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-   -   What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why? (http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/vbz/showthread.php?t=137754)

Arch0wl 06-22-2014 01:44 AM

What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
A few things I've observed:

1. Arrogance and bragging are social taboos in white, upper middle class environments. It's especially taboo to mention your differences in ability in things people care about, like IQ scores. (This could be specific to the middle class environments I've been in, but maybe not.) They are not taboos as a cultural universal, i.e. there are some places where they are not considered bad things.

2. Arrogance is sometimes considered having a falsely high opinion of oneself, which would suggest it's only a problem if your opinion of yourself is false.

3. However, at other times arrogance is considered having a high opinion of yourself period. Perhaps some people believe everyone is equal and it's wrong to consider yourself above others because that's against equality. ("People in an IQ society for the 99th percentile are arrogant," despite that to be in such a society you'd legitimately have to score that high.)

4. Bragging can be tolerated if there is some kind of social sugar coating to make it such (humblebragging, or if it's regarded as some kind of universal accomplishment.)

Questions for discussion:

- What do you think arrogance is, first of all -- is it a false opinion of yourself? Is it a high opinion of yourself period? If you are legitimately one of the best at something as confirmed by rankings or whatever, and say you are, is this arrogance?

- Why do you think arrogance/bragging is taboo in some places but not others?

- Let's put the question in reverse: if you're one of the best at something and act humble, e.g. your behavior doesn't reflect how good you are, is this dishonest? Are you painting an inaccurate picture of yourself?

stargroup100 06-22-2014 02:13 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
There are lots of things to discuss if were to go into detail, but I think almost everything can be covered by general points, all pertaining to one central idea: context.

- What is the point of bragging?

If bragging is used to rub some point into someone's face (so to speak) then that's probably why it's looked down upon. If I don't like baseball, then I don't care about who is good at baseball, and if someone was trying to explain to me how good they are at the sport (or even worse, use that as a measure of self-worth to make himself seem better than me), then I don't care and he would be annoying.

- If one presents a high opinion of oneself, what will it accomplish?

If you're trying to get a job in order to do something productive with your talents and abilities, of course you would need to sell yourself, as that is the only way you'll successfully present yourself to people who are looking for talent and skill. In general, "bragging" in order to accomplish something productive (such as convincing someone you're the right person for a task) shouldn't be looked down upon.

- Being humble is a good image, so it's fine to do so if there is no reason to brag.

People generally like those who are humble (for many reasons you could further discuss), so if there's no reason to brag, then there is no need to, even if you know you are the best at something. It doesn't mean you think you're worse than you actually are, it could just be an acknowledgment of the fact that this is only one particular thing that you are good at, and you don't want people to forget that you're "the same as everyone else", that you don't necessarily want special treatment just because you're better at something.

Oni-Paranoia 06-22-2014 02:27 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Arrogant adj - having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities.

- What do you think arrogance is, first of all -- is it a false opinion of yourself? Is it a high opinion of yourself period? If you are legitimately one of the best at something as confirmed by rankings or whatever, and say you are, is this arrogance?

If you act as if you are the best at something, regardless of whether you are or not, I'd say you're arrogant by definition. Rankings, standings or anything else that is meant to compare skill to some extent are usually subjective so I don't know where that was going.

- Why do you think arrogance/bragging is taboo in some places but not others?

Sportsmanship is real. The atmosphere competitions create when they're friendly mean a lot to the players and the crowd. That can be applied to casual play too for any game or event.

There can be other reasons, but I feel this is a big one.

- Let's put the question in reverse: if you're one of the best at something and act humble, e.g. your behavior doesn't reflect how good you are, is this dishonest? Are you painting an inaccurate picture of yourself?

This is a no. If I'm rich, does that mean I have to walk around in a suit all the time? Yes, some people do but you don't have to flaunt about how good you are at something to be good at it. You are not "painting an inaccurate picture of yourself" by not showing, stating etc... your skill or anything else that someone would consider arrogance.

Arch0wl 06-22-2014 02:56 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Oni-Paranoia (Post 4154412)
"Arrogant adj - having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities.
"

If you act as if you are the best at something, regardless of whether you are or not, I'd say you're arrogant by definition.

But by definition, arrogance is an exaggerated sense of your abilities. If your sense of abilities is accurate, e.g. not-exaggerated, and you act as if you're the best (or one of the best, or better than others) and you are, how is this still arrogant?

bmah 06-22-2014 05:33 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
On a personal level, I don't think it matters how justified your assets, personality, and talents/abilities are to dictate how you act towards others. Nor do I believe that you're falsely advertising yourself by acting modest. I believe it comes down to relating yourself with others that is the important thing here. We act modest not because we're trying to misrepresent our abilities, but because understanding, getting along, and relating with others is a social coping mechanism that most people prefer.

There are times, as stargroup has said, that you do want to highlight your abilities as much as possible, but there are still ways to do this without sounding arrogant. You can list a number of impressive things you've done without negatively implying something about the person you're telling this to. To be arrogant is IMO to be condescending, which to me often implies that said person you're talking to would not come close to achieving your level of highness. Tone of voice and wording makes a difference.

So:

1) I think arrogance is having a lack of consideration towards others. Not being able to relate to others, sense of entitlement. This is independent of how accurate your abilities are to your proclaimed bragging rights. No one cares to implicitly hear how much better you are to them.

2) There are occasions when bragging is acceptable because there are times when the context asks for it (e.g. score threads on this site). This alone I don't consider as arrogance, however.

3) If you're being modest, this isn't really dishonesty as it is a way to relate to others (again is context-dependent - oftentimes people aren't asking to show off your importance). I see what you're saying when you believe that not revealing your true abilities is a form of lying, but IMO you're interpreting the definition far too concretely.

Cavernio 06-22-2014 11:29 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
I can make fun something a friend did such that we both laugh about it. There are some people, however, with whom I can't do that with, even friends. What's the difference between these situations? I have a very hard time describing it. The difference between when I can do that and when I can't do that is very similar to when bragging or otherwise saying arrogant things is going to be acceptable. I can't pinpoint the specifics of it easily, but it's quite few situations, IMO, where this can happen.

To be humble about something and then have someone praise you for something is a lot more meaningful, because they think of it completely on their own. In that sense it's much more selfish to be humble. Yet it still works out better for both you and for the other person.

Arrogance is not taboo in some cultures because arrogance is largely culturally defined. To describe how arrogance is different from one culture to another where the same actions come across completely differently is not really describing how arrogance, itself, is different.

Arrogance is not something defined easily. I see it as a general coming across as 'I am better than you' in mannerisms, whether they are better or not. But even with that description, there are many people who, when someone else calls them arrogant, I'd have to agree, but their actions don't bother me in the least. Probably because I don't interact with them such that I care about what they think enough for me to label them with something negative.
The certain subset of people that can get under my skin the most are intelligent, arrogant people who perceive differences between how I, or others, are from them as a difference in intelligence rather than a difference of perspective. This is infuriating because those people come off as closed-minded. Like, nothing I say or do will actually affect their own opinions because they perceive that their view is the best view to have.
Someone who is arrogant comes off to me as they are closed-minded as well. I think necessarily being more closed-minded is part of the definition of it, actually, thinking about it more. Like, because they think so highly of themselves, true or not, they will weigh their own opinions and ideas as above someone else's just because they are their own. Then if this is someone who is good at debating or is generally intelligent will then be able to back up their perspectives well, even though there's often plenty of cracks in their perspective.

Like, pretend you're arguing with someone who's stupid but arrogant. It quickly becomes obvious that you cannot get through to them about a given topic because they perceive that they just know better. Now make that same person smart, and when you find a hole in something they've said, they are quickly able to weave around it and argue against it. They will change their perspective to actively defend their position in such a way that in order to get them to see that they have this error, you have to refute all of these other, only loosely connected problems. And then, if you CAN'T break down their arguing for whatever reason, it just reinforces their perception of their intelligence, and also their perception of their not-quite-right opinion, when the reality is that they're just fucking stubborn but are smart about it. Like, people like that are the types who can actually think that genocide is alright and then can also make it happen.

I value open-mindedness a lot, and ability to see things from someone else's perspective as very important. Because perspective, even though there are more true and false perspectives one can have of some aspects of the world, they are all ultimately false, inaccurate, poor representations of truth.

And then there's the fact that in order to be better than someone else, you are basically going to be insulting them because that's dichotomy for you. That's another reason why humbleness exists. People don't like being told they are not good at something.

I'd suspect in cultures where people go around bragging and that is expected, it's probably a sign a weakness to not be bragging. It also might play a more important role in that person's actual safety, since I think (and I could be wrong here) cultures where that common practice, there's little effective policing and such. Think of being in a gang. The moment anyone sniffs weakness, you're dead. In our shared culture though, you are not weak if you do not brag.

As to the final point, is being humble an inaccurate representation of oneself, that depends. If you're sitting there trying to hold your tongue and not brag, then yes. If you are naturally inclined to not say anything about yourself, then no. This ties into personality more than an anything else though.

Arch0wl 06-22-2014 11:59 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cavernio (Post 4154490)
I can make fun something a friend did such that we both laugh about it. There are some people, however, with whom I can't do that with, even friends. What's the difference between these situations? I have a very hard time describing it. The difference between when I can do that and when I can't do that is very similar to when bragging or otherwise saying arrogant things is going to be acceptable.

I know what you're talking about, but I think even that's too limited of an idea of arrogance. Arrogance itself can be a form of humor. Anthony Jeselnik does this sometimes.

I have a form of humor where I phrase things in a way that sounds way more self-centered than they are. I think regarding flappy bird I said "you're going to have a hard time making me play a game that doesn't let my facebook friends know how much better I am than them." We all know it's completely silly to be influenced by a facebook game ranking system -- no one is going to admit it -- and yet people kind of are anyway, so they laugh at this.

I have another joke that frames giving money to the homeless as "a really affordable way to be better than other people." The bit basically gives a line by line description of altruistic things as essentially extremely selfishly motivated behaviors.

Also, one of the funniest people I know is also one of the most egotistical, but his ego is backed by real competence, so I don't think I'd call it arrogance.

It seems like most of what you dislike about arrogance is intellectual arrogance, which refers to a real epistemic phenomenon of (1) underestimating possible opposing viewpoints or possible flaws in an argument, (2) jumping to conclusions based on insufficient evidence.

I think if I couldn't break down someone's argument as per your example, though, I would just modify my current perspective to match theirs if I felt their reasons were strong enough, and/or concede that I don't have sufficient evidence to refute them at the moment. "Knowing" that they're wrong may not actually be knowledge. I had to do this once when I argued with my friend's dad, a lawyer who used to be on admissions for Penn IIRC. He knew a lot about how to discredit sources, but he didn't know how to evaluate statistics; when I mentioned ".5 correlation" about SAT data he thought this was equivalent to a coin flip in causality among other errors, so I left the argument as "I'm possibly wrong, and feel I'm right, but regardless I need to know my information better if I'm to refute this." (Eventually I got to the point where I could, but that was long since I stopped talking to him.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cavernio (Post 4154490)
And then there's the fact that in order to be better than someone else, you are basically going to be insulting them because that's dichotomy for you. That's another reason why humbleness exists. People don't like being told they are not good at something.

This is what I thought too, but it sounds too simple because it's so obviously transparent in motive: "I don't like knowing that someone is better than me at X, so I will make it taboo to discuss differences or successes in X in a very direct way." It's just a way to delude oneself that people better than you don't exist -- like having sex with someone who is a virgin so that you're their only basis of comparison.

Cavernio 06-23-2014 05:03 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Arrogance is believing you are better than others on some level and having that come across in your interactions with others. The crux and issue with it is that belief that you are better at someone else will make you less open-minded. If you go into a conversation believing that you are more intelligent or knowledgeable about something, you are setting yourself up to fall into fallacies. If I go into a conversation and believe, however, that the other person is neither more intelligent or less intelligent than me, then I can weigh their discussion based on what they say. If I get into a discussion believing that they are smarter or stupider than I am, then that will actually alter my perception of what they say. To be as objective as possible, I must remain as neutral as possible regarding how I perceive myself compared to someone else.

The biggest problem with arrogance from your perspective, is that people are notoriously bad judges of their own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to comparing it to others. Like, not all arrogant people actually can back themselves up to the level of their boastfulness. But they still, of course, think that they do or else they wouldn't BE arrogant. For the most part, actions or events that these individuals think proves their superiority, don't. They likely downplay when they're found to be inferior, and up-play when they're found to be superior.
Arrogance itself is a psychological phenomenon, regardless of actual skill or ability of the arrogant individual. And someone who can fully back-up their arrogance are still going to be passing down smugness to people around them. It causes tension and dislike for the arrogant person.

There's no delusion to humbleness. There's a HUGE difference between knowing you're not particularly good at something, and having that fact constantly on your mind because the person you're spending time with constantly is letting you know. The same goes for someone who is smarter than someone else...you can know it, but why is it always there at the forefront of your mind such that other people are viewing it as arrogance? There is no delusion to not thinking about a fact that you know all the time; we are not omniscient.

Furthermore, to always be focussed on what you're not good at is going to result in some sort of psychological and emotional damage. That's why, for instance, so many girls and women have body image issues. They are constantly bombarded and made to look at women who are prettier than them, they are always being reminded that they don't look as good as that person does. The problem is not actually that they're not very pretty or even hideous, it's the constant reminder of it making them feel badly. And just like how arrogance works, some downright beautiful people will think they're ugly, because of self-delusion, poor self-perception of how you fit in compared to others.

Arrogance is a psychological phenomenon, and it's a problem due to the psychological nature of it.


"I had to do this once when I argued with my friend's dad, a lawyer who used to be on admissions for Penn IIRC. He knew a lot about how to discredit sources, but he didn't know how to evaluate statistics; when I mentioned ".5 correlation" about SAT data he thought this was equivalent to a coin flip in causality"
*sigh* Just what I need, reminders that people less competent than me are gainfully employed in positions I'd like to have.

Psychologically and emotionally speaking, people who view themselves slightly above their actual competence tend to be the most stable, or something along those lines. It's a study I remembered reading/learning about a decade or so ago.

Arch0wl 06-24-2014 07:05 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cavernio (Post 4155054)
Arrogance is believing you are better than others on some level and having that come across in your interactions with others.

This seems to say that even if your belief is *warranted* (say, "I can bench 500lb and therefore I am probably better at the bench than anyone I know" or any other hierarchical position verified by external measurement) then it would be arrogant. (Anyone who could do this could make this claim based on data btw, since a few people have analyzed this and found that 300lb bench presses are like a 1-in-200 to 1-in-1000 accomplishment. 500+ is ridiculously rare.) I'm not sure the concept has any kind of usefulness at that point, since it'd be indistinguishable in that case from having a true view of your abilities and having that view come across in your actions.

I don't think it would be necessarily true that this would make you less open minded. I think your adherence to methodology (or how much you care about adhering to methodology) determines this. For example, I strongly feel like I know more about strength training my aunt and will go into conversations with her holding this belief, but if she happened to reference a study or give me good reason to believe I was wrong about something related to strength training, then I'd modify my belief.

Intelligence is a wildcard, but I think you can believe you are more intelligent than someone and still believe you can be wrong and that person can be right if you have a good grip on (a) in what areas you are superior in this way, (b) what would take to make you right/wrong.

Perhaps is you believed that intelligence is in some way connected to whether you're right and then you also believed you were more intelligent than someone else, then yeah I could see that strongly predisposing someone to believing they'd be right all the time if they believed someone else was less intelligent. But I don't think it has to be that way or more importantly I don't have reason to believe it must be that way.

