[HN Gopher] The Harry Potter fallacy
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The Harry Potter fallacy
Author : yamrzou
Score : 134 points
Date : 2022-07-28 04:02 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.the-tls.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.the-tls.co.uk)
| yamrzou wrote:
| https://archive.ph/6aOXf
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Just in case someone would want to read only because of Harry
| Potter: there's literally not a single relationship with Harry
| Potter in what is discussed here.
| vxNsr wrote:
| The relationship was calling out fallacies like spells to
| attack your opponent.
| vanilla_nut wrote:
| I should have just read this comment instead of the article!
| dandare wrote:
| I for one disagree with the article. Naming fallacies is
| shortcuts, useful in keeping the discussion focused on topic. If
| we had to explain why attacking the proponent instead of the
| argument is not disproving the argument every time someone uses
| ad-hominem any discussion would have to be so much longer.
|
| In my experience, it is mostly the people who fall for logical
| fallacies that complain when the opponent is calling them out.
| naasking wrote:
| Naming the fallacy shouldn't be the end of your response
| though, because you both still disagree. Clearly your
| interlocutor is trying to point something out, perhaps an
| observation for which he has only a fallacious explanation, and
| merely pointing out the fallacy does not dismiss their position
| or suffice as a response. That's the article's point that
| calling out fallacies is not substantive discussion.
| elmer007 wrote:
| Related to the previous post and to this one (and agreeing
| with parts of both), I think it's worth mentioning an
| important aspect a little more explicitly: the conclusion of
| an argument that contains a fallacy is not necessarily false.
|
| The conclusion isn't proven true, but the fallacious
| reasoning doesn't render it false either. Naming the fallacy
| can help refute, but it's likely that one needs to go further
| with their explanation of a differing conclusion (or a more
| sound reasoning of why the other's conclusion is, in fact,
| false).
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| I was expecting this article to cover how in political debate the
| argument is sometimes framed in terms of Harry Potter characters.
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| An important lesson in second-order ethics. If your opponent is
| willing to operate outside of the rules of the game (as you see
| them) aka acts in bad faith, they can achieve their ends by
| taking advantage of your adherence to the rules. Recognizing when
| someone is doing this and refusing to play along is a difficult,
| but sometimes essential, skill. (Though one we all learned to
| some extent on the playground)
| nerdawson wrote:
| Refusing to play along will be seen as a loss, which is
| precisely the intention.
| Mezzie wrote:
| The way around this is by 'no, but'ing.
|
| You're not playing that game, you're going to play this
| other, better one instead. It requires some eloquence,
| charisma, and social intelligence to pull off such a
| redirection, though.
|
| In defining the played game, the other person is expressing
| social power. Either playing along or refusing still allows
| them that power, whereas changing the game is addressing that
| expression of superiority directly.
| cxr wrote:
| Can you elaborate?
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Depends on the refusal.
|
| Most bad faith argumentation is a pretty straightforward
| combination of misdirection, cherry picking, outright lying,
| "proof" by repeated assertion, and a huge dose of personal
| insults and ridicule.
|
| There's no need to stick to facts or logic if your opponent
| has made it clear it's not a good faith exchange.
|
| The challenge is knowing how to calibrate responses for
| maximum effect on the audience - who are usually the real
| target - balanced between keeping credibility and staying
| relatable instead of dislikable.
|
| The problem with pointing out logical fallacies is that it
| erodes both of those.
|
| So you can end up being 100% right while appearing 100%
| wrong.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Sure, but most such losses are easily sustained, costing
| almost nothing.
|
| Certainly, some are not. When running for office, it's
| dangerous. When talking to family, it's dangerous. But I
| sustain losses with a simple "fair enough" and walk away
| quite often having lost nothing. To people with slightly more
| good faith, a quick "I'm not quite convinced, but I can't
| nail down my disagreement" is sufficient to gracefully take
| the L.
|
| AFAIK I'm quite well-respected in my peer group so it isn't
| causing me any harm.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| Except if you start with "OK, let's play along and see where
| that leads us".
|
| This leads to disaster.
|
| "OK, now that we've seen that what you are saying is
| bullshit, let's talk real" (you turn away form that person
| and start to talk even if they do as well)
|
| Oh man, I hate politics.
| metadat wrote:
| Seems you're building on top of another HN thread from today:
|
| "Ask HN: Higher order derivatives in everyday life?"
|
| https//news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32257887
|
| Unfortunately real life is more complex than Calculus I. The
| analogy is simultaneously _valid and useless_.
| mgdlbp wrote:
| GP used 'higher-order' to mean higher in some ontology of
| abstraction, similar to 'meta', a la 'higher-order function'.
| In this case, in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-ethics
|
| Speaking of today's submissions, Wikipedia might need some
| discussion of its own about what to do with these articles
| all about pretty much the same thing:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadiscourse
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-discussion
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-communication
|
| (meta: username checks out)
| weego wrote:
| Ben Shapiro is a classic case of someone who has made a career
| out of bad faith 'debating'.
|
| Short form and heavily edited to fit short attention media
| platforms are biased towards this style of interaction because
| breaking down bad faith debating is a much longer and detailed
| process than the initial statement.
| brightball wrote:
| I hear his name a lot but never actually saw anything he did.
| What type of stuff does he do?
| csours wrote:
| He "debates" college students using every logical fallacy
| possible.
|
| Another name for a logical fallacy is "something that your
| brain prefers over strict logical constructions" or "a
| shortcut that the human brain is wired for".
| booleandilemma wrote:
| He debates college kids, basically. He's in the same league
| as Jordan Peterson, another pseudo-intellectual.
|
| These are our thought leaders in 2022.
| impalallama wrote:
| Basically this generations Rush Limbaugh. Very popular
| Youngish conservative commentator that hosts a successfully
| podcast/radioshow.
| dahart wrote:
| I learned fairly recently there is a name for this: The Gish
| Gallop; "a rhetorical technique in which a person in a debate
| attempts to overwhelm their opponent by providing an
| excessive number of arguments with no regard for the accuracy
| or strength of those arguments."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
| Aunche wrote:
| Virtually all debate is "bad faith." You've ever seen the
| Presidential debates? Shapiro doesn't do anything differently
| than any liberal pundit. The only difference is that he's
| really good at it, and liberals disagree with him.
| bobmichael wrote:
| Reminds me of Daniel Schmachtenberger's excellent article, The
| Endgames of Bad Faith Communication:
| https://consilienceproject.org/endgames-of-bad-communication....
|
| Under his framework, this would be a specific example of bad
| faith communication, and he agrees that the breakdown in our
| ability to communicate in good faith is a threat to true
| democracy.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > If one's aim is not so much discovering the truth as winning an
| argument at all costs, fallacy theory can provide a training in
| the dark arts of closing down a discussion prematurely
|
| Good HappyOpossum: "I totally need to make sure I avoid doing
| that"
|
| Real HappyOpossum: "That's totally how I can win arguments on HN,
| gotta make sure I study fallacy theory"
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| There's no way to win arguments on social media
| brigandish wrote:
| I find it's a helpful way to challenge oneself. Get into an
| argument and very quickly you'll find things you hadn't
| considered, and a wonderfully easy way to bring one's own
| tribalism to the surface, where it can be killed more easily.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| Getting challenged on one's positions and reconsidering
| them is ideal if it were so, and perhaps on HN it is about
| half the time.
|
| On other social media there is no challenge to one's
| positions. You are racist, so it doesn't matter what you
| said. You are sexist, so it doesn't matter what you said.
| You are a shill, so it doesn't matter what you said.
| sien wrote:
| It's like Wargames.
|
| The only way to win is not to play.
|
| Actually, that said, perhaps some readers who are not in the
| argument might learn something. Or if you're in it then you
| do as well.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > The only way to win is not to play
|
| You can also just troll. Generally, you can't lose from
| such a position.
