{"id":35694,"date":"2018-05-17T01:00:44","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T05:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=35694"},"modified":"2018-04-27T09:20:02","modified_gmt":"2018-04-27T13:20:02","slug":"qotd-emotion-beats-the-facts-to-post-on-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2018\/05\/17\/qotd-emotion-beats-the-facts-to-post-on-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Emotion beats the facts (to post on social media)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Suppose a black guy is shot by a cop. I have absolutely no information about it. I don’t know if the black guy was shot, for example, accidentally or in a conflict. I don’t know if he was armed or not. I don’t know if the cop shooting is black or white.<\/p>\n

I know nothing about it.<\/p>\n

Now — should I have an opinion on this matter?<\/p>\n

The obvious answer is “No, I should not,” but that’s not the real answer.<\/p>\n

In this #HotTake non-culture culture, I should definitely have an opinion.<\/p>\n

Based on what, if i have no information?<\/p>\n

Based upon my tribal sympathies and chauvinisms<\/em>, is the answer.<\/p>\n

See, anyone can condemn a cop shooting once they know the actual facts<\/em> and the facts turn out to show that the victim was innocent and the cop was blameworthy, fast on the trigger or negligent or what have you.<\/p>\n

But if I wait to know the facts, what does that say about me as a person?<\/em> It says nothing about me — again, anyone can see the facts of a bad shooting and then say “That was a bad shooting.”<\/p>\n

No — to establish yourself as on a higher moral plane than other people, You have to offer a strident, emotionally-hot opinion without knowing anything<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Because only if you don’t have the proper facts upon which to make that determination can you successfully advertise the fact that you are knee-jerkedly siding with BlackLivesMatter.<\/p>\n

(Or, for that matter, with cops, if that’s your preference.)<\/p>\n

Again, this is not a game of showing that you’ve come to a reasoned judgment after the evidence has emerged and you have apprised yourself of it.<\/p>\n

Bad people can use the power of reason too<\/em>, after all. Racists can see a shooting was bad, if the evidence proves the shooting was bad.<\/p>\n

The game is not to make a reasoned, fact-based judgment — because that says nothing about your default sympathies, tribal allegiances, and ideological priors.<\/p>\n

The game is to make an unreasoned, non-fact-based judgment, a judgment based only on emotion and allegiance and chauvinism — because that, unlike a fact-based judgment, shows where your heart is<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That’s why people in the #HotTake culture pressure others to take positions before any facts are actually known — facts are for the emotionally cold. <\/p>\n

Ace, “Our #HotTake Culture and Why It Exists, and Open Thread”, Ace of Spades H.Q.<\/em><\/a>, 2016-08-26.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suppose a black guy is shot by a cop. I have absolutely no information about it. I don’t know if the black guy was shot, for example, accidentally or in a conflict. I don’t know if he was armed or not. I don’t know if the cop shooting is black or white. I know nothing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,53,41],"tags":[343,593],"class_list":["post-35694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-politics","category-quotations","tag-crimeandpunishment","tag-socialmedia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-9hI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35695,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35694\/revisions\/35695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}