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The Worst Argument In The World

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Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#51

Post by derleth »

tokenadult wrote: post #2

I read the interesting submitted article and its comments right after it was submitted here on Hacker News. The worst argument in the world (a general FORM of argument) is described this way in the submitted article: "I declare the Worst Argument In The World to be this: 'X is in a category whose archetypal member has certain features. Therefore, we should judge X as if it also had those features, even though it does…

> The most powerful form of disagreement is to refute someone's central point.

Which is denied you when the person's argument is so ill-formed that it does not have a central point. At that point, you either point out the flaws or you walk away, apparently conceding the point to the pointless one.

(Also: I love the word point, apparently.)

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#52

Post by slurgfest »

scarmig wrote: post #12
tokenadult wrote: post #2

I read the interesting submitted article and its comments right after it was submitted here on Hacker News. The worst argument in the world (a general FORM of argument) is described this way in the submitted article: "I declare the Worst Argument In The World to be this: 'X is in a category whose archetypal member has certain features. Therefore, we should judge X as if it also had those features, even though it does…

I find the most enjoyable form of argument is to listen to what your opponent is saying. Instead of poking holes in bad word choices or minor factual inaccuracies, reconstruct in your head the person's argument to be as strong and clear-headed as possible. Then refute that argument, which is probably closer anyways to what the person was thinking than what they actually wrote. Going all out against someone's point of…

There is really no point in this unless you are arguing with someone who is trying to be honest to begin with. In that situation you don't need so much artifice anyway.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#53

Post by lutusp »

slurgfest wrote: post #50
Xcelerate wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And as far as I can tell, it's never been objective. Where's the studies comparing multiple styles of argument and determining which had the highest percentages of "wins"?

How do you objectively pin down the concept of "win"?

By having a panel of judges and a formal debate, with strict rules. The panel then decides who is the "winner".

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#54

Post by praptak »

scarmig wrote: post #8
ojbyrne wrote: post #4

Slighty more reasonable, but perhaps more insidious is the "slippery slope" argument. So the first example, about Martin Luther King being a criminal - could be more subtly argued by saying something like "well obviously he doesn't count, but where do we draw the line between 'good' criminals and 'bad' criminals, and invoking slippery slopes. Then the argument ends up basically being the same, but seems on the surfac…

Certainly some slippery slope arguments are good, though! For instance, suppose a terrorist starts demanding a large sum of money not to blow up a plane. Suppose also that the direct risk-corrected value of the plane, even excluding passenger lives, also exceeds the price the terrorist is asking for. We still make it policy not to negotiate with the terrorist, because doing so would create a positive feedback loop th…

> it's a fairly insidious argument to say that slippery slope arguments should be rejected

Of course it is insidious (and no true Scottsman would say such thing!) This is because the actual fallacy is a false slippery slope. The essence of the error is failure to demonstrate that the actual slope exists. If you demonstrate the causal relationship between the first step and the rest of the slope then it is no longer a false slippery slope.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#55

Post by talkingquickly »

adastra wrote: post #41
breckinloggins wrote: post #13

The article could use some more neutral and left-leaning "Worst argument in the world (TWAITW)" examples. I'm fairly neutral politically, and the piece sounded left-biased to me. Note that I'm not stating my opinion here; the author even apologizes for it in the article. Perhaps he is simply at a loss for examples? We could help. Here's a neutral one (from the comments): - "George Washington was a traitor !" (should…

This post has so much flame-bait in it I almost wonder if it's a meta-post-- a practical joke to see how many people go after these various politically-charged statements rather than comment on the article itself. I'll assume it's not though. In which case, I really don't see how adding more politically-charged examples to this discussion, or any other for that matter, is at all productive.

I think in this situation the politically-charged examples were perhaps useful. To me they demonstrate the contrast between that argument type when expressed abstractly - which many people quickly dismiss as invalid - and when expressed in the context of something with emotional content where the same argument structure may somehow 'feel' more valid.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#56

Post by breckinloggins »

breckinloggins wrote: post #13

The article could use some more neutral and left-leaning "Worst argument in the world (TWAITW)" examples. I'm fairly neutral politically, and the piece sounded left-biased to me. Note that I'm not stating my opinion here; the author even apologizes for it in the article. Perhaps he is simply at a loss for examples? We could help. Here's a neutral one (from the comments): - "George Washington was a traitor !" (should…

Wow. The number of people who are responding to any of my little strawman arguments on their merits is surprising, and frankly disappointing on Hacker News. If you have replied to any of these "arguments" and asked me how I could possibly believe them, then you:

- Have not understood the meta-topic of the post

- Are unable to resist attacking silly arguments even when it is stated in my post that they are caricatures

- Failed to read the comments on the original article, in which many others also noted the examples' lack of balance

- Have provided an entertaining case in point of the argument made by http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/

Particularly in regards to my extremely silly and vacuous evolution example, I can not honestly believe so many of you not only thought that I believed what I was writing, but then went on to expend energy attacking me on it.

