annoying thing i see all the time on twitter: people say things, and then when people show up in the comments disagreeing, they reply with something affirmative but meaningless. the reply doesn’t admit they were possibly wrong, or double down on claiming to be correct, or clarify/amend their original statement to avoid it continuing to spread and mislead people, or anything.
I’ve done this. It’s usually a reaction to being afraid B will get really mad. You say “that makes sense” as a sort of appeasing gesture, like “ok, i heard you, i’m going to nod”. But you don’t go any farther than “that makes sense” because you think B is wrong and you’d feel gross actually assenting to B’s belief. It’s how you’d react if you suddenly realized you were talking to a dangerous lunatic.
i can see this being the underlying generator. i guess the reason i find this annoying is that i don’t like it when people treat others whi reasonably disagree as danger lunatics.
annoying thing i see all the time on twitter: people say things, and then when people show up in the comments disagreeing, they reply with something affirmative but meaningless. the reply doesn’t admit they were possibly wrong, or double down on claiming to be correct, or clarify/amend their original statement to avoid it continuing to spread and mislead people, or anything.
example:
A: “all wugs are green”
B: “that’s totally wrong, i’m a wug and i’m blue”
A: “yeah that makes sense”
I expect that two or three actual examples would be super helpful in conveying the texture of this problem and how much I should care about it.
I’ve done this. It’s usually a reaction to being afraid B will get really mad. You say “that makes sense” as a sort of appeasing gesture, like “ok, i heard you, i’m going to nod”. But you don’t go any farther than “that makes sense” because you think B is wrong and you’d feel gross actually assenting to B’s belief. It’s how you’d react if you suddenly realized you were talking to a dangerous lunatic.
i can see this being the underlying generator. i guess the reason i find this annoying is that i don’t like it when people treat others whi reasonably disagree as danger lunatics.