zataomm
4mo ago
Yeah, it makes sense that sometimes it's just easier to state the exceptions than all the allowed cases. And apparently the Latin origin of the phrase, "exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis," is something like "the exception demonstrates the rule for non-excepted cases", so I don't really have an etymological leg to stand on. I just like my understanding of the phrase so if we are going to move away from the original meaning, I'm trying to steer people towards my preference rather than the nonsensical "the counter-example that invalidates my supposed rule actually proves that my rule is correct!"
Edit: After discussion with AI, I have decided that I need to be charitable and allow that the common, modern usage also is sensible, under this interpretation: "the exception proves the rule" --> "the distinctiveness and memorability of an exception highlight the regularity or norm of other cases"
In cognitive psychology, there's a concept known as the "von Restorff effect" or "isolation effect," which states that an item that "stands out like a sore thumb" is more likely to be remembered than other items. Applying this to the phrase, an exception is memorable precisely because it deviates from the norm. Its uniqueness and the mental emphasis we place on it implicitly reinforce the understanding that it is an outlier, while the standard or usual cases don't stand out in memory because they conform to the expected pattern.
a sign saying "visiting hours 3-5 pm" at a hospital, from which we can glean that visiting isn't allowed outside this window
Apparently there is some debate about this, with many internet sources supporting your interpretation, but this is not how I understand the phrase "the exception proves the rule." Your example about limited hours (at a hospital, or parking) is commonly used but I don't really think it demonstrates the true meaning of the phrase. My perspective is, as long as people keep visiting the hospital between 3-5 pm, we can't really know what would happen if someone visits outside those hours. Maybe it is really enforced, or maybe the sign is like those vestigial "Please maintain 2 meter distance" signs we see everywhere nowadays, and nobody really cares.
So the way we really prove (in the sense of to test, as in "the proof of the pudding is in the eating) is when a visitor shows up at the hospital at 6pm. If they are turned away, then there really is a rule that nobody can visit outside the hours of 3-5 pm. If they are let in, there is no such rule. So in other words, it's not the sign, but the attempted visit outside "visiting hours," that proves the rule.
Edit: For transparency, the Wikipedia article which I indirectly referenced here thinks I'm engaging in wishful thinking about what I think the phrase should mean, rather than its actual origin. Which.... may be a fair criticism.
zataomm
5mo ago
You're right that whether I feel sad is not the point of this discussion. The fact that it has generated several replies should indicate to you that people think there is something interesting to be discussed, and it is not my sadness. Here are the bullet points of what we are talking about:
- public policy decisions are made as a function of public discourse
- a significant(?) number of people are unable to have rational discussions, i.e. weigh the pros and cons, of matters of public policy importance
- this situation as described leads to bad public policy decisions which are difficult to correct
I actually don't think I understand your point overall but it feels like your point is we can't rationally prove that pain and suffering are bad, so checkmate rationalists, we're no better than anyone else. Which... okay.
zataomm
5mo ago
Frankly, I think this is a terrible theory of mind.
Well... I disagree that it is a terrible theory of mind. In line with the main theme of this discussion, people just don't tend to think very deeply about most issues. And I don't believe that the average person who supports, say, rent control laws, understands the economic argument against them but still supports them because they have a different moral philosophy from economists, even though I agree that in theory there could be such a person with such a philosophy. I just think most voters go by "gut instinct", so if something sounds bad, they want a law against it, and if it sounds good, they want a law promoting it.
zataomm
5mo ago
Maybe proto-Indian males were killing each other a lot in order to marry the victim's widow?
zataomm
5mo ago
I'm surprised that you're surprised to see people behaving this way.
Yeah, good point. And I'm sure if you get down to it I have topics that make me react emotionally instead of logically as well. Maybe it's the contact between different "tribes" with different taboos that happens on Twitter that makes other humans seem like a weird alien species to me, whereas if they just shared my taboos I would just say, "well of course B' is more objectional than B, B' is just disgusting."
zataomm
5mo ago
I don't see the contradiction. Seems like another way of making the same point is that that taboos aren't passed down as the conclusions of a blue-ribbon commission on ethics, but rather they survive because the behaviors they encourage are pro-social, and therefore groups that adopt certain taboos are more likely themselves to survive and pass their taboos to the next generation. Do you disagree with that?
I mean, it's not that they couldn't have been the conclusions of a blue-ribbon commission on ethics, it's just that their origin doesn't really matter as much as their effect on group survival.
zataomm
5mo ago
For example, something like this argument was (is) very common in the push for legal marijuana.
