• NegativeInf@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Gish galloping requires constant fiasco. Now are they all on purpose or are some of them happy accidents?

      • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I don’t think they’re either really “on purpose” or “accidents”. It’s not calculated or truly random, it’s just who these people naturally are. And it plays because unfortunately a lot of us Americans are idiots.

        • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          Yeah that’s how I see it too. Political strategist types can’t understand that not everything is a grand strategy. They assume if they can’t understand the strategy it must be 5-D chess or whatever. But maybe there is no strategy, and they’re just being idiots?

          • OpenStars
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            2 months ago

            It’s game theory terminology, like flight is a “strategy”, not that the bird (or bacterial spore or whatever) has the slightest clue about what it’s doing.

            It sounds better than “what works is what works”, I guess.

            • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              In the biological/evolutionary world “strategy” has a very different meaning than the colloquial usage here. we know animals, bacteria, plants, etc can’t actively “strategize” like humans do.

              • OpenStars
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                2 months ago

                If a monkey does something, sees that it works, and continues doing that, is that a “strategy”? I suppose that depends on one’s POV, at which point it doesn’t seem “wrong” to say it, nor wrong to not say it.