The Worst Argument In The World • Hacker News Board

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#91

Post by 127 » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 11:41 AM UTC

DannoHung wrote: post #71

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…

> The eugenics example is even worse. In the 1930s, people were absolutely certain eugenics was the best thing since sliced bread, then Hitler showed the world how bad that could go. To deny "Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it" as a guiding principle seems rather hubristic to me. Erm, well, what we saw was that using social programs to engage in eugenics was a problem. Allowing individuals to chang…

>Evolutionary psychology is a valid science, however, and this is an enormous however, untrained individuals attempting to use it to enforce social norms is absolutely 100% sexist.

I personally believe that sexism is not immediately a negative thing, but neutral. Sex based discrimination is useful and can hold a lot of value in determining our next course of action.

Using sexism as a moral axiom is illogical. What's worse, it's censoring free thought through intimidation of social irrelevance.

Logic should be followed through without unnecessary moral burden. Observations should be made without the need to justify oneself purely for making them.

Just despairing with how the word sexism is conflated with so many other things in the internet rhetoric. Maybe this is more of an American thing.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#92

Post by gjm11 » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 11:58 AM UTC

jessedhillon wrote: post #79

This is great, but who does this appeal to? The small minority who actually takes the time to reflect on their own assumptions, is open to refactoring their own thinking and possesses the maturity to accept the wrongness of their own arguments? Almost all public "debates", on topics of any importance, are merely shouting matches where two or more sides reiterate rationalizations for their already-held notions of the…

> The small minority who actually takes the time to reflect on their own assumptions, is open to refactoring their own thinking and possesses the maturity to accept the wrongness of their own arguments?

Well, yes, that would be exactly the target audience of Less Wrong. Do you have a problem with that?

(Of course (1) posting this isn't going to make bad arguments disappear from the world and (2) someone whose goal is influence rather than accuracy or integrity may well prefer to go on saying things that, when considered as rational arguments, are very wrong; but so what?)

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#93

Post by yummyfajitas » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 12:13 PM UTC

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…

If one part of your argument is refuted, but the others stand, you should simply acknowledge your mistake and point out the remainder of it is still valid.

Pointing out flaws in your argument is not "the worst argument in the world". It's logically valid, whereas the worst argument in the world is not.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#94

Post by 1123581321 » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 12:21 PM UTC

I suggest amending the argument:

"X is in a category whose archetypal member has certain features. Therefore, we should judge the past behaviors of X as if it also had those features, even though it doesn't; or assign future behaviors to X even though it cannot develop those features."

That said, I disagree this is a worse argument than its ideological opposite, A is not A.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#95

Post by yummyfajitas » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 12:21 PM UTC

mseebach wrote: post #58

derleth wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

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.

This is the general situation with all sorts of positive interventions one can make with one's children.

For example, you can have a voluntary regime of teaching your children a work ethic/engaging in education/not abusing drugs. The rich and well educated will teach their children such things, while others will not. In one generation, the children of the rich will work hard while the children of the poor will not.

Your argument against eugenics applies equally well to basically any intervention one can make to improve one's children. That suggests it is overly broad, and perhaps invalid.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#96

Post by emil0r » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 12:24 PM UTC

Lockyy wrote: post #86

emil0r wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Examples from Michael Behe's book Darwin's Black Box: Blood's ability to coagulate is a cascading system with over 30 parts. Remove one part and it's fatal for the individual. How could a system like that evolve gradually over time? He lists quite a few such systems. Bacteria having motors, the cell's operational system, the anti-body system (again a cascading system of large complexity).

The motors are not just motors, they just happen to be motors right now. I think it is the selfish gene that describes the path from a protein structure that facilitates the movement of molecules across the cell's membrane into a motor with a flagellum attached. These things that are claimed to fall apart when a single step is removed were not there from the ground up to provide that specific function, separately the…

Don't you think what you're writing as a reply is a bit vague? How would you describe the evolution of the coagulation system? What different systems existed before the coagulation system that fell together into the current system?

From what I remember from the book the coagulation system looked to be one monolithic piece and not built up of smaller systems.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#97

Post by mseebach » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 12:31 PM UTC

_b8r0 wrote: post #65

mseebach wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Well, for starters, because to properly eliminate genetical diseases, you will eventually need to forbid carriers of undesirable genes to procreate. That gets nasty. I'm not sure I agree here. We can use fertilisation treatments to ensure that the fertilised eggs lack the mutation causing Tay-Sachs. Give couples the choice as to whether they want to have children the old fashioned way or go a genetically screened I…

> Not here in the UK you wouldn't. Nor in most of Europe. People in the lower classes would be told about the genetic markers and given the option to have the screening, depending on the cost of treatment and impact of the disease.

People in the lower classes are told about, and (in the UK) offered for free, birth control. Yet unplanned pregnancies are common, and much more common in the lower classes. You're not going to get fertilisation treatments if you're not planning to get pregnant.

> Why should the "dirty" people suffer

Why should anyone suffer? Yet some do, and we have finite resources and have to prioritise them - it's not an artefact of private health insurance, public health care has to be paid for as well. A very common argument in fighting smoking is that smokers are a drain on the public health system - that's selfish, yet reasonable, on part of the non-smokers. Every once in a while, a variation on the theme of "we should put alcoholics/narcotics/morbidly obese/obese/overweight at the end of the queue for 'lifestyle diseases'" surfaces in Denmark. It hasn't gone anywhere, but all health services (private and public) are under pressure from increasing costs from more advanced treatments, and prioritisation is a constant issue.

> or even exist in the first place?

Why they exist? Well, that's very existential, but they do, and short of sterialisation, they will continue to for a number of generations. The problems with eugenics isn't what happens when you're done, it's how you get there.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#98

Post by hef19898 » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 12:44 PM UTC

breckinloggins wrote: post #60

slurgfest wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As my grandparents always said, there's no other thing like a good education...

Sadly we forgot about it in the last couple of decades.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#99

Post by alttab » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 12:44 PM UTC

jrajav wrote: post #87

When I reached "Taxation is theft!" I was moved to come here and comment on it. It only took about a second for me to stop myself and laugh. Apparently others here weren't quite so levelheaded.

I'm not sure what your comment is trying to imply, but this is also where I stopped reading.

"Taxation keeps the first disadvantage, but arguably subverts the second disadvantage if you believe being able to fund a government has greater social value than leaving money in the hands of those who earned it."

Using this argument, at least with the US Government, taxation is most certainly theft.

Re: The Worst Argument In The World

#100

Post by mseebach » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 12:47 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #95

mseebach wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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. This is the general situation with all sorts of positive interventions one can make with one's children. For example, you can have a voluntary regime of teaching your children a work ethic/engaging in education/not abusing drugs. The rich and w…

First, I didn't actually mean to make an argument against the usage of genetics in eliminating disease, merely to point out how good intentions could disintegrate into something more dystopic.

Second, I think there is a big difference between something that's irreversible at the point of conception and something that, while giving you a disadvantage, can be fixed later.