I do agree that people are notoriously bad judges of their own abilities. You specialized in some area of psychology (I think) and anyone who has taken even a survey undergraduate course knows there are way, way too many human biases for self-overestimating. However I think this doesn't take into account the use of external measurement or tools to measure ability. For instance, guy A might say he is amazing at math with no basis and guy B might say he is amazing at math because he won math olympiads and got a perfect score on the GRE subject test for math. I don't think guy B is being especially biased, or wrong, or even arrogant, since this is founded in something.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cavernio
There's no delusion to humbleness. There's a HUGE difference between knowing you're not particularly good at something, and having that fact constantly on your mind because the person you're spending time with constantly is letting you know.

This seems to take humility as the frequency with which you think you're superior rather than the belief that you actually are. Could you elaborate on your definition (or criteria if it's multifaceted) for humility so that I'm not misunderstanding you?

Perhaps arrogance does cause tension. I'm not sure how psychologically harmful (or not) it is to view yourself as superior, or whether this creates tension or smugness. For the purposes of this thread I am chiefly concerned with whether this constitutes arrogance even if it's true, or if arrogance can be defined in some other way, and whether it's still wrong to believe you're superior if you have external evidence of this.

Reincarnate 06-24-2014 07:20 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
I haven't really parsed this rigorously or anything. Just dumping out what comes to mind:

When you brag, much of the time you are really saying "I need you to acknowledge my elevated status," which can be emotionally draining. You're placing an implicit expectation on the audience to give you praise, special treatment, etc, whether they agree with your assessment or not, and whether they're emotionally able to supply you or not. It's "needy" behavior.

This is different from confidence, where you don't have to advertise your strengths. You show, rather than tell. There is no expectation put on the audience -- they are free to come to their own conclusions rather than be told what to think. That annoying sense of neediness is not present.

Maybe you are the absolute best bench-presser in the world, and perhaps this is a claim you can back up with hard data... but when would you ever need to bring this up in conversation? Much of the time, I would suspect that it is unprompted -- hence the connotation of neediness.

There is also the issue of advertisement in itself. If you feel the need to advertise something, it implies that you're demanding elevation for something that you wouldn't gain elevation for naturally. Thus, the act of bragging may automatically make people skeptical: "If you're so great, then why are you going out of your way to tell me? You must be compensating or exaggerating."

This is why being humble is usually seen as a good thing. There's a lack of neediness, and perhaps an emphasis of such (e.g. the person who undervalues their talents when asked). Sometimes there's a supply given outward, such as praising the performance of others even if you're the best. It's also nice when someone gives off an impression of "I am not superior to you as a person just because I am really good at X, Y, Z, etc."

Of course, you may get into "humblebrag" territory where you're trying to praise others or show humility, but you're also demanding elevation for yourself in the process (thereby pulling in that neediness factor again).

As for arrogance... I usually define this as a sort of hard-headed, exaggerated sense of self-superiority or entitlement. I think you can be arrogant without being a braggart. For instance, it's not arrogant to know that you're the current-best at something, but it is arrogant to assume that it makes you "better than everyone else in the general sense." Usually people who are arrogant will simply treat you poorly / treat you as inferior / disregard your opinion / etc even when the situation doesn't merit it.

I'll stop here for now but those are my current thoughts.

stargroup100 06-24-2014 07:33 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
FINALLY

rubix posts something I agree with but after me

Cavernio 06-24-2014 08:50 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Arch0wl (Post 4155324)
For the purposes of this thread I am chiefly concerned with whether this constitutes arrogance even if it's true, or if arrogance can be defined in some other way, and whether it's still wrong to believe you're superior if you have external evidence of this.

The belief of being superior in and of itself is a necessary part of arrogance, but the part of arrogance that is notable and what makes it arrogance is how the person acts with that self-belief. Whether it's factual or not is irrelevant. Again, it's a psychological, perceptual thing, not a factual thing. It seems that it should be possible to believe that you are superior, actually be superior, and not be/act arrogant/ly.

Someone who is provably better than someone else at something who still acts arrogant is someone who I feel is likely to be closed-minded, because arrogance is a behaviour that seems to strongly relate to that matter.

As to the matter of humility, I think others have addressed it better than I have. It's not really about the amount you believe something, but the seeming necessity for other people to acknowledge your superiority.
The idea that I was getting at is that if you're not actively thinking you're superior to anyone, there is a much lower chance that you are going to be acting arrogantly at any given moment in time. Humility, just like arrogance, is a perception of how others see you, and how you act is a summation of individual encounters you have such that the more you act one way, the more that that is representative of who you are.
Of course, I was assuming that how someone acts is representative of what they're actually thinking and how they think they're coming off, which itself is a pretty risky assumption. People can come off differently than they think they do, for some people this happens a lot more often than others.

stargroup100 06-24-2014 10:53 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Arch0wl (Post 4155324)
For the purposes of this thread I am chiefly concerned with whether this constitutes arrogance even if it's true, or if arrogance can be defined in some other way, and whether it's still wrong to believe you're superior if you have external evidence of this.

If we're gonna talk about the word "arrogance" in itself, you probably have to look at it in context, as I'm sure different people use the word differently, at least pertaining to the slightly different definitions we're presenting in this thread.

But independent of how the word is actually used, there are (I think) pretty easy and clear ways of defining the different definition cases we have for the word. (god that was awkward to say, w/e)

Rubix and I (as well as others here and there) already touched upon when it's wrong to believe you're superior. It matter less about whether or not you ACTUALLY are superior, it's whether or not you have a valid reason to communicate this, and your intentions. Obviously, if you really are better at something then it's not "wrong" (subjective morals, but I still think it's pretty clear) to believe what you are. It's about implications, whether or not this belief influences you to be a kind, open-minded person. Pretty much everything you've been talking about so far, most of the issues are answered by this general point, so I'm beginning to believe you could be overthinking the issue.

I don't necessarily blame people for over- or underestimating themselves at something, however. It's kind of a meta problem: How would you determine/describe how good you are at something? You'd have to potentially compare yourself with something better and something worse, and it's difficult to do so if you don't understand this something in the first place. This is basically a description of Dunning-Kruger effect. In addition, there's the issue of search space. Even if you are good or bad at something, it doesn't necessarily make it any easier to determine your skill when approached from different angles or similar related things. It's kind of like predicting the future; it's difficult for any system to describe the range of the system itself. (If you could predict the future, you could then avoid it and it wouldn't be the future anymore.)

Cavernio 06-26-2014 09:45 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by stargroup100 (Post 4155671)
I don't necessarily blame people for over- or underestimating themselves at something, however. It's kind of a meta problem: How would you determine/describe how good you are at something? You'd have to potentially compare yourself with something better and something worse, and it's difficult to do so if you don't understand this something in the first place. This is basically a description of Dunning-Kruger effect. In addition, there's the issue of search space. Even if you are good or bad at something, it doesn't necessarily make it any easier to determine your skill when approached from different angles or similar related things. It's kind of like predicting the future; it's difficult for any system to describe the range of the system itself. (If you could predict the future, you could then avoid it and it wouldn't be the future anymore.)

That's not a description of the kruger-dunning effect, that's the description of it that some guy made a video of that got lots of hits on youtube, and now everyone thinks that it's somehow strongly experimentally validated. It's not. What you described is merely one explanation, and not in my mind the most obvious one either, of the results of the experiments they've done.
There've been counter studies that support other explanations of the experiments. Mostly though, I really think they broke down the data quite poorly. They grouped people into 4 groups then took averages of those 4 groups and then compared those 4 groups, prolly used paired t tests or something. They specifically compacted data, essentially losing it, in their analysis. They should have done a regular ANOVA.
Furthermore, the fact that some people who were, apparently, shown exactly how bad they were in comparison to others on whatever measures they were using, yet they still rated themselves not as bad as they actually were, speaks to me more of a psychological barrier to perceiving that they can be bad at something, unless they're just overall unable to understand the concept of 'you're worse than 80% of people at this', which seems highly unlikely given that their subject pool was probably undergrad psychology students.

Dev showed me some youtube link about it a few months ago and it got me all riled up that unproven things were found to be proven and that because of the popularity of the video and that it actual went into some details about the studies, it came off as strongly evidence supported when, actually, it's not.

stargroup100 06-27-2014 06:11 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cavernio (Post 4156742)
...speaks to me more of a psychological barrier to perceiving that they can be bad at something...

Wikipedia:

"Unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude."

"If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent. […] the skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is." - David Dunning


Not only do I think this is exactly the psychological barrier you're talking about, but everyone keeps telling me that this is not what Dunning-Kruger is, but unless the Wikipedia article is totally wrong, I don't see how I could have misinterpreted this. It's a very straightforward description and makes perfect sense. And even though everyone keeps telling me about how I'm mistaken about what Dunning-Kruger effect is, nobody proceeds to explain what it actually is either.

If you can't tell the difference between good art and bad art, how can you tell how good of an artist you are? If you cannot distinguish good and bad art, but you have your opinions, how can you tell whether your mental distinctions are based upon understanding, skill, and knowledge, or nothing but your own opinion? This seems like a concept that is so painfully obvious that I would go so far as to call it a priori knowledge, as denying this is almost a contradiction. In what sense am I wrong?

EDIT: RationalWiki seems to further substantiate the idea that I have not misinterpreted what this is: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect Are both of these sources incorrect?

"The idea that people who don't know enough also don't know enough to realise that they don't know enough ("Dunning-Kruger effect" is so much simpler to get your tongue around) isn't particularly new."

Cavernio 06-28-2014 12:05 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
The quote from Dunning is different from the quote from Wikipedia. The one from Dunning implies, as I read it, that there is an intellectual barrier to ever knowing that you are bad at something. The Wikipedia quote can be construed to be saying more what I was getting at with the whole 'psychological barrier' thing, although it could also be referring to an intellectual inability.

There is nothing wrong with this idea, it IS very base. Like, the idea that someone mentally retarded may not know they're mentally retarded has existed in my mind for a long time. That I've used a fairly extreme example is purposeful on my part though, because I think that the point at which someone is that actually unable to discern their own ability is quite low. Maybe I'm wrong about this though.

The psychological barrier I'm alluding to is not due to complete and utter lack of skill, but rather a lack of ability to perceive oneself as poor at something, regardless of actual ability. This is also the same sort of thing that I feel applies to arrogance.

What I'm actually bothered by is that people are calling this effect the Kruger-Dunning effect as if to say their experiments have proven it when they haven't. Their experiments themselves are too full of holes, alternate explanations, and mangled data to prove anything. The most they do is not disprove the existence of this effect, and even that that's not even necessarily true.

And yeah, there's something else I just thought of too. If someone is just unable to perceive that they're bad at something, why would they therefore think they are good or decent at it at it? If they are that terrible at it, then there's still got to be something that pushes them to thinking they're decent at it. Utter inability to not know that you're good at something wouldn't automatically mean you'll think you're at one skill level or another unless there's some sort of default that everyone possesses in terms of how they perceive themselves.
Which, I think, is more close to what I thought the KD experiments showed, they show that nearly everyone, regardless of skill level, think's they're slightly above average on any given task. That people who are really bad at the task still perceive this, showing there's a larger discrepancy between ability and perceived ability, is simply an artifact of having poor ability. There is nothing, from what I've read on a couple of their experiments, to show that a large difference in perceived ability is directly attributable to something that only exists in people who are actually bad at that task.
Again, they've clumped people into quartiles, not treating them as individuals; they've not shown any individual data for anyone. They could be hiding that there exist godawful people at a given task yet they still know they're bad at it, but they were just clumped into an average.

Also, if I were to support the level of this KD effect (I refuse to call it by those guys' names as if to support their experiments as validating the effect!!), since I believe it only affects people who are on the extreme low-end of the scale in terms of some sort of strictly defined 'inability', I would require in my experimental group people who were knowingly on the low end of the scale.

Since I don't think the Kruger Dunning experiments support the KD effect, and because I think there are multiple factors at play when a person erroneously thinks they're better at something than they are, I can't even use KD as a term for the explanation because the KD effect doesn't encompass both factors: a psychological factor based on self-preservation or somesuch, and a complete inability to know you're good at something. Also, the former seems like it still must be involved in people who have the latter, so I don't know how you would separate those 2 effects experimentally to find them without finding an ulterior measure of whatever psychological factor is at play and then run an ANCOVA or MANOVA if you found multiple other measures.

kaiten123 06-28-2014 11:37 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
I think stargroup is mostly right about Dunning-Kruger.

Caverino, I think you're reading of the Dunning-Kruger effect is off. I don't think anyone (not even Dunning and Kruger themselves) suggested it was as extreme as
Quote:

Originally Posted by Cavernio (Post 4157567)
an intellectual barrier to ever knowing that you are bad at something

since an exact quote from the paper: "We do not mean to imply that people are always unaware of their incompetence". makes it clear that you're misunderstanding something.
Rather, its simply that because the skills needed to be good at something are mostly the same as the skills needed to judge that thing, people who are bad at something don't have the skills to accurately judge their abilities.


They also did sub-experiments specifically to separate the effect from some other effects. So your comments there (specifically, you claim they only showed the above average effect, and that there was nothing to show it only effeted those with less skill, etc.) betray that you never read the paper or even a decent summary of it. In fact, the popular video you mentioned probably mentioned it as well if its the video I'm thinking of so it sounds like you didn't even finish that much.
While everyone initially rated themselves a little above average, there was another test where the people were allowed to see a few other people test answers before rating themselves.
So if people with less skill fall victim to the Dunning-Kruger effect, their ratings will be unaffected since they don't have the skills to judge the tests. At the same time, the people with more skill should be able to judge other people's tests accurately against their own to see more accurately how skilled they are.
In this test, the people who did poorly still rated themselves above average, but people that were more skilled rated themselves more accurately.
There was also yet another test, where former participants were invited back for another test after minimal training and were all able to better predict their performance after the training.
The first sub-experiment rules out all effets that would affect both skilled and unskilled participants since only the unskilled failed to accurately judge, and the second rules out all effects due purely to the individuals involved since merely increasing their skills made them as good at judging their performance as the people who had high skills to begin with.
At the very least, this is perfectly consistent with the DK effect, and not easily explained otherwise. (there have been some notable attempts to pin everything on regression to the mean, task difficulty, and a few others, but they've all been debunked since like 2008)

You also seem to think DK claims to be more than it actually claims to be. They go out of their way in the paper to make it clear that the DK effect is not the only effect in play so questions like "If someone is just unable to perceive that they're bad at something, why would they therefore think they are good or decent at it at it?" are adresed trivially by other well known effects such as the above average effect which you seem to already be aware of.

stargroup100 06-29-2014 02:15 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
honestly I think the study is ridiculous in the first place because it's so obvious

I only use the name to refer to it with fewer words

Cavernio 06-29-2014 12:53 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by kaiten123 (Post 4158005)
I think stargroup is mostly right about Dunning-Kruger.

Caverino, I think you're reading of the Dunning-Kruger effect is off. I don't think anyone (not even Dunning and Kruger themselves) suggested it was as extreme as

since an exact quote from the paper: "We do not mean to imply that people are always unaware of their incompetence". makes it clear that you're misunderstanding something.
Rather, its simply that because the skills needed to be good at something are mostly the same as the skills needed to judge that thing, people who are bad at something don't have the skills to accurately judge their abilities.

You are misreading what I've said then, or I've not explained myself properly. Kruger Dunning has not coined this idea. I have my own idea with regards to what they say, and it differs somewhat from how they present the idea.