|
| Arguably though, that would still count as "not playing".
| logifail wrote:
| > Arguably though, that would still count as "not
| playing"
|
| ...or playing, but not playing at the same game.
|
| Cue the saying about wrestling with a pig.
| elevaet wrote:
| Public argument isn't really for trying to convince the
| opponent of your position, it's for convincing the
| _onlookers_ of your position. In that sense maybe you can win
| an argument on social media?
|
| I tend not to participate anyway, preferring a less
| confrontational approach.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| > One can label one's opponent a "racist", a "bigot" or a
| "fascist", and suggest that an audience is safest by ignoring the
| arguments altogether, for fear of being duped into bigotry
| itself.
|
| I think that this is often making a mistake about what is going
| on. There is an idealized form of argument that arrives at a
| conclusion from first principles and which we can then debate,
| dispute and resolve.
|
| But since this article does actually bring in twitter, let's talk
| about the what is actually going on. There are a series of
| arguments that are proposed that whilst having atleast a veneer
| of respectability, aren't held for reasons of principle. There
| was a term related to this that turned up during the Trump years
| - Trump would take an outrageous unjustifiable position, and then
| Intellectual Zambonis would come in and try to smooth it out to
| be a heroic stand for the principles of the right. I'm not saying
| Trump is the only example of this, but in the real world, you do
| actually have to engage with the idea that the only reason
| someone is taking a position in an argument is not because they
| believe it, but because it's the most persuasive way of getting
| what they want. Whether that's originalism at the Supreme Court,
| or States rights. You do have to ask the question "If I prove
| this argument to be wrong, will it actually change the outcome
| that the opponent is advocating, or will they just move to
| another argument".
| brigandish wrote:
| > Whether that's originalism at the Supreme Court, or States
| rights. You do have to ask the question "If I prove this
| argument to be wrong, will it actually change the outcome that
| the opponent is advocating, or will they just move to another
| argument".
|
| You make it seem like originalism is not a deeply held and
| staunchly argued principle, as if judges capriciously move into
| it and out of it depending on the wind or current political
| thinking. Is that the impression you got from Scalia[1]? If you
| did I'd say that's weird, he seemed pretty steadfast on it for
| a good long time.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Scalia
| SilverBirch wrote:
| I'm making the opposite point: That there is a genuine and
| intellectual argument for originalism. But it has nothing to
| do with the Supreme Court's current decision making process
| which is "Do we have 5 suitably Conservative Supreme Court
| Justices? Yes or No?". Which is why in the Dobbs decision
| Thomas rightly points out that the next thing to do is
| revisit Contraceptives, Same sex marriage, and Gay sex. And
| why Roberts makes another concurrence literally saying he
| also wants to ban abortion, but just doesn't see the need to
| overturn Roe to do that.
|
| The problem is that the arguments they make support their
| position, but they don't support their own arguments when it
| doesn't result in supporting their position.
| brigandish wrote:
| > And why Roberts makes another concurrence literally
| saying he also wants to ban abortion, but just doesn't see
| the need to overturn Roe to do that.
|
| I've read the actual concurrence[1] and I have no idea how
| you can describe it that way, other than to have read
| someone else's summary of it, a summary that is at best
| poor, at worst mendacious.
|
| > Which is why in the Dobbs decision Thomas rightly points
| out that the next thing to do is revisit Contraceptives,
| Same sex marriage, and Gay sex.
|
| Thomas mentions contraceptives _once_ , on page 122, and
| does not "point out that the next thing to do is revisit
| Contraceptives". Should I bother to see what he actually
| wrote about same sex marriage and gay sex? I think it would
| be better if you provided the source of your claims here
| and cross reference them against the text of the ruling.
|
| I'd also like you to go over this:
|
| > the Supreme Court's current decision making process which
| is "Do we have 5 suitably Conservative Supreme Court
| Justices? Yes or No?"
|
| They don't bring the cases. They choose the cases from
| those they are brought but they have also regularly chosen
| cases that invoke Roe or Casey, before and after the
| conservative majority. Did you mean something else?
|
| [1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j3
| 7.pdf
| prox wrote:
| What's interesting on the "Trump" right is that they won't
| admit to being racist, bigot and so on, but that's it's all
| done underhanded. They know they can't outright call out
| anything, so it's all done under the veneer of different
| arguments that still promote racism, bigotry and fascism.
| Sometimes it's being a Christian (say against abortion) or to
| give off a fascist signal (the jan 6 insurrection) It's a great
| intellectual dishonesty.
|
| Now many politicians are like that, as they love to cling to
| power, they make up stuff to keep their constituents happy, but
| in the case of the Trump right it seems to have evolved in such
| a manner they can remain judicially scot-free while still going
| by their plans.
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| I agree that pointing out fallacies can get excessive, but is
| mainly based on the intention for so doing.
|
| The difficulty is that there is an entire class of people who
| don't even care about being logically correct or in finding
| truth. They desire or "feel" something and will barge their way
| through to get it, even if it is antithetical to their stated
| goals and eventually results in their misery. Reasoning with such
| people is somewhat futile, even pointing out their fallacies in
| good faith will do nothing. They may even reject logic entirely,
| as is becoming more common in our society.
|
| In that case, pointing out that someone is committing a fallacy
| can be something of a canary test of their desire to reason. You
| could offer to help them with their argument, point out ways
| around the fallacy, engage with them in good faith, but if they
| are obsessively attached to their fallacy and their flawed
| position, then there isn't much you can do. There is no
| mathematical or logical solution to that problem, that is a
| "people problem".
|
| When dealing with such a person or class of people, using humour
| to make them look foolish can be more effective, since then the
| main goal should be to reveal to others how childish their
| position is or pressure them into abandoning their purely
| emotional position; or resorting to even better emotional
| fallacies. The name of the game is to get emotions on your side.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| > "... make them look foolish ... then ... reveal to others how
| childish their position is or pressure them into abandoning
| their ... position."
|
| Yikes. I think the point of humor is to change the stakes, so
| people you're working to persuade may think better.
|
| Humiliation in the face of peers is an emotional _attack_ and
| highly immoral.
| bananamerica wrote:
| Pointing out fallacies in conversation, both online or IRL, is,
| and always will be, pointless. That is not because people don't
| care about being logical. Dropping fallacies is just lazy and
| makes you sound like a dick. It's lazy because you're trying to
| solve the problem without doing the work. It's a shortcut. The
| knowledge of fallacies is useful to identify common flaws in
| arguments and is particularly useful for _you_ to construct a
| better, more persuasive counter-argument. No one should expect
| the "opposing side" to do that for them. You can't just shout
| "strawman!" and drop the mike. That's not how a conversation
| works.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _No one should expect the "opposing side" to do that for
| them. You can't just shout "strawman!" and drop the mike.
| That's not how a conversation works._
|
| It can be a useful heuristic to determine how much effort you
| want to expend on a topic with someone else. If someone is
| simply putting forward _tu quoque_ / _ad hominem_ statements,
| then pointing this out and asking if there are any other
| reasons can perhaps lead to focusing on more 'productive'
| areas of disagreement.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| >Dropping fallacies is just lazy and makes you sound like a
| dick.
|
| Yes, this happened in the tragic case of Fallacy Man [0], who
| demonstrated that simply announcing a fallacy is not a
| sufficient argument.
|
| [0] https://existentialcomics.com/comic/9
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Pointing out fallacies doesn't work because doing so itself
| uses the fallacy of "I have proven you wrong, therefore I am
| right" when the most likely truth is both are horrendously
| off-base.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yup, when a person has abandoned reason, no reason can disturb
| their position.
|
| This is why we see so many anti-science movements.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _The difficulty is that there is an entire class of people
| who don 't even care about being logically correct or in
| finding truth. They desire or "feel" something and will barge
| their way through to get it,_
|
| A malicious philosopher tells you that to move from point A to
| B, you must first pass through an infinite number of midpoints,
| and therefore motion is impossible. Do you: Invent/learn
| calculus to prove him wrong rigorously? Or do you walk away?
|
| For some few people, figuring out the matter rationally may
| bear a lot of fruit. But most people will be better served by
| walking away. For those people, wasting their time with
| rational arguments would be irrational. They have better things
| to do with their day. Irrational arguments can cut through
| solipsistic bullshit very fast and efficiently, and that makes
| them a valuable and productive tool for most people much of the
| time.
| elefanten wrote:
| But not every appeal to logic comes from malicious
| philosophers. Most do not.
|
| So, in practice, you get a lot of lazy dismissals in service
| of selfish desires.
