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Terry

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[Jun. 25th, 2008|01:17 pm]
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Fractally wrong:

The state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person's worldview is incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in on any small part of that person's worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.

Debating with a person who is fractally wrong leads to infinite regress, as every refutation you make of that person's opinions will lead to a rejoinder, full of half-truths, leaps of logic, and outright lies, that requires just as much refutation to debunk as the first one. It is as impossible to convince a fractally wrong person of anything as it is to walk around the edge of the Mandelbrot set in finite time.

If you ever get embroiled in a discussion with a fractally wrong person on the Internet--in mailing lists, newsgroups, or website forums--your best bet is to say your piece once and ignore any replies, thus saving yourself time.
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Comments:
[User Picture]From: [info]nyuanshin
2008-06-25 08:30 pm (UTC)

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LMAO. Sublime.
[User Picture]From: [info]chamelaeon
2008-06-25 08:38 pm (UTC)

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Oh my god, that is exactly the word I needed for this one guy.
[User Picture]From: [info]ninjadebugger
2008-06-25 09:53 pm (UTC)

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It's so very appropriate.
[User Picture]From: [info]sedshe
2008-06-25 09:49 pm (UTC)

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Ooo, I like that one. It encompasses so much more than the phrase "wrong on so many levels."
[User Picture]From: [info]starcat_jewel
2008-06-25 10:22 pm (UTC)

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Wow. I've seen it in action, but never had a term for it before. That makes SO much sense!
[User Picture]From: [info]darthwk
2008-06-25 11:25 pm (UTC)

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And being a moderator/rules-forcer on a Web forum for a Web-based community...man, have had my share of THOSE people....and YOUR share, and HIS share, and HER share.....
[User Picture]From: [info]josienutter
2008-06-25 11:47 pm (UTC)

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<< say your piece once and ignore any replies >>

I tend to do that in general. LOL.
[User Picture]From: [info]kenshi
2008-06-26 12:59 am (UTC)

pedantry

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Technically, it's more correct to say that the person is self-similarly wrong across all scales. "Fractally" wrong suggests that they are only wrong in between dimensional quanta.
[User Picture]From: [info]tdj
2008-06-30 06:15 pm (UTC)

The phase space of Wrong

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Granting that ideas are a result of a complex neurological process governed at root by the laws of physics, ideas - at some level - could be quantized.

I have a strong intuitive sense that Wrong is not a continuous function of anything, though I could be wrong - it could merely be a consequence of extremely steep gradients of Wrong that people are always falling into.