• NegativeInf@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      2 months ago

      Gish galloping requires constant fiasco. Now are they all on purpose or are some of them happy accidents?

      • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        I don’t think they’re either really “on purpose” or “accidents”. It’s not calculated or truly random, it’s just who these people naturally are. And it plays because unfortunately a lot of us Americans are idiots.

        • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          2 months ago

          Yeah that’s how I see it too. Political strategist types can’t understand that not everything is a grand strategy. They assume if they can’t understand the strategy it must be 5-D chess or whatever. But maybe there is no strategy, and they’re just being idiots?

          • OpenStars@discuss.online
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            2 months ago

            It’s game theory terminology, like flight is a “strategy”, not that the bird (or bacterial spore or whatever) has the slightest clue about what it’s doing.

            It sounds better than “what works is what works”, I guess.

            • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              edit-2
              2 months ago

              In the biological/evolutionary world “strategy” has a very different meaning than the colloquial usage here. we know animals, bacteria, plants, etc can’t actively “strategize” like humans do.

              • OpenStars@discuss.online
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                2 months ago

                If a monkey does something, sees that it works, and continues doing that, is that a “strategy”? I suppose that depends on one’s POV, at which point it doesn’t seem “wrong” to say it, nor wrong to not say it.