It's just me, or people on the internet doesn't seems to understand analogies?

[RobAlister]

I feel like this sometimes. I used to think that I was horrible at analogies but now I just think that most people online just don't know what an analogy is. They hear it and it makes sense but since it counters their earlier argument they just lash out and pretend that it doesn't make sense.

 

[TWRule]

It's not just analogical arguments - most people posting on internet forums like this lack the sort of basic argumentative and analytical tools you get from a basic Critical Thinking class. It's unfortunate that those classes usually (in the U.S. at least) aren't taught until the first year of college rather than say, in high school or earlier.

At best, we seem to get some people who have heard of one or two fallacies and parade around that knowledge by calling others on it, but lack the rest of the standard argument evaluation strategies, and especially the sort of bigger-picture flexible thinking that the aforementioned courses attempt to cultivate.

Specifically on the point of analogies though - most people, though they run across analogical reasoning all the time in their everyday lives, only have seen the topic explicitly brought up in say, middle/high school standardized test questions of the format "X is to Y as Z is to _." And there you're only getting loose analogies which do not ask you to identify the relevant feature(s) of comparison.

 

[mrdude2010]

One thing I see a lot on one of the forums I frequent is similar; people frequently say two things are equivalent when they blatantly aren't, and either they're deliberately deluding themselves or they really don't understand the difference.

 

[Strazdas]

Things like comparing DRM in video games with STEAM, or something along these lines.

considering that STEAM is a form of DRM, i think the reason you come to that conclusion is that you do not understand analogies used.


speaking of problem with analogies, the most common problem i find is people not understanding the analogies i use. granted, this could very well be my problem, as my language and thought expression skills leaves much to be desired, however sometimes i have to explain it 10 times and then suddenly bam the person gets it. The thing about this i found unique to escapist is that there are members who would quite that person and explain my analogy in a much more... elegant... manner. Thank you.

 

[Vegosiux]

Things like comparing DRM in video games with STEAM, or something along these lines.

considering that STEAM is a form of DRM, i think the reason you come to that conclusion is that you do not understand analogies used.

But that's the thing. Comparing Steam to DRM would be like comparing hamburgers to food. Or football to sports. So I wouldn't say that would be a good analogy.

 

[Chaud]

Things like comparing DRM in video games with STEAM, or something along these lines.

considering that STEAM is a form of DRM, i think the reason you come to that conclusion is that you do not understand analogies used.

Well, it's self-quoting time, then:

Of course it is, did I say it wasn't? I talked about the comparisons of DRM in videogames (implying that I meant, for example, the old model of XBONE) with STEAM model, but both are forms of DRM. Although fundamentally different in some aspects (no physical media, options from competing services on the same platform, offline mode, price models, etc), and therefore, not exactly comparable in certain ways.

So yes, it's not because two things are theoretically part of a group that they are necessarily comparable in every way. Like the example Vegosiux has said above. I can make endless invalid comparisons between two human beings, yet both are "human", part of the same classification. The same can be said about DRM. Obviously, there are infinite valid comparisons also. Everything is a question of how do you compare.

I'm really thinking I should post this text in the first post to simplify things.

Edit: you know what, I just did something like that.

 

[Griffolion]

The one thing that always get's me is when someone says "that's a terrible analogy because *INSERT SOMETHING SPECIFIC TO THE ANALOGOUS SITUATION NOT RELEVANT TO, AND OUT OF THE BOUNDS OF, THE COMPARISON SUBJECT*".

There's never going to be a 100% overlap between two things being compared as analogies, otherwise they'd be the same thing.