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| Sometimes it is a quick occlusion algorithm; if we spent
| time evaluating every proposal we encountered, we would
| never get much done. Being able to quickly remove some
| arguments that our brain can quickly exclude (even when
| sometimes incorrectly) is a dramatic optimization. The key
| is training our brain to do it (mostly) correctly, like
| some kind of truth Bloom filter.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| In my experience they kinda do.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _But not every appeal to logic comes from malicious
| philosophers. Most do not._
|
| Whether it comes from a malicious philosopher or somebody
| who means well but is confused, it is generally prudent to
| consider whether the discussion is actually worth your
| time.
|
| I haven't met many philosophers actually pitching Zeno's
| paradoxes at people, but some I've encountered recently for
| real: reasons why Jesus is the means to salvation, why the
| Earth is flat, and why we're probably living in a
| simulation. I brush these aside without giving them serious
| responses, because I selfishly want to spend my time in
| other ways.
| conqueso wrote:
| That's not selfish - we only have so much time. The
| expectation that one should engage with everybody all the
| time will lead to misery. It's totally okay to say " no
| thanks, have a nice day" Edit: I realize your pointing
| out the prudence of an upfront decision of whether or not
| to engage means we probably agree here, I just consider
| the word selfish to be a bit harsh
| bobthechef wrote:
| zJlG wrote:
| > A malicious philosopher tells you that to move from point A
| to B, you must first pass through an infinite number of
| midpoints, and therefore motion is impossible.
|
| Easily countered by stating that the distance between
| adjacent points within this infinite set must be zero, so the
| total distance is zero and you can travel any distance
| instantaneously.
|
| Now the philosopher has to invent calculus to prove you
| wrong.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| This is a great response. Another good response is to ask
| the philosopher to prove the existence of infinity.
| BeetleB wrote:
| For both your and your parent's counter responses, I have
| to agree with MichaelCollins: Most people are still
| better served with the irrational response.
|
| In fact, _until the other party can justify my using my
| time to engage with him_ , the irrational response is a
| good one.
| candiodari wrote:
| The problem with the argument wasn't the argument itself,
| but rather that the other side of the conversation
| doesn't want to hear it. Therefore, pointing out the
| strengths and/or weaknesses of arguments won't matter.
|
| The basic issue is better stated as such: we have
| globally accepted non-truths, dogmas if you will, and
| found it acceptable to punish people for pointing these
| out, even where no harm to individuals is meant by them.
|
| Which ones? Obviously they multiplied over time, and we
| all know. They relate to racism, sexism, non-binary sexes
| (whether the biological ones or the non-biological ones),
| global warming, ...
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| These 2 comments are such keepers. Thanks both of you.
| MarcellusDrum wrote:
| How do you prove both of these claims wrong, using
| calculus?
| xigoi wrote:
| Calculus explains how the sum of infinitely many
| infinitely small numbers can be any finite or infinite
| number, depending on how they are constructed.
| wongarsu wrote:
| The first is Zeno's Paradox, or a variation thereof. The
| solution is that passing through infinitely many
| midpoints is fine, since the sum of an infinite number of
| positive numbers can still be finite. The example that
| solves the original Zeno's Paradox (you run half the
| distance, then one quarter, then one eight, etc, and
| never get there) is the fact that 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ...
| sums up to 1, since it's a Geometric Series.
|
| The second comment touches on how just because the limit
| of something approaches 0, you can't treat it as 0. If
| you divide a line into infinitely many segments, the
| length of those segments approaches 0, but if you treat
| them as if they were really 0 you get wrong results when
| summing them back up. Usually that gets relevant with
| integrals, but in this example it happens with a simple
| 1-dimensional sum.
| sltkr wrote:
| > The second comment touches on how just because the
| limit of something approaches 0, you can't treat it as 0.
|
| I think this one is a little more subtle. You can
| definitely treat the limit of something as an exact
| value.
|
| If you split a segment of unit length into n segments,
| then each segment has length 1/n. As n goes to infinity,
| 1/n goes to zero. But at the limit, 1/n = 0, exactly. Not
| approximately, really exactly, and there is nothing wrong
| with defining lim[n->inf] 1/n = 0 and using that in a
| calculation. It's no different than saying lim[n->inf]
| sum[n=1..n] 2^-n = 1 as you did in the first paragraph.
|
| The problem is slightly different. The person conceives
| of a sequence of `n` copies of `1/n`. For any finite
| value of n, these add up to 1 of course; it's just the
| result of calculating `n x 1/n`. But at the limit, they
| pull a trick: they say lim[n->inf] 1/n = 0 (which is
| correct) therefore any sum of these values is 0 too. But
| we never had lim[n->inf] 1/n, we had lim[n->inf] (n x
| 1/n) instead!
|
| If you put it in mathematical terms, the argument is:
| lim[n->inf] (n x 1/n) = (lim[n->inf] n) x
| (lim[n->inf] 1/n) = 0
|
| Which has two problems: first, you can't split up a limit
| like that, so the first step is already invalid. Second,
| even if it were valid, lim[n->inf] n = infinity, which is
| not a number, so you can't multiply with it, and the
| conclusion that the result is 0 is wrong. You might think
| `x x 0 = 0` for any x, but that's only true if x is
| actually a number; if x is not a number the answer is
| undefined.
|
| This is a similar kind of fallacy that underlies the
| proof that pi=4, here:
| http://www.kevinhouston.net/blog/2011/03/pi-is-4-video/,
| where the author (intentionally) confuses the perimeter
| of the limit (pi) with the limit of the perimeter (4).
| causi wrote:
| _If you divide a line into infinitely many segments, the
| length of those segments approaches 0_
|
| Hence the real world being quantized. You can't even
| hypothetically divide a string into infinite points
| because there _is_ a smallest distance, below which it
| really does round to zero, i.e., a singularity.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| You don't. Calculus gives exact measurements of the
| situation in terms of math. But math is fiction, one of
| many descriptions of reality that we have invented. Other
| descriptions, many of them non-scientific, work equally
| well.
|
| I just threw a rock at your head. It hit your head.
| Therefore, motion is possible without math.
| ArnoVW wrote:
| Appeal to the stone fallacy!