When I read the original article, I was amused at the disclaimer he put up front saying "I don't necessarily believe these things, they're just for the sake of example." I thought I could leave something so obvious out in a place like HN. Apparently I was wrong.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#57

Post by nyan_sandwich »

radu_floricica wrote: post #31
breckinloggins wrote: post #13

The article could use some more neutral and left-leaning "Worst argument in the world (TWAITW)" examples. I'm fairly neutral politically, and the piece sounded left-biased to me. Note that I'm not stating my opinion here; the author even apologizes for it in the article. Perhaps he is simply at a loss for examples? We could help. Here's a neutral one (from the comments): - "George Washington was a traitor !" (should…

I think it's on purpose. LessWrong does not aim to be an academic discussion forum, but a practical real life provider of thinking tools. Using real-life, emotionally charged examples is probably part of the training.

Actually it's kindof taboo on LW, hence the apology.

Thinking straight about politics is hard, so it's not a good practice case.

"learn programming by writing an industrial-quality OS"

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#58

Post by mseebach »

derleth wrote: post #46
mseebach wrote: post #43

This seems disingenuous to me. Already by calling what's essentially rhetoric "arguments", he's building a huge strawman. Take abortion - according to opponents a fetus is a living human being, and actively and purposefully killing a living human being is murder in the Charles Manson style. The argument for abortion isn't that it's somehow OK to kill really young human, it's that fetuses aren't independent human bein…

> "Those who don't learn history is doomed to repeat it" Even when they have learned from history? We understand more now about exactly why the Nazi eugenics was wrong than we've ever known. Comparing the quest for a mythical Aryan Superman (Super-Duper-Superman!) to the hunt for a method to eliminate Tay-Sachs is useful how ?

Well, for starters, because to properly eliminate genetical diseases, you will eventually need to forbid carriers of undesirable genes to procreate. That gets nasty.

So you have a voluntary regime, and the rich and well-educated (generally) make sure their children are free of genetical disorders, while the lower classes (generally) don't. Two generations later, you have "clean" people and "dirty" people. Why should the "clean" people, who did as they were encouraged to by the Department of Health, pay high insurance premiums/health tax to subsidize the totally preventable diseases of the "dirty" people?

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#59

Post by slurgfest »

breckinloggins wrote: post #56
breckinloggins wrote: post #13

The article could use some more neutral and left-leaning "Worst argument in the world (TWAITW)" examples. I'm fairly neutral politically, and the piece sounded left-biased to me. Note that I'm not stating my opinion here; the author even apologizes for it in the article. Perhaps he is simply at a loss for examples? We could help. Here's a neutral one (from the comments): - "George Washington was a traitor !" (should…

Wow. The number of people who are responding to any of my little strawman arguments on their merits is surprising, and frankly disappointing on Hacker News. If you have replied to any of these "arguments" and asked me how I could possibly believe them, then you: - Have not understood the meta-topic of the post - Are unable to resist attacking silly arguments even when it is stated in my post that they are caricatures…

I'm not sure why you thought it was constructive to turn HN into a sounding board for your personal complaints about 'left-leaning argumentoids'. Setting aside the utility of providing more 'examples' of inflammatory political statements on HN, why maintain such thoroughgoing political bias? If the intent is to discuss forms of argument then the bias is only distracting. If the intent is to catalogue stereotypes or caricatures of 'left-leaning argumentoids' (with the drift that the left is stupid) then your post is directly on target.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#60

Post by breckinloggins »

slurgfest wrote: post #33
breckinloggins wrote: post #13

The article could use some more neutral and left-leaning "Worst argument in the world (TWAITW)" examples. I'm fairly neutral politically, and the piece sounded left-biased to me. Note that I'm not stating my opinion here; the author even apologizes for it in the article. Perhaps he is simply at a loss for examples? We could help. Here's a neutral one (from the comments): - "George Washington was a traitor !" (should…

Wow - evolution has been directly observed and is the overwhelming consensus among biologists, if not among fundamentalists whose theology is threatened by it... yet you have carefully impugned its existence by referencing "fantastic parts," as if evolution were a matter of unicorns or Roswell or something. Go learn about Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, then come and lecture us on how evolution isn't really a fact. I wil…

I replied in general to this and other comments above, but I wanted to directly respond to this:

> I will never understand why basic facts of biology are supposedly left-wing.

It does seem to be the case that "reality has a liberal bias", but you really have to embed yourself in the culture of the religious right to fully "grok" it.

I've lived in the Bible belt all my life, and quite frankly the reason basic facts of biology are left-wing to so many people (and I wouldn't even waste my breath talking about it if it weren't SO MANY people) is that these basic facts of biology simply aren't taught. Well, if by "taught" you mean "talked about with a derisive sneer" then yes, I suppose they are "taught".

Most of us can simply be angry at this sad fact of our current reality, but the number of people who believe in creationism over evolution seems to be going UP, not down. This should tell you that what the other side lacks in intellectual curiosity or rigor, they sure as hell make up for in marketing and charisma.

That should make people WANT to understand why something so basic as evolution is flatly denied by about half the population. You should want to do something about it!

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