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Posted by taylorlunt 7/3/2025

You People Keep Contradicting Yourselves(www.taylor.gl)
31 points | 34 commentspage 2
actuallyalys 7/3/2025|
I sympathize with this mistake because people are often very tribalistic, at least in certain online spaces, so it can feel useless to hear people out, especially when you don’t feel they will reciprocate.

That doesn’t justify it, of course, but I think it partially explains it.

DonsDiscountGas 7/3/2025||
Not exactly the point of the article, but I didn't understand how this guy lying and getting a couple meetings implies that "the game" is rigged.
notarobot123 7/3/2025||
It's not what you know but who you know/where you studies/who you worked for.

Are these legitimate signals of success or signs that "the game is rigged" to advantage those with existing privilege? Both perhaps?

throwawaymaths 7/3/2025||
it's rigged against people that dont have that background. because plenty of people dont have that background (possibly even equally impressive, or more hard working, better leadership experience, better ideas) and without the pedigree get passed over by vcs, but this guy could fake everything, not get vetted, and get an inbound meeting on the right credentialism.

And the irony is, the vc couldnt see it either!!

taylorlunt 7/3/2025||
I pointed out in the article that this is the system working as intended. Getting a meeting with a VC is not the same thing as getting an investment. And if you're getting thousands of emails, it makes sense to prioritize the most impressive-sounding people as opposed to choosing randomly or something.

There was also no control for this experiment, so we don't know what the alternative even looks like.

throwawaymaths 7/3/2025||
i think youre missing the point. because it is so utterly lazy, in many ways the signals that vcs are looking at might be antisignals, in the same way that being in "30 under 30" is not a great signal for potential but maybe a good signal for fraud/being great at getting coffee at morgan stanley.

and if it is, it's toxic because people get into entrepreneurship because they think they have a shot. if they don't, because stupid credential X is not in their pocket, why the fuck should they even try?

of course there is not control. this is a tweet, not a submission to PNAS

lijok 7/3/2025||
Isn’t it obvious? It happens because we’re lazy. We’re just looking for the cheapest way to validate our existing worldview.
moralestapia 7/3/2025||
And xir just did the exact same thing ...

Iron should be mandatory ages 4-12 to avoid these situations.

love2read 7/3/2025||
Great read
taylorlunt 7/3/2025|
Thank you!
megamindbrian2 7/3/2025||
[dead]
givemeethekeys 7/3/2025||
I’d restate the sex work argument as:

Why should someone who thinks sex work be decriminalized be automatically be thrown into the feminist camp?

happymellon 7/3/2025|
> Oh, you think sex work should be decriminalized? I was under the impression you feminists thought sex work was exploitative?

They aren't mutually exclusive. I can think that sex work is exploitive and at the same time not want sex workers to go to jail.

In the same way I can think drugs are bad, but locking up drug abusers is also bad.

It doesn't solve any problems and people I view as victims are the ones getting punished.

cedilla 7/3/2025||
Also; most sex work as it happens is exploitative, but there is no reason why sex work must necessarily be exploitative. Criminalising sex work makes it far more likely that sex work is exploitative. So there is really no contradiction at all.

(Though as nations where sex work is legal show: decriminalisation is not sufficient to make most sex work non-exploitative)

potholereseller 7/3/2025|
Good post. I've definitely experienced this, though a sub-form of it, namely my non-conformance to a sterotype of an ideology I am associated with. The example in TFA doesn't appear to involve any stereotypes, because Bailey is talking about people in general. [0]

> hypocrisy by association

You had it right in your title and elsewhere in your post. Bailey isn't accusing Khetan of hypocrisy, which is a difference between one's words and one's actions; the example in TFA is about a difference between a group's words and an individual's words, which is contradiction; actions-vs-words is not being discussed. It's also not self-contradiction, since Bailey isn't accusing Khetan of contradicting his own earlier statements. [1]

This reminds of the phrase, "stay in your lane": "stay in" here means "speak according to a certain viewpoint"; and "your lane" is the beliefs of some group. "Stop disagreeing with people similar to you," is a ludicrous thing to say. It's even more ludicrous when "people similar to you" is "people in general"; there's billions of "people in general"; that group disagrees on every topic known to man and dog.

"Contradicting humanity" wouldn't sound pithy, but that's what Bailey is accusing Khetan of doing. To your point, Bailey is accusing Khetan of "contradicting your group", which is undoubtedly a form of the Association Fallacy. [2]

Bailey is also engaging in performative contradiction, by demanding that Khetan agree with "people in general", while Bailey is not himself agreeing with "people in general", because that is an impossible task.

[0] Applying a stereotype to all people would be absurd, since a stereotype is about a sub-category of people; a stereotype is meant to highlight alleged differences between categories of people; to highlight the differences between A and A would be absurd -- there are none.

[1] Yes, Khetan is a member of "people in general", but Bailey is comparing Khetan's words to the words of "people in general minus Khetan" -- instance versus class-minus-that-instance. Okay, maybe Bailey isn't thinking that deeply about this, hence why TFA needed to be written.

[2] I could have lead with this, but I don't have enough time to re-write this.

rcxdude 7/3/2025|
>This reminds of the phrase, "stay in your lane": "stay in" here means "speak according to a certain viewpoint"; and "your lane" is the beliefs of some group

What? 'stay in your lane' means some variant of 'don't comment on stuff you don't know about' or 'mind your own business', it's got nothing to do with speaking in unity with a group.