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[–] 115 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (20 children)

Yeah, the third post is "Local Tumblr User Doesn't Understand Reductio ad Absurdum; More at 11."

The user isn't saying leg hair is like cancer (like fucking obviously; how disingenuous would you be to even suggest that?). They're saying the argument of "it wouldn't grow there if it wasn't supposed to" is completely stupid – that it has little discriminative power to distinguish what's good and bad if you don't already know. It isn't even nearly limited to the absurdity of that contradictory example:

"Sorry, honey, but the dick cheese wouldn't be there if it wasn't supposed to."

It's a fine-ish retort to get a seven-year-old to chill out, but it's total bullshit when you don't already know leg hair on women is fine. Pointing out that "Gravity is real because most people think it is" is a bad argument by saying "Germs didn't exist because most people thought they didn't" doesn't mean I'm trying to say believing gravity is like disbelieving germ theory; I'm pointing out the argument doesn't hold water regardless of what the fallacy (in the OP's case, a pretty clear appeal to nature) was supporting.

TL;DR: Denying the means, not the conclusion.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    Ah, but you're forgetting that rationality and the strength of one's argument are irrelevant. This is the 21st century. People will attack you based on whatever assumptions they make about you.

    So even if you don't refute the conclusion, but merely point out the flaw in argumentation, they will assume you disagree with the conclusion and will torch you accordingly. I see soup has already demonstrated this for us.

    It doesn't matter how you actually feel about leg hair on women. If you point out the logical invalidity of the justification given for it, people will assume you're a misogynist.

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  • [+] -47 points 7 months ago (18 children)

    Ok, but as long as the hair isn’t actually doing anything then what’s the problem? Cancer kills you and dick cheese is fucking nasty as hell(especially in the context of expexting someone to allow it into their body). Excessive, unwashed body hair that is producing an odor is nasty because it affects other people and cannot be easily ignored, but someone saying “that’s gross because now I don’t find you attractive” does not deserve any more of an answer than “go fuck yourself.” That kid’s question got a better answer than it warranted.

    You write a lot for someone who doesn’t understand communication.

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  • [–] 50 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (15 children)

    then what’s the problem?

    You write a lot for someone who doesn’t understand communication. [200 words btw did I time travel back to fucking 4th grade?]

    The fact you read that and couldn't even grasp that there fucking is no problem with leg hair and I'm not saying there is one and I even directly said "leg hair on women is fine" is just *chef's kiss*. You missed the excruciatingly obvious point of the entire comment – for which apparently even "a lot" of unambiguous clarification wasn't enough. Fucking Mordecai'd that shit.

    Who exactly doesn't understand communication here? The one who thinks 200 words is "a lot" of writing?

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  • [+] -2 points 7 months ago (14 children)
  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago* (12 children)

    It's not impossible that they are, but given there's a perfectly logical and highly plausible explanation that they're making an entirely cogent point (because the argument is severely flawed, and they point out the flaw accurately), I choose to not just assume that they're a shitty person who thinks women are icky and need to shave their legs or they're gross – like the third comment from "geekandmisandry" (really self-reporting the bias there) does instead of just... asking them to clarify.

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  • [+] -2 points 7 months ago (11 children)
  • [–] 13 points 7 months ago* (10 children)

    The majority of men do expect and prefer that women are shaved, thus the assumption.

    You know, I wasn't going to call it out in my original comment because it was beside the overall point, but "geeksandmisandry" and now you are interestingly assuming the gender of an anonymous user with a default pfp and the gender-neutral username "dinogatrr".

    I don't think even if they were a man that this would be a good reason to assume they're a shitty person (especially because the sample of "men on Tumblr" is going to be vastly different than "men overall" or even "men on social media overall"). But it is an interesting assumption on top of an assumption: they're a man, and they're a shitty person who thinks women's legs are naturally icky.

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  • [+] -2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (9 children)
  • [–] 12 points 7 months ago* (8 children)

    I’m happy to stand corrected

    Which is easy to say when your hypothesis is functionally unfalsifiable (used heuristically in support of another functionally unfalsifiable hypothesis).

    I can't stop you from believing it; I can push back and say it's vibes on top of vibes to legitimize your assumption about a random person you've never spoken to who said something that's totally benign and entirely correct unless you actively ascribe malice to it.

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  • [+] -8 points 7 months ago (7 children)
  • [–] 10 points 7 months ago*

    Against my better judgment regarding double standards, I'm going to treat this legitimately unexpected level of misandry with kid gloves compared to how I'd treat even garden-variety misogyny and say that I hope you find peace with any trauma that may have led you to this point. Sincerely, no smarm, no "bless your heart" condescension – I understand what it is to be burdened with a lifetime of systemic distrust through no fault of your own.

    Still, there's nothing more I can say to a closed loop of "men are assumed malicious and a man probably made this statement because this statement is misogynistic and the statement is assumed misogynistic because a man made it and if a man made it then surely it's misogynistic [...]". Even though we irreconcilably disagree on the OP, and I don't think your assumptions about men are overall accurate or healthy, I appreciate your polite candor about why you feel the way you do.

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    Prejudice is bad and should be avoided.

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  • [+] -10 points 7 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    I'm glad you can rationalize your prejudice, but nobody should have assumptions made about them for aspects of themselves they cannot control. It isn't what it is, it's never too late to change into a good person.

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  • [+] -5 points 7 months ago* (2 children)
  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    It’s not so much that I make assumptions about individual men

    I'm sorry, are you backtracking? I thought you said

    I do tend to assume that men I don’t know are malicious as a baseline

    Being vigilant isn't prejudice, being vigilant because of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc, is.

    Misogynistic ideas like women are better shaved don’t always come from men, but it’s usually coming from men. And that’s just my personal experience.

    Okay, so what? Personal experiences aren't an excuse for prejudice.

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  • [–] 13 points 7 months ago

    You're perceived intention should be irrelevant during an argument. Either expose the belief directly so it can be engaged with honestly, or focus on the logic of the argument being made. It is entirely possible to be both correct in your argument and incorrect in the foundational belief. But engaging with a factually correct argument with the assumption that it was borne from a place of ignorance just makes YOU less capable of being reasonable.

    The first poster made a claim, and assigned faulty logic as justification.

    The second poster pointed out the flaw in this logic.

    The third poster ignored the logic argument entirely and resorted to an appeal to outrage rather than the structure of the argument itself.

    Personal experience, beliefs, gender, identity. All of these points are entirely irrelevant to the argument at hand. The title of this post was about logic. The second commenter pointed out a legitimate logical error, and the third commenter exposed themselves at appealing to indignation and dressing it up as an argument. You (royal you) shouldn't support bad reasoning just because it agrees with you.

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