Person 1 asserts proposition X.
Person 2 argues against a superficially similar proposition Y, falsely, as if an argument against Y were an argument against X.
This reasoning is a fallacy of relevance: it fails to address the proposition in question by misrepresenting the opposing position.
Additionally, Ad hominem (Latin for 'to the person'), short for argumentum ad hominem, refers to several types of arguments, some but not all of which are fallacious. Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.
I will note you replied to a comment accusing the whistleblower of being trans. That comment (that you replied to) was, of course, ad hominem.
For the comment in question, person 1 is the zestyping or the whistleblower, depending. Person 2 is you. Your proposition Y (flagged and hidden now) is not invalid, exactly, but "explaining" it to you is pointless given it is a fallacy diverging from the relevance of the content.
The proposition X, which is, in part, "These qualities are what really set this apart from other criticism of social media, and both are incredibly important and healthy in a world where Facebook and Twitter have normalized the opposite."
Your proposition Y, is an attack on the whistleblower and her credibility, not the the content of her own propositions, which may be viewed here:
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2021/10/protecting%20kids%20...
No mention of "banning" "hate speech" at all. Just a plea for someone to do something to remove the blocks in place by way of Facebook (as a corporation) needing to continue making profit, perhaps at the expense of collective sanity, by not addressing the dissonance their platform creates in the population.
If you had addressed those claims by her in your comment, you would avoid making strawman arguments.
In closing, I get that you and others are frustrated that certain types of posted content are targeted for removal. However, that in and of itself does not mean meaningful and opposed discourse can't occur or that anyone has a "right" to post wherever they like, saying whatever they want. It is that it (your comments) may not occur without significant work involved that we all care about. Cheap and easy discourse isn't good for anyone, harms society, and will continue to be exploited until we come up with a technical solution to solve it.
In the meantime, explanations and education are in order. Thanks for the question! Hope this helps without too much blame.
P.S. Entirely speculative at this point, but I suspect if we built an inverted index of a fallacious argument, we'd find the weights/distances between words significantly divergent from the original proposition.
She proposes a ministry for regulating tech which means there will be a permanent line between Washington and large social media companies. This is a horrible approach by any objective meassure and it would obviously also institutionalize Facebook (see "An array of possible next steps"[1]). This indicate that I am right this is not an attempt at weakening Facebook and social media in general, but an attempt to commandeer its power to censor.
Since she is proposing a political body with the power to censor all social media, why is evidence of her political motivations and potential political connections to the whistleblowing a strawman?
> In closing, I get that you and others are frustrated that certain types of posted content are targeted for removal. However, that in and of itself does not mean meaningful and opposed discourse can't occur or that anyone has a "right" to post wherever they like, saying whatever they want.
New discoveries are in the margins, and is indistinguishable from nonsense. A lack of certainty and a certain amount of curiosity is needed to go through the process of distinguishing the two, which is why tyrannical regimes do not innovate well.
Why are you so certain that you are right and is capable of knowing when dissenters are wrong? Whom do you think is capable of distinguish truth from falsity in the margins, and censor with absolute power without falling for the temptation to misuse it?
> It is that it (your comments) may not occur without significant work involved that we all care about. Cheap and easy discourse isn't good for anyone, harms society, and will continue to be exploited until we come up with a technical solution to solve it.
This accusation of dissenters not doing the work, while those in tech that censor do, is not supported by evidence.
Censorship by tech has in the last year been wrong on major important points, e.g:
- Not long ago the lab leak hypothesis was censored, delaying potential life saving measures
- Not long ago Hunters laptop was called fake and censored, affecting democratic primary outcome and election outcomes
- Not long ago early treatment solutions to covid was censored, delaying deployment of early treatment solutions similar to the one Merck just released [2]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/live/2021/oct/05/face... [2] https://fortune.com/2021/10/05/everything-to-know-about-merc...
Also, dissent is being amplified with software, which itself is not conscious. Being more conscious of your points will help matters. Not being more conscious of your points will help accelerate the madness.
You've failed to acknowledge anyone's argument here, which is really the hard part to learn.
If your points explanatory power is too poor to contextualize to what it criticize its honestly just a smear. You are to my estimation going into ad hominem in lieu of a good argument in both your replies.
Whom do you think you can convince that I am wrong without contextualizing your claim?
I find it hilarious that you accuse me of using a strawman by arguing that because I don't have a critical consciousness [1] I am not conscious of what I think and how it relates to the reality we live in. You are literally arguing that because I don't agree with (in your term "have") the gnostic knowledge of critical social justice activists I am essentially an unthinking program.