Quote:

Originally Posted by kaiten123 (Post 4158005)
They also did sub-experiments specifically to separate the effect from some other effects. So your comments there (specifically, you claim they only showed the above average effect, and that there was nothing to show it only effeted those with less skill, etc.) betray that you never read the paper or even a decent summary of it. In fact, the popular video you mentioned probably mentioned it as well if its the video I'm thinking of so it sounds like you didn't even finish that much.

Just because you don't understand my position or that my position differs from the authors or yours does not mean I'm ignorant or that I've not actually read their papers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaiten123 (Post 4158005)
While everyone initially rated themselves a little above average, there was another test where the people were allowed to see a few other people test answers before rating themselves.
So if people with less skill fall victim to the Dunning-Kruger effect, their ratings will be unaffected since they don't have the skills to judge the tests. At the same time, the people with more skill should be able to judge other people's tests accurately against their own to see more accurately how skilled they are.
In this test, the people who did poorly still rated themselves above average, but people that were more skilled rated themselves more accurately...[This] first sub-experiment rules out all effets that would affect both skilled and unskilled participants since only the unskilled failed to accurately judge,

Right, I alluded to this in my very first post regarding Dunning Kruger, and I've discussed this since then as well. This part of the experiment does not, I believe, show what people say it shows...the general ability gauge where you fit into a group, when you are directly and specifically shown that you are worse than other people in that group, is not measuring the ability that the test is measuring. It's measuring a more general ability to perceive where oneself fits in compared to others, and my theory is that it is largely irrelevant to whatever skill is being measured. The refusal to acknowledge that you are bad at something is a psychological phenomenon.
If you take my interpretation of what they tested, this part of the experiment furthermore does not separate the skilled and unskilled group as you say it does, because it itself seems like it would be a phenomenon of refusal to admit that you're actually that bad at something. Take a person who performed mid-range or higher on this test and compare them to someone who scored near the very bottom; the exact same mechanism could work in both people except that because the first person did better on the test, they still do not have to admit that they are actually bad at it. Whereas the person who is bad at it, in order to be accurate enough, would have to.
This explanation of the results of that study, I feel, makes a lot more sense than the KD is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaiten123 (Post 4158005)
There was also yet another test, where former participants were invited back for another test after minimal training and were all able to better predict their performance after the training.
and the second rules out all effects due purely to the individuals involved since merely increasing their skills made them as good at judging their performance as the people who had high skills to begin with.

This does support the KD effect as far as I can tell, I don't remember it being address in the study of theirs that I read. Was it a statistically significant difference?

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaiten123 (Post 4158005)
At the very least, this is perfectly consistent with the DK effect, and not easily explained otherwise. (there have been some notable attempts to pin everything on regression to the mean, task difficulty, and a few others, but they've all been debunked since like 2008)

Have you found something that addresses what I suggest though? I haven't, not that I spent a whole lot of time looking. Nor would I say that those studies were 'debunked'. They just also have issues with them, like KD studies do too. That's generally how good research goes, people critique the shit out of it so that eventually we'll hopefully take into account all possibilities that explain the results.
Nor, again, have I found any Kruger Dunning study that doesn't not clump people into quartiles. This is my most serious concern with their studies because ultimately, as long as they only analyze effects when they do this, I will not ever say that their studies are good support what the internet now calls the KD effect.
Like, it would be really interesting to see how those few individuals who are horrible at something and who say that they're horrible at something with relatively good accuracy, differ from those other individuals who are also bad at the given skill but who rate themselves much more favorably. Because I'm 100% positive that there exist some people in these studies who know and report that they are bad at something. I'd wager that some sort of general test that measures personality traits or emotional states, like arrogance, self-confidence, self-esteem, etc, would find a significant difference b/w these 2 groups of poorly scoring people.
Whatever factor separates these poor judges of their poor score from the good judges of their poor scores, we can then measure that factor in everyone else in the group and see if scores of that factor differ significantly for everyone else who are in the top 3 quartiles. Like, if 90% of low scorers have a lot of self-confidence, would 90% of the rest of the participants also have high self-confidence.

There's so much that I think needs to be teased apart. And my theory, again, is that the KD effect is probably only significant at the lowest end of ability on a scale.


Quote:

Originally Posted by kaiten123 (Post 4158005)
You also seem to think DK claims to be more than it actually claims to be. They go out of their way in the paper to make it clear that the DK effect is not the only effect in play so questions like "If someone is just unable to perceive that they're bad at something, why would they therefore think they are good or decent at it at it?" are adresed trivially by other well known effects such as the above average effect which you seem to already be aware of.

I've said it twice now what I'm complaining about, and I'm not complaining at what Kruger and Dunning say in their paper(s). I'm complaining about people who perceive that the Kruger Dunning studies show strong evidence in support of what is now known as the KD effect.

Cavernio 06-29-2014 01:04 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by stargroup100 (Post 4158047)
honestly I think the study is ridiculous in the first place because it's so obvious

I only use the name to refer to it with fewer words

Just to make sure you understand how the kruger dunning studies work, the measurement is not the ability to rate oneself, but on how well an individual thinks they do in comparison to everyone else. I think this is an important distinction.

Arch0wl 06-29-2014 08:15 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Reincarnate (Post 4155592)
This is different from confidence, where you don't have to advertise your strengths. You show, rather than tell. There is no expectation put on the audience -- they are free to come to their own conclusions rather than be told what to think. That annoying sense of neediness is not present.

I think this places a lot of trust in audiences to know how to appraise a skill accurately. Since we've settled on bench press for an example, I'd bet that most people register 315lb and 405lb bench presses as "a lot", as some nebulously huge amount of weight in their head, even though someone who can bench 405lb is enormously more rare than someone who can bench press 315lb. (315lb is rare as it is; here's a discussion of this.) You might also expect people to estimate (based on your musculature) that you can bench a lot, but observers have no idea what that number actually is, so expecting people to guess that you can bench some vaguely large number because of some mental correlation with you being a large person is hardly an actual understanding of your skill.

Reincarnate 06-29-2014 09:29 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Arch0wl (Post 4158370)
I think this places a lot of trust in audiences to know how to appraise a skill accurately. Since we've settled on bench press for an example, I'd bet that most people register 315lb and 405lb bench presses as "a lot", as some nebulously huge amount of weight in their head, even though someone who can bench 405lb is enormously more rare than someone who can bench press 315lb. (315lb is rare as it is; here's a discussion of this.) You might also expect people to estimate (based on your musculature) that you can bench a lot, but observers have no idea what that number actually is, so expecting people to guess that you can bench some vaguely large number because of some mental correlation with you being a large person is hardly an actual understanding of your skill.

Sure -- but I suppose what I am trying to say is that a confident person would not necessarily care if the audience can't appraise his skill accurately.

I think it again calls into question why someone would need the audience to understand exactly how good he/she is in the first place.

~kitty~ 06-30-2014 03:50 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Reincarnate (Post 4158404)
Sure -- but I suppose what I am trying to say is that a confident person would not necessarily care if the audience can't appraise his skill accurately.

I think it again calls into question why someone would need the audience to understand exactly how good he/she is in the first place.

For some people, it would probably be an issue of acceptance or recognition. That what you accomplished actually means something. I mean, it's the same reason why people care about trophies or achievements in games that are available on your gamer profile.

Arch0wl 06-30-2014 11:26 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Reincarnate (Post 4158404)
Sure -- but I suppose what I am trying to say is that a confident person would not necessarily care if the audience can't appraise his skill accurately.

I think it again calls into question why someone would need the audience to understand exactly how good he/she is in the first place.

I think "need" is used hyperbolically here. Why does this behavior imply need, as opposed to desire or enjoyment?

Reincarnate 06-30-2014 05:47 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Arch0wl (Post 4158586)
I think "need" is used hyperbolically here. Why does this behavior imply need, as opposed to desire or enjoyment?

It doesn't (necessarily). I'm defining it in the context of being labeled a braggart. Moreover, I'm trying to say that this is largely a perception issue.

For example:

Someone who just casually brings up a feat of theirs ("My personal best was about 400 pounds or so!") is not necessarily bragging. You could easily devise a number of hypothetical conversations, slip that statement in, and nobody would really get turned off by it (standalone).

What's going to get interpreted as bragging is if that self-promotion is permeating the conversation to some sufficient threshold based on the receiving audience and conversational context. If someone is constantly bragging to me about their awesome achievements, it's going to make me think "Why is this person telling me all of this? Is he trying to get me to compliment him or acknowledge that he's superior to me or something? Is he trying to make me feel worse about myself? Am I simply being used as a captive audience / narcissistic supply and nothing more?" etc.

stargroup100 06-30-2014 06:38 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Arch0wl (Post 4158370)
I think this places a lot of trust in audiences to know how to appraise a skill accurately... You might also expect people to estimate (based on your musculature) that you can bench a lot, but observers have no idea what that number actually is, so expecting people to guess that you can bench some vaguely large number because of some mental correlation with you being a large person is hardly an actual understanding of your skill.

What Rubix and I have been trying to tell you is that we wouldn't be talking about arrogance anymore, at least not in this context. What he meant by "needing the audience to know" is more technically equivalent to "the purpose of bragging". What does this person want to accomplish by telling people this?

Whether or not someone is arrogant or not does necessarily depend on what he says is true/demonstrable or not, but rather social context. They can believe you and understand correctly and you could still be arrogant. They can think you're lying in addition to not understanding what you actually mean and yet you could be not arrogant. These factors are [usually] independent. (You can construct situations in which the belief and its interpretation influences social perception, but in the end what matters is that percpetion.)

Rubix explained it quite well in the posts above me, better than I could have.

Cavernio 06-30-2014 09:49 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Arch's ideology, it appears to me, is that truth is the most important thing. To avoid talking about something, or to purposefully hide something or downplay it or whatever, means that you're hiding the truth, and it seems he has adopted the stance that hiding truth is somehow morally reprehensible. (I am unsure if this ideology is what he actually believes or if he's just trying to place context and further thinking of the last CT thread he started like a year ago, about sock-puppeting, but anyways...)

My take on this is that, again, truth is firstly, always hidden-unless it's something being thought about at that given point of time, that truth is, in a sense 'hidden'. In that way, bringing up something like your personal best bench-pressing record once is alright. But bringing it up until someone acknowledges to you 'yes, fuck, you're amazing at this' angrily, has angered someone. Someone can see a perspective or truth and not talk about it. Because, again, to constantly be reminded of one's failings causes mental health issues, is bad, etc. To be angry at people who are braggarts is probably more an innate defense mechanism that everyone has to a degree, to keep oneself emotionally/mentally in a healthy state of mind such that the person can function.
The only reason this would not be an issue is if the person is largely uninfluenced by events and people around them in the first place.

Cavernio 06-30-2014 09:54 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Arch0wl (Post 4158586)
I think "need" is used hyperbolically here. Why does this behavior imply need, as opposed to desire or enjoyment?

...'Need' as a word taken by itself is always hyperbolic...

Reincarnate 06-30-2014 10:44 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
I think this discussion is going to be difficult to have until we more clearly define certain cases.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arch0wl (Post 4154400)
2. Arrogance is sometimes considered having a falsely high opinion of oneself, which would suggest it's only a problem if your opinion of yourself is false.

Outlining a few scenarios here:

1. Having an opinion of yourself that is "falsely high" because the assessment of the skill is out of sync with reality (e.g. thinking you're exceptionally good at benchpressing when you may just be slightly above average).

2. Having an opinion of yourself that's "falsely high" because the assessment of self is out of sync with reality, even though the skill is assessed accurately (e.g. because you can bench 450, you think this makes you a superior person to everyone else and gives you justification to brag and/or talk down to others).

3. Having an opinion of yourself that's "falsely high" because the assessment of self is out of sync with reality, as well as the skill (e.g. because you can bench 200... etc).


Scenario 1 I would say is not arrogant by itself. Falsely assessing your own skill says nothing about how you relay or impart that perception to others.

Scenarios 2 and 3 are much more arrogant because the individual is using their perceived skill level to justify treating others like shit.

You might ask "Isn't Scenario 3 more arrogant than Scenario 2 due to the false assessment of one's own skill?" I'd say it depends on personal preference. Some people really hate being insulted by those they can't outmatch, whereas others might hate being insulted by people who are full of hot air. Depends on one's sensitivity to, say, bullying vs. bullshitting, etc. I'm not using those terms rigorously here or anything, but just giving some first-order examples to illustrate that the underlying truth of the claim is more of an "adjustment" factor rather than a root driver of arrogance-perception itself.

I think someone who is a braggart is not necessarily arrogant (although they can be). They may just be very insecure or egocentric, which is still insufferable to be around because of the neediness.

Being an arrogant braggart is an even worse combination. It's like insulting the very people you're also demanding validation from.

Arch0wl 07-1-2014 10:35 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Thanks for the distinctions, Rubix. I think you could be clearer about general superiority vs. domain-specific superiority, but that's more of a side-discussion although I'd be interested in pursuing it in you are. By domain-specific superiority: someone who bench presses 405 is superior to someone who benches 315 in benching, and may indirectly be superior in other strength-related things depending on how this ability transfers, but would not be superior to someone at, say, chess for this ability because they're completely unconnected.

Of course, the possibility of someone being generally superior to another person seems either impossible or very much possible depending on how you're defining hierarchies of things. I'm sure someone exists who tops percentile rankings in nearly everything most people care about (or the top things that lots of people value), but you could say that this person still wouldn't be superior to anyone because they aren't superior in every domain ever, nevermind that some domains allow for intersubjective superiority but are ultimately subjective (i.e. you can be "more attractive" in the sense that you are most attractive to the largest number of people, but ultimately some people just won't find you attractive) and some are purely subjective period, i.e. your skill at "being a good boyfriend/girlfriend" is completely dependent on what your partner thinks this means.

I've never heard anyone actually consider this question ("what would a general superiority even be / what would it mean to be superior to someone else anyway?") beyond a very shallow examination of it ("duh some people are obviously better" / "no one is better than anyone else"), so if you have any thoughts on it I'd like to hear them. It's by default an emotional topic because to say that some people are better than others (or are not, but this happens much more on the 'are' side) provokes readers into thinking the person saying this thinks themselves superior in this way, and that they're arguing it out of self-interest. That is an ad hominem circumstantial argument, but it's practically built into the discussion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cavernio (Post 4158861)
My take on this is that, again, truth is firstly, always hidden-unless it's something being thought about at that given point of time, that truth is, in a sense 'hidden'. In that way, bringing up something like your personal best bench-pressing record once is alright.

This is really a side discussion, but I'm not sure how this would account for things like external reality and so on. Logical truths (i.e. in mathematics or various systems of logic) are true but based on reasons that can be verified independent of one person's considerations of those things.

stargroup100 07-1-2014 01:57 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Assuming we're going a bit off-topic, talking about superiority like you described and not necessarily about arrogance anymore:

There are some things in this world that are so general and vague that I don't think you can analyze them, but interestingly can still say something meaningful. This is because while you may not be able to compare two things that are close to each other, you can still see large differences. (Example: You may not always be able to tell if something is a fruit, but if you were given something obvious like a piano or a hammer you can still confidently say it's not a fruit.)


But that's just one way of looking at it. An even more important point, I think, is the fact that "general superiority" is a meaningless concept in itself, as it is not demonstrable or indicative of anything.

"So what if he's superior to me? Does that mean he's better than me at something? Do more people like him?"

If you can even answer the "so what?" question, then you've just explained the context in which he is superior, as well as the particular "subjective hierarchy" you just mentioned. This is no longer "general superiority" in the general sense you're thinking of, as everyone who is now being compared to that person will be compared with that particular hierarchy that was just explained.


