psychiatrically, it is called narcissistic personality disorder.
It is characterized by having such an abysmally low self esteem that admitting to ANYONE, in ANY situation, for ANY reason, that you are wrong will NOT HAPPEN. If PROVEN to be wrong, woe betide the prover, what follows will be what is called narcissistic rage, i.e. anger on a scale entirely unmotivated, the person screams and acts out completely. Off his rocker, blows his fuses, so to speak. The personality-disturbed person will, at the very least, be extremely unforgiving and will never, ever forget that he was slighted.
Lucky it's not that common, eh?
Well, while writing the new DSM-V psychiatric manual, the committee found that narcissistic personality disorder is running rampant through (especially American) society, to the level that it's more adequate to think of it as the normal baseline today.
Happy thought...
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Because most of us would rather indirectly make ourselves look like idiots than admit we're wrong or at least that we overlooked something.
Human beings are not rational.
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As you say. Rationality does not in any way enter into it.
Personally, I would immediately and fully admit it if I were at fault. It just hasn't happened yet.
Regardless of whether or not that's true, Sissyl, I hope you appreciate the irony in saying it. :P
=)
Some people come to the boards actively and actually wanting an answer to their question.
Others though already know the answer. What they are seeking is for you to back them up. They are right. And they know it. And they make the assumption that since they are right- everyone will agree with them.
And when you don't (since we all have our own opinions its nearly guaranteed someone on the boards will disagree with nearly any proposition presented) then it breaks their little view of the world. Namely- that they are right and so everyone will agree with them.
And that creates the problem. They keep moving the goal post trying to get most (or all) to agree with their original proposition. And when they can't they often just disappear from the thread. (or the thread gets locked.)
thats my .02 anyway.
-S
I have no problem looking like an idiot, or being wrong. It's how you learn.
Unfortunately, these two things often coincide :\
Modern? I believe "The Culture of Narcissim" by Cristopher Lasch was originally published in 1979 (I read it in 1984)
That may be, but the world of committee scale psychiatrics is only a teensy bit faster than geology. What I referred to was these central guys' thought about NPD today. Let's just say the problem hasn't been getting smaller.
To be honest, we need to change our tune on many things. Most particularly, I think we need to consider what our current climate does to someone growing up. Especially insidious are the so-called lifestyle magazines - Are you a cool friend? Take our test and find out! Read about signs that he's going to dump you! A 14 page special on how to reshape your body! What kind of new, cool luxury car is right for you?
There are no easy solutions to this. But a world where there are no jobs, no safety, no bright horizons... we are all tainted by it. And why? Well, every ounce of money that does exist is pushed into waging war and controlling the communications of the people. Security COSTS... and yet that is the one area that does not suffer cuts.
In think a big part of it has to do with how extensive debates can get in a medium like a forum. Sometimes a discussion can become so huge, with so much information, with so many different sides, and throughout such long periods of time, that it easy to lose grasp of the original point. Memories get mixed up, people realise they worded something wrong, others forgot what exactly they said 300 posts ago, etc.
Then there is also the excruciating level of nitpicking that is also natural to forum debates, which often changes the intended meaning of a particular message. Maybe a user thought he was saying A, but after fifteen other users dissected his message to oblivion, his message is now interpreted as saying B, C, and some D.
With these conditions, I think a lot of people simply do not realise they are moving the goalpost, and thus would have less to do with excessive narcisism than with an information overload and the pliability of the debate. This could happen the other way too, with some users interpreting the goalpost as moving while in truth they are changing their own interpretation of what was originally said due to the same aforementioned overload/pliability.
I'm sure we've all been caught at least once in a seemingly endless forum discussion and started to second-guess what we thought was said nine-hundred and twenty-two pages back.
I don't mean to say this rules out people just being flat-out lollygagging poppycockers, but I think there is more to it than just a plague of Narcissuses.
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Why do people constantly make threads complaining about board debate tendencies?
Why do people constantly make threads complaining about board debate tendencies?
Are you surreptitiously complaining about people making threads complaining about how people discuss threads?
PS: Does this mean I am also surreptitiously complaining about you surreptitiously complaining about people making threads complaining about how people discuss threads?
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Are you surreptitiously complaining about people making threads complaining about how people discuss threads?
Hm. Maybe I should make a thread about it.
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Well, those goalpost certainly aren't going to move themselves now are they?
Check & mate
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Backpedaling, moving goalposts, mincing words, playing at semantics, and the like, are all exactly what they appear to be. Self-defense mechanisms for people not yet mature enough to admit they may have been mistaken, and that it may benefit them to learn from their mistakes.
Mistakes are good. We DO learn from them. But the maturity to set one's ego aside long enough to benefit from them is something that for most people, only comes with time, and for some people seems never to come at all.
On the other hand, we as a species, as a society and a culture, put too much emphasis on blame and take too much joy in pointing out mistakes and reveling in the embarrassment of others. So this is a two-way street.
If we could all be more kind and more forgiving about simple mistakes and misconceptions, and encourage others to feel free to make mistakes without the threat of complete annihilation of their self-esteem, they might not be so defensive in the first place. And they might learn more quickly - we ALL might learn more quickly.
People move goal post because they want to be right. People claim they moved the goal post because they want to be right. People usually hate being wrong, and usually want to be right.
I mean, I didn't even touch all the possibilities, but I'm there are many different things that could happen and there may be no guilty party or anyone out to "move the goalpost" on purpose.
Because generally the original poster sets the goals at a certain rigid juncture "The Fighter cannot be good out of combat" and when that is proven wrong the conversation shifts to something a bit less absolute like "The Fighter cannot be as good out of combat as other classes given similar or even less investment".
But some people still try to argue the original point, not noticing that the conversation has LONG since shifted from the original absolute statement.
They then proceed to make arguments toward the original, extremely rigid point and then get frustrated because they fail to realize that the conversation has moved on.
And then they make threads complaining about goalposts moving in an attempt to get others to agree with their position when it is taken out of context, thereby gaining validation of their opinion in an indirect manner.
Because most of us would rather indirectly make ourselves look like idiots than admit we're wrong or at least that we overlooked something.
Human beings are not rational.
I try to be self-aware and avoid the prideful weakness of never admit defeat, but even I fall into that trap every now and again.
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... and yet are strangely relevant to the subject matter.
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This thread sounds like a really thin excuse to artificially legitimize the "Fighters Don't Suck" position by using those who argue otherwise as examples of an imagined rhetorical problem.
I don't think there's a whole lot of goalpost-moving going on, even in the never-ending martial-characters-can't-have-nice-things debate. (hyphens!) I think it's disingenuous to frame the discussion that way. I think it's even worse to prop your own position up on stilts by creating threads like these.
"I wonder why some people kick puppies. I mean, everyone knows the anti-skub crowd is full of puppy-kickers. Why do you think they do it? Gosh, it's a good thing us pro-skub folks aren't like that at all!"
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What is it with some people on these boards? Why not just accept that you were wrong on the matter?
I would just LOVE to see some of the most eloquent posters on this very thread ONCE, JUST ONCE, accepting that they were wrong on a matter, any matter.
But I fear that this would cause the world to end.
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I thought I was wrong once. I was wrong.