I am sorry to break your bubble, but you can both be thinking and principally disagree with critical social justice (CSJ). Arguably the inherently group-based CSJ doctrine suppress individual thought in favor of group based identity.
> Also, dissent is being amplified with software, which itself is not conscious. Being more conscious of your points will help matters. Not being more conscious of your points will help accelerate the madness.
The parent is clearly accusing me of not being conscious of my opinions, and this person doesn't know me so this is an assertion (s)he can not principally make. So how do you interpret what he/she refers to with conscious if it is not ideologically driven by critical social justice (CSJ)?
My impression is that this person is an adherent of CSJ. In general adherents to CSJ tend to drop essential qualifiers, so that they can use the Motte-and-Bailey [1] rhetorical trick of arguing a more radical position (Bailey) and then when challenged defend a more moderate position(Motte).
The CSJ adherents liberal individual Motte is not compatible with their group-based Bailey, it is purely a lie to provide cover until resistance has abated, and in general accusing someone of not being conscious simply because they agree with you is completely 100% unacceptable behavior. Especially if your viewpoints could have been spewed by a bot programmed to believe in CSJ. ;)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy#:~:te...
Seriously, you wrote the above just after I wrote the following:
> To be clear, the problem kordlessagain is referring to is that if you make the effort to make explicit what the X and Y are, the response will rarely include the slightest explicit acknowledgement of any incoherence.
> Generally, if a fallacy is found in one's arguments and one values intellectual honesty, the best response is to apologise for the error first and only then attempt to restart the argument. If you don't do this, but try to act as if there was no error, you do avoid loss of face in the eyes of the unthinking that comes from admitting error, but you lose the respect of readers who understood the error and saw the evasion.
> It is a sad fact that today most people have little awareness of this risk of losing respect in heated arguments, let alone place high importance to it.
Do you (or the parent) believe that "people are not defined by group identity" and that "redistributing resources and position based upon group identity is wrong"?
A way to show that I am in error about the whistleblower proposing Critical Social Justice activism would be to show that the links I provided showing the whistleblower calling for censoring "hate speech", her call for a ministry of truth, her association with CSJ, and the suspicious political ties of her whistleblowing being wrong. These are not moderate positions.
You draw attention to what you regard as logical errors in the arguments of others, but you do not observe the formalities that norms of logical argument require when problems are pointed out with your arguments.
If you do not accept the requirement that your own arguments be coherent, then the more that you learn about logic, the less rational you will become.
Do you believe or not believe that "people are not defined by group identity" and that "redistributing resources and position based upon group identity is wrong"?
If you do not want to answer that is fine, but treating people differently based upon unchosen identities is not “making sure everyone is treated equally”.
With respect to the second, I think far too little effort is made to resolve the lasting wounds of historical injustices, but I don't think that the attempt to tackle these wounds primarily through redistribution is politically wise. In fact, the attempt to tacle something like the aftermath of slavery in this way is certain to create massive political counterreation and is quite likely to result in new injustices.
Do you understand what the problem is with your approach to argument that I have criticised you for repeatedly?
Sounds a bit unfair and unequal to redistribute someone’s assets and resources due to an equity group identity marker that makes no sense.
> Do you understand what the problem is with your approach to argument that I have criticised you for repeatedly?
I can definitely be less complex in my explanations and less verbose. The line of thought here seem more effective, I’ll probably repeat that in the future to get past the critical social justice habit of using a Motte and Bailey tactic deceptively.
I don’t know if you did it consciously or in error, but the Motte is supposed to be compatible with the Bailey and not something entirely different.
I think you fell into the trap of CSJ apologists to rely on redefined common terms that sound more moderate to non-believers, but isn’t. If I redefine “apple” to mean “lemon” that doesn’t make it any less bitter.
Do you see this problem in the argument you have been making?
You have not answered my question.
I doubt it is possible, but I don't discourage people who understand the problems facing a democratic redistribution-intense solution that goes along ethnic lines. However, a requirement for success in a healthy democracy is the acquiescence of the group who lose out. The attempt to end slavery resulted in a war, and Reconstruction gave many blacks a system that was actually worse than what they had before. (Another injustice caused by a political elite too keen to achieve peace).
Generally, as I understood Bernie Sanders pointed out, the attempt to rectify racial injustices by redistribution risks creating racial hatred and new injustices. I am, as I said before, against attempts to impose this kind of solution top-down.
However, something like a wealth tax is far simpler and as it happens, quite a bit of old wealth does derive from slavery and, for instance, if the US were to improve and expand its social programs for the poor to, say, the level here in Germany, that would make a massive difference for the poor communities that have least been able to recover from the effects of slavery.