There are also different contexts for the two statements "duh some people are obviously better" and "no one is better than anyone else".
"Duh some people are obviously better" is talking about how everyone approaches things in their own way, and since everyone's approaches are unique, then they cannot be totally equivalent in terms of being better than another approach.
"No one is better than anyone else" is more talking about a human's moral worth. This is no longer talking about skills or intelligence or anything of that kind, but a more ideal representation of how people should treat and think of each other.
These are two completely different things. One has to do with more social issues, while the other is in fact demonstrable and inherently true in many ways.


ps this puts you in tier 3 XD

Arch0wl 07-1-2014 08:28 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
I can't believe you brought up your tier system in this thread. If you want to start a discussion about that, you can keep it to your thread, but bringing this up in another thread invites criticism of your system across multiple threads.

Arch0wl 07-1-2014 10:48 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Okay, the first part of this reply is a really necessary kind of reply, even though it's a boring one

Quote:

Originally Posted by stargroup100 (Post 4159068)
There are also different contexts for the two statements "duh some people are obviously better" and "no one is better than anyone else".
"Duh some people are obviously better" is talking about how everyone approaches things in their own way, and since everyone's approaches are unique, then they cannot be totally equivalent in terms of being better than another approach.
"No one is better than anyone else" is more talking about a human's moral worth. This is no longer talking about skills or intelligence or anything of that kind, but a more ideal representation of how people should treat and think of each other.
These are two completely different things. One has to do with more social issues, while the other is in fact demonstrable and inherently true in many ways.

You can't make these inferences from these sentences. Since I have the suspicion that when I say this kind of thing it's not established what I mean, I'll elaborate: If you had tried to make this kind of inference on any reading test, it would be considered invalid, because the words as written don't support this kind of conclusion, and if you're trying to say that anything implies anything it needs to follow from what's written; even if you had said "how I read this is correct given the subtext", this would only be true if a subtext through repeated use of the phrasing such that it's established ("nice house, would be a shame if something happened to it"); since this is not the case with the words as written, you can't just take your own interpretation as a subtext.

A great deal of what makes an argument justified or not is dependent on whether you accurately paraphrase what you're trying to say, so not only is correctly interpreting/reading/rephrasing these things not trivial/"arguing semantics"/whatever, it's perhaps the most important thing if you're going to have a true conclusion.

If you're unclear on why this is necessary to bring up, it's because if you read a sentence like "duh some people are obviously better" (which in the original context should read as "duh some people obviously have general superiority over others") and take this to mean "some people obviously approach things in their own way", you're gathering meaning from nowhere and your argument is effectively speculation because you haven't actually addressed the argument in the first place, you're responding to something imaginary. Someone who says "duh some people obviously have general superiority" doesn't actually have to be right, first of all, they could think that people are generally superior to others based on some kind of intrinsic superiority in a eugenics sense or whatever, so saying "they think everyone approaches things in their own way" is out of nowhere given the meaning of the sentence. "No one is better than anyone else" absolutely does not have to connote morality -- someone who believes their race is superior to others based on traits like hair color, eye color, physicality and so on wouldn't invoke morality, and someone who says "no, you're wrong, no one is better than anyone else" would just be presenting a negation of the racial supremacist's view.

I don't know how you process these things, but in the event that you read the above paragraphs as antagonistic, know that I'm not trying to be; it may come off that way because the language is deliberately negating, but language that may read this way is also the clearest and simultaneously most neutral way to identify perceived errors in the above quote, which is ultimately a more important concern.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stargroup100
"So what if he's superior to me? Does that mean he's better than me at something? Do more people like him?"

If you can even answer the "so what?" question, then you've just explained the context in which he is superior, as well as the particular "subjective hierarchy" you just mentioned. This is no longer "general superiority" in the general sense you're thinking of, as everyone who is now being compared to that person will be compared with that particular hierarchy that was just explained.

What I think you're trying to say here is that since every claim to superiority can be narrowed to a specific domain, general superiority could not exist. I don't think I disagree, but it misunderstands the kind of arguments people make in favor of general superiority (even if they don't call it that.)

Someone who believes that they're actually able to be "better than other people" probably thinks that some hierarchies are more valued than others -- to give an extremely obvious example, men will dump far more money into penis enlargement than improving their FFR scores. So someone who believes in this idea might say that a finite number of hierarchies (domains you can be better than someone at) represent a majority or the bulk of valued traits by other people, and being better at those things determines general superiority. To elaborate further: being better at football is probably worth more, in the sense of hierarchy-to-hierarchy comparison, than being better at Starcraft; some SC players probably make more than people who are good but not great at football, but the 99th percentile of football players will absolutely make more money from this ability than the 99th percentile of Starcraft players. This of course ties superiority in some domain to value, monetary or not.

However, I'm not sure how strong this argument is, since tying this to value carries a strong if not complete dollar connotation. I know that a lot of people wouldn't date, say, this guy, and I know a lot of people who know people like this guy; this kind of person isn't even limited to bankers, and in fact exists in a variety of fields. Yet, he's objectively quite more valuable than other people in terms of dollar value. It's worth asking: how many people would tolerate him if he were a billionaire, as opposed to just a millionaire? I have no idea how many different ways of modeling value exist, so it could be also that a model of value exists that explains how someone can be quite wealthy but still regarded as undesirable.

I think someone who thinks something like "[trait] makes me better than you as a whole" either thinks that whatever trait this is supersedes all other traits in the sense that it's more valuable, or that the trait pyramids down to other traits. I know some people view intelligence this way, in the sense that they think by having sufficiently powerful intelligence someone will a priori come to all or most correct conclusions about the world. This is not true for a variety of reasons, but I think it identifies the nature of the error in terms of a specific pattern of reasoning, rather than just "this conclusion is unacceptable on grounds of outrage" or whatever.

stargroup100 07-2-2014 12:20 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Ah, sorry about that last comment, I wanted to lighten the mood and poke fun a bit. If it was inappropriate I apologize.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arch0wl (Post 4159318)
You can't make these inferences from these sentences.

Here's what you wrote:
Quote:

Originally Posted by Arch0wl (Post 4159020)
I've never heard anyone actually consider this question ("what would a general superiority even be / what would it mean to be superior to someone else anyway?") beyond a very shallow examination of it ("duh some people are obviously better" / "no one is better than anyone else"), so if you have any thoughts on it I'd like to hear them.

Looking back I guess I didn't clarify enough. Basically I was responding to the fact that you said how those two sentences could be interpreted as shallow examinations. I'm trying to argue that those two sentences offer two possible answers, neither of which is complete, and that this is a demonstration of why the question "What is general superiority?" is meaningless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arch0wl (Post 4159318)
If you're unclear on why this is necessary to bring up, it's because if you read a sentence like "duh some people are obviously better" (which in the original context should read as "duh some people obviously have general superiority over others") and take this to mean "some people obviously approach things in their own way", you're gathering meaning from nowhere and your argument is effectively speculation because you haven't actually addressed the argument in the first place, you're responding to something imaginary.

I wasn't saying "duh some people are obviously better" implies "some people obviously approach things in their own way", but rather the second statement offers an explanation of why under a certain context the first statement is obviously true. I phrased it the way I did because people can have radically different ideas that are both valid regarding a particular issue, and I wanted to acknowledge that.

I'm pretty sure the misunderstanding comes from my poor explanation though. I could have probably just said that it is impossible for everyone to be equally skilled at a particular thing, which is far more direct.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arch0wl (Post 4159318)
Someone who says "duh some people obviously have general superiority" doesn't actually have to be right, first of all, they could think that people are generally superior to others based on some kind of intrinsic superiority in a eugenics sense or whatever...

What I think you're trying to say here is that since every claim to superiority can be narrowed to a specific domain, general superiority could not exist. I don't think I disagree, but it misunderstands the kind of arguments people make in favor of general superiority (even if they don't call it that.)

I think I misunderstood the main point of your question this whole time. If I'm correct this time, you're asking about what causes someone to have different perceptions of general superiority, not what general superiority actually constitutes.

So far I have only really addressed the fact that the notion of general superiority in the absolute sense is meaningless, what you already seem to agree with (or at least don't disagree). I have not mentioned much about how people perceive general superiority, which I think is probably a much more open-ended question. My bad.

Arch0wl 07-2-2014 06:39 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Thanks, your post makes more sense following your clarifications. :)

Xtreme2252 01-15-2015 06:25 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
I personally think it's good to be proud of your accomplishments. To me, arrogance is when you disregard other people's skills and accomplishments and disparage them and make excuses as to why others are lesser than yourself even though they've shown themselves to be equal or greater in a particular skill and have been humble about it.

For example, one of my friends is incredibly arrogant about League of Legends. He is Silver III with 600+ ranked games played in S4, and I'm Gold V with 300+ games played, yet he is jealous of me and blames his being stuck in Silver III on bad teammates and not himself, and he plays very selfishly, afk farming when he could group with his team and costing many matches he should be winning if he could be less self-centered.

klimtkiller 01-15-2015 10:47 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
to me, arrogance is showing how much better you are at something than someone else purposely.

V-Ormix 01-15-2015 10:59 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
arrogance to me seems like your inconsiderate of the reality you live in and forget how extensive everything that goes around you is that "your best" is the best if you cant comprehend better than your best cause how could some one be "better" than you?

Kind of like thinking you are the best cause no one in your "opinion" does what you do like you do so it cant be as good to "you". I'm better cause I said so, not out of taking the time to imagine every possible scenario of how some one could be better than me leading to a more reasonable conclusion.

Traits of what I refer to as one of the roots of evil: selfishness x)

_Zenith_ 01-15-2015 12:53 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Xtreme2252 (Post 4262066)
For example, one of my friends is incredibly arrogant about League of Legends. He is Silver III with 600+ ranked games played in S4, and I'm Gold V with 300+ games played, yet he is jealous of me and blames his being stuck in Silver III on bad teammates and not himself, and he plays very selfishly, afk farming when he could group with his team and costing many matches he should be winning if he could be less self-centered.

Thread name, meet best explanation of thread name words.

FoJaR 02-11-2015 12:28 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Arch0wl (Post 4154400)
Questions for discussion:

- What do you think arrogance is, first of all -- is it a false opinion of yourself? Is it a high opinion of yourself period? If you are legitimately one of the best at something as confirmed by rankings or whatever, and say you are, is this arrogance?

high opinion period. michael jordan in his prime, best player in the game. anyone can say it but him. everyone should have said it. if he says it, it's arrogance.

Quote:

- Why do you think arrogance/bragging is taboo in some places but not others?
well first i'd like to see a map of where it's taboo vs where it's acceptable, and then i'll start conjecturing.

Quote:

- Let's put the question in reverse: if you're one of the best at something and act humble, e.g. your behavior doesn't reflect how good you are, is this dishonest? Are you painting an inaccurate picture of yourself?
only if you are actually being dishonest. if you're really good at something, chances are that it's either really easy to be really good at that thing, which means that you're not special, or that you probably dont know enough or arent self aware enough to know where your shortcomings are.

spending time comparing yourself to the people around you is pointless anyways.

stargroup100 02-11-2015 02:46 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
I can't tell if you're serious but because this is Critical Thinking I'll assume so.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4274762)
high opinion period. michael jordan in his prime, best player in the game. anyone can say it but him. everyone should have said it. if he says it, it's arrogance.

I have a personal objection to defining arrogance as simply the "high opinion of oneself". Not only is this not what the dictionary definition says, I have yet to ever come across in real life a situation where the word was used in this context. There is already a pretty universal negative connotation to this word, so what would be the point of defining arrogance in such a way?

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4274762)
well first i'd like to see a map of where it's taboo vs where it's acceptable, and then i'll start conjecturing.

The question is about what fundamentally accepted ideas for different groups of people or cultures could cause a different perspective on the quality of arrogance. The quote does use the word "place" but it is not referring to a literal place.

Even if it did, it really doesn't hold much significance. The only roots you can draw from are explanations from large-scale cultural values, which don't necessarily lead any opinion of arrogance, and you don't need a map for these either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4274762)
only if you are actually being dishonest. if you're really good at something, chances are that it's either really easy to be really good at that thing, which means that you're not special, or that you probably dont know enough or arent self aware enough to know where your shortcomings are.

This. I'm willing to bet you didn't spend much time thinking through this one.

The point of your statement is to explain why someone can be good at something and still be truthfully humble. What you're saying here is that if something isn't easy, then most likely the reason for being skilled and humble is that they're not good enough to know how skilled they are. Does this mean that in order to be honest, someone that is only somewhat skilled can be humble, and someone that is extremely skilled and self-aware can't?

On top of that, this implies the extremely skilled person is now left in a position where they have no choice but to either be dishonest or arrogant. Again, how are these definitions practical?

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4274762)
spending time comparing yourself to the people around you is pointless anyways.

In the context of comparing skill levels of other people, of course this is not pointless. By comparing your own skill with others, you can assess what other people are doing that's better than you or worse than you, and as a result improve yourself by emulating the better. In most situations, you can even learn something from people worse than you, because you become aware of the possible choices and outcomes you didn't consider before, and you can utilize that.

Comparing who is generally better or worse is probably only useful in setting approximate benchmarks for yourself to track your goal progress, and this is still far from useless.

Arch0wl 02-11-2015 06:37 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

In the context of comparing skill levels of other people, of course this is not pointless. By comparing your own skill with others, you can assess what other people are doing that's better than you or worse than you, and as a result improve yourself by emulating the better. In most situations, you can even learn something from people worse than you, because you become aware of the possible choices and outcomes you didn't consider before, and you can utilize that.
adding to this:

If people didn't self-compare, no progress in exercise science would happen.

(Okay, it would, but it would happen at a turtle pace.)

I also can't think of how you could possibly improve much as a writer without doing this. In every writing course I've taken, you learn how other writers write so that you know how to, among other things, distinguish yourself.

FoJaR 02-11-2015 09:37 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by stargroup100 (Post 4274942)
I can't tell if you're serious but because this is Critical Thinking I'll assume so.


I have a personal objection to defining arrogance as simply the "high opinion of oneself". Not only is this not what the dictionary definition says, I have yet to ever come across in real life a situation where the word was used in this context. There is already a pretty universal negative connotation to this word, so what would be the point of defining arrogance in such a way?

from merriam webster:

Quote:

: an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter, or more important than other people
it's more about how you interact with other people, and really has nothing to do with whether or not that behavior has any basis in fact. you can be the best in the world, but if you go around saying it, you're being a dick. an arrogant dick. by definition. really the only way to determine if you are being arrogant is to take a poll of the people around you, because arrogance is more about whether or not you are rubbing people around you the wrong way than whether or not you are justified in saying the things that you are saying.

Quote:

The question is about what fundamentally accepted ideas for different groups of people or cultures could cause a different perspective on the quality of arrogance. The quote does use the word "place" but it is not referring to a literal place.

Even if it did, it really doesn't hold much significance. The only roots you can draw from are explanations from large-scale cultural values, which don't necessarily lead any opinion of arrogance, and you don't need a map for these either.
actually what is culturally acceptable is really all that matters, because you're only being arrogant if you're insulting the people around you. if it's normal to talk about how great you are in your culture, it's not going to insult the people around you, so it's not arrogance.

Quote:

This. I'm willing to bet you didn't spend much time thinking through this one.

The point of your statement is to explain why someone can be good at something and still be truthfully humble. What you're saying here is that if something isn't easy, then most likely the reason for being skilled and humble is that they're not good enough to know how skilled they are. Does this mean that in order to be honest, someone that is only somewhat skilled can be humble, and someone that is extremely skilled and self-aware can't?

On top of that, this implies the extremely skilled person is now left in a position where they have no choice but to either be dishonest or arrogant. Again, how are these definitions practical?
i'm saying that first of all, most of the people who think they're the best arent, by a long shot, and those few that are the best are only the best so far, or even at the moment, and only at one thing. and they're probably pretty shitty at a ton of other things, and probably really shitty at a lot of other things.

the point is, overall you still dont have any reason to brag.