Exactly! And I guess your point is that the push for legal marijuana is slowly winning, but my counter-point is that legal marijuana is winning much more slowly than it ought to be, given that there is such a strong argument in its favor. Indeed, these are the kinds of important questions of public policy that I am worried about and that inspired this post, Singer's A' being illegal is nowhere near the top 10 on my list of biggest injustices. But we have lots of things that would make a lot of people better off but are illegal because they sound bad, which, as Bryan Caplan puts it, "The way I like to think about it is that markets are great at doing good things that sound bad, and governments are great at doing bad things, that sound good."
I agree with you that Singer's A' is not strictly comparable to A such that we can say supporting A but not A' is irrational, but my point is that the responses I have seen do not even get there, they stop at "A'? Ew, yuck"
zataomm
5mo ago
It's no more desirable that everyone should invent his own ethical systems than that he should invent his own electrical systems.
Nice.
zataomm
5mo ago
Not to get even more misanthropic but is it possible that some people are so bad at reasoning that we are better off if they just decide everything by gut instinct? At least their conscience will provide some grounding and they won't be tempted to start changing the calendar and murdering the bourgeoisie?
zataomm
5mo ago
Is it just that the news sources I'm reading are terrible? I feel like I've never seen it mentioned that there is another side (not just the IDF) fighting in this war. Like they mentioned that the IDF forces have surrounded the hospitals but it's not clear why, since as far as anyone has told me it is just full of doctors and their patients. I feel like I'm five years old asking these questions but it's just so weird to me, it's like the grownups understand something that I don't.
Recently, I've been subjected to several posts on Twitter about Peter Singer. Singer posits a compelling argument: Society accepts a certain concept, A, yet its variant A', which along many relevant dimensions is similar to A but should be less objectionable, is met with taboo. Here is Singer's post, although I don't want to get into the the details because I'm thinking not about the argument itself but the prevalent reaction to it. The most common response to Singer's points is not an intellectual rebuttal but rather an expression of shock and outrage. The taboo around A' is like an emotional firewall, preventing any rational discourse.
This pattern of reaction is disconcerting. We live in a world of complex issues that demand thoughtful consideration, yet it appears that a significant portion of discourse is reduced to emotional outbursts. It's really hard for me not to feel disheartened or even adopt a misanthropic view when I see things like this.
So, is this emotional explosiveness truly representative of the general populace, or is it just that on Twitter, the most extreme views gain the most traction? Moreover, how can we, as individuals seeking constructive dialogue, navigate this landscape without succumbing to frustration or misanthropy?
I'm genuinely interested in understanding whether these reactions are as pervasive as they seem and what strategies we might employ to foster more meaningful, thought-provoking conversations, especially in a world dominated by emotional responses.
Besides being obvious sneerclub bait, this post is kind of ridiculous because you can sum it up as "Why does the Motte exist?", but I just want to know if there is any way to bring more people into the Motte's style of discourse or how serious a problem it is that some people are seemingly unpersuadable.
zataomm
5mo ago
Sorry for the leading question but am I the only one naive enough to ask "Why don't the israeli troops just walk into the al-Shifa hospital?"? Where I live, if the national army wanted to take over the closest hospital I am confident they could do it in like 5 minutes by walking in through the front door.
If the answer is as I suspect, "the Israeli troops can't walk into the hospital because the hospital is being defended with guns," then why doesn't that fact appear in your average news story like this one? I know this sounds like a post from a person who really cares about Israel and is always going on about media bias against that country, so I just want to add a disclaimer saying that my position on Israel is that I'm just a normal American non-Jew who doesn't really know or care very much about it.
But honestly, to go back to my opening question, what the heck is going on at the hospital? Why can't they just take it over?
zataomm
5mo ago
Even without formal religion, I just can't believe that early humans didn't have moral frameworks, just from the simple fact that moral systems facilitate group cohesion and survival. There's just no way hunter-gatherers were a bunch of homo economicuses, and only modern humans have morality. Morality isn't a byproduct of civilization; it's one of its foundational building blocks.
zataomm
8mo ago
From the indictment:
COUNT 11 of 41
And the Grand Jurors aforesaid, in the name and behalf ofthe citizens of Georgia, do charge and accuse DONALD JOHN TRUMP [et al.], [...] unlawfully conspired, with the intent to defraud, to knowingly make a document titled "CERTIFICATE OF THE VOTES OF THE 2020 ELECTORS FROM GEORGIA," [...] insuch manner that the writing as made purports to have been made by authority ofthe duly elected and qualified presidential electors from the State of Georgia, who did not give such authority
Read the above and recall that what AshLael wants anyone still reading this to believe is that for the purposes of the Georgia indictment, it makes no difference whether in creating the alternative slate of electors (aka "fake electors"), the accused parties intended for the "CERTIFICATE OF THE VOTES" to deceive Congress into wrongly counting Georgia's votes for Donald Trump.
