Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Bad Argument: The "Instinctual Reaction"

This blog has discussed many times that MLM seem to rely people using emotion, instead of logic, to conduct their business, leading to rash decisions. One of those rash decisions, when combined with confirmation bias, will lead to some very stupid actions such as spreading someone else's lies.

In a lesser case, a supporter of a particular suspect scheme, upon reading something that he considers to be "derogatory" of that scheme, will often leave a nasty comment complaining about some issue that was actually addressed, as well as use plenty of bad arguments discussed in this blog.

Here is one such example, as posted to my blogpost of Lyoness being investigated and sued in its home country of Austria as potential Ponzi scheme. I'm showing a redacted version, though you can see the original through the link:

or in text form, with a few numbers added so I can refer to different sections...
Can someone please show me a legitimate news article on this topic, an article written and published by a real news company? (1) The only articles discussed in threads like this are ones written by blog writers who primarily want to attract readers for their own gain (i.e. advertising and affiliate revenue). (2) There is no proof of what you've written, just anecdotal heresay. (3) Substantiate your claims and I'm sure the traffic to your website, and subsequent revenue, will go through the roof! Then you'll be providing a real service to the world, and not just spreading lies and rumors so you can make a profit. (4)
Okay, let's see if the comment makes any sense...



1)  Where's a legitimate news article on this?

I will admit here that because I'm mainly referring to the article on BehindMLM I merely included the link to the BehindMLM article, and not the links THEY provided. However, the article at BehindMLM did include a link where this was reported:

http://wirtschaftsblatt.at/home/nachrichten/oesterreich/1382434/LyonessKonsumenten-feuern-aus-allen-Rohren

And I'll just show you Google Translate of that article...


So there's no doubt about that, right?

Guess that's that.

2) You're just out to slime a company for your personal gain

No I am not. That's an ASSUMPTION on your part. You're so sure you're right, you didn't bother checking whether I could be right. You just AUTOMATICALLY ASSUMED I am wrong.

This is a perfect example of confirmation bias.

3) You have no proof

Yes I do. You just did not bother to see it.

4) Why don't you get a life

I have one, but thank you!


Well, I'm sure this commenter is not a vicious person who throw out insults like that. He's actually quite polite, compared to some of the vitriol I get. However, he really did assume that he was right and anybody who questions Lyoness is wrong, and that lead him to not click through to see the "proof" he demanded.

This is also negativity avoidance. 

Your take away lesson is simple: consider the possibility that the other side may be right before automatically rejecting what they have to say (and not check why they consider themselves right). Else, you're simply in denial, and if taken to extremes, makes you live in "la-la land", not reality.

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