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Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

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Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#121

Post by hacker789 »

tptacek wrote: post #105
hacker789 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely with what you're saying, but I think you're being far too generous in your interpretation of the author's point. Some people accuse others of logical fallacies for the wrong reasons—they want avoid responding to one or more points they know the other person is trying to make, so they lazily hide behind extraneous non-arguments to avoid confronting any substance. At the same time, some people employ…

This comment is a joke, right? You're trying to provide an example of what an irrelevant invocation of "ad hominem" actually looks like, right?

Nope. I certainly used ad hominem, but it wasn't central to my argument. To ignore the rest of my post would be an example of the following:

> they want avoid responding to one or more points they know the other person is trying to make, so they lazily hide behind extraneous non-arguments to avoid confronting any substance.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#122

Post by Kudzu_Bob »

“Most fallacies are like that - they're heuristics which work most of the time. For example, if you see people running in terror in one direction, and you join them, you've committed the bandwagon fallacy, but you're probably right. If you refuse to invest in someone's business because they've been convicted of fraud, that's ad hominem, but you're probably right.”

http://chariotofreaction.blogspot.com/2012/11/slippery-slope...

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#123

Post by rmrfrmrf »

hacker789 wrote: post #120
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I firmly feel there's nothing wrong with asking someone in an elevator whether they'd like to get coffee. Please ask a psychologist to be screened for Antisocial Personality Disorder and/or Autism.

Nice. Feminist bullies use the same tactics and insults that kids use in middle school. What's so wrong with asking someone in an elevator ? I'm all ears. Is it because you think women will cower in terror because they're an enclosed box with a man?

There's nothing insulting about having a mental illness. However, having such blatant disregard for others' feelings and established societal norms can land you in jail. While you may be incapable of empathy on your own, therapy can help you find ways to make the effects of empathy beneficial to you (usually by some form of quantification of results based on emulation of empathy).

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#124

Post by hacker789 »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #123
hacker789 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice. Feminist bullies use the same tactics and insults that kids use in middle school. What's so wrong with asking someone in an elevator ? I'm all ears. Is it because you think women will cower in terror because they're an enclosed box with a man?

There's nothing insulting about having a mental illness. However, having such blatant disregard for others' feelings and established societal norms can land you in jail. While you may be incapable of empathy on your own, therapy can help you find ways to make the effects of empathy beneficial to you (usually by some form of quantification of results based on emulation of empathy).

You've both diagnosed me with autism and insinuated it could land me in jail if left untreated? You're lovely.

I'll ask you again. What's so wrong with calmly asking someone in an elevator for coffee? I remember these discussions after Rebecca Watson publicly complained about it—the vast majority of people felt she was vastly overreacting. So it's definitely not an "established societal norm".

Despite their rhetoric, radical feminists love infantilizing women. They treat women as fragile, triggerable, sensitive creatures who won't feel safe unless they're handled with kid gloves.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#125

Post by arsen1k »

Symmetry wrote: post #27

And given the topic, there's neccesarily a relevant Less Wrong link: http://lesswrong.com/lw/he/knowing_about_biases_can_hurt_peo... Once upon a time I tried to tell my mother about the problem of expert calibration, saying: "So when an expert says they're 99% confident, it only happens about 70% of the time." Then there was a pause as, suddenly, I realized I was talking to my mother, and I hastily added: "Of course,…

the author of TFA also has bad things to say about less wrong: http://plover.net/~bonds/cultofbayes.html

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#126

Post by JohnHaugeland »

hacker789 wrote: post #120
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I firmly feel there's nothing wrong with asking someone in an elevator whether they'd like to get coffee. Please ask a psychologist to be screened for Antisocial Personality Disorder and/or Autism.

Nice. Feminist bullies use the same tactics and insults that kids use in middle school. What's so wrong with asking someone in an elevator ? I'm all ears. Is it because you think women will cower in terror because they're an enclosed box with a man?

> What's so wrong with asking someone in an elevator? I'm all ears.

If the request makes them uncomfortable, the closed nature of the space makes it difficult for them to make a polite exit. The same applies to other locations where someone is temporarily unable to leave.

This also isn't really so much about dating or gender. Equally inappropriate would be uninvited political or religious commentary, bleak comedy, reference to recent very sad topics (violence, disease, natural disaster, abuse scandal,) or other topics with an unusual likelihood of creating distress.

The general idea is, just wait for the elevator to open, and ask once they have stepped outside; thirty seconds isn't going to kill you.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#127

Post by [deleted] »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #123
hacker789 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice. Feminist bullies use the same tactics and insults that kids use in middle school. What's so wrong with asking someone in an elevator ? I'm all ears. Is it because you think women will cower in terror because they're an enclosed box with a man?

