Default disclaimer for reading Radical Truth. Also for navigating life and not being an asshole.
Your feelings aren't facts, the anecdotal fallacy, and other dumb arguments I hear people make all the time.
Before you bitch about something I write, or that someone else has written, or said, or is proposing, please read the following:
Not liking something doesn’t mean it’s not true. Your feelings aren’t facts. The world is not going to bend to your current emotional state, and nor will what I, or others, say on this blog.
Life is hard, people are jerks, circumstances and luck matter, there are lots of things out of our control, and often, things don’t work out like we’d like them to. Deal with it.
AKA: Life isn’t fair. Your dad should have taught you that (he probably did, or your mom, or someone at some point).
There are thousands of exceptions, anomalies, and anecdotes where you can say, “see, X isn’t true,” but just because something isn’t true once, or even sometimes, doesn’t mean it’s not true generally. Your personal experience is valid, but it’s not prescriptive, or necessarily common for that matter.
Is there anything another person could say or show you that would cause you to change your position, or are you arguing just to argue? If it’s just to argue, then you have no point. We have a name for these people: assholes.
Some things are more debatable than others. We do not argue gravity, for example, for the very good reason that it’s pretty obviously a thing. Arguing about hard science or math is usually pretty dumb, and yet for some reason, an awful lot of people want to do just this. We have a name for these people: assholes.
No one has an exclusive license on the truth, but common sense is common sense, and if you’re proposing something that violates what most people experience or observe, you’re probably just wrong—not the revolutionary thinker your mom always said you’d be.
Finally, whatever is in question: how does it compare with the problem of Child Poverty? Because if you care about something—anything—more than the end of Child Poverty, I’m not going to take you seriously. There is no social ill or political problem more important than solving Child Poverty, so please, spend more time on that than your White ass country club niche social issues.