Quote:

In the context of comparing skill levels of other people, of course this is not pointless. By comparing your own skill with others, you can assess what other people are doing that's better than you or worse than you, and as a result improve yourself by emulating the better. In most situations, you can even learn something from people worse than you, because you become aware of the possible choices and outcomes you didn't consider before, and you can utilize that.

Comparing who is generally better or worse is probably only useful in setting approximate benchmarks for yourself to track your goal progress, and this is still far from useless.
maybe if you have these people right in front of you and can ask them about that stuff, but you can track your own progress without comparing yourself to the people around you.

FoJaR 02-11-2015 09:39 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Arch0wl (Post 4275068)
adding to this:

If people didn't self-compare, no progress in exercise science would happen.

(Okay, it would, but it would happen at a turtle pace.)

I also can't think of how you could possibly improve much as a writer without doing this. In every writing course I've taken, you learn how other writers write so that you know how to, among other things, distinguish yourself.

if you think that learning how other writers write so that you can compare yourself to them on a scale of good to bad, you're missing the point.

FoJaR 02-11-2015 09:45 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275157)
i'm saying that first of all, most of the people who think they're the best arent, by a long shot, and those few that are the best are only the best so far, or even at the moment, and only at one thing. and they're probably pretty shitty at a ton of other things, and probably really shitty at a lot of other things.

the point is, overall you still dont have any reason to brag.

like if you're gonna go around saying "i'm the best at X, and it would be dishonest for me to keep quiet about it" you should probably also mention all your shortcomings, all the things you are average at, etc. because if omission is dishonesty, you had better not omit anything.

unless it's just an ego thing, and honesty is just your way of rationalizing your behavior.

SC_coolguy44 02-11-2015 10:07 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
1) Arrogance can be a false opinion of yourself unless you have some stuff to back up that you have achieved something the way you did. It is a high opinion of yourself where you give little to no credit to others helping you along the way and only want to make your ego look bigger. If you are legitimately the best at something and you boast about something, that would be considered arrogance.
2) People get offended by arrogance/bragging because they find it to be too self-absorbent of the person who is doing said bragging. Bragging can be good if it is very minor and doesn't continue for days on end or if the person who bested something doesn't say anything to belittle everyone else.
3) No it isn't dishonest because it shows you are good at something but at the same time you have a good attitude about it which also makes one a good person. From this explanation, this doesn't paint an inaccurate picture of oneself.

stargroup100 02-11-2015 11:55 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Ho boy this is gonna be fun.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275157)
from merriam webster:
arrogance - an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter, or more important than other people

Okay, so are we gonna go by this definition? We agree then?

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4274762)
it's more about how you interact with other people, and really has nothing to do with whether or not that behavior has any basis in fact.

Okay cool, we do agree. So that's a correction of your previous statement right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4274762)
you can be the best in the world, but if you go around saying it, you're being a dick. an arrogant dick. by definition.

...what

See, this lines up with your last post:
Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4274762)
high opinion period. michael jordan in his prime, best player in the game. anyone can say it but him. everyone should have said it. if he says it, it's arrogance.

Assuming you believe both of these, then you are directly implying "saying 'I am the best'" will "by definition" rub people the wrong way.

I am living counterexample of your point. If someone is truly the best at something and expresses it when it is relevant, I will absolutely not see it as arrogance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4274762)
really the only way to determine if you are being arrogant is to take a poll of the people around you

Why does it have to be a poll? Who gets to cast a vote? How are votes cast? What is the criteria that needs to be met? How are you going to go poll everyone involved anytime you need to need to determine the arrogance of an individual? Are you so certain there's no other way to determine this?

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4274762)
actually what is culturally acceptable is really all that matters, because you're only being arrogant if you're insulting the people around you. if it's normal to talk about how great you are in your culture, it's not going to insult the people around you, so it's not arrogance.

You are assuming that
1. All cultures have an accepted perspective to what counts as arrogance.
2. For any given context, all persons of a given culture have the same feelings about what is considered arrogance.

What I consider arrogance may be totally different from what my brother considers arrogance, and we share a near identical culture.

You even said that to be considered arrogant, we should take a poll. What happens if you mix populations from two or more cultures (who, let's just hypothetically say, all share the same opinion on arrogance within their culture)? Does what culture they belong to automatically dictate their position of arrogance? I find this notion absolutely absurd.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4274762)
i'm saying that first of all, most of the people who think they're the best arent, by a long shot, and those few that are the best are only the best so far, or even at the moment, and only at one thing. and they're probably pretty shitty at a ton of other things, and probably really shitty at a lot of other things.

So what you're saying is, only under a particular context is this person considered the best. What if his statement of his own skill explains and demonstrates understanding of this context? Then he is still being honest, regardless of how good or bad the person is at anything else. Are you still going to make a strict dichotomy between honesty and arrogance? How are you so certain this is still going to rub everyone the wrong way?

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4274762)
the point is, overall you still dont have any reason to brag.

Suppose I'm going into an interview for a job. Everyone else has been shown to be qualified, but I know I'm better than everyone else at the job and deserve it. Should I undercut myself or express my honest opinion of myself? Is this not considered bragging? Either way, it's a high opinion of myself so it's arrogant according to your definition. How would this be insulting?

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4274762)
maybe if you have these people right in front of you and can ask them about that stuff, but you can track your own progress without comparing yourself to the people around you.

Except this statement is not true for most all skills. You may be able to name a handful of things that don't necessitate comparison with others, but there are activities in which comparison to other people is absolutely unavoidable. Any competitive game with interacting strategies between two or more players is an example of this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275162)
like if you're gonna go around saying "i'm the best at X, and it would be dishonest for me to keep quiet about it" you should probably also mention all your shortcomings, all the things you are average at, etc. because if omission is dishonesty, you had better not omit anything.

Okay, so now we're also going to equate omission and dishonesty? If I don't tell you I had steak for dinner last night but I told you I had potatoes, am I being dishonest? How are you even going to realistically make someone assess everything else that exists? Do I need to pull up a comprehensive list of every sport, game, academic field and sub-field, skill, etc. and give you my personal opinion of my proficiency in everything there? This is absolutely not realistic and is irrelevant in the first place.



Summary
You have tons of fallacies in your arguments, all under the general presumption that any kind of expression of self in high regard is most definitely unnecessary and insulting to most everyone else. This basic presumption is unsupported, and leads to a bunch of poor arguments with holes in them.

All of these fallacies can be patched if you go back to the drawing board and realize that under certain circumstances, high opinion of self is not only not insulting but the right thing to do, and comparison of self and others is a critically fundamental method in which all people use to improve their own lives and interpret the reality around them.

FoJaR 02-12-2015 12:32 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by stargroup100 (Post 4275246)
I am living counterexample of your point. If someone is truly the best at something and expresses it when it is relevant, I will absolutely not see it as arrogance.

how about someone who is better than you, maybe better than everyone in the room, objectively, at something delcaring that they are better? is that okay? if i beat you at counter strike repeatedly, and i say to your face that i am better than you, how is that not a dickish thing to do? it may be true, it may be relevant to the topic at hand, but it's still an arrogant thing to do.


Quote:

Why does it have to be a poll? Who gets to cast a vote? How are votes cast? What is the criteria that needs to be met? How are you going to go poll everyone involved anytime you need to need to determine the arrogance of an individual? Are you so certain there's no other way to determine this?
jesus christ.


Quote:

You are assuming that
1. All cultures have an accepted perspective to what counts as arrogance.
2. For any given context, all persons of a given culture have the same feelings about what is considered arrogance.
i am assuming that all cultures have a baseline perspective on what counts as arrogance, and that a solid majority of persons in a culture have the same feelings about what is considered arrogance, yes. there's gonna be a distribution, but it's going to be a well defined one.

Quote:

What I consider arrogance may be totally different from what my brother considers arrogance, and we share a near identical culture.
yeah, but if you were to take a survey of your entire family and neighbors etc, you would have a pretty solid idea of what your culture as a whole thinks, and generally it would agree.

Quote:

You even said that to be considered arrogant, we should take a poll. What happens if you mix populations from two or more cultures (who, let's just hypothetically say, all share the same opinion on arrogance within their culture)? Does what culture they belong to automatically dictate their position of arrogance? I find this notion absolutely absurd.
too bad?

i mean this isnt totally uncommon. when you mix two groups, a lot of the time actions that go without notice in one group are a big deal for the other group. one group of people might not consider something arrogant while the other does, and guess what? that's okay. i mean, sometimes it causes problems, but there's nothing to stop two groups of people from seeing things differently.


Quote:

So what you're saying is, only under a particular context is this person considered the best. What if his statement of his own skill explains and demonstrates understanding of this context? Then he is still being honest, regardless of how good or bad the person is at anything else. Are you still going to make a strict dichotomy between honesty and arrogance? How are you so certain this is still going to rub everyone the wrong way?
well first of all, the honesty comment is directed toward archowl who has in the past used his need to be honest as rationalization for arrogance etc.



Quote:

Suppose I'm going into an interview for a job. Everyone else has been shown to be qualified, but I know I'm better than everyone else at the job and deserve it. Should I undercut myself or express my honest opinion of myself? Is this not considered bragging? Either way, it's a high opinion of myself so it's arrogant according to your definition. How would this be insulting?
well, this is a tough situation. in job interviews, it's expected that you will try to sell yourself. you could say that the culture of job interviews is more lenient when it comes to high self opinion. how you say what you say may very well come off as arrogant even in a job interview though, so it's something to be careful of.

again, arrogance is all about how people perceive the way you talk about yourself. because of cultural norms, most people generally have a good idea of where the line is in a given situation. some people cross the line because they are oblivious or lack social grace, some cross it because they have disorders, and some cross it because they're assholes or because they like feeling better than the people around them.


Quote:

Except this statement is not true for most all skills. You may be able to name a handful of things that don't necessitate comparison with others, but there are activities in which comparison to other people is absolutely unavoidable. Any competitive game with interacting strategies between two or more players is an example of this.
and good taste dictates that when the game is over you are polite to the person that you beat. going over to the person you just beat and saying "i beat you because i'm better than you" may be true, but it's also pretty arrogant and rude.


Quote:

Okay, so now we're also going to equate omission and dishonesty? If I don't tell you I had steak for dinner last night but I told you I had potatoes, am I being dishonest? How are you even going to realistically make someone assess everything else that exists? Do I need to pull up a comprehensive list of every sport, game, academic field and sub-field, skill, etc. and give you my personal opinion of my proficiency in everything there? This is absolutely not realistic and is irrelevant in the first place.
again, this is to archowl, not you. this is in reference to his need to talk about how he's better than people and how he feels that not doing so is dishonest. you arent part of this conversation.



Quote:

Summary
You have tons of fallacies in your arguments, all under the general presumption that any kind of expression of self in high regard is most definitely unnecessary and insulting to most everyone else. This basic presumption is unsupported, and leads to a bunch of poor arguments with holes in them.

All of these fallacies can be patched if you go back to the drawing board and realize that under certain circumstances, high opinion of self is not only not insulting but the right thing to do, and comparison of self and others is a critically fundamental method in which all people use to improve their own lives and interpret the reality around them.
like it or not, in western culture most of the time when someone tells the people around them that they are better than them, that person is being arrogant, according to the definition. it is generally perceived as being in bad taste.

stargroup100 02-12-2015 05:46 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
The fun never ends.

So you do know what logical fallacies are right? I pointed out that your arguments and positions are just full of them and you don't seem to be aware. Let me help you here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275323)
how about someone who is better than you, maybe better than everyone in the room, objectively, at something delcaring that they are better? is that okay? if i beat you at counter strike repeatedly, and i say to your face that i am better than you, how is that not a dickish thing to do? it may be true, it may be relevant to the topic at hand, but it's still an arrogant thing to do.

Cherry Picking
You agreed that in order to be arrogant, one must come across as insulting. You also said flat out that a high opinion of oneself "by definition" guarantees that it will come off as insulting.

You picked one example which is in fact insulting, and somehow you believe this proves your point that all high opinions of self are insulting.


Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275323)
i am assuming that all cultures have a baseline perspective on what counts as arrogance,

Unsupported assumption

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275323)
and that a solid majority of persons in a culture have the same feelings about what is considered arrogance, yes. there's gonna be a distribution, but it's going to be a well defined one.

Vague/meaningless terms
What is this "well defined" distribution?

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275323)
yeah, but if you were to take a survey of your entire family and neighbors etc, you would have a pretty solid idea of what your culture as a whole thinks, and generally it would agree.

Hasty generalizations
Just because a small sample of people feel a certain way, it doesn't mean that's the case with the larger group. In fact, if opinions on arrogance was more influenced by local factors rather than wider cultural factors, your claim is both false and useless.


Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275323)
too bad?

i mean this isnt totally uncommon. when you mix two groups, a lot of the time actions that go without notice in one group are a big deal for the other group. one group of people might not consider something arrogant while the other does, and guess what? that's okay. i mean, sometimes it causes problems, but there's nothing to stop two groups of people from seeing things differently.

Red herring
You asserted that culture pretty much determines how people view arrogance. I'm trying to argue that tying one's opinion of arrogance automatically to what a culture as a whole feels (if the culture even holds such a view) is ridiculous and is in no way relevant to the context of the situation. When someone does something possibly arrogant, only the opinions of the people interacting in that situation are relevant. You just went off on a tangent completely by stating something "obviously" true as if it proves your point.

In any case, if that's your point, why is it then that having a high opinion of oneself automatically correlates to insulting someone? If group A thought the high opinion was insulting, but group B did not, and the context only involves people within group B, doesn't that negate your point that high opinion of oneself "by definition" is insulting?


Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275323)
well first of all, the honesty comment is directed toward archowl who has in the past used his need to be honest as rationalization for arrogance etc.

More red herrings
I tried to ask you about why you make a dichotomy between honesty and arrogance. Why can't a skilled person be honest and not arrogant? You were addressing my point by quoting me, and then you deflect the argument by saying you were talking to Arch. No you weren't.

Even if you were, you're not understanding what he's asking. He's asking what conditions could classify self opinion as arrogant, and you still haven't addressed your false dichotomy of honesty and arrogance.


Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275323)
well, this is a tough situation. in job interviews, it's expected that you will try to sell yourself. you could say that the culture of job interviews is more lenient when it comes to high self opinion. how you say what you say may very well come off as arrogant even in a job interview though, so it's something to be careful of.

So you're proving my point then? Or is this another cherry pick?
You either just agreed that one can be justified in having a high opinion of oneself without being arrogant, or you just gave another example where it is possible one could still be arrogant.

Again, I'm trying to address your point that a high opinion of oneself necessarily "by definition" is arrogance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275323)
again, arrogance is all about how people perceive the way you talk about yourself. because of cultural norms, most people generally have a good idea of where the line is in a given situation. some people cross the line because they are oblivious or lack social grace, some cross it because they have disorders, and some cross it because they're assholes or because they like feeling better than the people around them.

Still red herring
We are trying to discuss what makes one's expression of self opinion arrogant or not. We are not at the moment discussing what causes a person to act arrogantly or not. In other words, we are discussing how to classify and distinguish arrogance from non-arrogance, not what makes a person predisposed to coming off as arrogant.


Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275323)
and good taste dictates that when the game is over you are polite to the person that you beat. going over to the person you just beat and saying "i beat you because i'm better than you" may be true, but it's also pretty arrogant and rude.

