Please don't devalue and dehumanize your opponent and their contribution by calling them an edge case and a 0.001% outlier. Instead, speak for yourself. If for you 'falling in love' is a highly lust driven experience, that's fine. It may be much more 'emotional attachment' driven for others.
Tangentially - being an edge case doesn’t inherently dehumanise someone, edge cases do exist and we need to be able to discuss them without feeling we have to deny that to protect people.
I've read an anecdote somewhere that some phrenology doctor tried to find the most average man in a camp, by measuring everyone and then finding who is closest to all averages of measurements. Turned out that no one had all their measurements near average, everyone was off in one category or another. So, most of us are edge cases.
Nobody is doing this. A person who struggles with ADHD, who has a diagnosed personality disorder such as schizophrenia, or who identifies as asexual is an outlier neurotypically speaking. Pointing this out is not dehumanizing.
The problem with the thrust of the argument the asexual person is making is they are equating their feelings of obsession as "half" of what makes love work. It's a false equivalence.
To me, the parent comment reads as "you're a freak who will not reproduce so your opinion doesn't matter".
Instead of engaging with the multitude of experiences of love and falling in love, the author discards the experiences by calling the person an outsider with nothing to contribute. That's quite unhelpful for the discussion.
I do not take offense on behalf of somebody else. Instead I find that the comment we are talking about goes against the guidelines of HN, and can't in good faith find a well meaning interpretation.
Guidelines are here to maintain a level-headed discourse, and I grew to expect a high level of empathy as well as thoughtful discussion here. One of the basic things needed for that is not devaluing other people's experiences, but instead sharing your own. Especially in such a highly subjective topic as love and falling in love. But also in general, I think that we would all benefit from accepting that others have different experiences, listen to them when they are shared with us, and share our own experiences expecting the same level of respect.
maybe anytime people use this argument they should provide an alternative.
so alternatively, how do you point out statistical insignificance, without calling someone a freak? That obviously not what literally happens here, but since you can read it like that, what would be the phrasing that YOU won't read as hostile?
Every one experience is anecdotal, and as such statistically insignificant. We get into trouble not when people tell their own statistically insignificant stories, but when someone tries to speak for others.
Generalizations, especially by someone who has no overview (e.g. doing some kind of a study on the topic) are not interesting. They are as if the photoreceptor cells in your eyes would talk to each other, while you look at the sky. "I see blue" most would say. "I see black", some would say. Then, some cell seeing blue could make the generalization that all are seeing blue except for some outliers. And you would remain blind to the fact that birds (appearing black) are flying in the sky. We need data points and personal experiences, not generalizations, to get a sharper picture.
Anecdotally, I teach first year students at a design university. They use generalizations all the time in language and in thinking about highly personal experiences (e.g. when asked to describe how they felt using one object compared to using another some would say "one feels" instead of "I feel"), thus pushing their realities onto others. It is as if generalizations are taught in schools as being more valuable, more valid, and personal experiences as anecdotal and invalid. Of course, the ability to deduct, to generalize is important for the process of reasoning. But it gets in the way when talking about what we actually feel and perceive.
You wrote 3 paragraphs and did not respond to my question. Did you think what you said is some mind blowing insight that no one have thought of or smt?
> Every one experience is anecdotal, and as such statistically insignificant
No, there are anecdotes from people with a majority background, that are useful to more people. If you really thought about this statement instead of forcing a talking point, it should have been obvious. The fact that we value minority's experience does not mean that there is not an inherent priority in most discussions to bring values to more people.
It's really hard to talk to you, since you imply I am forcing some talking point. I don't even know what talking point you mean. I am not from the US, never been to the US, but I can only assume it has something to do with your politics? I also don't appreciate language like "If you really thought about this statement" implying I don't think. That is not necessary. It is really out of place to talk so lovelessly in a thread about love. You can assume good faith on most of HN. No one is attacking you and you don't have to attack anyone. I hope some day you will be able to accept that.
My point was and still is, that anecdotes from people with majority background (as you put it) are not more or less useful to more or less people. When we talk about feeling we don't even know what 'majority' would be as it is really hard to get the real data; to talk about feelings honestly and faithfully. So it makes sense to let people talk first, to gather the actual experiences of real people, without assuming they have majority or minority point of view, and without assuming one of those is more or less valuable. After all, if an experience doesn't resonate with you, you can just let it be and move on.
If you go back to the comment that sparked this discussion, the issue is not that people were not allowed to "talk first".
Someone assessed that a particular anecdote was not reprentative of the majority. They could be wrong there, but instead of challenging that assessment, or "move on", some people jumped on the conclusion that the intention was hostile.
I think I understand you better now. However, there is no 'challenging that assessment', since the assessment itself is useless (adds nothing to the conversation), and could be rephrased as "Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man". But instead of being as inoffensive as this quote from The Big Lebowski, the comments reads as, at best, rude, and at worst, abusive. Since the tactic of making the experience of others appear invalid is the cornerstone of abuse. And we should do better than being abusive to each other.
The thread moved on and I'll end the conversation at this point.
> the assessment itself is useless (adds nothing to the conversation)
doesn't this contradict with "let everyone speak"? In a discussion, there are talking points, and then there are comments that contextualize them, such as pointing out whether something *sounds* like outlier. It can help provide heuristics when parsing large chunks of input.
Again that comment reads completely fine to me, and the person did not say they were offended.
