Friday 6 December 2019

False Opposites

This was longer and more rambly but I'm going to try to cut it down to the absolute minimum.

This picture doesn't really represent anything but I like it.


An experience I've had many times;

I'm listening to something or reading something and someone uses words or phrasing to this effect;

"Oh no, I hate X, I never do it any more. Instead of X I now do Y, and its great."

The source of my bafflement and consuming alienation, the womb of a question I have felt churning inside me a thousand times but never actually asked out-loud - "WHY DO YOU THINK X IS OPPOSED TO Y????"

Because to me, that statement is proposing as necessary exclusive opposites, two qualities which are neither exclusive, nor opposed.

I had a list of examples but that's where it got waffly.

Instead I'll make it a question;

Have you had this experience? If you have, what were the things suggested as opposite that you didn't think were opposed at all?


(Usual culture-war baffles are in effect, don't being named individuals in as comparisons if its going to get negative.)

14 comments:

  1. I've heard statements structured that way but didn't take it as implying the things were opposite. Instead, to me, it comes across as the person's tastes changed and they're a bit hyperbolic about the wisdom of that choice. Like being a big Nintendo fan... then getting a Playstation and declaring that Nintendo sucks.
    Obviously the system are not opposites, but they're unable to enjoy both on their merits, and probably tie their self-esteem to their preference.

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    1. Yeah, this doesn't strike me as all that unreasonable. If you translate it as, "I used to do X, but then I discovered Y, and I like it so much more than X that I never find myself feeling the urge to do X, so I never do X anymore, and in fact my preference for Y over X is so strong that I wonder whether X should exist at all."

      Example: X is posting trash talk on the Internet, Y is reading books. No, they're not opposed or mutually exclusive, but someone could still reasonably express the sentiment above.

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    2. Thats probably a more accurate description of how people actually act, but doesn't allow me to cry myself to sleep at night feeling like the One Sane Man in a Crazed World.

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  2. I'm increasingly wary of this as I find that my tastes are often cyclical. I may declare that I am done with a game/playstyle forever, but ten years later, I find myself coming back to it.

    The same goes for GMing. You may think you have hit on the perfect GM technique after a few superlative session, but then the same tricks start to dry up.

    Sometimes, a lot of this dogmatism come from people arguing about games online rather than actually playing/runnning them on a weekly basis. Busy GMs understand flexibility and just doing what works in the moment. Frustrated GMs that don't have an ongoing game tend to buy into exacting theories of how games should work.

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    1. So all we need to do, really, is to destroy THEORY and free all human minds from its Terrible Grasp.

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  3. So what I’m hearing you say is that both X and Y are white supremacist dog whistles and you will only play Z

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    1. Scott, I've asked you before to not bring pre-emptive culture war bullshit into my threads. If you do it again I will simply delete the comment.

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    2. Not my intent at all. I’m sorry. Maybe I should have put a /sarc tag or come up with some less severe bad guy group. I really don’t meant to play culture wars.

      Let me try again:

      So what I’m hearing you say is that both X and Y are only fit for Welshmen and therefore you will only play Z

      /sarc

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  4. "Instead of having sex or dates, I play Labyrinth Lord".

    Does that count?

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  5. I don't know, I think it just comes down to an issue of language. In the same way that "literally" often no longer connotes its original meaning, I think people often drift into hyperbole and false opposites with the understanding that what they really mean is "I enjoy this new thing I do so much more than this old thing I used to do that I've stopped doing this old thing altogether and for all intents and purposes the new thing has replaced the old thing in my life." But that's a bit of a mouthful, so they just reduce it to its basic punchy components and trust that everyone else is kinda playing along. Besides, being hyperbolic lets you garner more attention and gives you the appearance of "having strong opinions" which we all love.

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    1. Hmm, maybe I can become intensely hyperbolic in a post against hyperbole..

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  6. Not sure if it qualifies, but recently heard somebody proposing to take vitamin C instead of chemo for cancer treatment.

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