The Heat Mirage: My least-favorite internet maneuver

how to not refute

dynomight.net/heat

Alice and Bob are driving through the desert.

Alice: Looks dry.

Bob: That’s wrong, what we see ahead is caused by the sun heating up the road. While the speed of light is constant in vacuum, when light moves through matter, the atoms emit new light that destructively interferes with the old light, in effect causing a “delay”. This happens more with more atoms, meaning light travels slower through denser media.

Alice: OK, but—

Bob: So when the sun heats up the road, this creates a layer of thin warm air with denser cooler air higher up. As light passes through these layers, it refracts upwards towards the denser cooler layer. If conditions are right, this can bend the light back up towards your eyes. Does that make sense?

Alice: Yeah, but—

Bob: Now you might ask, “Why does this look like water?” The situations seem similar at first, with two fluids of different densities. But think about it: With an ocean, the dense water is below the thin air. While, in front of you, the dense cool air is above the thin warm air. The situations are actually reversed!

Alice: Please just—

Bob: With an ocean, there’s a sharp increase in density where the air meets the water. The Fresnel equations say that when light hits such a discontinuity at an angle, most is reflected off the surface. Whereas with the air in front of us, there’s a small and gradual decrease in density, meaning the light is slowly refracted through the lighter warm air and gradually bent back up. In both cases, the mixing in the fluids causes a shimmering effect.

Alice:

Bob: So yeah. Wrong. That’s just a heat mirage.

Meanwhile, the desert flies by, bone dry.

Often on the internet, someone will make a thing and someone else will make a reply with this pattern:

1. “That’s wrong.”

2. (Various smart-sounding factual statements.)

The problem, of course, is that this never explains why the original thing is wrong. This is a fully-general pattern for refuting anything, one that does not require the existence of any mistake. As far as I can tell, this pattern doesn’t have a name. So I suggest “Heat Mirage”: a compelling series of true statements that refute a mistake that’s never stated and doesn’t exist.

Often, all the smart-sounding factual statements are totally correct and insightful. So other people tend to see them and think, “Wow, this person really knows what they’re talking about. Clearly the original thing is dumb and bad. I’m not going to waste my time going through that!”

Sometimes this leads to a whole gang of people agreeing with the smart-sounding statements and lamenting the original thing’s wrongness. Someone might chime in with “Uhh, nothing you said contradicts anything?” or “It seems like you’re just annoyed that your personal fixation wasn’t the main subject of the thing?” But this rarely turns the tide.

What makes the Heat Mirage pattern so pernicious is that there’s seldom any ill intent. Someone just neglected for some reason to explain the “mistake” they were refuting. They might even be trying to be “nice” by avoiding too much criticism or negativity.

One of the tough lessons of life is that when you try to be “nice” to someone instead of being direct, you often end up hurting them, because you don’t understand their needs. If in doubt, it’s best to err on the side of (tactful) directness. And, on the internet, one should always be in doubt.

Trust me, anyone who makes a thing on the internet is 100% fully aware that other people are likely to point out flaws. I think that’s great, and we should all get comfortable with our own fallibility. But it’s best when the flaws that are pointed out are real flaws that actually exist.

So, if you want to say someone is wrong, say why. Or, if you don’t want to do that, consider starting off with, “Here’s something I find interesting…”