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A comment on How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change. Parent comment

Re:How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change by lliamander on Monday June 01, 2020 @02:28PM (#23381937)
Calling someone names is not an ad-hominem. Making accusations about a person's character can be a valid inference based on their behavior. What makes an ad-hominem is thinking that a person's character (or other attributes) has any bearing on the correctness of their argument.

For example:

"X is a bad person, therefore their argument is invalid" is an ad-hominem. Bad people can still make valid arguments.

"X's argument is both invalid and in bad faith, therefore they are a bad person" is a logical inference.

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Re:How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change by vkou on Monday June 01, 2020 @06:07PM (#23384550)
> Calling someone names is not an ad-hominem

It's not, but it also has no place on HN.

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Re:How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change by afiori on Monday June 01, 2020 @08:10PM (#23385650)
The insult was not directed at the commenter, rather to a group of people that popularized the quote.

It is the difference between "If you believe X then your school must have had brain-dead teachers" and "If you believe X you are brain-dead"

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