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Notes -
How do we want to call the social manipulation technique at work here? I'm voting for "the social scientists gambit", since it's especially widespread there. It goes like this:
Adam: I'm 6.2.
Bob: No way, you look more like 5.6.
Adam: You have no evidence for this statement, so you should default to trust me.
Bob: Actually, I have measuring tape, let's just see.
Adam: I'm calling HR, this is beyond rude!
Or in more general terms you a) control the null hypothesis and then b) either claim that even testing the null hypothesis is offensive, or you allow it to be "tested" as long as the procedure is designed to get the correct results. Just see the frontpage of /r/science and try reading up on the actual definitions of terms like "racial resentment" or "hostile sexism" for practical examples of the latter.
Imo one big problem is the frequentist / null-hypothesis framework to begin with. You can't have a reasonable opinion about anything if you by-default assume 95% hypothesis A (which just-so happens to be the one you favor) 5% everything else. The appropriate attitude is bayesian priors, which are difficult to do perfectly but in rough terms are actually quite simple: You assume relevant stats of the general category (say, murder rates per ethnicity or religion) and then slightly or strongly adjust based on how much you know of the case (say, a witness explicitly states an assailant screamed "allahu akbar!"). Of course, this makes the next problem obvious, which is abusing incorrect stats, such as claiming that we're not allowed to use the murder rates per [category], but only population percentages.
The other obvious problem is harder to manage: Manipulated/plainly wrong stats. Tbh, I've yet to find a good approach that scales for this one. Sometimes they cook the numbers in obvious ways that are even openly stated in the manual which is easy to adjust for, but more common seems to be the situation as with the recent californian retail thefts, where technically speaking everything is done correctly, but one step in the pipeline completely fails in an undocumented manner.
At least attempting something like this seems better than just going by your guts. And if this is too involved to always do for everything - which I consider understandable - hard scepticism is also always an option as well.
Okay, but that example is actually rude, no? Demanding someone’s measurements is not normal. Neither is insisting someone recant. Calling someone a liar is almost always picking a fight.
An observer would come away from this conversation thinking both participants are assholes and possibly stupid.
Sure, that's how it works. If an observer does not consider it rude, the the tactic falls flat. The trick is to make a claim that makes you look good in such a way that there is no way to call it into question without looking like a douchebag. So I chose an example that would be plausibly considered rude by an average reader here.
But keep in mind that many liberal readers have the same instinctual reaction you have, but to the insinuation that different ethnicities might have different murder rates. Likewise, a honor-virtue ethics society might simply consider Adam pathetic, and Bob virtuous and brave.
Edit: Also, feel free to adjust the example if you think you understand roughly what I'm getting at! I try to find a middle ground between brevity and fidelity in these kind of examples, so it's hardly perfect.
I’m inclined to call it “normal social maneuvering” instead of anything about social science!
That’s definitely the crux of it. Some claims can’t be made to some audiences. Some questions can’t be asked to others. I don’t know if I can come up with a better example.
Regarding the edit—yeah, I feel that. I have a hard time going for brevity.
I can see the argument that it's part of the repertoire of normal social maneuvering, but it's still a particular manipulative technique that imo deserves some snappy name. "just a joke bro" is also part of normal (male) social maneuvering, but obviously a very different kind.
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