More red herrings jesus (and technically also more cherry picking)
Your point was that there is no reason to make comparisons of your skill with other people. I gave you a reason. In order to improve one's skill at a competitive game, one must understand what kinds of strategies the opponent will make, and the only way to adapt to opponents is to study them, and this is the comparison.

What you said is indeed arrogant, but it is not the only way in which one compares oneself to others. Just because this particular behavior is arrogant and needless does not justify the notion that all comparisons with people are needless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275323)
again, this is to archowl, not you. this is in reference to his need to talk about how he's better than people and how he feels that not doing so is dishonest. you arent part of this conversation.

I don't even know
I'm clearly part of this conversation because I'm calling you out on how what you're saying has major flaws. It's irrelevant who is in the conversation because from an outside perspective anyone can point these out. All of my points are valid and do not need to call upon any information or opinions of Arch personally.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275323)
like it or not, in western culture most of the time when someone tells the people around them that they are better than them, that person is being arrogant, according to the definition. it is generally perceived as being in bad taste.

Hasty generalizations
Again, one more time. My point is that you automatically link high opinion of self with insulting others, "by definition" of arrogance. But clearly, you already admitted that this may not always be the case, and there could exist exceptions. My point is that by asserting high opinion of self necessarily implies arrogance ignores these exceptions.


Like, with all due respect, I don't want to insult your intelligence by thinking you can't see the flaws in your argument when I've outlined them this clearly.

FoJaR 02-12-2015 09:00 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by stargroup100 (Post 4275384)
The fun never ends.

So you do know what logical fallacies are right? I pointed out that your arguments and positions are just full of them and you don't seem to be aware. Let me help you here.


Cherry Picking
You agreed that in order to be arrogant, one must come across as insulting. You also said flat out that a high opinion of oneself "by definition" guarantees that it will come off as insulting.

You picked one example which is in fact insulting, and somehow you believe this proves your point that all high opinions of self are insulting.

so your cherry picking is okay, but mine isnt?

i'm not arguing that high opinions of self are insulting, i'm arguing that expressing a high opinion of self where you relate yourself to other people is always insulting, and that expressing a high opinion of yourself without using relative terms can be insulting depending on context.

when you say you are better than someone, that will almost always make them feel bad. is that general enough for you?

Quote:

Unsupported assumption
which is no more unsupported than your counter claim.


Quote:

Vague/meaningless terms
What is this "well defined" distribution?
sorry, i forget not everyone is used to dealing with statistics.


Quote:

Hasty generalizations
Just because a small sample of people feel a certain way, it doesn't mean that's the case with the larger group. In fact, if opinions on arrogance was more influenced by local factors rather than wider cultural factors, your claim is both false and useless.
yeah, you were the one who used yourself as a sample... very representative...


Quote:

Red herring
You asserted that culture pretty much determines how people view arrogance. I'm trying to argue that tying one's opinion of arrogance automatically to what a culture as a whole feels (if the culture even holds such a view) is ridiculous and is in no way relevant to the context of the situation. When someone does something possibly arrogant, only the opinions of the people interacting in that situation are relevant. You just went off on a tangent completely by stating something "obviously" true as if it proves your point.
yeah, that's true. i dont have statistics to lean on, but i would be willing to bet that i'm right. do a study, i'll make you a wager.

Quote:

In any case, if that's your point, why is it then that having a high opinion of oneself automatically correlates to insulting someone? If group A thought the high opinion was insulting, but group B did not, and the context only involves people within group B, doesn't that negate your point that high opinion of oneself "by definition" is insulting?
i think part of the problem here is that i'm arguing statistics and you're arguing formalism. the truth is that formalism is mostly worthless, and that statistics are basically the only thing that matters.

you're arguing all or nothing, i'm arguing that the bulk of people who have a high opinion of themselves will insult the people around them. you'll have a few outliers who have a high opinion of themselves but arent annoying, but nothing statistically significant.


Quote:

More red herrings
I tried to ask you about why you make a dichotomy between honesty and arrogance. Why can't a skilled person be honest and not arrogant? You were addressing my point by quoting me, and then you deflect the argument by saying you were talking to Arch. No you weren't.
because honesty is fine if you are asked. archowl says that he feels like being quiet is dishonesty by omission, even if he isnt asked. so i responded like i did. this is stuff from other conversations from TGB. you were not there, probably. there is background that you are missing.

Quote:

Even if you were, you're not understanding what he's asking. He's asking what conditions could classify self opinion as arrogant, and you still haven't addressed your false dichotomy of honesty and arrogance.
again, this is really only relevant if you have the background, which you dont. you can go search TGB for it if you want, but you'll have to do it by browsing, because TGB doesnt have a search function.


Quote:

So you're proving my point then? Or is this another cherry pick?
You either just agreed that one can be justified in having a high opinion of oneself without being arrogant, or you just gave another example where it is possible one could still be arrogant.

Again, I'm trying to address your point that a high opinion of oneself necessarily "by definition" is arrogance.
it seems to me like when i say "most of the time in the world" and you say "what about a job interview" you are the one that is cherry picking.


Quote:

Still red herring
We are trying to discuss what makes one's expression of self opinion arrogant or not. We are not at the moment discussing what causes a person to act arrogantly or not. In other words, we are discussing how to classify and distinguish arrogance from non-arrogance, not what makes a person predisposed to coming off as arrogant.
yeah, arrogance is determined by the observer, not by the person being arrogant, by definition. you may be able to act arrogantly on purpose, but you can be arrogant without trying, because all that matters is the perception of your actions. this is what you are missing. this is why cultural norms matter. because extremely local determinations of arrogance are pointless. one data point is completely, completely useless. you need a large sample size for any kind of meaningful analysis.

Quote:

More red herrings jesus (and technically also more cherry picking)
Your point was that there is no reason to make comparisons of your skill with other people. I gave you a reason. In order to improve one's skill at a competitive game, one must understand what kinds of strategies the opponent will make, and the only way to adapt to opponents is to study them, and this is the comparison.
yeah, and looking at players who are better than you and recognizing that they are better than you is the exact opposite of arrogance, so how does this have anything to do with what we are talking about? if you are recognizing that there are people better than you, you're not being arrogant.

Quote:

What you said is indeed arrogant, but it is not the only way in which one compares oneself to others. Just because this particular behavior is arrogant and needless does not justify the notion that all comparisons with people are needless.
okay fine with me. looking up is fine, looking down is arrogant.

Quote:

I don't even know
I'm clearly part of this conversation because I'm calling you out on how what you're saying has major flaws. It's irrelevant who is in the conversation because from an outside perspective anyone can point these out. All of my points are valid and do not need to call upon any information or opinions of Arch personally.
for a final time, if you want to be in on this part of the discussion, you need to go to TGB and find an old thread where we were talking about this. you are missing context.


Quote:

Hasty generalizations
Again, one more time. My point is that you automatically link high opinion of self with insulting others, "by definition" of arrogance. But clearly, you already admitted that this may not always be the case, and there could exist exceptions. My point is that by asserting high opinion of self necessarily implies arrogance ignores these exceptions.
and my opinion is that deductive reasoning is a completely pointless circle jerk, and that to have a meaningful conversation about anything, you need statistics. my own perception of social norms gives me a pretty good back of the envelope answer to this. you can always come up with an exception to a rule. in a 400 square foot room filled with air, there is always a chance that there will be no particles in a one square foot cube at any given time. the chance is statistically very, very low, but non zero.


Quote:

Like, with all due respect, I don't want to insult your intelligence by thinking you can't see the flaws in your argument when I've outlined them this clearly.
and i dont want to insult your common sense by thinking that you really cant see the forest for the trees.

awein999 02-12-2015 09:53 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
I don't claim to be an expert on this topic but regardless I might have rare insight that could be interesting:

Arrogance is when someone oversells their own abilities and makes him/herself seem superior. There are different ways to conduct arrogance however. A unskilled arrogant person is probably less self-aware and more likely to be interpreted as an insufferable worthless asshole douchebag -- the ones in which most of us probably think of when we think "arrogant".
It gets really interesting when actual arrogant behavior is interpreted as a possession of skills/traits of the person that are in actuality not there. It means this person is a "smart arrogant manipulator" capable of deceiving people into convincing them their skills are awesome and worthy of self and praise. It ends up coming full circle to partly the skill (ironic isn't it :P) of the person conducting the arrogant behavior/whether they are self-aware of what they are doing, however, the biggest factor is sheer willingness to be cutthroat -- it takes a certain mindset/personality. My own personal opinion is that smart arrogant manipulators are some of the worst people for our society because the people that take on this tactic are usually only in it for personal gain and often become huge societal influences. These people are truly the magicians of the world.

Humility is generally about underselling your own abilities. In the American culture I'm exposed to it's probably more expected not to brag about accomplishments to everybody because that can often imply that you require validation. At the same time it's probably good to at least show people what you can do though. It's kinda a double standard. I think it stems from people being jealous of what others can do and purposely trying to bring achievers down. Personally I think there is nothing wrong with bragging about accomplishments. It helps get yourself out there and helps people understand who you are better. Showing people what you can do is not arrogance. Just make sure not to cross the fine line between neediness and getting yourself out there. It would be more needy if you post your relatively small accomplishments everywhere all the time.

FoJaR 02-12-2015 10:26 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
basically because arrogance is defined in terms of human perception, it becomes statistical. pure deductive reasoning will not work. period.

without real data, all we can do is guess at probable median values (cultural norms) and argue about what things are going to narrow or spread the distribution (cultural subgroups, people with disorders, etc).

stargroup100 02-13-2015 01:03 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275557)
so your cherry picking is okay, but mine isnt?

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275557)
which is no more unsupported than your counter claim.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275557)
yeah, that's true. i dont have statistics to lean on, but i would be willing to bet that i'm right. do a study, i'll make you a wager.

Burden of proof
I'm gonna cover all of these with this blanket because I'm not the one making any arguments. I came into the thread to talk about why your reasoning is flawed. I don't need to justify claims, only to counter yours.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275557)
i'm not arguing that high opinions of self are insulting, i'm arguing that expressing a high opinion of self where you relate yourself to other people is always insulting, and that expressing a high opinion of yourself without using relative terms can be insulting depending on context.

when you say you are better than someone, that will almost always make them feel bad. is that general enough for you?

You're clearly not understanding what I'm saying because the whole point of everything I'm saying is to debunk this claim.

If you make the claim that this is "always" the case, and I point out an exception, your statement is no longer true. And then right below it, you explain yourself why you agree with me even though you fail to admit this. The fact that you used "almost" should mean that you understand why the above bolded statement is false.

If I say playing basketball always results in injury, all I need is one example of basketball not resulting in injury to demonstrate this statement is false.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275557)
sorry, i forget not everyone is used to dealing with statistics.

i think part of the problem here is that i'm arguing statistics and you're arguing formalism. the truth is that formalism is mostly worthless, and that statistics are basically the only thing that matters.

I know my math, I've taken statistics. A "well-defined distribution" doesn't mean anything here because you haven't given the parameters in which statistics are taken.

It's like me saying that I have a graph that disproves that cultures have a stance on arrogance. The concept of a graph here is useless unless I explain what this graph represents.

The problem isn't "formalism" (whatever the fuck that is). It's that you cannot form coherently logical arguments. Which is the point of this board.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275557)
you're arguing all or nothing, i'm arguing that the bulk of people who have a high opinion of themselves will insult the people around them. you'll have a few outliers who have a high opinion of themselves but arent annoying, but nothing statistically significant.

Red herring
Once again, we're talking about how to classify arrogance and non-arrogance. Your claim is generalization. Even if I accept it as true, it offers nothing to the current topic and only demonstrates your initial claims were poorly thought out. This is why your statements are malformed and incorrect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275557)
because honesty is fine if you are asked. archowl says that he feels like being quiet is dishonesty by omission, even if he isnt asked. so i responded like i did. this is stuff from other conversations from TGB. you were not there, probably. there is background that you are missing.

again, this is really only relevant if you have the background, which you dont. you can go search TGB for it if you want, but you'll have to do it by browsing, because TGB doesnt have a search function.

for a final time, if you want to be in on this part of the discussion, you need to go to TGB and find an old thread where we were talking about this. you are missing context.

If the conversation has nothing to do with anyone else, don't post it here, go to private messages.

But that still doesn't change the fact that there are fundamental flaws with what you said, even without needing context. I don't need context to tell someone who claims 2+2=5 that he's wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275557)
yeah, and looking at players who are better than you and recognizing that they are better than you is the exact opposite of arrogance, so how does this have anything to do with what we are talking about? if you are recognizing that there are people better than you, you're not being arrogant.

Stop with the red herrings, please
I was addressing your following claim:
Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4274762)
spending time comparing yourself to the people around you is pointless anyways.

I did not ever assert any relationship between comparisons of self and others with arrogance. You made a claim. I demonstrated why your claim is wrong.

As for the claim itself, you seem to be misunderstanding what it means to compare oneself to someone else. Not only did you misinterpret my example, but my example is indeed a "comparison". You seem to define your comparison as some kind of mockery of other people that doesn't provide any gain, so of course you would make the claim that it is useless and provides no benefit. But that's not what your words are saying, and this is not honest intellectual discourse.

If I say "God exists." and I define God to be the universe (which is something that exists), my claim is meaningless and not intellectually honest.

stargroup100 02-13-2015 01:07 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
By the way, deductive reasoning is not "a completely pointless circle jerk" because in order to interpret and understand a statement (that may require statistics and data to demonstrate) you need to use deductive reasoning to understand it. We do not in any way use "pure deductive reasoning", and since you think that, you clearly don't know what it really means. (But it doesn't matter anyways because that's not what we're doing)

If I say "Most ravens are black." you need to use deductive reasoning in order to understand what each of those words mean, and what they mean when put together, and THEN you can make a judgment as to whether or not it's true.

This isn't even a topic of statistics. This is a topic of psychology and sociology (or something I dunno, but it's definitely not statistics). Just because it involves the human perception does not make this issue necessarily statistical. Why would you even suggest statistics as the end all evidence required to demonstrate a concept that is not related to statistics? It doesn't make sense.

FoJaR 02-13-2015 07:18 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by stargroup100 (Post 4275676)
You're clearly not understanding what I'm saying because the whole point of everything I'm saying is to debunk this claim.

If you make the claim that this is "always" the case, and I point out an exception, your statement is no longer true. And then right below it, you explain yourself why you agree with me even though you fail to admit this. The fact that you used "almost" should mean that you understand why the above bolded statement is false.

and i'm saying that if something is true 99% of the time, that's good enough. it's behavior is well defined. corner cases are unimportant if statistically they make up a very small portion of the data. they might be important if you are going to a job interview and you want to make sure that you dont come off as arrogant, but again, you dont really control that anyways.

Quote:

If I say playing basketball always results in injury, all I need is one example of basketball not resulting in injury to demonstrate this statement is false.
nice red herring. try comparing my claim to something that is true most of the time and then we can talk.

Quote:

I know my math, I've taken statistics. A "well-defined distribution" doesn't mean anything here because you haven't given the parameters in which statistics are taken.

It's like me saying that I have a graph that disproves that cultures have a stance on arrogance. The concept of a graph here is useless unless I explain what this graph represents.
how about the thing we are talking about? whether or not someone saying "i am better than you" is insulting.

Quote:

The problem isn't "formalism" (whatever the fuck that is). It's that you cannot form coherently logical arguments. Which is the point of this board.
no, the problem is that you are too hung up on the rules of logic to listen to a simple argument.


Quote:

Red herring
Once again, we're talking about how to classify arrogance and non-arrogance. Your claim is generalization. Even if I accept it as true, it offers nothing to the current topic and only demonstrates your initial claims were poorly thought out. This is why your statements are malformed and incorrect.
i think one main difference here is that i feel like i have a baseline feel for what societal norms are when it comes to arrogance. do you?