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Appeal to the stone may be the most effective refutation
| to "very smart" A+ students with B- intellects (a.k.a. my
| K-12 peers)
|
| Then again, I generally have a dim view of using
| deductive reasoning as the first method of thinking. Lots
| of petulant "my absurd conclusion is correct because you
| agreed to my premises and that my argument contained no
| obvious logical fallacies" in that camp.
| abirch wrote:
| I wouldn't say that math is fiction. I'd say that it's a
| tool that can be tested, but there isn't one tool that's
| correct. There can be many such as Euclidean vs Bolyai-
| Lobachevskian geometry. Both are non-fiction, one maybe
| more useful than the other.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| All the tools are fiction. They are creations of man. The
| rock doesnt care. Its existence is not altered one iota
| by the tools that man use to describe its motion. Things
| that have no impact outside the minds of men are fiction.
| glitcher wrote:
| If you are correct, then man must also be fiction.
|
| I keep using my consciousness to figure out if my
| consciousness is real, but I think it might be biased.
| disconcision wrote:
| well then 'fiction' is fiction so i guess everything is
| real
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _But math is fiction_ [...]
|
| Anyone interested in this can search for "Is math
| invented or discovered?".
| vkou wrote:
| > Irrational arguments can cut through solipsistic bullshit
| very fast and efficiently
|
| The problem with irrational arguments is that you can also
| cut your way straight into bullshit of any kind. And there's
| a lot more ways to be wrong than there are to be right.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| The problem with irrational arguments is that they're often
| a poor description of reality. And a poor description of
| reality can literally kill you and the people around you.
| (Covid denial, any number of addictions, climate
| catastrophe denial, and so on.)
| [deleted]
| xphx wrote:
| Unfortunately that is also the problem with rational
| arguments if they are deliberately or ignorantly
| reductive, i.e. without holistic perspective.
| zasdffaa wrote:
| You draw 2 points on the floor, mark them as A and B, then
| walk from A to B in front of him.
| wcrossbow wrote:
| Unfortunately, for certain people in certain situations
| even this won't do it.
| throw0101a wrote:
| "My fist is a point A and your face is at point B. If
| you're correct, my right hook will never connect with
| your nose. Would you like to empirically test your
| hypothesis?" :)
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| That was just an evil demon deceiving him with a false
| illusion of the real world. It didn't actually happen.
| atoav wrote:
| If we are talking about internet discussions we should not
| forget that the act of finding truth does not only concern the
| person you are discussing with, but the silent bystanders and
| those who stumble upon the scene way after.
|
| I cannot imagine many situations where shouting _ad hominem!_
| would give you better chances at convincing the audience you
| were right, than for example explaining why you think the other
| person is misrepresenting your argument unfairly. If you play
| this the right way you might be even able to get the person
| opposite towards some realization.
|
| Humour is a good way, but another good way is pretending not to
| know things, have them explain things to you -- all while
| naively asking the painful questions. This can be as simple as
| asking _Why?_ till they come to the point where they suddenly
| have to talk about the base of their believes:
| A: I hate foreigners B: Why? A: Because they are
| stealing our jobs! B: Why are they doing that? A:
| Because they cannot get jobs in their home country. B:
| Why do you think that is? A: I think $Nationality is just
| lazier than us.
|
| At this point you can go on, or you could ask why he is afraid
| of them stealing his job when they are lazy. But the point is:
| this provides more insight to the emotion based thinking of the
| other side than any discussion where you were going against the
| guy from the start could have done.
|
| Of course it is not _always_ the right move to start a
| discussion with someone just because they are saying something
| that is wrong. Just start a discussion if you are willing to
| follow through.
| gadders wrote:
| I think that is perhaps the weakest strawman I have ever
| seen.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| B: Why do you think that is?
| dasz wrote:
| Three paragraphs and you dismiss it with a sentence. Since
| you're criticising I think you could have done better.
|
| The asking questions approach is a great way to dig out the
| weeds especially when someone's thinking appears to be a
| mess. Especially if you think they are somehow malicious or
| have a less than positive intent.
| gadders wrote:
| I was referring to the seven lines of dialogue.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| This is Schrodinger's Immigrant[1], often spotted in the UK
| Murdoch papers, sometimes even in the same edition.
|
| [1] https://www.econlib.org/schrodingers-immigrant/
| gadders wrote:
| Yes, the lazy mid-wit dismissal used by the upper-middle
| classes, safe in the knowledge that they would never be
| replaced. Perhaps in 100,000 additional people a year,
| there could be groups that do either?
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| What if the person you are asking is an immigrant
| themselves? Would that answer make them reverse-
| Schrodinger's immigrant? Just trying to improve my Harry
| Potter game here...
| losvedir wrote:
| I'm more of an "open borders libertarian" so by all means
| let everyone come in, but this here is a silly argument. If
| an immigrant comes, they're either going to get a job, or
| not get a job. From the point of view of someone who's
| opposed to more immigration, neither outcome is good. I
| fail to see a contradiction.
| dasz wrote:
| Lazy yet stealing jobs. Yup that makes sense.
|
| The better argument is that the more immigration there is
| the more difficult it becomes to provide various social
| programs. Difficult doesn't imply impossible however. One
| countering argument is that the more people there are the
| more taxation there is to support social programs. The
| truth therefore is that immigration has both good and bad
| aspects so there's a balancing point: Fully open or fully
| closed borders are likely a bad idea in general.
|
| "Social programs" here being things like education and
| health. "Minor" things like that...
| bell-cot wrote:
| > Lazy yet stealing jobs. Yup that makes sense.
|
| There are _lots_ of people for whom logic, and logical
| consistency, are non-priorities. If they are anti-
| immigrant* and emotional, assume that they 're trying to
| articulate their emotions - not get an 'A' on their
| Public Policy 401 term paper, nor favorably impress
| people with quite different priorities and educational
| backgrounds from their own.
|
| *Of course, their anti-immigrant "beliefs" may learned
| from demagoguery they've been exposed to, which was a
| good-enough emotional match for their economic & social
| pain & insecurity.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > The better argument is that the more immigration there
| is the more difficult it becomes to provide various
| social programs
|
| The counter argument is that in an aging Country like
| mine, less immigration is killing social programs
| (caregivers are mostly immigrants here) and entire
| economic sectors (like catering and hospitality) because
| there aren't enough workers willing to do the job, but
| the trumpets both left and right shout that the other
| party is not doing enough to create new jobs and people
| lament that they can't find one.
|
| We can call it _the Schrodinger job_ that 's both nowhere
| to be found by employers and yet highly prized among the
| population.
|
| I believe Schrodinger would be very surprised to see that
| his experiment can be applied to social phenomenon and
| not only to quantum mechanics.
| gadders wrote:
| >> because there aren't enough workers willing to do the
| job
|
| because there aren't enough workers willing to do the job
| _at a price employers want to pay_
|
| Fixed it for you. There is never a labour shortage, only
| a shortage at a particular wage rate.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > because there aren't enough workers willing to do the
| job at a price employers want to pay
|
| > Fixed it for you
|
| I like people who assume without knowing like anybody
| else, but that's not the point.
|
| These are jobs that usually pay above average salaries,
| people simply don't want to work on the evening
| (restaurants serve dinners, you know...) or in the
| weekend (restaurants work the most when people do not
| work or are on holiday etc. etc.)
|
| So they both want the money _and_ the time.
|
| Long story short: they don't want to do the job, which is
| legit, but can't at the same time complain that there are
| no jobs IMO.
|
| > There is never a labour shortage, only a shortage at a
| particular wage rate
|
| There are limits though, over a certain threshold it
| becomes nonsensical, at some point it's better to kill
| the job sector entirely and call it a day.
|
| If a waiter wants the same salary of a CEO, probably
| she/he's shooting too high...
|
| Or they imagine that restaurants should be for
| billionaires only, that would shrink the number of
| available jobs to the bare minimum and skyrocket the
| skills needed to actually do the job.
|
| Schrodinger at work here too.
|
| p.s.: in my Country collective negotiation is the norm,
| one cannot easily pay radically different salaries for
| the same job. On the flip side once hired it's not as
| easy as in other Countries to be fired, it is actually
| pretty difficult to fire someone.
| gadders wrote:
| >> These are jobs that usually pay above average
| salaries, people simply don't want to work on the evening
| (restaurants serve dinners, you know...)
|
| People will do all sorts of unsavoury jobs if the pay is
| high enough. Plenty of people work night shifts in
| various jobs.
|
| >> There are limits though, over a certain threshold it
| becomes nonsensical, at some point it's better to kill
| the job sector entirely and call it a day.
|
| This we can agree on.
