polygraph.cool/films/index.html

Not exactly uplifting, but at least interesting to look and get a clear idea of how dumb things are, and know how to respond if someone ever says "oh there are lots of women in movies nowadays".

@Catija I suppose that might be interesting for you and other folks on movies, but I don't feel like diving in a new chat room and possibly ending up arguing with people about feminism, so there you go :)

Is the gist of it that women are or have been portrayed in a bad way in Hollywood films?

@Cerberus You could... click on it and find out what it is? But it's about amount of dialogue, not how people are portrayed.

Oh.

I read only the first couple of lines, but it wasn't immediately clear.

So the gist is that women don't get much text?

Hmm it appears that the killer acted alone after all, in München.

It says in giant letters "film dialogue" and then bolded in the first sentence "white men dominate movie roles" and if you go much farther it's quite clear there's data.

Okay, I'm leaving.

There are plenty of nice charts and things if you don't feel like reading a lot.

15 messages deleted

Your response to the article I posted.

If you don't want to read it, that's fine.

You don't have to.

I read the first paragraph, then didn't feel like reading on. I don't think that's disrespectful.

But especially since it's a serious topic, a casual reply which starts a conversation by saying "I'm not actually looking at that, can you explain it to me?"

Your response suggested that you had not read so much as the title and the first paragraph; apologies if I misinterpreted.

I did read that.

Okay.

I don't really know what to say to that.

There was enough information in that much of it to understand it better than your reply did, so I assumed you had not done that.

I think it's fairly common for people in chat to post a link and then talk about it even when other people haven't clicked the link.

I don't really care if you read it or not. I just wasn't really interested in talking about it to someone who wasn't willing to put in any effort.

I've seen it happen all the time.

Okay.

Then you could have just not talked to me.

You replied!

Yes, but that does not oblige you to respond?

This is chat, not a telephone call.

If I had atted you, you could have said, "why don't you read it first".

I actually summarized briefly and suggested that you read some.

But you felt disrespected.

And then you explicitly said you'd read the beginning, and still didn't understand the bit that the beginning said.

Of course I did, you started a conversation about something that's important to me by demonstrating that you really weren't paying more than cursory attention to it.

I was interested in hearing your opinion about the subject, but somewhat less about the opinion of the author of the article.

The article isn't opinionated, so you're okay on that front.

I just didn't feel like reading a long article.

Is that so horrible?

Nope.

That's completely fine.

That's not the thing that was upsetting, though.

Why couldn't we have talked about the topic rather than the way it was expressed in the article?

I'm quite willing to talk about the topic too.

Normally, when a subject interests me and I post a link about it, I even enjoy summarising it and quoting from it. I don't think that's such a strange thing to expect.

I would indeed enjoy that sort of thing.

I think I have been in that exact same situation 100s of times on SE.

But you were insulted that I would rather talk to you about it than read the article.

However, your response suggested that you wouldn't actually put in any effort, you would just require me to explain all of it, and then you would ask me further questions, and I would do all the work.

Again, no.

Isn't that a strange thing to think?

I was insulted that you appeared not to have looked at it at all, then it turned out that you had read the beginning but not understood it, and yet expected me to explain.

I don't expect you to do any work.

This is work.

Talking to you is work.

You don't need to do it.

I have to figure out how to respond to everything you say.

I often feel that even the most neutral conversation starter makes you tense.

I don't understand it and I try to defuse your tension.

And I often feel that you converse with people by interrogating them, but

I don't think asking questions doesn't belong in a conversation or in a discussion.

Let's agree to not have any discussions any more, then.

It's not about the fact that you ask questions.

I don't like being criticised all the time, and you don't like this thing that I always do but don't notice/understand.

So let's just not do it.

I don't criticize you all the time; this is about the first time I've bothered to try to tell you what you tend to do.

The interrogating feeling comes when you have a a limitless supply of questions, including about things which you could simply trust the other person on.

To me it feels as though you are criticising me personally in every single conversation we have, even though perhaps you did not intend it that way.

I do unfortunately get impatient sometimes, because of things like I just mentioned.

And I wish sometimes you would show a little more respect for my knowledge and feelings.

I remember you told me I was stupid when I said "possibly" to some opinion you stated and that I was not in a position to agree or disagree with.

I don't think I've said "stupid" very many times, if more than that one, and I do remember that one - and it was one that demonstrates exactly what I was just saying.

I respect you and your knowledge.

Haha, "very many times".

It was something where I had expertise but couldn't manage to prove it to your satisfaction, so all you would do was say "you could possibly be right".

I cannot say "yes, you're right" when you did not convince me with arguments.

Okay.

And I think I have every right to say "possibly" when I cannot say that you convinced me.

Nonetheless, you turn conversations into these things with an enormous burden of proof.

That doesn't mean I disbelieve you.

