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"obvious" and "common sense" are deeply, deeply annoying rhetorical devices.

Like, at least legal "reasonableness" is pretty defined, even if the definition is severely fraught, but who the hell are "obviousness" and "common sense" from the perspective of?

That lack of definition honestly feels like the point with those terms. "it's obvious". "you're a fucking fool for disagreeing".


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in reply to @kda's post:

Iโ€™ve learned the hard way, by being on either end of assumptions about whatโ€™s obvious and reasonable, that quite literally some people do just need more of an explanation or elaboration on things and they should not be judged for that.

Autistic people, especially, tend to require further clarifications, Iโ€™m never gonna turn down further clarification, and I canโ€™t understand the people who get exasperated by getting everyone on the same page.

It's uncomfortable and gives people immediate "am I being played; is someone trying to Rules Lawyer me into conceding unconscionable points" vibes, I guess?

Which is an approach that has practical value when one's in a space full of bad actors, but it can also lead to being a bad actor oneself.

It's very much not good!

The one part that I can understand is that, again, speaking as an autistic person with a lot of communication hangups, even I get exasperated when I am asked to re-state what I just said, but I still fucking do it because I certainly don't know what the other person got from my initial statement.

The guardedness about avoiding bad actors in discussions is at times a necessary tool, yeah, but honestly we desperately need to let our guard down a little more to have quieter, calmer conversations. Recent goings-on really drives that part home.

this is partly why i try to say โ€œit is obvious to me that Xโ€ and not merely โ€œits obvious that Xโ€. (and generally i do try to use it in the โ€œthis is a statement that i assume everyone else also agrees with and wouldnt immediately understand why someone would disagree with itโ€ and not โ€œyou are stupid if you dont agree that Xโ€)