|
| ------ Update due to the posting too fast rules ----
|
| If I offered to pay you $10,000/night as a waiter in a
| restaurant, I guess you would take the job. I would.
|
| If I offered you $1/night, you probably wouldn't.
|
| Hopefully, somewhere between those two points is a number
| that will get people to work and be profitable for the
| restaurant owner. I'm not sure why people think supply
| and demand applies to other goods but not labour.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > People will do all sorts of unsavoury jobs if the pay
| is high enough. Plenty of people work night shifts in
| various jobs.
|
| One would think...
|
| Problem is that people that are willing to do that are
| not that many as you imagine.
|
| Maybe where you come from people would kill themselves
| for money, but not here.
|
| You know who would do almost anything to get a job and
| become better integrated with society while also feeling
| better about themselves?
|
| Immigrants.
|
| > If I offered to pay you $10,000/night as a waiter in a
| restaurant, I guess you would take the job. I would.
|
| Surprise, I would not.
|
| My best friends have restaurants and pubs, if I ever
| wanted to do that job I would already do that.
|
| But it's not my job, it's not what I am good at and if
| someone gave me $10,000 night to do that job I would feel
| like a fraud. Also I would imagine that if you pay me
| that much, one that is actually good at the job is being
| paid at least 2x that amount, because I really suck at
| that!
|
| People have consciences, believe it or not not everyone
| is a money-slut.
|
| I'm much better off doing my job, which is what I really
| like to do.
|
| But back on topic: if you offer a waiter 2,000 euros /
| month + tips (it's a very good salary in Italy) and they
| stop coming at work after a few days "because I wanted to
| go to the beach with my friends" there's something
| different going on, which is not "not enough money".
|
| Besides: there are many psychological studies that point
| out that people would accept lower salaries for more
| meaningful jobs or better work/life balance and that they
| work more willingly if it's a favor to someone (even if
| it's people they do not know) and/or for free than for a
| paid position, where they feel like they are only doing
| it for the money but don't really wanna do that. So they
| prefer to say no to the money and don't do the thing at
| all.
|
| Correlations have been found.
|
| For example, I would push someone on a wheelchair for
| free, but if they offered me money to do it, I would
| politely refuse with an excuse, because it's not
| something I wanna do for money (not that I do not like
| money in general, it's that I do not want to do it as a
| job, paying someone it's exactly that: hiring the person
| for the job)
| flerchin wrote:
| > Surprise, I would not.
|
| Yes, I find it surprising. Seems to not compute.
|
| >But back on topic: if you offer a waiter 2,000 euros /
| month + tips
|
| This is poverty wages. That waiter would never be able to
| afford a home and family of his own. The waiter would
| find time to go to the beach around his work schedule if
| he was properly compensated.
| worker_person wrote:
| Perhaps you could open a restaurant and pay people as
| much as they want to live a comfortable life. If you
| could do that and stay in business I would be most
| impressed.
| flerchin wrote:
| Won't be able to stay in business without workers. If
| workers cannot live comfortably on their wages, they'll
| choose another job that provides those wages.
| worker_person wrote:
| Funny. That's not how life works for most people.
|
| Most people earn what they can, and live off it as best
| they can. If that means single bedroom apartment with 10
| family members eating beans and rice, then that is what
| it is.
|
| People on HN tend to be out of touch with how lower
| income people actually live.
| flerchin wrote:
| In my own life over the course of twenty years I went
| from: living in a tent with 3 others for a year, to a one
| bedroom apartment with a roommate in the living room, to
| an apartment with just my wife, to buying a house and
| starting a family, to then buying a house with a pool and
| sending my kids to decent schools.
|
| The point is that rice and beans is temporary. As a
| worker, I continued to work towards better employment
| that provided the life I required. The vast majority of
| folks I knew along the way did the same. All 4 of the
| folks in that original tent with me are comfortably
| middle class nowadays.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > Yes, I find it surprising. Seems to not compute.
|
| _"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,
| than are dreamt of in your philosophy."_
|
| I have to guess that you're slave to the money, I'm not.
|
| I really don't care about them , as long my life is not
| in danger.
|
| > This is poverty wages
|
| LOL
|
| American, right?
|
| Average salaries in Europe are not much higher than that
|
| Italy: EUR1.740
|
| Spain: EUR1.800
|
| Portugal: EUR1.1160
|
| UK: EUR2.200
|
| And these numbers are after taxes (which are quite high
| for US standards here, but also they really are not if
| you wanna define yourself a decent developed Country). So
| the employer is spending almost 2x, which is not bad per
| se if you ask me, but that's still something to consider.
|
| > . The waiter would find time to go to the beach around
| his work schedule if he was properly compensated.
|
| Restaurants are closed usually at least one day/week and
| 2-3 weeks off-season (it depends on the geography for
| some it's August for others it's fall/winter).
|
| It's just that most of them close during the week and
| people want to go to the beach with friends and/or family
| on weekends.
|
| But then again, you don't complain that there is no job
| if you don't want to do _any_ job you 're cut for and are
| not qualified for _well paid, highly skilled_ jobs.
|
| Please, if you wanna discuss things, can you at least
| learn the bare minimum to actually have a conversation
| that is not entirely based on your prejudices and
| stereotypes?
| flerchin wrote:
| And EUR1.740 is enough to afford an average home in
| Italy? Raise a family? Seems not enough to me.
| worker_person wrote:
| Upper Limit. Hiring you at $3,000 a month will increase
| my income by $3,000.
|
| No reason to hire you. Below $3,000 and I can make money.
|
| But ~1/3 employees are lazy and I can't fire them. So I
| have build in some safety margin for the bad employee's.
|
| So I can pay you $2,000 a month and on average I'll break
| even. No thanks.
|
| So I can pay you $1,500 a month, I'll make $500.
| simonh wrote:
| If there are more job openings than there are workers to
| fill them, then it doesn't matter what wages anyone is
| willing to pay, surely some of those jobs are going to go
| un-filled?
| naasking wrote:
| > This can be as simple as asking Why? till they come to the
| point where they suddenly have to talk about the base of
| their believes:
|
| While I generally support this type of argument, it's not
| necessarily helpful. Someone can observe something real but
| misattribute the cause, and you can end up dismissing their
| observation because their explanation of it doesn't make
| sense.
|
| For your example, just because immigrants aren't lazy doesn't
| mean they aren't "stealing jobs".
| mynameishere wrote:
| B: Because of Economics 101. Look it up sometime before
| talking rot.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| At the moment where instead of "Because they cannot get jobs
| in their home country." the counterpart says "Because they
| are willing to work for very low pay for which locals would
| be unable to make ends meet." you have some thinking to do,
| not him.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| The people who don't care about the truth and the people who
| will point out fallacies all day are the same people. Shouting
| "Ad hominem!" and pointing your wand at the opponent is just
| another way to "own people with facts and logic" (read:
| counterfeit the form of a winning argument without the
| substance of it). That's why pointing out fallacies to win an
| argument is called the fallacy fallacy.
| plainnoodles wrote:
| I'll throw out another "class" of person - someone who believes
| something, and at least grasps the concept of philosophical
| reasoning enough that they'll attempt to build one of the basic
| forms of argument - usually an argument by analogy - and having
| done so, they'll trumpet their conclusion. Then, commenters
| will pile in, either being part of the class of people you
| mention (who will skip reading the argument and just check to
| make sure the conclusion is what they want) or being part of
| the same class who will review the argument, stamp a "lgtm!" on
| it, and upvote/concur. We're right! And look, it's got proof
| attached, too!
|
| But then even the most amateur student of philosophy, perhaps
| about 60% of the way through their freshman (mandatory)
| Philosophy 101 course, would be able to examine the argument
| and identify mistakes so appallingly obvious that they might be
| provided as practice problems in their homework. The analogy
| isn't appropriate; or it begs the question; or it assumes some
| predicate where their proof may hold if the predicate is true,
| but the predicate itself must be proven for the conclusion to
| be substantive.
