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Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

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Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#351
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might prefer a looser definition of ad-hominem, but I think that the technical definition holds value. This looser definition reads like a means of implying that the poster's intent was different that what it was.

It is mildly humorous that we've gotten this far in and you're telling me "hm I don't like the definition in the dictionary, we should pick something more technical" (???) I have a CS and law degree and IMHO the divide here is the CS people tend to believe "ad hominem" has a technical definition beyond, well, the definition

You don't have to be particularly astute to know that the term 'ad-hominem' refers to a particular informal logical fallacy. (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/, fallacy 13) The definition used in Webster is a more colloquial definition based on usage. English dictionaries usually take a descriptivist rather than prescriptivist approach to their work. However, that usage is based on a misusage of the earlier definition.

To argue that someone's argument is wrong because of who they are is a logical fallacy, and something people actually do quite a lot. The term for that and as far as I know the only term for that, is 'ad-hominem.' To attack someone's character instead of something they wrote is usually not considered very nice, but is not a logical fallacy (unless we're talking about the abusive form of ad-hominem, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here.) Given that the former needs to called out on occasion, that that one can use other language to call out the later (just say 'personal attacks'), it makes sense that reserving the term 'ad-hominem' for the former use makes practical sense.

Even if you don't agree with my reasoning that it's better to reserve the term to refer to the logical fallacy, many people really do use the term exclusively to refer to the logical fallacy and don't use the dictionary definition you listed. Citing a dictionary to resolve a language usage dispute is a bit of a dodge because dictionaries are typically descriptivist when these disputes are inherently prescriptivist (or at the very least stipulative.)If people are getting confused by what you are saying, it's better to clarify than to die on the hill of what the correct definition of a word should be.

All of that is beside that fact that the reason people get upset about this issue--about the definition of ad-hominem--is that people using the later definition are often performing a bit of equivocation. They are using the later definition, which does not refer to a logical fallacy, to imply that a logical fallacy has occurred. This is a sort of slippery and dishonest debating tactic and I think that it rightly upsets people. If you did not intend to be deceptive, that's all well and good, but understand that that's a big part of why people are getting upset with you.

edit: Removed the first sentence in which I accused that guy of arguing in bad faith. There's nothing else in this comment that is objectionable, AFAICT.

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#352
post #85

As someone who works at the intersection of technology and journalism, it hurts to see how many misunderstandings there are in these comments and elsewhere. The tech world (and HN in particular) deeply needs a solid explainer on how journalism works. So many misunderstandings! (Of course, many/most journalists also need an explainer about the tech world. And that is not to say that some of the more nuanced critiques…

[deleted]

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#353
post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is mildly humorous that we've gotten this far in and you're telling me "hm I don't like the definition in the dictionary, we should pick something more technical" (???) I have a CS and law degree and IMHO the divide here is the CS people tend to believe "ad hominem" has a technical definition beyond, well, the definition

You don't have to be particularly astute to know that the term 'ad-hominem' refers to a particular informal logical fallacy. ( https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/ , fallacy 13) The definition used in Webster is a more colloquial definition based on usage. English dictionaries usually take a descriptivist rather than prescriptivist approach to their work. However, that usage is based on a misusage of the ear…

I cannot believe you went ad hominem and wrote all that to justify making up a definition for ad hominem because you're not happy with the dictionary definition.

Be well, sir. I'll try to digest later, not in the mood when it starts off with "ah HA my interlocutor is being intentionally obtuse, that explains why they believe in dictionaries! If I just tell them that, I'm sure it'll be convincing!"

Edit: Alas, it appears I can no longer read it, got flagged. Must have been even worse than the bit I did read :/

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are so impotent, why hasn't the NYT published their article yet?

Not sure if you're familiar with how these major investigative articles are written, but something this big can take months to put together. Scott had his panicked meltdown the second this guy started asking questions, which was probably just the beginning of the investigation. You think the outfit that took down Weinstein cares about some SV tantrums?

> Not sure if you're familiar with how these major investigative articles are written, but something this big can take months to put together.

The article was supposed to drop a couple weeks ago, the same week Scott took down his blog (if I remember correctly).

> Scott had his panicked meltdown the second this guy started asking questions, which was probably just the beginning of the investigation.

Pretty sure that's false.

> You think the outfit that took down Weinstein cares about some SV tantrums?

