What is some commonly used but flawed logic?

Using the consensual mean(average) as a canvas to define most other things.

Things can only be defined and understood in relation to something else. IE the concept of "ground" is understood in relation to space above it. If standing next to a midget, how can we be sure they're short? Maybe we're just really tall. Well, what people tend to do is take the mean average height of everyone they see, and use that as the standard for "normal". People do this for nearly everything.

This way of thinking causes a lot of issues in the world. It causes complacency and apathy. Unjustifiable arrogance and conceit (rampant on this website), and just stifles people from realizing their real potential. I believe what pushes people to become better at anything... or better people... is having their limits challenged.

As a really stupid example. I used to play Tony Hawk 2 in my mid teenage years with buddies. I was the best out of all of us, and I thought I was great. I'd rock out 30k point tricks like they were nothing. Then one day a guy named Giles came over, and he was so much better than me he might have well been playing a different game altogether.

He would manual between tricks, connect combos, and score in the hundreds of thousands. He blew our minds. Seeing this, me and my friends learned from him. Until he came along, we were making no progress. But after, we made noticeable improvements almost immediately.

It took a while, but eventually I caught up to Giles. Even surpassed him. I was doing tricks in the millions, when before I was only doing it in the tens of thousands. But without that challenge to my conceptions of what I thought was "good", I'd have never gotten better.

tl;dr I think people should stop using the middle ground as a canvas to define what's what. People just won't realize their potential if they do that. Life's about growing and improving after all, isn't it? Otherwise, the fuck are we doing other than slowly dying?

/r/AskReddit Thread