|
| I see this a lot on reddit. Especially recently due to the
| abortion debates re-heating. Arguers - regardless of side - are
| so poorly equipped by our education system, and so poorly
| incentivized by the highly polarized/tribalistic nature of
| modern political discourse, that even when people try they're
| still not making any progress in reasoning about their
| positions.
| plainnoodles wrote:
| Adding on: and sometimes, even when they manage to make an
| interesting point, they've gotten so lost in their appraisal
| of their argument that the philosophical question ends up not
| even being the one they actually care about.
|
| To that last point, I've lately seen a lot of arguments for
| abortion being ethical/unethical that end up just being
| modified Trolley problems. One I saw that stuck with me was:
| "Suppose there is a fire in a building. You have a test tube
| of 1000 human embryos in one hand, and a 4 year old girl in
| the other. The only possible outcomes are you saving the vial
| or the girl, or neither. Which do you choose?"
|
| I thought this was an interesting take, since it reads as a
| very different situation depending on your view of the
| embryos!
|
| A "pro-life" person would clearly interpret this as a
| modified trolley problem. You have 1000 embryos who could
| become people but cannot feel pain or terror or [etc] right
| now (or at least not in the same way as the 4-year-old). Or
| you have a 4-year-old who can, and will suffer greatly. This
| is quite trolley-esque and while this one seems to have
| somewhat of a likely-correct answer, it's certainly not
| without some complication.
|
| Someone who thinks the embryos aren't yet people or persons
| will see this as a much less interesting thought exercise -
| of course you save the 4-year-old, the vial is just some
| cells that clearly don't even have consciousness yet.
|
| And there's even a whole swathe of positions in between who
| will assign some amount of humanity to the embryos and
| attempt to resolve the quandary between the embryos vs the
| 4-year-old.
|
| But, as interesting as this is, it completely misses the
| point of the original question-poser. Regardless of which
| option you pick as correct, it doesn't really inform us much
| as to whether abortion is ethical. Going back to my main
| point of bemoaning the dreadful state of the average internet
| argument.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Politics on reddit? Isn't that shills arguing with shills
| moderated by shills ranked by a biased algorithm that other
| shills try to game with vote bots.
| amelius wrote:
| Isn't it possible to get these people to come to their senses
| by showing them historical failures of people in a similar
| situation?
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| > The difficulty is that there is an entire class of people who
| don't even care about being logically correct
|
| I don't think this is the right perspective. Being logically
| correct doesn't exist, the best you can do is be logically
| consistent with your chosen axioms. I would suggest the deeper
| problem is that people tend to not think too much about the
| foundational axioms of their world view, and think you can
| simply debate a topic with somebody who has a world view
| founded on a completely different set of axioms.
|
| No productive debate can take place in that context, because
| the controversy stems from the merit of your axioms, not how
| they apply to a given situation.
| tpoacher wrote:
| I would argue it's less about "a class of people", and more
| about "the context/aim of the conversation".
|
| If it's a "discussion", i.e. a conversation with the aim of
| improving the understanding of all parties involved, "winning"
| is the worst outcome, and fallacious arguments are likely to be
| done by accident and gladly corrected.
|
| If it's a debate, then by definition you're trying to win, and
| all bets are off.
|
| PS. It may be true however that a particular "class of people"
| enjoys plugging themselves in one type of conversation more
| than the other.
| MrPatan wrote:
| It may be hard to figure out if somebody is nitpicking on
| irrelevant stuff as "pointing out fallacies" because they are
| sure about their conclusion and just want to barge their way
| through to it.
|
| When you're dealing with someone like that, there's very little
| incentive to continue arguing, they will latch onto whatever it
| is that makes them feel they were right without actually
| consider the issue at hand.
|
| It may actually be used as a test of their desire to engage
| with the problem. Throw them an irrelevant thing they can be
| right about (maybe even a typo or wrong grammar), and see the
| actual issue fade away from their mind.
| kragen wrote:
| There are cases where it's rational to reject logic entirely,
| for example, when you lack the necessary background knowledge
| in a field to apply it reliably. Classical logic fails very
| badly when one of its premises fails to be completely true, as
| numerous famous paradoxes illustrate, and we all know some
| people who have been convinced of false things through logical
| argument.
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/03/repost-epistemic-learn...
|
| And, although Bayesian reasoning can deal with degrees of
| uncertainty other than "impossible" and "beyond the shadow of a
| doubt", it can still collapse under an onslaught of evidence
| chosen to favor one position:
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and-chin...
|
| But the problem with taking the debate out of the logical realm
| and into the emotional realm is that, while you may win the
| debate, you will only win it if you are better at emotional
| manipulation than the other side is. In particular you will
| always lose if the other side is, for example, a Hollywood
| studio. And this is true whether you are right or wrong.
|
| Gandhi's greatest claimed advantage for satyagraha over
| coercion by armed struggle was not that it was more likely to
| win; it was that it was incapable of effectively promoting evil
| goals.
|
| Predictably, there's a Slate Star Codex post ascribing the same
| virtue to rational argument:
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-c...
| jfoutz wrote:
| Hey Sophistry! There's a big difference between convincing
| the person you're arguing with and convincing an audience. I
| may persuade you, or you may persuade me and I think in that
| situation we both get closer to the truth. But if we have an
| audience, our arguments are restricted to what might convince
| each other AND what might convince the audience.
|
| If the audience is the real decider, I can't really know how
| logical the audience is, so I'm going to play every dirty
| trick I can to win.
|
| it's subtle, and textured. If I gotta convince you - say for
| funding, I've got a broader array of arguments to use. if
| I've gotta convince you and the audience, I've got a fairly
| narrow range of options. If I gotta convince the audience,
| well, that's all analogies about how my dog died and it
| sucked, so if we'd done this my dog would still be around and
| it's better for everybody.
|
| historically you'd have to worry about the audience of 20 or
| so people that cared. and we'd probably both know them and
| how to sway their opinions. Kennedy Nixon is held up as a big
| example of persuading millions. You gotta scope in two
| dimensions. Your interlocutor and the audience. They have
| different weights. It's hard. Our ancestral heritage doesn't
| really give us much support for persuading a bazillion
| people. But that's sort of the table stakes today. Maybe not
| persuaded, but the audience must remain indifferent.
| afarrell wrote:
| > the name of the game is to get the emotions on your side.
|
| In order to do this, you need to recognize your own emotional
| needs. You might say something like: "to move forward here, I
| need to trust that we are both willing to see reality clearly
| and use solid reasoning to make wise decisions even if those
| decisions are uncomfortable to think about. When I hear you say
| X, that I notice that it risks {name of fallacy} and I would
| not feel responsible unless I help us avoid stumbling into
| that. Could you please help me by clarifying what you mean
| here?"
|
| This imposes some discomfort on you by clearly revealing needs
| for responsibility and trustworthiness... but it also gives the
| other person a clear choice:
|
| A. Re-think what they've said and either follow your lead in
| avoiding the fallacy or asking you for help understanding.
|
| B. Explicitly deny your need to use logic to make responsible
| choices.
|
| And you can decide how much to trust the other person when the
| responsibility they have for making that choice wisely is made
| clear to them.
| Bancakes wrote:
| Or you could mind your own life and not gaslight people from
| your patronizing point of view?
| [deleted]
| winReInstall wrote:
| Wow, its like watching somebody getting born.
|
| Now if we accept, that such variety of "castes" of unreasonable
| people exists and they do not want to "grow up", then society
| has to be adjusted for that, i guess. Making capability groups
| of neuro diverse people.
|
| Such persons would need a representative politically, to speak
| in there interests. Such a person would need limitations, to
| limit the damage they could cause.
