Some time ago, I wrote a piece called "How to argue LIKE STALIN - and why you shouldn't". It was a comment on the tendency, which is very widespread online, to judge an argument not by its merits, but by the motive of the arguer. And since it's hard to...
First post here, and I'm disagreeing with something in the main sequences. Hubris acknowledged, here's what I've been thinking about. It comes from the post "Are your enemies innately evil?": > On September 11th, 2001, nineteen Muslim males hijacked four jet airliners in a deliberately suicidal effort to hurt the...
Hi everyone.
I've already posted a couple of pieces - probably should have visited this page first, especially before posting my last piece. Well, such is life.
I headed over to LessWrong because I was/am a bit burned out by the high-octane conversations that go on online. I've disagreed with some things I've read here, but never wanted to beat my head - or someone else's - against a wall. So, I'm here to learn. I like the sequences have picked up some good points already - especially about replacing the symbol with the substance.
Question - what's the ettiquette about linking stuff from one's own blog? I'm not trying to do self-promotion here, but there's one or two ideas I've developed elsewhere & would find it useful to refer to them.
I was wondering why it got downvoted so much. Did you mean the post over at my blog, or this post here? I'm really not sure what's so inflammatory about this post - I was just trying to explain an idea.
Yes, as a matter of fact. He often travelled in Kurdistan, had Kurdish "comrades" as he called them, and championed Jalal Talabani.
I should have made it clear - when I was referring to the articles on the Hitch, they were usually from respectable news organizations such as The Guardian or Salon - and so on.
In case it wasn't clear (reviewing the article) I was quoting Conservapedia as an example of this kind of bad arguing, bad reasoning.
Could be two different uses of the word rationality. There are certainly those who call themselves "reality based" or whatever and therefore assume that everything they assert is rational and scientific. But if you invest yourself in "doing rationality" rather than "being rational" you might do better.
Could you expand on that? I'm not sure I follow...
Some time ago, I wrote a piece called "How to argue LIKE STALIN - and why you shouldn't". It was a comment on the tendency, which is very widespread online, to judge an argument not by its merits, but by the motive of the arguer. And since it's hard to determine someone else's motive (especially on the internet), this decays into working out what the worst possible motive could be, assigning it to your opponent, and then writing him off as a whole.
Via Cracked, here's an example of such arguing from Conservapedia:
... (read 919 more words →)"A liberal is someone who rejects logical and biblical standards, often for self-centered reasons. There are no coherent liberal
Thanks - you're quite right. That is the study I was thinking of, and 79% is still horrifyingly high - sorry for getting that wrong, and thanks for the correction!
Just to take your last point, my response is that this is both a strawman and an argument from intimidation. Take this:
"you make the claim Hitler's sole motivation was killing Jews"
Did I? Where? I said that Hitler's motivation was his fanatical racism and that the desire to murder the Jews was a large part of that - was, in fact, an inextricable part of that. His racism wasn't the result of the war, it was the cause of the war. As you admit towards the end.
"You know what would be even more effective for pursuing an overriding terminal goal of killing Jews and nothing else?... (read more)
You don't... but others do. Dinesh D'Souza has written a book detailing the "root causes" argument, but with a twist - the quotations and other evidence he amasses are from a socially conservative perspective. That is, he makes exactly the same, fully backed up "root causes" argument, but differs on the root causes in question.
Again, I am trying to make the point that what you find obvious isn't at all what others find obvious. People change radically across time and space.
First post here, and I'm disagreeing with something in the main sequences. Hubris acknowledged, here's what I've been thinking about. It comes from the post "Are your enemies innately evil?":
... (read 1290 more words →)On September 11th, 2001, nineteen Muslim males hijacked four jet airliners in a deliberately suicidal effort to hurt the United States of America. Now why do you suppose they might have done that? Because they saw the USA as a beacon of freedom to the world, but were born with a mutant disposition that made them hate freedom?
Realistically, most people don't construct their life stories with themselves as the villains. Everyone is the hero of their own story. The Enemy's story, as seen by
Thanks, that is good advice. Honestly hadn't thought of that - oh well. Errare humanum est and all that...