the ecological fallacy and identity politics

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The ecological fallacy is pretty easy to summarize: it is when you inappropriately assign a characteristic of a group to each individual member of that group.

This definition lets us know, there are valid applications of group definitions to members. For example, I can say that all bird lovers love birds. That is not a controversial statement.

But there are controversial examples, and they are quite insidious socially, I would argue.

For example, consider the rather anodyne observation that taken as a group, male humans are physically stronger than females. This is not a controversial statement.

But what about the statement that women cannot be Navy SEALs, since women are not as strong as men?

See the fallacy? Some logical moves from group to individual are valid, others are not. In this case, the identity "woman" tells us very little about the individual, in fact. And it is invalid to make conclusions that are not warranted from group descriptions to an individual estimation. That is the essence of the ecological fallacy.

Our minds would be much freer if we became more wary of the ecological fallacy. In some cases we are justified in making judgments about individuals based on their membership in a group (or set). In other cases, the exact opposite is the case. We are thinking fallaciously, and should not do it.

Now proceed to arguing, most men play melee classes, therefore if male, then bellicose. Etc. And so forth. have fun.

edit: that stupid Google dude's memo made me want to post this. It is textbook.
 
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TrollfaceDeux

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how do we know if women under the study is really a woman when they identify as themselves as Apache attack helicopter?
 
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AngryGerbil

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The ecological fallacy is pretty easy to summarize: it is when you inappropriately assign a characteristic of a group to each individual member of that group.

This definition lets us know, there are valid applications of group definitions to members. For example, I can say that all bird lovers love birds. That is not a controversial statement.

But there are controversial examples, and they are quite insidious socially, I would argue.

For example, consider the rather anodyne observation that taken as a group, male humans are physically stronger than females. This is not a controversial statement.

But what about the statement that women cannot be Navy SEALs, since women are not as strong as men?

See the fallacy? Some logical moves from group to individual are valid, others are not. In this case, the identity "woman" tells us very little about the individual, in fact. And it is invalid to make conclusions that are not warranted from group descriptions to an individual estimation. That is the essence of the ecological fallacy.

Our minds would be much freer if we became more wary of the ecological fallacy. In some cases we are justified in making judgments about individuals based on their membership in a group (or set). In other cases, the exact opposite is the case. We are thinking fallaciously, and should not do it.

Now proceed to arguing, most men play melee classes, therefore if male, then bellicose. Etc. And so forth. have fun.

edit: that stupid Google dude's memo made me want to post this. It is textbook.

I've never heard it called the Ecological Fallacy before. But yeah, ID politics is such a tough nut to crack on all sides. Even Hitler saw that it was poison. He simply advocated that they fight poison with poison, so he fell in with the Aryan Identitarians.

But it doesn't matter which identity you pick because, as you say, the entire practice of doing this and identifying things in this way is a fallacy to begin with. The entire practice of it seems to be a way to operate in the world while possessing the lowest resolution of information about other people as possible. Namely, race and gender.

ID Politics is politics for simps who want to see the world in 8-bits while the rest of us are cruising along at 64 or even pushing for 128. Higher resolutions of information are needed when dealing with animals as complex as humans. A simple skin-color check is just that, simple.
 
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BoozeCube

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Isn't the fact that we allowed a woman to try out to be a SEAL, and would of happily given entrance if she could pass the requirements like the epitome of equal rights?

Woman Power

82674163.jpg
 
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Sentagur

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Isn't the fact that we allowed a woman to try out to be a SEAL, and would of happily given entrance if she could pass the requirements like the epitome of equal rights?

Woman Power
JFC, if you are gonna post gore at least put it in spoilers. My Penis just turtled!
 
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chthonic-anemos

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Braasch was described by one journalist as "a man whose training regime centred around a pack of cigarettes and more than a couple bottles of ice cold lager". He nonetheless defeated both sisters, playing a single set against each, beating Serena 6–1 and Venus 6–2. Brassch was thirty years old at the time, while Venus and Serena were seventeen and sixteen, respectively.
 
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Ukerric

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Isn't the fact that we allowed a woman to try out to be a SEAL, and would of happily given entrance if she could pass the requirements like the epitome of equal rights?
The core progressive idea: if equality of opportunity does not yield equality of outcomes, something is wrong with the equality of opportunity.
 
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Campbell1oo4

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The core progressive idea: if equality of opportunity does not yield equality of outcomes, something is wrong with the equality of opportunity.

Which is bullshit when you're dealing with people from different cultures who have been brought together by a shared nationality. You can have all the equality of opportunity in the world, but if you have two people - both from different cultures, one that values hard work and discipline and another than self-identifies with victimhood - that opportunity won't matter. The guy from the first culture will prosper while the second sits in misery and poverty and blames others for his problems.

