The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread

[Thomas Shey]

The singular noun implies a unity that does not exist. The internet is the loud minorities, all too busy shouting at each other to pay attention to the majority.

Of course this assumes "majority" even means anything in many cases. If you have a dozen groupings, the fact that one is bigger than the others can be almost irrelevant if its significantly smaller than all the others as a collective.

 

[trappedslider]

The silent majority is an unspecified large group of people in a country or group who do not express their opinions publicly.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The silent majority is an unspecified large group of people in a country or group who do not express their opinions publicly.

Yes, but its always had the implication that said majority share common views on at least whatever topic is at hand. I've always found that kind of a stretch, at least when more than two views are possible.

 

[overgeeked]

Of course this assumes "majority" even means anything in many cases. If you have a dozen groupings, the fact that one is bigger than the others can be almost irrelevant if its significantly smaller than all the others as a collective.

It’s also a fallacy to assume the majority is right.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The silent majority is an unspecified large group of people in a country or group who do not express their opinions publicly.

I think that while there is definitely some good use to the term, there are also two other issues-

1. The first is what @Thomas Shey alluded to. When people talk about the silent majority, it's almost always to support their own position, and (in turn) make in unfalsifiable. Who agrees with me? The majority of people. But you can't tell, because they're all quite about it.

2. The history. It was first popularized in modern discourse by, um ... Tricky Dick.* And because of that, it has a history of division ... usually used by one certain point of view to argue against people that are advocating for a change to the status quo.


*Yes, it had prior uses before that, but they either meant something different (such as referring to the dead) or were more general.

 

[trappedslider]

It’s also a fallacy to assume the majority is right.

and there's an opposite one as well but it escapes me at the moment.

(god i hate nerds and I'm one of them )

 

[Scribe]

What a wild comment. I'm in too poor a mood and have too much to do today for it to end well.

 

[dragoner]

The next newest nft's.

 

[niklinna]

I learned of it as "hymnic meter" (but the name isn't super important) and it's a trap for hack poets in English, as evidenced by one E. Dickinson who wrote far, far too many poems in it.

Also "O Little Town of Bethlehem," "The House of the Rising Sun," "Amazing Grace," "The Yellow Rose of Texas," etc.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It’s also a fallacy to assume the majority is right.

“The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That's one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population -- the intelligent ones or the fools?”​

― Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People