Comparison illiteracy

[Houseman]

I have found that many people don't understand simple comparisons.

For example,
Alice: "You're very food-motivated. You're like my dog!"
Bob: "I'm nothing like your dog! I don't walk on all fours! I'm potty-trained!"

Did you have trouble understanding how Bob could be said to be like Alice's dog? If so, you might be illiterate in regards to comparisons, what they are, what purpose they serve, and how to interpret them.

I have mostly seen this in the context of my own online arguments, where I will compare one aspect of two different things, and then my interlocutors will point out all the differences and then declare that my comparison was invalid.

For another example, someone wanted to be shown a miracle before they would believe in God. I told them that they were like the Pharisees of Jesus' day, who also asked to see a miracle from Jesus. They claimed to be offended by this and said "The Pharisees were Jewish. I'm not Jewish!"

I asked him a question about what he thinks a "valid comparison" even is. I asked him how many elements of a thing must be the same for two different things to be compared. He did not answer the question.

Because he did not answer the question, it could mean that
A) He knows that the answer is 1, and that if he gave this answer, he was just pretending to be retarded earlier.
B) He genuinely does not know.

Hanlon's razor says to not attribute to malice (option A) that which can adequately be explained by stupidity (option B). This person also claims he is autistic, so it could be that his difficulties in understanding simple comparisons is due to that. I don't know.

Is this some kind of sub-80 IQ thing, where these people lack the capacity for thinking in abstract terms?

Have you noticed anybody who doesn't understand simple comparisons?

 

[Lost-Zeneration-99]

This is interesting. I mean sure some people can only think in logical terms for example, but if that was the case there are sure a lot of logic based thinking people online. But I do not think that is the case, as it could be on purpose, or people's thinking skills are decreasing rapidly. But where are you seeing this at or is it in general?

Edit: Ackchyually!!! Bob might want to be Alice's dog Bigot!!! lol I still do not know how to speak in that lingo or whatever you call it.

 

[Houseman]

But where are you seeing this at or is it in general?

Steam forums, reddit comments, The Escapist, and a long time ago, gamefaqs forums.

I mean sure some people can only think in logical terms for example, but if that was the case there are sure a lot of logic based thinking people online.

I think that comparisons are very logical. However, they are not always very literal, and sometimes tend to be abstract. They require imagination, or rather compartmentalization. One has to grasp that one aspect of a thing can be similar to another thing, without the entire thing being similar.

For example, apples and oranges are both fruit. They have many similarities and many differences. Being able to understand both of these things at the same time is key.

People, of course, get offended when you compare them to Hitler, even over something innocuous. Like, you can say "Hitler liked dogs too". A literate person would say "okay, and?" An illiterate person would explode saying "I didn't kill 6 million jews!!1 My Grandmother is Jewish!"
No one wants to have anything in common with Hitler, but we all do, and being able to separate the parts out of the whole is a skill some people don't seem to have.

Maybe that's what it's about, not being able to "disassemble" ideas in one's mind. They look at a phone and they just see one object, instead of a collection of components

There is also some scientific literature on this topic:

How people with autism spectrum disorders understand idioms and other figures of speech

How do children and young adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) understand idioms and other figures of speech? A 4.15 million euro EU project based out of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology is examining the links between language and perception in autistic individuals as...

medicalxpress.com

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Oh Sweet summer child. Despite your various missionary journeys into the wilderness of forums online, to proselytize, it seems you are naive in the ways of the underhanded means of trolls, ragebaiters, and rule-skirters. Yes, this is actually mostly malice me thinks, and not stupidity. Calling someone a retard or hitler or anything degrading, be it however indirectly, is often a form of ad hominem.

Now, there do exist conversations where people are actually clueless as to how comparisons work (both those writing it and those reading it), but those should be self-evident as it usually has nothing to do with the persons debating in question, but the situation or content they're arguing. Just like there exists a surprising many people who have no internal dialogue, and those who can't fathom the hypothethical question/answer to how they'd feel if they didn't eat breakfast this morning.

 

[Houseman]

 

[Arnox]

Another possibility is simply bot behavior. I'll occasionally run into this with regular people but it's also easily cleared up as well, so...