Discussion, not Provocation

[Edwardo Piet]

In English when you say "theists are dumb" doesn't that imply that you mean all? I always read it as all if you don't specify that you mean some.

I think that sometimes depends on context.

Saying "X people are Y" is usually understandably taken as "All X people are Y" and it is seen as labeling and it's not incorrect to interpret that way due to that labelling. Technically there is no specification though and I often use it to mean "some" or "most".

I definitely wouldn't start a thread called "Theists are dumb" because it could very reasonably be misinterpreted to mean "all theists are dumb" and I'd be doing myself nor anyone else any favors (if I ever made a thread like that I really would be trolling. Which is why I'd never make a thread like that unless it was a parody thread in the humor subforum and a clear joke).

But within threads and during general conversation I often say "X are Y" when I'm being flippant. But I'd never explictly state "all X are Y" unless it was true by definition like "No squares are curved" or "no married people are bachelors".

I pointed out the distinction because I am trying to clean up a possible confusion between Tiberius and Min. I can imagine that Min genuinely believes that he has evidence that most conservatives are racist but even I can't believe he believes that not a single conservative on the planet is non-racist. I take his "Conservatives are racist" statements to be hyperbole rather than statements that "every single conservative on this planet is a racist".

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In English when you say "theists are dumb" doesn't that imply that you mean all? I always read it as all if you don't specify that you mean some.

Yes.  It's through English class and having to write papers that I learned it is best to state "some" or "most", so as to not imply "all".

It's No wonder that most of my statements are taken as absolutist and I'm asked how I know X is true when I'm merely speaking in shorthand and find it a waste of time and energy to constantly use the words "I think" and "some" in every single one of my freaking posts when I state any opinion about anything ever that isn't so obvious it's true by definition, then.

But seriously . . . nah I think it's all contextual in honesty.

And when it comes to making blanket statements about groups of people . . . I think the context thing applies with regards to whether you're making some flippant secondary statement that isn't your key point . . . or whether what you're saying is your key point or you've gone out of your way to make a whole threads stating that X people are Y.

If it's your key point and not clear hyperbole or some flippant secondary point, or you make a whole thread about it, then it's very clearly labeling a whole group of people. With regards to saying any X group of people are Y it is understandable to usually interpret that as "all X are Y".

Perhaps I myself should never state that a group of people are X and I should specify "most" or "some" when I make statements about groups of people. But I can't really always say "some" whenever I make any statement about anything that isn't true by definiton, because then I'd be inserting the word "some" into basically every single one of my statements about anything ever. Which would get incredibly annoying. It's also the same reason I don't ever bother to say "I think" in my posts anymore whenever stating an opinion . . . because if I did that every time it was just my opinion I'd be prefixing basically every single statement I make in every single one of my posts with "I think", and, again, that would be really annoying.

When it comes to labeling people perhaps I should take more care to assume that non-specified is usually taken to implicate "all". Although technically it doesn't, technically it's unspecified, and I'd rather be both easily misunderstood and very pedantic but nevertheless sincere than even more annoyingly repetitive than I already am.