Quote:

If the conversation has nothing to do with anyone else, don't post it here, go to private messages.
it has to do with the topic at hand, it just doesnt have anything to do with you. i'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, i guess.

Quote:

But that still doesn't change the fact that there are fundamental flaws with what you said, even without needing context. I don't need context to tell someone who claims 2+2=5 that he's wrong.
but what if you're missing the context that the two people are only concerned with order of magnitude? or what if you're missing the context that the two numbers were added in bash (which only stores ints) and the twos were automatically rounded down from 2.49999999 before being added?

Quote:

Stop with the red herrings, please
I was addressing your following claim:

I did not ever assert any relationship between comparisons of self and others with arrogance. You made a claim. I demonstrated why your claim is wrong.
you must have missed the part where i agreed with you:

Quote:

okay fine with me. looking up is fine, looking down is arrogant.

Quote:

As for the claim itself, you seem to be misunderstanding what it means to compare oneself to someone else. Not only did you misinterpret my example, but my example is indeed a "comparison". You seem to define your comparison as some kind of mockery of other people that doesn't provide any gain, so of course you would make the claim that it is useless and provides no benefit. But that's not what your words are saying, and this is not honest intellectual discourse.

If I say "God exists." and I define God to be the universe (which is something that exists), my claim is meaningless and not intellectually honest.
no, i'm saying that comparing yourself with someone below you is never useful. i would like to see you come up with an example of why i am wrong. because i'm pretty sure you cant.

FoJaR 02-13-2015 07:20 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by stargroup100 (Post 4275677)
By the way, deductive reasoning is not "a completely pointless circle jerk" because in order to interpret and understand a statement (that may require statistics and data to demonstrate) you need to use deductive reasoning to understand it. We do not in any way use "pure deductive reasoning", and since you think that, you clearly don't know what it really means. (But it doesn't matter anyways because that's not what we're doing)

If I say "Most ravens are black." you need to use deductive reasoning in order to understand what each of those words mean, and what they mean when put together, and THEN you can make a judgment as to whether or not it's true.

This isn't even a topic of statistics. This is a topic of psychology and sociology (or something I dunno, but it's definitely not statistics). Just because it involves the human perception does not make this issue necessarily statistical. Why would you even suggest statistics as the end all evidence required to demonstrate a concept that is not related to statistics? It doesn't make sense.

simple. it relates to human perception, and humans and their perception of things are not purely logical, so the only way to find a real answer is to sample.

stargroup100 02-13-2015 08:39 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275900)
and i'm saying that if something is true 99% of the time, that's good enough. it's behavior is well defined. corner cases are unimportant if statistically they make up a very small portion of the data. they might be important if you are going to a job interview and you want to make sure that you dont come off as arrogant, but again, you dont really control that anyways.

Again, this is not the point. We are not generalizing about what is usually arrogant, we are trying to come up with a method to distinguish arrogance from non-arrogance.

Suppose you've been falsely accused of a crime and you have to go to court. Because 99% of the people who are accused are guilty, we say "by definition" you are guilty and sentence you. This is not fair, and this is not how we distinguish the guilty from the innocent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275900)
no, the problem is that you are too hung up on the rules of logic to listen to a simple argument.

You clearly don't belong in this board if you think we don't need logical rules to form coherent arguments.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275900)
i think one main difference here is that i feel like i have a baseline feel for what societal norms are when it comes to arrogance. do you?

Again, if you think that I don't it means you're grossly misinterpreting the discussion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275900)
it has to do with the topic at hand, it just doesnt have anything to do with you. i'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, i guess.

My feelings aren't hurt. If anything, I revel in this kind of discussion, and you're an easy target.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275900)
but what if you're missing the context that the two people are only concerned with order of magnitude? or what if you're missing the context that the two numbers were added in bash (which only stores ints) and the twos were automatically rounded down from 2.49999999 before being added?

If the context is not a part of the argument then adding context to make it right is still intellectually dishonest. You don't get to just throw in context to your fundamentally flawed argument right.

Cashier: Sir, you bought this for $2 and that for $2 as well. You owe me $5, not $4.

You can't just attach context to this because the cashier is just flat out wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275900)
you must have missed the part where i agreed with you:

Except I don't agree with you. Looking up can be obnoxious, looking down is not necessarily arrogant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275900)
no, i'm saying that comparing yourself with someone below you is never useful. i would like to see you come up with an example of why i am wrong. because i'm pretty sure you cant.

I gave you an example. Competitive games. I literally explained an example to you. If the player you can beat in skill uses a strategy you haven't considered, you can learn from the experience and anticipate it for future games.

Are you not satisfied with this example?


Your arguments are one-dimensional, incoherent, and flat out wrong. I've understood all of your points, and they're either off-topic, "obvious" or wrong.
- We already understand that arrogance is based on perception.
- We already understand that this is not a "purely logical" issue, no one is arguing using "pure logic".
- You refuse to be intellectually honest by redefining terms and applying fallacy after fallacy.
- When I try to address your claims and explain why you're wrong, you deliberately redirect the topic or shift the burden of proof.
- You don't even think logic is important for a rational discussion so you clearly don't belong here.

FoJaR 02-13-2015 09:59 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by stargroup100 (Post 4275948)
Again, this is not the point. We are not generalizing about what is usually arrogant, we are trying to come up with a method to distinguish arrogance from non-arrogance.

okay, let me be very very clear... arrogance is determined by the biases of the observer. any one action may be arrogant or not arrogant, depending on who it is that sees the action. there is no way to distinguish arrogance from non arrogance without talking about the perspectives of the people who view actions. in any one situation a given action may be deemed arrogant or non arrogant, depending on the opinion of the person who views that action. what is viewed as arrogant is, to a large part, dependent on what is considered arrogant by the culture overall.

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Suppose you've been falsely accused of a crime and you have to go to court. Because 99% of the people who are accused are guilty, we say "by definition" you are guilty and sentence you. This is not fair, and this is not how we distinguish the guilty from the innocent.
except that laws are absolute, and arrogance is dependent on opinion. this is where you are getting confused.


Quote:

You clearly don't belong in this board if you think we don't need logical rules to form coherent arguments.
way to be an asshole. congratulations, you are an asshole.


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Again, if you think that I don't it means you're grossly misinterpreting the discussion.
read the definition of arrogance. read it twice. read it three times. read it until you understand it. it clearly might take a while.


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My feelings aren't hurt. If anything, I revel in this kind of discussion, and you're an easy target.
this is why you are missing everything. you cant see the forest for the trees. do you know what that means? i suspect you dont.

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If the context is not a part of the argument then adding context to make it right is still intellectually dishonest. You don't get to just throw in context to your fundamentally flawed argument right.
you dont understand my argument, clearly.

Quote:

Cashier: Sir, you bought this for $2 and that for $2 as well. You owe me $5, not $4.

You can't just attach context to this because the cashier is just flat out wrong.
i think this is what you would call a red herring. i'm at work talking to my boss and i say 2+2=5. he understands my point, and nods, meanwhile you jump in and call me an idiot, because 2+2 is obviously 4.


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[b]Except I don't agree with you. Looking up can be obnoxious, looking down is not necessarily arrogant.
give me an example of the latter. you havent done that yet.

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I gave you an example. Competitive games. I literally explained an example to you. If the player you can beat in skill uses a strategy you haven't considered, you can learn from the experience and anticipate it for future games.
you can look at his strategy and appreciate it without comparing. try again.

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Are you not satisfied with this example?
nope! you havent demonstrated that a comparison is necessary, or even relevant. looking at a good strategy that you havent employed is, in a way, looking at someone better than you at something. all you get by comparing is which is better.

Quote:

Your arguments are one-dimensional, incoherent, and flat out wrong. I've understood all of your points, and they're either off-topic, "obvious" or wrong.
- We already understand that arrogance is based on perception.
- We already understand that this is not a "purely logical" issue, no one is arguing using "pure logic".
- You refuse to be intellectually honest by redefining terms and applying fallacy after fallacy.
- When I try to address your claims and explain why you're wrong, you deliberately redirect the topic or shift the burden of proof.
- You don't even think logic is important for a rational discussion so you clearly don't belong here.
really? because if what you're saying is true, you're aruging semantics and being an asshole, so maybe you dont belong here...

stargroup100 02-13-2015 10:17 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4276018)
except that laws are absolute, and arrogance is dependent on opinion. this is where you are getting confused.

You still need to explain what this has to do with anything. And either way this does not change the fact that we are discussing how to distinguish something, not generalizing.

Example: If I say "Most apples are red." this has nothing to do with how we determine whether or not an apple is red. We distinguish a red apple with a non-red apple by using our eyes, but this has no bearing on the statement "Most apples are red."

Example: Saying that most people don't have cancer does not help you in any way determine whether or not someone has cancer. If a patient comes in for a cancer test, you don't just say "Most people don't have cancer, so you definitely don't have cancer." We are discussing the test of arrogance, not generalizing statements about arrogance.

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Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4276018)
way to be an asshole. congratulations, you are an asshole.

That depends on your perception. Just because I insult doesn't mean I'm an asshole, you'd have to take a poll of the people in this thread and get some probable mean values, find a distribution. Unless you do that, you can't prove I'm an asshole.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4276018)
read the definition of arrogance. read it twice. read it three times. read it until you understand it. it clearly might take a while.

Read my arguments. Read them twice. Read them three times. Read them until you understand them. It clearly might take a while.

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Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4276018)
this is why you are missing everything. you cant see the forest for the trees. do you know what that means? i suspect you dont.

The idiot fruit doesn't fall too far from the idiot tree. Do you know what that means? I suspect you don't.

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Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4276018)
you dont understand my argument, clearly.

I do. It's malformed and wrong.

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Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4276018)
i think this is what you would call a red herring. i'm at work talking to my boss and i say 2+2=5. he understands my point, and nods, meanwhile you jump in and call me an idiot, because 2+2 is obviously 4.

This is one example of where I MIGHT be missing context. Our conversation is not one of those. But even if I was missing context, it's still difficult to justify 2+2 being 5.

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Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4276018)
give me an example of the latter. you havent done that yet.

I play a game of chess with my friend. He crushes me and says he's better than me, rubbing it in my face and taunting me. I'm not insulted in the slightest. Is this arrogance?

If it is, you just contradicted your own position that it's based on perception. If it is not, then you just contradicted your own position that expressed high opinion of self is necessarily arrogance.

Both ways you're wrong.

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Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4276018)
you can look at his strategy and appreciate it without comparing. try again.

nope! you havent demonstrated that a comparison is necessary, or even relevant. looking at a good strategy that you havent employed is, in a way, looking at someone better than you at something. all you get by comparing is which is better.

Go read up a definition of comparison. Read it once. Read it twice. Read it three times. Read it until you understand it. It clearly might take a while.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4276018)
really? because if what you're saying is true, you're aruging semantics and being an asshole, so maybe you dont belong here...

Really? If what you're saying is true, you're not having a rational discussion and being an idiot, so maybe you don't belong here...


This is why I'm trying to rationally address all of your fallacies. Because if I wanted to play the same game you're playing we don't get anywhere. You need to use logic and reason in order to make your arguments coherent so that the content of the arguments themselves can be examined. Instead, you resort to fallacy after fallacy and refuse to understand basic rational discourse.

stargroup100 02-13-2015 10:23 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by stargroup100 (Post 4276040)
I play a game of chess with my friend. He crushes me and says he's better than me, rubbing it in my face and taunting me. I'm not insulted in the slightest. Is this arrogance?

If it is, you just contradicted your own position that it's based on perception. If it is not, then you just contradicted your own position that expressed high opinion of self is necessarily arrogance.

Both ways you're wrong.

I'm gonna double post this point I made for you because it is a contradiction that demonstrates there's something very very wrong with your premises.

Arch0wl 02-13-2015 10:29 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR (Post 4275157)
from merriam webster: "an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter, or more important than other people"

you can be the best in the world, but if you go around saying it, you're being a dick. an arrogant dick. by definition.

By one definition. Definitions attempt to describe words as they use, not dictate meaning.

But anyway, if you're the best in the world and go around saying it you're also stating something true. If you pretend you're not the best in the world, or in some other way downplay you're abilities, you're trying to come off like you're not what you are.

I want to make a clarification of what this isn't, since you said two blatantly untrue things here:

1. "archowl says that he feels like being quiet is dishonesty by omission"

2. "archowl who has in the past used his need to be honest as rationalization for arrogance etc."

#1

The quote in #1 is incorrect paraphrase. Paraphrasing correctly matters a lot, because "being quiet is honesty by omission" is a proposition I disagree with, while "pretending to not be better than someone else in some way is dishonest when you actually are" is something I agree with, and your difference in wording makes a crucial difference for whether you're actually responding to what really I said or what you have a foggy memory of me saying. Either you didn't understand me, or you didn't go back and check what I actually said, or for one reason or another you tried to use your memory to paraphrase me and simply forgot what I said with precision enough to adequately paraphrase me, but regardless of cause, you didn't get it right.

I know for a fact this isn't just a slip-up, because you got it wrong not once, but twice, when you said this earlier:

"[if you believe] "i'm the best at X, and it would be dishonest for me to keep quiet about it" you should probably also mention all your shortcomings, all the things you are average at, etc. because if omission is dishonesty, you had better not omit anything."

Here is what I argued: that if you are better than someone at something, attempting to appear otherwise is dishonest.

Here is what I did not argue: that if you are better than someone at something, keeping quiet about it is dishonest.

There are crucial differences between the two phrasings and I don't know if you're simply not capable or not practiced enough in precise argumentation to understand the difference, but the former would entail that you are attempting to create a false impression while the latter would simply entail you were silent.

Scenario entailing from what I actually said:

A: "Are you good at FFR?" (when B is top 100 or higher)
B (dishonest): "Yeah, I'm decent." ('decent' would be average or slightly above average)
B (honest): "Yeah, I'm top 100."

Scenario entailing from how you incorrectly paraphrased me:

A: "Do you want to get pizza?"
B: "Yes. Did you know I'm top 100 in FFR?"

There are numerous situations where you aren't mentioning every detail on your mind, but when your skill is relevant to the conversation and may in fact come up, attempting to appear only moderately skilled is dishonest. This also applies to things that aren't necessarily skills, such as abilities/aptitudes (IQ), traits (penis size), efforts (how good your outfit looks) or anything along these lines.

#2

"archowl who has in the past used his need to be honest as rationalization for arrogance etc."

This is motivational analysis, and has nothing to do with whether the things I say are true. Motives almost never have any basis in argumentation about the truth of things external to you, like what arrogance is or whether it's justified. This is a question that is independent of your motivation, and the truth is independent of your motivation as well. I could be completely using this as a rationalization, or not, and either way it would not make anything I say less true or more true. To say it does is to make an ad hominem circumstantial fallacy (aka 'motive fallacy' or 'appeal to motive') -- google this if you need more clarification.

Beyond its erroneousness, this claim also regresses into this type of discussion:

A: "You have motive X"
B: "No, I don't."
A: "Yes you do [insert reasons, although possibly not]"
B: "No, because [reasons claimed to be counter to proposed motive]"
A: "Yes, but [possible self-interest in pursuing argument anyway"

This leads the discussion off-topic because it's unrelated to the truth of whatever it is you're arguing. And even if you pursue the claim, A is ultimately the final source for motives possessed by A, so any dispute of this is speculation at best.

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Originally Posted by FoJaR
what is culturally acceptable is really all that matters, because you're only being arrogant if you're insulting the people around you.

