• ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    33
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    Sometimes I back up my argument with entire books lmao. Its not usually for the person I am arguing with. Its for the people who see the argument and are curious

    • zarkanian@sh.itjust.worksOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      34
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      2 months ago

      You should be able to explicate your own argument, though. “Read this book” isn’t convincing on its own.

        • lad@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          2 months ago

          Yeah, this happens way too often “it’s all in here (link), but I will not elaborate”

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        Yeah, you need to take specific portions of the book to support your argument. I won’t just say “read Fanon” but will give a a specific example from the book in addition to the more general example of the entire work, plus encourage them to read more.

      • kaffiene@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        2 months ago

        Agree with that 100 % I have a degree in Philosophy and that’s a reoccurring dynamic I saw with people trying to baffle with bullshit rather than make a cogent argument

      • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        2 months ago

        I would’ve loved to hear him explain general relativity to an elementary school kid. No bowling ball on trampoline nonsense either!

          • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            2 months ago

            That’s special relativity. General relativity is the theory of the curvature of spacetime as the mechanism for gravity. Large masses curve spacetime more than small masses. Under GR, gravity is not a force.

            • lad@programming.dev
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              2 months ago

              Good point but why “no bowling ball on a trampoline nonsense”? That’s not a correct analogy, since it deforms “space” different from how gravity transforms space, but it’s good enough to understand how that works, I think

              • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                2 months ago

                Oh because that incorrect analogy is the most common “lay person” analogy for describing gravitational curvature of spacetime. The most common reply from children is that it’s the earth’s gravity pulling down on the bowling ball so that the trampoline demonstration wouldn’t work in space.

                Also the trampoline analogy doesn’t show us how gravitational lensing works, nor does it even touch how different gravitational reference frames affect the passage of time (GR generalizes special relativity, after all).

                • lad@programming.dev
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  Affecting passage of time looks like a difficult idea to come up with an analogy.

                  For the better gravity analogy, I think a rubber sheet that has something pulling together at a “gravity well” and lines drawn on it may work better, but I’m not sure 😅

                  • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    2 months ago

                    The harder thing to convey is the full dimensionality of it. With the rubber sheet (or trampoline) you can show a small ball orbiting around a larger one but only in a single plane (around the “equator” of the large ball). However in reality you can orbit in any direction you like and many satellites actually orbit over the poles. Trying to show that with a small model seems extremely difficult!

                    Furthermore, most children are raised on the idea that gravity is pulling them down. They intuitively understand the idea that when they climb a ladder and drop a ball from the top, the earth pulls the ball down. General relativity tells us that this is not happening at all! That there us nothing pulling us down whatsoever. I have yet to see anyone provide a lay person GR explanation for the ladder problem.