There's nothing insulting about having a mental illness. However, having such blatant disregard for others' feelings and established societal norms can land you in jail. While you may be incapable of empathy on your own, therapy can help you find ways to make the effects of empathy beneficial to you (usually by some form of quantification of results based on emulation of empathy).

[deleted]

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#128

Post by JohnHaugeland »

wamatt wrote: post #72
obviouslygreen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes opinions are just opinions, sometimes anecdotes are enlightening, and sometimes generalizations, metaphors, analogies and other abstractions come into play. Opinions are opinions. They should be stated and treated as such. If your "opinion" is stated in the form "x is y," then maybe you are the one who should be more conscious of the way people communicate. Sure, it's just an opinion; that's fine. Just don'…

>If your "opinion" is stated in the form " x is y ," then maybe you are the one who should be more conscious of the way people communicate. Irony much? :) >"It [ x ] is irritating and intellectually backwards [ y ].

To be ironic means to speak in contrast to what you really mean. Usually, people are expected to pick up on it by tone of voice.

Irony is what most people think is called sarcasm. It is a form of intentional wordplay, derived from the behavior of the Eiron, a feature of greek theater. (Sarcasm is irony which is meant to hurt feelings.)

Irony is not what Nelson from The Simpsons would laugh at, and is never unintentional.

If a safety worker botches the installation of a safety device which later gets them killed, that is not irony. When someone leans over the rail and yells "good job keeping people safe," that is irony (and since it's mean, it's also sarcasm.)

http://rhetoric.byu.edu/figures/i/irony.htm

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#129

Post by coldtea »

Tangaroa wrote: post #114
coldtea wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest you go and re-read TFA. All your points showcase extreme naivety and prejudice. Just two examples upon many: > Translation: Some people never shut up after they have been proven wrong, and the author values this assertiveness over whether their arguments are logically sound . He concludes that the most assertive arguer is automatically correct . He calls for the total abandonment of logic and reason and to…

Reread it yourself. He does in fact uphold forcefulness ("confidence", "command", "outmaneuver", not "feeble") and rhetoric ("inner strength", "emotion") as superior to logical thought ("predictable", "rigid"). It's like he just discovered that street-level debates don't follow Oxford rules, that some people cannot be persuaded by logic, and that other people can be persuaded by illogical means, so he denounces the u…

>And let's consider that "inner strength". It is not the actual strength of the argument since that is what the logic-users would see and support.

A circular argument, if I ever met one. No, it's the actual strength of the argument, since, what the logic-users would "see and support" (the mere logical consistency of the argument) is far from the essence of human argumentation. Except if you argue with Aristotle or Medieval Philosophers.

>And yes, conversations can be multifaceted. I'm sorry to have to inform you that serious logical flaws and mistakes of fact in one facet of a multifaceted conversation do in fact invalidate that one facet of the conversation.

For one, you misunderstood me. Badly.

I said that real world arguments are multifaceted, and thus, spotting a "serious logical flaw" in one, doesn't mean the whole argument is invalidated. And you reply to me that ...it would invalidate just that facet? Well, you don't say!

This repeating of what I told as if it was some novel information tells me you are incapable of evaluating even my simple arguments in context.

>And please refrain from the insults, although it was nice to learn that I am both young and old at the same time, and also a racist.

Where you gathered that from my reply, I can't even fathom. If my guess is right, you think "naive" also implies "young", and "prejudiced" implies racism. I don't know about "baloney detection", but my extreme reading comprehension issues detector started beeping wildly.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#130

Post by swombat »

hacker789 wrote: post #124
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing insulting about having a mental illness. However, having such blatant disregard for others' feelings and established societal norms can land you in jail. While you may be incapable of empathy on your own, therapy can help you find ways to make the effects of empathy beneficial to you (usually by some form of quantification of results based on emulation of empathy).

You've both diagnosed me with autism and insinuated it could land me in jail if left untreated? You're lovely. I'll ask you again. What's so wrong with calmly asking someone in an elevator for coffee? I remember these discussions after Rebecca Watson publicly complained about it—the vast majority of people felt she was vastly overreacting. So it's definitely not an "established societal norm". Despite their rhetoric,…

Would you feel uncomfortable if a fat, ugly woman with an annoying nasal voice opened conversation at the beginning of a 30-floor elevator ride by asking you out for coffee?

"Can I get a coffee with you mister? You're so handsome."

"Er, no, sorry, I'm busy."

45 seconds of lift going up in embarrassed silence

I'm sure anyone can handle it, but it's definitely uncomfortable.

Now imagine if this happened every day, because if it's socially acceptable and you are handsome and working in a tall building, it probably will.

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