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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   25228 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

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Jims the camera.

Do I think that the data is basically accurate? Yes.

Question answered. Are you now claiming that you didn't answer my question, and just phrased a non-answer in a way that looks identical to answering my question so you could sneer at me for misunderstanding? That's hilarious, I am totally stealing that in the future.

That wasn't the question you asked. The question you asked, which was "do you think the economy is doing worse than the government says", cannot be answered "yes" or "no", as I noted.

Let me ask you a question: If I said, "the govt says that the average male is 5'9". That data is bullshit, because I am 5'11", what would your response be? Or if I said, "the govt said that infant mortality went up last year. That data is bullshit, because I know 3 women who gave birth last year and their kids are perfectly healthy," what would your response be? Yet, when OP says, "The govt says inflation was 5% in the last 12 months. That data is bullshit, because several things I buy went up more than that", your response seems to be different. Why?

Was I wrong, do you think the economy is doing worse than the government says? Or do you, as I inferred, think the government is broadly accurate in its presentation?

It looks like the question I asked. Do you mean originally? You already answered that too.

Also I don't think I have responded to anyone who said something similar to "The govt says inflation was 5% in the last 12 months. That data is bullshit, because several things I buy went up more than that".

But if we ignore that the economy is more complicated than average heights, the major difference between what I'd say to that guy that I wouldn't to the others is something like "it's interesting you say that, because it seems like, even better than the usual partisan bullshit, how well you are doing currently is tied to how much you trust the government. That didn't used to be the case, in my experience it used to be the least well off who trusted the government more. Also it's weird how you trivialise the issue into 'several items have increased in price', the other people I've talked to who said something similar were scared because they felt it everywhere in their lives and many of them worried they had dipped below the poverty line. That is much more concerning than your thing, because desperate people do desperate things, so I'm going to go ask the motte about it."

Edit: glibness

I see that you still are misapprehending the topic.

The claim that I took issue to was that specific data (eg the CPI) was faked, which OP claimed to know to be true because the prices of the things he has personally consumed. As I said, the claim that specific data is faked is NOT the same as saying "the economy is doing worse than the government says," because the former is a purely objective claim and the latter is partially a subjective one. They are two separate questions, which is why I answered both questions.

Similarly, the fact that "the economy is more complicated than average heights" is obviously true, but also irrelevant to the question I asked. The CPI is a survey of average prices, just as my hypothetical is a survey of average heights. And, more importantly, my question was about the evidence used to claim that the data was wrong not about the precision of the data itself.* The claim in the hypothetical ("the height data is fake because my personal height is different") is exactly the same as OP's ("the price data is fake because my personal prices is different"). If the former is an invalid argument, which it is, then so is the latter.

Finally, again, your entire last paragraph is off topic. It has nothing to do with the logical validity of the argument, which is the only thing I have been talking about this whole time. If you don't want to talk about that, fine, but please don't waste my time.

Finally, again, your entire last paragraph is off topic. It has nothing to do with the logical validity of the argument, which is the only thing I have been talking about this whole time. If you don't want to talk about that, fine, but please don't waste my time.

Now, after all this, you accuse me of wasting your time? I have been one hundred percent clear from the beginning what I wanted to talk about. The only person who has wasted your time in this interaction is you, but that was always true.

You are ridiculous.

Dude, you are the one who started this conversation, by raising an irrelevant point in response to my comment. My comment was about X, but you only want to talk about Y.

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