Taking down Weinstein was a noble endeavor. Taking down Scott is not. If you think the concern is just limited to SV, you are not reading the room.

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#355
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not assert that the NYT and SSC should be friends because they have similar political alignment. Whether they are friends or not is irrelevant to my question. The OP indicated that the NYT might be more inclined towards the politics of Banksy than to the politics of SSC. I am simply asking the basis of that assertion. As a casual reader of both they appear pretty aligned with one another politically. There are…

If you weren't making an argument then I'm sorry for assuming you were. I'd suggest that you are probably dismissing political alignment too quickly, however. Even if they seem similar to you, the difference might seem important to them. Late Roman Christians fought literal wars over the presence of a letter 'i' in a single word, denoting a difference that probably wouldn't seem all that important to someone who wasn…

Precisely. I am curious as to what the proverbial 'i's might be in this case.

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#356

I've been reading the NewYorker for decades. And this article makes me realize 100M Spotify is paying for Joe Rogan podcast is actually a bargain. Old media is done, they do not have a business valuable outside of adds driven model, all they can fight for is the power to develop narrative(s). In other words, they are fighting for status

Your comment makes no sense. The companies that are upending old media, Facebook and Google, also have an ads-driven model. Youtube is ads-driven. Even Spotify runs ads if you aren't a subscriber. And Joe Rogan has sponsors.

I believe what they were referring to was the death of news subscription model

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#357
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"certain patterns" is still not an outline so it's hard for me to pick a set of posts. But let's go with this one: https://web.archive.org/web/20200202214359/https://slatestar... since I suspect that will comfortably draw out our underlying disagreements (and if you don't know who Phedre no Delauney is, the Kushiel's Dart novels are fantastic and you've missed out).

From the post you link to: "Why not assassinate prominent racist and sexist politicians and intellectuals?" I would definitely qualify these kind of straw-men as a "certain pattern" of language designed to incite rather than for insight.

When it's a reply to somebody speaking of war and weapons and given as a disapproving extrapolation ad absurdum of that attitude, I don't see that it's intended to incite so much as to elucidate the idea that incitement is itself a bad thing.

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#358
post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dear God, the number of people who think any kind of insult constitutes an ad hominem would be hilarious if it wasn't so depressing. Ad hominem means you're replacing a reasoning based argument with character attacks. Throwing in character attacks on top of a reasoning based argument -- especially when the insults are just used as a conclusion -- is not what an ad hominem is. This is important, because the fact that…

It took me a moment to realize that the poster is trying to use a different definition of ad-hominem which isn't actually a logical fallacy. He's just criticizing the fact that the OP is bothering to criticize article's author at all . Personally, I don't like that usage because it cheapens the definition of ad-hominem and makes it harder to call someone out when they make an actual logical fallacy.

It's a sort of bait and switch tactic. They're relying on the notion that an ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy, which everyone agrees is bad, an invalid method of argument.

Except that they're using a uselessly vague definition of ad hominem that amounts to "any insult", which is extra stupid because we already have a word for that: insult. So why even use the Latin, then, other than to make yourself sound fancy?

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not :/ I'm curious what would happen if you looked up the definition of ad hominem and showed me how the excerpt doesn't match the definition

That's not how it works. It's on the party making the assertion to have proof. So far, the "yes that's an ad hominem" side seems disinclined to provide any evidence or engage directly. Anyway, from Wikipedia's explanation: > Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance o…

Please try to be civil, things like "That's not how this works, you give the definition and example" and "So far, the "yes that's an ad hominem" side seems disinclined to provide any evidence or engage directly." are factually untrue and ad hominem, we're downthread from me doing exactly that.

I'll hang up and listen.

Re: Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media

#360
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It’s not like he went to the greatest of lengths to hide his identity, Bay Area psychiatrists named Scott is a pretty small pool of people." This is a misunderstanding. He was not trying to prevent "Scott Alexander" -> real name inferences. He was only trying to limit the rate of incidental inferences in the other direction; the primary effect of greatly increasing that rate is to harm his professional life.

That seems at best a very narrow sense of "doxxing." If his name is for all practical purposes already public, and he just does not want readers of a specific newspaper to see his name mentioned, does that really count as "doxxing?"

It's not for all practical purposes public. I'm very tech literate and google-literate, and I have tried multiple times to find his name, and was unable to.
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