|
| Reasonable people would have to be protected from this non-
| blue-blood class, to keep them productive and isolated. Systems
| need to created, to rile and cool the emotions of the non-
| logicals to make them steerable.
|
| There should be a science to differentiate the various types of
| illogical people, based upon the data collected by the big
| four. And steering unreasonable people should be a science too.
|
| We should call it something cool. Something witty.
| Leviathancybernetics. Get it. Hobbes, the leviathan, and the
| art to surgically implant synthetic structures and to turn
| society into a prothesis god.
|
| Now, lets talk about the negative side effects of knowing so
| much about society and humans. It turns you into a grandfather
| clock. All you hear is gears and mechanics, grinding your
| teeth, while all you observe your own instincts firing from the
| sub concious.
| winReInstall wrote:
| Lets see how long we can keep this going, before the NDA gods
| hammer down.
|
| Life longs for the exponential. Intelligent life defeats the
| predation of life by other life (bacteria, virals, predators,
| etc.) and allows for a exponential curve bumping into the
| resource ceiling , the line that is the environment. Again
| and again. Starts the moment you become apex predator
| actually.
|
| Now darwinian evolution is blind, it just sees the merry go
| round spiral and adapts sub-groups of the population to it.
| Stable -> Exceeding Env Limitations -> Unstable -> Society
| Reassembling. Each of the four groups should in a cycling
| society be around 25 %. Each yearns for its natural
| situational habbitat and tries to push towards were it has
| advantages. Each has deep instincts, to not "waste" resources
| and step outside the god whorshipped which is a bloody wheel
| of butchering.
|
| A stable society is basically only possible for brief amounts
| of time, where the wheel is propped up and technology used to
| harness a surplus to keep the cyclic society from returning
| to the "default" of old.
|
| The amount of resources to do this, is enormous and some of
| the groups involved see this only as a "prolonged" recovery
| phase pre next conflict/collapse. Handing them the technology
| necessary to keep the peace, equals handing them apocalyptic
| weapons for conflict, should the peace break.
|
| So its a trap, unless one learns to implement societal self-
| control, one will forever hand more dangerous toys to us
| loop-deformed creatures. Which would make a great explenation
| for a universal filter, if there ever was one.
| tpoacher wrote:
| Since people are sharing frustrations around the topic of
| fallacies, _my_ biggest beef with fallacies is that around every
| month or so someone comes up with an entirely new name for an
| already existing fallacy, which then trends on twitter and you
| now have to add to your list of synonyms.
|
| E.g. I'd never heard of the term "Hollow man fallacy" to describe
| Bulverism before, but I'm like 90% sure it's already the more
| popular term now.
| samizdis wrote:
| I'd not heard of the term Bulverism, so thank you. Nice account
| of its being coined, by C.S. Lewis, too, for anyone else
| unfamiiar with the term:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism
| renewiltord wrote:
| I think I'm quite forgiving of those. I think a lot of more
| modern named fallacies are easily reachable by a teenager who
| happens to have read epistemology. i.e. someone who has been
| informed of the "straw man" could reasonably "worsen" the
| fallacy. They might then name it an "invisible man" or a
| "hollow man" or whatever simply so that their peer group can
| discuss the term.
| paganel wrote:
| At first I thought this was an article about the fallacy of
| associating many things one (mainly politically) doesn't like to
| pop-culture characters/franchises, like Harry Potter or Star Wars
| (maybe the article also mention that at some point, I wouldn't
| know because it's partly behind a paywall).
|
| That Harry Potter/Star Wars fallacy was (and still is, even
| though it has partially subsided) especially prevalent when
| discussing the current war in Ukraine.
| Varqu wrote:
| To the HN mods: Shouldn't there be a policy that articles
| behind Paywalls are automatically removed from the main page?
| joecool1029 wrote:
| I hit the partial paywall too, it seems like it kicks in at
| random. Here's full article if anyone else hits it:
| https://archive.ph/6aOXf
| shantnutiwari wrote:
| The book looks good, but they are charging $82.80 for the
| ebook(on Amazon[0] and on publisher Bloomsbury)-- I have to ask,
| are they serious? Is the book really worth that much? Most non-
| fiction books sell around 15-20$ (or cheaper), why the high
| price?
|
| Either the publisher wants to gouge students who will be forced
| to buy it, or they want to force the book to flop by artificially
| setting a very high price
|
| 0. https://www.amazon.com/Straw-Man-Arguments-Fallacy-Theory-
| eb...
| wrp wrote:
| For many years, academic publishers have followed the model of
| high prices and small print runs. I think they just assume that
| only university libraries will actually buy a copy.
| jkingsbery wrote:
| Whether or not individuals are excessive, I'd rather live in a
| world in which people are more aware of when they've made a
| logical fallacy and work to argue for their point better, rather
| than the situation now in which people who are basically paid to
| think and write for a living routinely make rhetorical and
| logical errors in their reasoning.
| [deleted]
| eikenberry wrote:
| > The idea behind the so-called Socratic method is that by
| offering arguments and counter-arguments, we can collectively
| converge on something like the truth.
|
| That is not what the Socratic method is... it is a teaching
| method. One person teaching another through leading answers to
| encourage their asking more questions that will teach them
| something though it will feel to the person like they arrived at
| the solution themselves (which they did, with help).
| brigandish wrote:
| > through leading answers to encourage their asking more
| questions
|
| The answerer is the one usually presumed to have a flaw in
| their argument, hence them being asked questions that slowly
| illuminate all their reasoning until it is either shown to be
| sound, or more likely, a flaw to emerge quite obviously.
|
| It appears you're saying it's the other way round.
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| Indeed, that is not the Socratic Method. Even though it's just
| an introductory aside, seeing such an inaccuracy straight in
| the second sentence about something which (I thought) is common
| knowledge put me off from reading the rest of the article.
| rendall wrote:
| It's a more accurate description of the Socratic Method than
| is asking leading questions until the student comes to the
| correct conclusion.
|
| In the Socratic Dialogues, Socrates repeats constantly that
| he does not know the answer, but that he and his interlocutor
| are together discovering the truth. That isn't trickery nor
| _sophistry_ , so to speak. It's really the approach.
| mypastself wrote:
| Agreed, but now I'm wondering what exactly the author had in
| mind instead. Dialectic?
| braingenious wrote:
| "The Harry Potter Fallacy " could also be a descriptor meaning
| "People will remember or care about your idea if you invoke this
| particular piece of old pop culture."
|
| I hope they learn about the "I Beg You To Please Read Another
| Book Corrollary"
| corobo wrote:
| "Please read another book" is more overused than Harry Potter
| references these days. Super popular media is referenced
| _because people will probably get the reference_.
|
| If I start busting out War and Peace plot points I'm going to
| look like an uppity dickhead and nobody will get what I'm on
| about.
|
| "Read another book" is just another way to shut down a
| conversation, usually when someone's ran out of real arguments
| but still wants to feel superior. You either get the reference
| and we're good to continue talking or you don't, you tell me,
| I'll state it in a different way.
|
| I read 2-6 books a month, I'd reference some of them but the
| people following the thread probably have not read the book and
| then how do I get upvotes out of that?
| braingenious wrote:
| There are more books than the HP series and War and Peace. I
| do not have advice about how to optimize your reading for
| upvotes on HN though aside from maybe books about topics that
| are regularly discussed here?
| corobo wrote:
| Just an example, I think I'd have reached the character
| limit if I listed every book in existence
|
| Upvotes was a bit of a joke. It didn't land well, it is
| what it is. I was being too silly.
| dmix wrote:
| No one is saying we should instead all be walking around
| referencing literary texts in every day conversations
| (speaking of straw mans, trying to use an extreme
| counterexample to dismiss criticism...). It's possible to
| communicate without relating everything back to pop culture.