I know you're French, and I am sorry for applying my country's situation to this but it's the next logical step; to provide an example. Seeing the current situation in America, we don't need more equality of opportunity. We have enough. And we certainly don't need equality of outcome, which is some scary shit. We need to change the culture of poor people in America from one that tells them that they are victims and are oppressed, to one that emphasizes hard work and discipline as the way to getting what you want out of our system.
 
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Ukerric

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And we certainly don't need equality of outcome, which is some scary shit.
As I said somewhere in the general politic thread, if you have even the slightest difference in the distribution of ability between two populations, the more you are selective, the more the population % will differ. The only way you can "restore" equality is by giving up on ability, and picking underperformers.

Which is the core of every affirmative action program. Except they're usually written as "there was something wrong before, and the current performance is incorrect, and once xer's been allowed to, that person will bloom and become much better", as a premise that cannot be examined.

And which was the big error of the memo. That guy assumed that Google was caring about performance first and foremost, but the inclusion of a direction of diversity and population-targeted actions means that they are in a position where performance isn't - strictly - necessary anymore. Alphabet is now in a place where innovation means snapping up startups, not creating them. They can afford to hire engineering underperformers because failure is no longer a major risk.
 
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Campbell1oo4

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The only way you can "restore" equality is by giving up on ability, and picking underperformers. Which is the core of every affirmative action program. Except they're usually written as "there was something wrong before, and the current performance is incorrect, and once xer's been allowed to, that person will bloom and become much better", as a premise that cannot be examined.

Sure, you can examine that. You just look at states with affirmative action offices that still have large portions of their minority populations committing crimes and going to jail.

That guy assumed that Google was caring about performance first and foremost, but the inclusion of a direction of diversity and population-targeted actions means that they are in a position where performance isn't - strictly - necessary anymore.

I mean, how long can they keep that up before they become some mega-corporation staffed by bureaucrats? If they aren't hiring innovators and they aren't pushing the boundaries of performance, how could they be competitive?
 
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AngryGerbil

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Sure, you can examine that. You just look at states with affirmative action offices that still have large portions of their minority populations committing crimes and going to jail.



I mean, how long can they keep that up before they become some mega-corporation staffed by bureaucrats? If they aren't hiring innovators and they aren't pushing the boundaries of performance, how could they be competitive?

It's up to us to hit them in the wallet for daring to be so arrogant so as try to enforce their evil morality onto our netwebs.
 
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Ukerric

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Sure, you can examine that. You just look at states with affirmative action offices that still have large portions of their minority populations committing crimes and going to jail.
No you cannot examine that. It's treason!!!
I mean, how long can they keep that up before they become some mega-corporation staffed by bureaucrats? If they aren't hiring innovators and they aren't pushing the boundaries of performance, how could they be competitive?
Because they're now at the point of "too big and influent to fail (easily)". Competition no longer needs to be better than them, they need to be massively better. And not getting bought out before they grow.
 
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Campbell1oo4

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No you cannot examine that. It's treason!!!

Ah, I see. Apologies Comrade Citizen. I will report to the nearest gulag immediately.

Because they're now at the point of "too big and influent to fail (easily)". Competition no longer needs to be better than them, they need to be massively better. And not getting bought out before they grow.

I don't know, my man. I think we are going to start seeing the break ups of corporations in our life time. Just because we haven't seen it yet doesn't mean it won't happen.
 
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I've never heard it called the Ecological Fallacy before. But yeah, ID politics is such a tough nut to crack on all sides. Even Hitler saw that it was poison. He simply advocated that they fight poison with poison, so he fell in with the Aryan Identitarians.

But it doesn't matter which identity you pick because, as you say, the entire practice of doing this and identifying things in this way is a fallacy to begin with. The entire practice of it seems to be a way to operate in the world while possessing the lowest resolution of information about other people as possible. Namely, race and gender.

ID Politics is politics for simps who want to see the world in 8-bits while the rest of us are cruising along at 64 or even pushing for 128. Higher resolutions of information are needed when dealing with animals as complex as humans. A simple skin-color check is just that, simple.


Thanks for the thoughtful reply AG. You see my point. It's just a general observation about a logical fallacy, or fallacy of reasoning. And isn't it the truth, you can find it everywhere?

What puzzles me, is why people seem to *enjoy* it. Is it, as you say, because it is indeed a useful tool to simplify the complex world? An EZ low-res, low-bandwidth trick? That would explain it.

My rather cynical mind, though, thinks there are more nefarious reasons. There seems to always be a whiff of malice afoot when people insist on reducing individuals to their group traits. Is that just me?