Re:Developers join call for GitHub to cancel its ICE contract
by SkyBelow on Wednesday December 04, 2019 @04:43PM
(#21707442)
>It's rhetorical tactic, not an argument.
It can be both, and it is hard to determine what the intent is. Was it a propaganda tactic to link two unrelated groups for political goals or was it an extreme counter example?
>In this case, the extreme example was in support of the proposition.
Could you go into this further? As far as I can tell, the original idea was that it was okay to do business since it is just business, and the argument ad absurdum was to bring up Nazis.
It is not argument ad absurdum. It's true that sometimes, it helps to use an exaggerated example to illustrate a nuanced point. But in this case it isn't that people don't understand there are lines. The point is superfluous, and you get to bring up Nazis yet again in comparison to border control. It's rhetorical tactic, not an argument.
For reference, argument ad absurdum is actually the opposite. That's when you take a logical premise to its extreme to show how it's a foolish proposition. In this case, the extreme example was in support of the proposition.