| corobo wrote:
| > It's possible to communicate without relating everything
| back to pop culture.
|
| That's a fair point
| california2077 wrote:
| _> If one's aim is not so much discovering the truth as winning
| an argument at all costs, fallacy theory can provide a training
| in the dark arts of closing down a discussion prematurely,
| leaving the impression that it has been won._
|
| If you aim is to discover "the truth", maybe you shoud stay out
| of debates altogether and not lecture others on what to say. If
| you train a bunch of kids to go into brain shutdown mode when
| they hear some latin keywords, why exactly shouldn't I exploit
| that? I will exploit that, because others will exploit it for
| sure. You can whine about it all you want, but if my strategy
| works I will win the debates and contol opinions, while you will
| fuss over correcness in complete irrelevance.
| test1235 wrote:
| https://archive.ph/6aOXf
| vgel wrote:
| > In Straw Man Arguments Aikin and Casey introduce a wealth of
| concepts for getting to grips with the dark art of the straw man.
| Indeed, they propose a further notion: a fascinating inversion
| called the "iron man", where one responds to a maximally
| strengthened form of one's opponent's argument and explains how
| even this move - which is sometimes seen as dialectical best
| practice - can sometimes be fallacious.
|
| I wish they expanded on why the "iron man" (which I usually see
| called the steelman) can be fallacious. The only thing I can
| imagine is an "armored strawman" where you _claim_ you 're
| steelmanning but your changes to the argument actually make it
| weaker? Guess I'll have to buy the book...
| dataduck wrote:
| The most common form I've seen is often not malicious: " _thing
| you actually said_ is a weak form of this argument, the
| strongest form is in fact _mostly agreeing with me_ "
| amalcon wrote:
| The problem is that the strength or weakness of an argument is
| not objective. Usually steelmanning is fallacious when you
| don't first seek agreement with the counterparty that the new
| version of the argument is stronger. This comes up a lot when
| your counterparty is operating from different premises than you
| are.
|
| E.g. attacking a utilitarian version of your conterparty's
| argument when the counterparty is not a utilitarian is
| fallacious, even if the utilitarian version of the argument
| seems stronger to you. They will see the argument as obviously
| flawed from the start, because they do not believe the
| utilitarian premise.
| PotatoPancakes wrote:
| > The "discursive hygiene" picture of fallacy theory sees
| fallacies as mistakes that a good arguer will avoid. Indeed,
| armed with a new toolbox of Latin names for fallacies, eager
| students all too often delight in spotting fallacies in the wild,
| shouting out their Latin names ( _ad hominem!_ ; _secundum quid!_
| ) as if they were magic spells. This is what Scott Aikin and John
| Casey, in their delightful book Straw Man Arguments, call the
| Harry Potter fallacy: the "troublesome practice of invoking
| fallacy names in place of substantive discussion". However, they
| note another, less wholesome reason why some may be interested in
| fallacy theory. If one's aim is not so much discovering the truth
| as winning an argument at all costs, fallacy theory can provide a
| training in the dark arts of closing down a discussion
| prematurely, leaving the impression that it has been won.
|
| _TL;DR:_ the Harry Potter fallacy is thinking that shouting out
| a named fallacy (e.g. "That's an ad hominem!") makes you
| instantly win a debate, as though you were casting a magic spell.
| havan_agrawal wrote:
| > armed with a new toolbox of Latin names for fallacies, eager
| students all too often delight in spotting fallacies in the wild,
| shouting out their Latin names (ad hominem!; secundum quid!) as
| if they were magic spells. This is what Scott Aikin and John
| Casey, in their delightful book Straw Man Arguments, call the
| Harry Potter fallacy: the "troublesome practice of invoking
| fallacy names in place of substantive discussion".
| 867-5309 wrote:
| indeed the reference is weak
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| Yeah it's much better to call this the "fallacy fallacy"
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I've long wondered about doing online debates (which usually
| end up in shit throwing) where an independent moderator or bot
| detects and mentions fallacies.
|
| But I think in practice it would mean no arguments would hold
| weight anymore.
|
| Anyway, the main problem I think is not logical fallacies, but
| people not debating in good faith, and / or having a fixed
| opinion already. I did read about a trick, starting a debate by
| asking "What will it take to convince you?"; depending on the
| answer, you won't even have to bother.
|
| I mean there's no debating with the anti-science movement(s)
| because they put facts into question, for example. I mean being
| skeptic is not a bad thing, but what will it take to get past
| the skepticism?
|
| Or to put yourself in their shoes, what will it take to
| convince you that, for example, the earth is flat? (I mean it's
| OBVIOUSLY more like a dinosaur, but let's not go into that).
| renewiltord wrote:
| There are a few classics of middle-brow discourse:
|
| - Fallacy Name Summoning: described in article
|
| - Edge-Case Generalization: "Humans have two legs". "You haven't
| accounted for this man born with one leg".
|
| - Single Paper Refutations: Search Google Scholar to find a
| single paper that does X. Means nothing. Lots of research is non-
| repeatable. Lots of it is faked.
|
| - Single Paper Confirmations: The same as above but weasel-worded
| into "there is some evidence that" with rest of discussion
| operating under the frame of last-paper-submitted wins.
|
| - Gish Gallops of the former: Single Paper Xs, n times. If you
| scan the space of papers with appropriate keywords, effectively
| sampling only the ones that will power your argument
|
| Overall, each of these are mostly performed by (mu-eps, mu+sigma)
| people. You need some intelligence to get here. But it's really
| tiresome reasoning. For my part, I try to engage at best
| capacity, but sometimes I get really frustrated. It's a variant
| of the Blub Paradox. All the people below me on the Epistemology
| ladder are morons incapable of understanding things. All the
| people above me have failed to account for some nuance.
|
| In any case, I now have certain heuristics. To be honest, it's
| quite nice to have these because, while these mid-brow
| participants are frustrating, they also lead to me taking a break
| from this website.
| eveningsteps wrote:
| Also known as a fallacy fallacy. Related:
| https://existentialcomics.com/comic/9
| throwaway892238 wrote:
| If a fallacy is wrong, wouldn't a fallacy fallacy be right
| lovemenot wrote:
| Not at all. You are commiting the fallacy fallacy fallacy:
| incorrect reasoning about fallacies above first order.
| [deleted]
| thfuran wrote:
| If a blind person told you that they believed that the sky is
| blue because someone told them it is, would you respond that
| that's argumentum ad verecundiam and therefore the sky is not
| blue?
| blowski wrote:
| Something is probably whooshing over my head here.
|
| The fallacy fallacy is when you argue a conclusion must be
| false because of a fallacy in how it was reached.
| __s wrote:
| Or, to be ironic with this post's name, argumentum ad logicam
|
| Or, as most people would understand it, that you can be right
| for the wrong reasons
| wrp wrote:
| No. They distinguish the _Harry Potter fallacy_ from the
| _fallacy fallacy_.
|
| _Students, once they learn the fallacies, just love to spot
| them and charge others with committing them, and so expect that
| dropping some Latin name for an opponent's argumentative move
| will be a kind of magic that fixes the critical discussion
| (often in their favor). Call it the Harry Potter problem,
| thinking that learning a little Latin phrase will paralyze an
| opponent with its expression. So entirely new kinds of wild and
| woolly behavior are encouraged with this vocabulary. Without
| fallacy theory teaching the fallacies, there would be no burden
| of specious allegations of fallacy. Further, new fallacies are
| made possible--take for example, the fallacy fallacy, inferring
| that an opponent's position is false because it is supported by
| fallacious arguments._
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| There is already a name for that, it's called fallacy fallacy.
| Calling it "the harry potter fallacy" is unnecessary and click
| baity.
| wrp wrote:
| In the text, they distinguish the _Harry Potter fallacy_ from
| the _fallacy fallacy_ and a few others.
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