Culture is irrelevant here. Values and ethics are culture-neutral, and can be evaluated independently of culture. Culture contains norms and values which may or may not be justifiable when scrutinized for their function or foundation.

Further, even if someone is insulted, this doesn't mean anything. There are infinite potential combinations of insult patterns that someone could take from something. You can be insulted because someone is better than you at something, or because someone looks better than you. This does not mean that it's justified insult. Otherwise, if all insult were legitimate, you could negate insult by being insulted by an insult to infinity.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoJaR
i'm saying that first of all, most of the people who think they're the best arent, by a long shot, and those few that are the best are only the best so far, or even at the moment, and only at one thing. and they're probably pretty shitty at a ton of other things, and probably really shitty at a lot of other things.

1. Probability has nothing to do with this discussion. Did you read this thread in all seriousness, or did you just skim the posts and reply? I'm asking because this is a pervasive pattern in your posts, and it takes a lot of time showing how you've misread something, and if this is a result of poor reading habits on your part then maybe you should take your time before responding to other people here. I'm wondering how you could have thoroughly read the original posts, or even the headline, which asks:

"what is arrogance/humility" (question of semantics, has nothing to do with probability)

"what is bragging" (question of semantics, has nothing to do with probability)

"is it bad" (question of ethics, has nothing to do with probability)

2. We are assuming that someone is better than someone at something to cover holes in the definition of the word 'arrogance'. The definition of arrogance you gave even said:

"an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter, or more important than other people"

which has a hole. Some people in the world will be a combination of the following things:

1. Attractive, facially
2. Intelligent
3. Attractive, bodily
4. Wealthy
5. Talented
6. Skilled
7. Accomplished
8. Important

And in all of these domains, there are ways to be better or worse, either in a specific and clear sense or a general but still-clear sense.

"Better" is nebulous, but intelligence and importance are measurable -- the former very much so, the latter in a fuzzier intersubjective way but still definitely measurable way. So, in two out of the three criteria in your definition, there exist people who will be better in those domains.

The only reason I can think of (and I'm being charitable by doing this) that you might want to invoke probability is to say something like "since most people are not vastly better than others in more than one domain, this is regarded as in practice impossible, and arrogance is viewed as a false belief instead." But even this doesn't explain scenarios where someone is legitimately multi-domain better and still perceived as arrogant, despite demonstrated superiority.

Also, even if probability were relevant, this?

"and those few that are the best are only the best so far, or even at the moment, and only at one thing. and they're probably pretty shitty at a ton of other things, and probably really shitty at a lot of other things."

this is massive speculation. You have no idea how many people are the best by what degree, or how many people exist who are better at multiple domains, or their likelihood of being worse at other things. You have zero basis for this claim; you're guessing. Sentences of yours like "i have a baseline feel for what societal norms are when it comes to arrogance" are even worse, since you're just claiming this without evidence and I can just dismiss it by saying you don't, since you've given it no backing.

Finally, there's this:

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Originally Posted by FoJaR
if i beat you at counter strike repeatedly, and i say to your face that i am better than you, how is that not a dickish thing to do? it may be true, it may be relevant to the topic at hand, but it's still an arrogant thing to do.

It's redundant, because if you beat me repeatedly, I know you're better than me. This might be inconsiderate if you can tell I'm already bothered by the loss.

On the other hand, if I still claim you're not, then that's free game for you to say you're better than me. If I have a problem with it, that's my fault; I adjust to reality, not the other way around.

You have a suppressed premise here that it's disrespectful/rude/whatever to let another person know that another person is better than them at some activity, period. I'm curious why you think that is, because this would only be that way if you had previously thought no one was better than you (a ridiculous belief, unless you had reason to believe you were the best) or if the very act of someone being better than you was traumatic. If you know where you are in some domain, percentile-wise, and adjust your perception of reality accordingly, you shouldn't be bothered by being reminded what you already knew. In any case, it wouldn't be a justifiable insult for the reasons you implied.

I suspect this originates from some view that people really are equal, or balanced out in some way, such as if you suck in domain x you'll be better in domain y to compensate. It's very agreeable to believe that because then you can think positively of everyone around you and not exhaust your emotions. But this has no basis in reality; talent and competence isn't equally distributed. Some people are ugly, dumb, and bad at everything. You'd only be offended by this if you had some reason to believe everyone had a right to be good at something, or a right to be attractive, or whatever, which no one does. I do think we should pursue chemical and artificial enhancement, which would at least expand the "being attractive part", but that's beside the point. You didn't bring them into existence; you are not responsible for how shitty they feel about their competencies, talents, and traits. But then some kids come into the world and live for only 2 years before some horrible disease throws their life back into nonexistence. If you're looking for some kind of emotional resolution to this, at least the people who are ugly, dumb, and bad at things can experience the joys of biting into a watermelon or going to a park. Unless they can't, which is even more depressing, but that's getting off topic. Some people are at the bottom of every hierarchy ever. It sucks for them, but it's reality.

That's speculation on my part, though, and I acknowledge that. It'd be pretty great if everyone acknowledged when they were speculating, and when their claims were defensible. ;)

FoJaR 02-13-2015 11:38 PM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Arch0wl (Post 4276048)
By one definition. Definitions attempt to describe words as they use, not dictate meaning.

But anyway, if you're the best in the world and go around saying it you're also stating something true. If you pretend you're not the best in the world, or in some other way downplay you're abilities, you're trying to come off like you're not what you are.

I want to make a clarification of what this isn't, since you said two blatantly untrue things here:

1. "archowl says that he feels like being quiet is dishonesty by omission"

2. "archowl who has in the past used his need to be honest as rationalization for arrogance etc."

#1

The quote in #1 is incorrect paraphrase. Paraphrasing correctly matters a lot, because "being quiet is honesty by omission" is a proposition I disagree with, while "pretending to not be better than someone else in some way is dishonest when you actually are" is something I agree with, and your difference in wording makes a crucial difference for whether you're actually responding to what really I said or what you have a foggy memory of me saying. Either you didn't understand me, or you didn't go back and check what I actually said, or for one reason or another you tried to use your memory to paraphrase me and simply forgot what I said with precision enough to adequately paraphrase me, but regardless of cause, you didn't get it right.

I know for a fact this isn't just a slip-up, because you got it wrong not once, but twice, when you said this earlier:

"[if you believe] "i'm the best at X, and it would be dishonest for me to keep quiet about it" you should probably also mention all your shortcomings, all the things you are average at, etc. because if omission is dishonesty, you had better not omit anything."

Here is what I argued: that if you are better than someone at something, attempting to appear otherwise is dishonest.

Here is what I did not argue: that if you are better than someone at something, keeping quiet about it is dishonest.

There are crucial differences between the two phrasings and I don't know if you're simply not capable or not practiced enough in precise argumentation to understand the difference, but the former would entail that you are attempting to create a false impression while the latter would simply entail you were silent.

Scenario entailing from what I actually said:

A: "Are you good at FFR?" (when B is top 100 or higher)
B (dishonest): "Yeah, I'm decent." ('decent' would be average or slightly above average)
B (honest): "Yeah, I'm top 100."

Scenario entailing from how you incorrectly paraphrased me:

A: "Do you want to get pizza?"
B: "Yes. Did you know I'm top 100 in FFR?"

There are numerous situations where you aren't mentioning every detail on your mind, but when your skill is relevant to the conversation and may in fact come up, attempting to appear only moderately skilled is dishonest. This also applies to things that aren't necessarily skills, such as abilities/aptitudes (IQ), traits (penis size), efforts (how good your outfit looks) or anything along these lines.

#2

"archowl who has in the past used his need to be honest as rationalization for arrogance etc."

This is motivational analysis, and has nothing to do with whether the things I say are true. Motives almost never have any basis in argumentation about the truth of things external to you, like what arrogance is or whether it's justified. This is a question that is independent of your motivation, and the truth is independent of your motivation as well. I could be completely using this as a rationalization, or not, and either way it would not make anything I say less true or more true. To say it does is to make an ad hominem circumstantial fallacy (aka 'motive fallacy' or 'appeal to motive') -- google this if you need more clarification.

Beyond its erroneousness, this claim also regresses into this type of discussion:

A: "You have motive X"
B: "No, I don't."
A: "Yes you do [insert reasons, although possibly not]"
B: "No, because [reasons claimed to be counter to proposed motive]"
A: "Yes, but [possible self-interest in pursuing argument anyway"

This leads the discussion off-topic because it's unrelated to the truth of whatever it is you're arguing. And even if you pursue the claim, A is ultimately the final source for motives possessed by A, so any dispute of this is speculation at best.

i am not going to go through all of TGB to find it. i wish i could just do a search, because i'm pretty sure that i'm not misremembering, but i'm not spending that kind of time on this.

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Culture is irrelevant here. Values and ethics are culture-neutral, and can be evaluated independently of culture. Culture contains norms and values which may or may not be justifiable when scrutinized for their function or foundation.
in this case, it doesnt matter whether or not cultural norms are justifiable, only that they exist. if cultural norms say that an action is arrogant, and the vast majority of people subscribe to those cultural norms, justification ceases to matter. the vast majority of people will find that action to be arrogant, and according to definition, they will be right.

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Further, even if someone is insulted, this doesn't mean anything. There are infinite potential combinations of insult patterns that someone could take from something. You can be insulted because someone is better than you at something, or because someone looks better than you. This does not mean that it's justified insult. Otherwise, if all insult were legitimate, you could negate insult by being insulted by an insult to infinity.
which is why the only reasonable measure is a statistical one. there are an infinite number of arrangements of particles of air in a room. which ones are valid? all of them. which ones are important? the ones that are statistically most probable.

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1. Probability has nothing to do with this discussion. Did you read this thread in all seriousness, or did you just skim the posts and reply? I'm asking because this is a pervasive pattern in your posts, and it takes a lot of time showing how you've misread something, and if this is a result of poor reading habits on your part then maybe you should take your time before responding to other people here. I'm wondering how you could have thoroughly read the original posts, or even the headline, which asks:

"what is arrogance/humility" (question of semantics, has nothing to do with probability)
Quote:

an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter, or more important than other people
so what is insulting? well that depends on the perception of the person being insulted. some people find things insulting that others dont. what is a good baseline for what people will find insulting?

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"what is bragging" (question of semantics, has nothing to do with probability)
didnt ever address this.

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"is it bad" (question of ethics, has nothing to do with probability)
who knows. You'd need to define your criteria more specifically before you can talk about whether or not it is bad, because otherwise the criteria are left to be interpreted by the unconscious biases of the reader and one person may not have the same criteria as you.

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2. We are assuming that someone is better than someone at something to cover holes in the definition of the word 'arrogance'. The definition of arrogance you gave even said:

"an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter, or more important than other people"

which has a hole. Some people in the world will be a combination of the following things:

1. Attractive, facially
2. Intelligent
3. Attractive, bodily
4. Wealthy
5. Talented
6. Skilled
7. Accomplished
8. Important

And in all of these domains, there are ways to be better or worse, either in a specific and clear sense or a general but still-clear sense.

"Better" is nebulous, but intelligence and importance are measurable -- the former very much so, the latter in a fuzzier intersubjective way but still definitely measurable way. So, in two out of the three criteria in your definition, there exist people who will be better in those domains.
it doesnt matter if the person is actually better or not, the belief is all that matters. it can be substantiated or not, as long as it's there.

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The only reason I can think of (and I'm being charitable by doing this) that you might want to invoke probability is to say something like "since most people are not vastly better than others in more than one domain, this is regarded as in practice impossible, and arrogance is viewed as a false belief instead." But even this doesn't explain scenarios where someone is legitimately multi-domain better and still perceived as arrogant, despite demonstrated superiority.
because demonstrated superiority and arrogance are not mutually exclusive! arrogance is not claiming superiority in absence of it, it's claiming it at all.

Quote:

Also, even if probability were relevant, this?

"and those few that are the best are only the best so far, or even at the moment, and only at one thing. and they're probably pretty shitty at a ton of other things, and probably really shitty at a lot of other things."

this is massive speculation. You have no idea how many people are the best by what degree, or how many people exist who are better at multiple domains, or their likelihood of being worse at other things. You have zero basis for this claim; you're guessing. Sentences of yours like "i have a baseline feel for what societal norms are when it comes to arrogance" are even worse, since you're just claiming this without evidence and I can just dismiss it by saying you don't, since you've given it no backing.
all you have to do is agree that there is a line. i dont care where it is. what i was saying there really has nothing to do with my main point, and is more of an aside, that any feeling of superiority is illogical to some degree, if viewed from a larger perspective.

Quote:

Finally, there's this:



It's redundant, because if you beat me repeatedly, I know you're better than me. This might be inconsiderate if you can tell I'm already bothered by the loss.

On the other hand, if I still claim you're not, then that's free game for you to say you're better than me. If I have a problem with it, that's my fault; I adjust to reality, not the other way around.
yeah i'll agree with that, but saying it unprompted, even if it is true, is still arrogant. the redundancy is part of why it is arrogant. stargroup claims that it isnt, i disagree.

Quote:

You have a suppressed premise here that it's disrespectful/rude/whatever to let another person know that another person is better than them at some activity, period. I'm curious why you think that is, because this would only be that way if you had previously thought no one was better than you (a ridiculous belief, unless you had reason to believe you were the best) or if the very act of someone being better than you was traumatic. If you know where you are in some domain, percentile-wise, and adjust your perception of reality accordingly, you shouldn't be bothered by being reminded what you already knew. In any case, it wouldn't be a justifiable insult for the reasons you implied.
there's nothing wrong with someone being better than me at something. it's true of everything i do, with regards to someone in the world. i think the thing that is wrong with it, in my eyes and i think most of society's eyes, is that the perceived motive of saying it unprompted is to harm.

Quote:

I suspect this originates from some view that people really are equal, or balanced out in some way, such as if you suck in domain x you'll be better in domain y to compensate. It's very agreeable to believe that because then you can think positively of everyone around you and not exhaust your emotions. But this has no basis in reality; talent and competence isn't equally distributed. Some people are ugly, dumb, and bad at everything. You'd only be offended by this if you had some reason to believe everyone had a right to be good at something, or a right to be attractive, or whatever, which no one does. I do think we should pursue chemical and artificial enhancement, which would at least expand the "being attractive part", but that's beside the point. You didn't bring them into existence; you are not responsible for how shitty they feel about their competencies, talents, and traits. But then some kids come into the world and live for only 2 years before some horrible disease throws their life back into nonexistence. If you're looking for some kind of emotional resolution to this, at least the people who are ugly, dumb, and bad at things can experience the joys of biting into a watermelon or going to a park. Unless they can't, which is even more depressing, but that's getting off topic. Some people are at the bottom of every hierarchy ever. It sucks for them, but it's reality.
i agree with almost everything you say here. the only part i disagree with is that any of that being true makes saying it out loud any less insulting. whether or not you believe that being insulted at hearing the truth is rational makes no difference. if it is insulting, it is arrogant.

Quote:

That's speculation on my part, though, and I acknowledge that. It'd be pretty great if everyone acknowledged when they were speculating, and when their claims were defensible. ;)
well i'll let you be the judge. i know a lot of it is speculation, but just because it's speculation doesnt mean it's wrong ;)

stargroup100 02-14-2015 03:53 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Did this guy just compare potential insults with the arrangements of air particles... in a discussion about arrogance?



LOL

FoJaR 02-14-2015 11:26 AM

Re: What is arrogance/humility, what is bragging, is it bad, and why?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by stargroup100 (Post 4276201)
Did this guy just compare potential insults with the arrangements of air particles... in a discussion about arrogance?



LOL

yeah i did, it was a good comparison too.

please try not to flame in the CT forum, thanks.


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