Perhaps not, but it certainly comes across that way.

Just testing the hypothesis with many perspectives.

Not everything that everyone says is a hypothesis that needs to be tested like that.

I've seen you sometimes get out of that mode, just listening to people.

If you're trying to convince me of something, what else can I do, other than just ignoring you?

I can't lie and say, "yes, that must be it".

Well, in particular if it's a conversation which you started, you could be open to saying "okay, you're probably right".

or "okay, I don't think I understand it fully, but sounds right"

That would be lying if I am not convinced.

You don't do that either.

Okay.

Well, it seems like your natural state is

that you don't believe anything that anyone says

which isn't exactly the same as skepticism; you're not assuming a null hypothesis, you're assuming that other people are wrong until they prove otherwise

Not (yet) having been convinced is not the same thing as thinking you're wrong.

But you insisted that I should say, "yes, you're right" when I could not do that.

but even with what you've just said, you're nudging this toward either something has been absolutely proven, or you're not convinced and don't even have a sense of "probably" right

I feel like you would sit down with Einstein and he'd tell you that gravitational time dilation is a thing, and he'd do some handwavy explanation but not enough to prove it, and you'd say "well, possibly."

It was in between "I'm convinced" and "probably not true".

"you haven't convinced me yet, so, maybe, I dunno"

You're not Einstein.

Indeed I am not.

However, there are some things where I do have some amount of expertise.

But, when you explained to me how you expected the database of Ngrams to explode, I was convinced enough.

But not until I explained it in an awful lot of detail.

But most of the other things you said did not directly address my suggestion.

You seemed to be talking about something else.

In that ngrams conversation, absolutely everything I said was purely addressing things you said.

I'm sorry if I didn't manage to explain it all clearly enough for it to make sense, but that was all I was doing.

You said yourself that you didn't even understand my suggested method until the end of the conversation.

Oh, that.

For which I don't blame you.

I understood the method, I didn't understand that you weren't trying to solve the whole problem.

At any rate, I mentioned that as an example of where I did accept your authority when I felt you had understood what I was trying to say and you gave me a good argument.

Interesting.

That conversation, to me, was a great example of you not accepting authority until I'd spent an hour demonstrating it well enough.

You have every right to handwave something because it is clear to you that something won't work for some reason.

So my options were basically, to ignore you or give you a brief enough response that you'd basically ignore it, or to spend that amount of time to convey the point.

But you can't expect me to accept your point of view as the truth if I don't feel you have addressed the point I was trying to make.

Maybe you see how that can feel like interrogation?

Well, and this may be partly my own fault, I didn't feel like you understood what I was suggesting.

The fact that you see it as about "accepting truth" is part of the deal here.

If you had, most of that conversation would not have been necessary.

That is the way you present it.

Sometimes it's nice if it's possible to have a conversation where someone accepts some amount of what you've said, without having to prove it.

You say you have the authority argument, and I should accept it.

no, not really what I'm saying

You tend to make it feel like the only choices are either, you are fully convinced, or you do not take anything away from it.

And full convincing reliably requires an incredible amount of time and effort.

No, I can just withhold an opinion and move on. But you won't let me.

somehow still not getting through

If you're not in the mood to give arguments for your position at a certain moment, that's fine.

You don't have to do it.

But you can't get angry if I don't say "you're right" then.

Indeed.

Trying to come up with another explanation

I'm not expecting "you're right"

I'm expecting some indication that the effort I spend and the things I say shifted things in your mind in any way.

Then what should I say?

If you start out with "possibly" and I explain a lot and you say "yup possibly", you're making it feel like I've done absolutely nothing.

And it feels that way the whole time, you're just asking questions and appearing not to take my answers to mean anything.

But I have listened to and directly addressed your arguments. Doesn't that show that I am interested in your opinion?

Often the way you address arguments is to argue against them.

You clearly demonstrate that you are interested in the topic.

You however often show little sign that you're interested in what I have to say, beyond the fact that it is a thing to talk about or an argument to have.

If I were not interested in your arguments or your opinion, I wouldn't spend time listening to you and grinding your words in my mind.

Why would you think that?

You often seem to be interested to know what I will say, to be aware of my opinions, but not to be influenced by them.

What would you have me say instead of "possibly" when you say something that I'm still iffy about?

I am interested in being influenced by them.

And I am, when they are convincing.

Well, let's see. I'm hoping you'll perhaps accept that there is a good chance the things I say might be true, even if you are not convinced they have been proven to be true.

"Possibly" was meant to express "that may be the case".

How is that different?

There is a good chance.

"that may" conveys nothing about likelihood

no, possibly doesn't imply good

An undefined chance, then.

It just means, there's some chance.

It doesn't mean a small chance.

It will possibly rain tomorrow.

To me, as a native speaker, this conveys... greater than zero.

Because of the context.