To echo a favorite line of mine, I cannot imagine an interpretation of the phrase "with the intent to defraud," or really the entire context and meaning of Count 11 and several other counts like it, that would make AshLael's position reasonable.
Whether the intent of the "fake elector" document was to deceive Congress matters to the legal case. Of course it matters. Anyone who says differently either hasn't read the indictment or is a troll.
zataomm
8mo ago
Well, it may be wrong, but so far I’ve provided one definition of fraud from Georgia law and another from Merriam Webster that include deceit. You haven’t provided one that doesn’t.
zataomm
8mo ago
I responded by pointing out they hadn't been charged with fraud, and the only charge mentioning fraud didn't involve the false electors and didn't include deceit as an element of the offence.
…at which point, I wrote that it’s hard to imagine a definition of fraud that would not involve deceit.
zataomm
8mo ago
The first person to use the word fraud (without de-) was you. You stated that you didn’t think deception was an element. I commented that fraud would seem to always involve deception. That’s why it’s relevant.
I’ll ask you once again to consider the method by which Trump stole the relevant voter data. It involved lying. A lot. Do you think Trump would have been charged with theft if his claims about the election had been true? The indictment sure makes it seem like the fact he was lying is relevant.
Also, stepping back for a second, there are so many counts in the indictment related to forgery, false documents, and false statements, I don’t know how you managed to start a debate over the one count that (arguably, in your opinion) doesn’t involve deception.
zataomm
8mo ago
My question about the Secret Service was an ironic reference to the idea that if the pieces of paper from these "fake electors" were a big problem when it came time to count the votes, presumably because said papers are difficult to distinguish from the votes cast by "authentic electors," then maybe they would have to call in the Secret Service, who are in charge of prosecuting cases of counterfeiting money and therefore experts in document authentication, to help sort things out.
zataomm
8mo ago
Technically I said fraud not defraud, so that makes me the best kind of correct. Here is the relevant Georgia law, since you are a big fan.
That said, as humorous as you are, you are still wrong. What do you think is involved in the theft? Let's use our imaginations and imagine that Donald Trump says to the official who controls election data, "hey, it's me, Donald Trump, your favorite president. Way better than Carter, obviously. Anyway, I suspect there was fraud in your state, so I need access to your voter data, please send it to me by December 1st." If the official then sends Trump the election data, do you think he would be guilty of theft?
I'm going to skip the part where you answer. The only way Trump and his allies "defrauded the state" in the case at hand is if they falsely claimed that they had the right to voter data.
zataomm
8mo ago
they LIED. They were not the duly elected and qualified electors. It was public knowledge that the duly elected and qualified electors had been chosen on November 20.
You understand that lying involves more than just uttering a false statement, right? Merriam Webster says: "to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive". No intent to deceive, therefore not a lie. As to your question "How are they not fake?" Same answer. No intent to deceive.
zataomm
8mo ago
I can't imagine a definition of fraud that wouldn't involve some kind of deception. Merriam-Webster:
1a : DECEIT, TRICKERY
specifically : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right
zataomm
8mo ago
Attempted crimes should be punished, but the details of why the "attempt" failed are relevant to determining whether it was a genuine attempt at all. In your attempted murder analogy, yes, you couldn't shoot me because your gun jammed, but if prior to that attempt you purposely manipulated the gun by jamming up the chamber so that a spent round would get stuck in there and be impossible to eject, that would be evidence that you never intended your "murder attempt" to be effective.
The fact that Congress wasn't fooled doesn't by itself make election fraud not a crime, but the fact that apparently Trump tried this maneuver in several states and in no cases were the "fake elector" votes counted, indicates that there is something suspicious about the narrative that he was trying to deceive Congress. Yes, they sent a piece of paper to Congress saying they were the duly-chosen electors and they were voting for Trump etc., but that paper was presented as what it was, an alternate slate of electors. At no point was Pence saying, "well, now I have no idea which ones are the real votes!"
Having now read the dissent by Samour I actually do think this is a slam dunk argument.
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