Labels

[Trixsie Vixen]

I tend to agree with Anoni on most stuff, so I'm gonna go with that here.


My two cents worth: it because of chunking.

[Cecilia Peromi]

I understand that labels exist for a good reason. It's just when people use ONLY labels to describe and judge others they usually end up being wrong. Labels are just what's on surface.

[Trixsie Vixen]

The way I think about it, it's all about levels of focus and asymmetrical loss of data.


If you zoom out to get more context you can't see all the details but vice versa (hence the motivation to have multiple levels of understanding) but the problem come when someone forgets there is a loss of data.


For example:


I don't know about cats, but I do know about mammals.  I also know that cats are mammals.  So if someone asks me about cats eg "do cats give birth to live young?" then I answer yes, because it is generally true of mammals even though I don't know if cats are an exception.  And indeed this is going to serve me well in most cases.  But if some asks the same things about monotremes, the "truth" I know about mammals is not true for monotremes.


And that isn't a big problem unless I decide that other people's right to live and marry and work and stuff is dependent upon them agreeing with my doctrine that monotremes are not really mammals.  That's when the fights start!


With types of scale (compare interval to ratio) you can convert a ratio scale to an interval scale but not the other way around because ratio scales contain more data which an interval scale doesn't preserve.


Lables are a useful and necessary tool, but people are generally very unaware of their cognitive shortcuts and their shortcomings.

[George]

I'm not one for labels. I'm me and you're you. Plain and simple.

I understand that labels exist for a good reason. It's just when people use ONLY labels to describe and judge others they usually end up being wrong. Labels are just what's on surface.

This makes sense.

it's worse when people feel the need to analyze you and then force their opinion of your orientation/gender down your throat.

This is why the labels end up being a problem.

Labels can help people identify themselves. They can also help identify safe spaces for those that identify differently from the norm.

Isn't this a result of people creating labels with negative connotations in the first place?


tl;dr: Labels are a problem because so many people judge based on them. If it wasn't for that, it wouldn't matter in the first place.

[Dr. Alka Wolf]

We label ourselves because we wish to differentiate ourselves from those who are deemed 'normal'

At the very least, we want a name to call ourselves so that we can be easily classified and found amongst others. Looking for 'furries' is much easier than looking for 'people who like anthropomorphic animals'. Mostly because the second option is a mouthful xP

If you ask me why I would label others, is because it's much easier to classify others as part of a group, and then differentiate them as individuals later

[anoni]

The way I think about it, it's all about levels of focus and asymmetrical loss of data.


If you zoom out to get more context you can't see all the details but vice versa (hence the motivation to have multiple levels of understanding) but the problem come when someone forgets there is a loss of data.


For example:


I don't know about cats, but I do know about mammals.  I also know that cats are mammals.  So if someone asks me about cats eg "do cats give birth to live young?" then I answer yes, because it is generally true of mammals even though I don't know if cats are an exception.  And indeed this is going to serve me well in most cases.  But if some asks the same things about monotremes, the "truth" I know about mammals is not true for monotremes.


And that isn't a big problem unless I decide that other people's right to live and marry and work and stuff is dependent upon them agreeing with my doctrine that monotremes are not really mammals.  That's when the fights start!


With types of scale (compare interval to ratio) you can convert a ratio scale to an interval scale but not the other way around because ratio scales contain more data which an interval scale doesn't preserve.


Lables are a useful and necessary tool, but people are generally very unaware of their cognitive shortcuts and their shortcomings.

I think that's a good point and an interesting way to look at it!