Well, the context when you say things like that is, you started out not believing something, and you have said nothing to indicate that you might think there's a significant chance it's true.

So, "possibly" still sounds very much like "it is conceivable that you are right".

What I would really like to hear, now and then, is that the chance you think I'm right has increased.

Hah.

or that you think I made some good points

I don't seldom think that you have made good points.

rather than feeling like we started with you entirely disbelieving me, and we've perhaps progressed to you thinking there's a nonzero chance I'm right

Isn't that a bit pessimistic?

Possibly → nonzero.

possibly < probably

and probably means > 50%

The very first definition on google:

Yes, and possibly can be 50%.

perhaps (used to indicate doubt or hesitancy).

I can't believe I'm now having to convince you that "possibly" does not sound like "probably"

Yes, as opposed to "I have no doubts any more, you're right".

sigh

let me try again?

You're misinterpreting me.

Probably means likely.

You're using a word to mean something that's not what it means to native speakers.

You're likely to be right.

But I cannot say that.

Because it's more like 50% to me.

And I think you're interpreting "possibly" in an awfully negative way.

well, then perhaps that's the problem, not your choice of words - the fact that you can have a drawn out conversation and still think it's more likely that I'm wrong than that I'm right

I don't know what to tell you.

I'm a native speaker.

No, not more wrong than right.

You're reading so much negativity in that.

"possibly" really does not suggest much more than "it is possible that this could be true", i.e. "not impossible"

But, again, how would you like me to respond, then?

I've learned not to use the word 'possibly' any more.

well, since you seem to be so much more comfortable with the meanings of words than I am here, perhaps you could possibly come up with a way to convey "you have made some good points and I now think it's much more likely that you're right than I did before"

and perhaps in that spirit you might even be able to sometimes approach conversations without an expectation of thorough proof

your standards are extremely high, which is awesome if you're trying to research a topic and come to an unquestionable conclusion, but somewhat less so if you're trying to have a conversation and simply gain some understanding

But what if "much more likely" is too much?

You can expect me to be interested in what you have to say, and for me to find your points valuable.

well, depending on the situation, I'd say that either it's really a hard thing to figure out and you don't have to say something that strong, or you're being a little too demanding of proof

But you can't expect me to say that you have convinced me to "much more likely".

When we're having a conversation, I say things like "that's true. On the other hand...".

That is meant to be an admission that you have a point, at that moment.

Even though I may not be fully convinced of your central position.

So, in general, it feels like in conversations you always first assume I'm wrong, and everything I say is slowly ticking up toward right. And so unless I put in a heroic effort, you will come away <50% chance I'm right and be unwilling to say even "probably". And... if I hadn't had that position, you wouldn't have made that initial assumption.

even "not (yet) fully convinced" is way more positive than "possibly" or "could be"

Does "not fully convinced" really sound more convinced than "possibly" to you?

and all of this is of course missing the point that treating all conversations as a burden of proof type thing is exhausting in the first place, and not always the best way to gain understanding from people

yup

especially with any context, like "not fully convinced, but seems to make sense anyways"

You're extremely skeptical, and it shows.

But "makes sense" is too much to ask.

That implies the same thing as "you're probably right".

seriously?

you think telling someone "your points make sense" is too much to ask?

Not points, but when concluding a conversation.

"Your central position makes sense".

To me that means, you're probably right about most things.

I don't know what to tell you

I will try not to seem dismissive of points you make.

that would be lovely

That was certainly never my intention.

I will be extra careful.

It doesn't always happen, but yes, sometimes you do very much seem to be assuming I'm wrong, demanding proof, presenting moving targets, and so on.

I understand that you feel that way, but to me it feels the other way around.

Life's complicated.

So it takes a lot of effort to try to give satisfying answers, and if when all is said and done it feels like you aren't even any more convinced of anything...

...coupled with the fact that it seems almost impossible to say something that's not 100% obviously true without then having to defend it...

But maybe you get the wrong impression when you feel that you have to "defend" something: when that happens, I never meant to say that you're talking nonsense.

Nor that you must be wrong.

Nor that you're not smart, knowledgeable, etc.

And it seems now that you something think that that was my intention.

I'm generally aware that your intentions aren't that extreme, but you act as if they are.

Accidental insults still hurt.

Similarly accidental extreme skepticism doesn't feel great either.

Do you think that maybe it's also that you're sometimes a bit sensitive?

Perhaps I am.

Never ascribe to malice, etc.

Perhaps more accurately, there are things that you do that not everyone is sensitive to, and there are things that I am sensitive to that not everyone does to me, but between the two of us, it doesn't work out well.

Indeed not.

It's not really about ascribing to malice, though. There are ways I'd like to be treated, and ways I'd prefer not to be treated, and if you end up in the latter category, knowing that you don't want to hurt people doesn't make it much more pleasant.

Likewise.