Such a form of redistribution could be formulated in colour-blind, wealth-based terms. It's still difficult to impose top-down, it's not enough to heal the wounds of slavery, but this measure is much less socially divisive than what you, ignoring things I have previously told you, wrongly guessed I had in mind.
> I think you fell into the trap of CSJ apologists to rely on redefined common terms that sound more moderate to non-believers, but isn’t.
I didn't manage to come up with a plausible guess as to what you might have meant by the motte and bailey in the paragraph before the sentence I highlighted, but I wonder if you still believe that sentence after reading what I wrote above.
My general impression is that you are a devoted foot soldier in the culture wars and have no intention of looking inside yourself and becoming more honest. A shame, since you seem to be not dumb and have a certain persistence. You've learned a few argumentative techniques that have a good chance of improving your effectiveness in the fights you choose to pick, which will do it's bit to make the culture wars even less rational. I think this state of affairs is actually a threat to democracy. However, while I did not enjoy our exchange and have low expectations of what you will go on to do, I do have a certain hope in the redemptive power of logic, and I do not regret the effort I have put into this conversation.
You did express support in another comment for the DEI (Diversity, Equity, and inclusion) identity-based redistribution initiatives that are currently deployed.
Why did you do this when you think "distribution risks creating racial hatred and new injustices"? Why do you support having corporations enforce top-down DEI initiatives when you are "against attempts to impose this kind of solution top-down"?
>I doubt it is possible, but I don't discourage people who understand the problems facing a democratic redistribution-intense solution that goes along ethnic lines. However, a requirement for success in a healthy democracy is the acquiescence of the group who lose out. The attempt to end slavery resulted in a war, and Reconstruction gave many blacks a system that was actually worse than what they had before. (Another injustice caused by a political elite too keen to achieve peace). > However, something like a wealth tax is far simpler and as it happens, quite a bit of old wealth does derive from slavery and, for instance, if the US were to improve and expand its social programs for the poor to, say, the level here in Germany, that would make a massive difference for the poor communities that have least been able to recover from the effects of slavery.
We already established that you do not agree with critical social justice that identity groups such as race has salience, so that means it is not just to punish an individual for identity group sins, but if I get you correctly you support using slavery as a justification to redistribute wealth.
Is it correct that you believe in that an individual having wealth in the US is a good signifier for an individual acquiring it through the family history of slavery? If not, how can redistribution of wealth because of slavery be right?
I agree that huge landowning wealth in labor intensive unpleasant farming, such as cotton and tobacco primarily, often relied on slaves and indentured servants (numerous Irish and English came to the US like this). However, as far as I know the more numerous industrial fortunes were not build upon slaves.
Most landowning Americans, those were the voting citizens, owned small dirt farm and struggled to make ends meet using their own family's labor. After Europe decimated itself in WWII a larger amount of Americans from all backgrounds gained a modicum of assets through factory work. Critical social justice and Bernie Sanders activism also seek to redistribute both of these groups wealth.
> My general impression is that you are a devoted foot soldier in the culture wars and have no intention of looking inside yourself and becoming more honest.
Most of the time I've tried to get clarity on your opinion, because you said that you did not believe critical social justice was determinative while still being apologetic about its major doctrines and supporting it's equity initiatives.
I am pretty honest about my position. Although I believe we need more group aspects in our life to have a good human life, I don't believe the solutions pushed are good solutions. I think critical social justice is pushing something equivalent to the Chinese model, a merge of communist and fascist principles, and I am not interested in living through that. I've studied up on most of it's major literature, and understand the rhetorical tactics used for apologetics for its doctrines.
Which must have been frustrating for you, seeing as I was resisting being pinned down on what I regarded as overspecific details not related to the reasons for my original intervention in these HN subthreads.
To be clear, my original concern was to avoid a lowering in the standard of discourse here on HN, and I did not intervene to criticise you directly, only to criticise what I took to be a complaint of criticisms of you that I took to be entirely without merit. I don't like what I have seen of the New Discourses content (one of the links you provided I particularly disliked), but I actually value the fact that HN is a place that people who agree with Lindsay and Pluckrose can argue. For this to work well, though, standards of argument need to be maintained.
This is rather stronger than what I wrote. I don't think that race is coherent in the sense that there is the relationship between observable hereditable traits and the psychology and morality of the individual that racist intellectuals require. However, if you drop the dodgy biology, clearly ethnicity matters a great deal to how people find their way into or find themselves excluded from groups, what ethnicities we take there to be and what we make of them has been profoundly influenced by the debunked race theories of yesteryear.
In short, race does matter, unfortunately.
I think you will find that if you check what I wrote before, you have got me wrong, again. I think there are successful DEI exercises, but my general impression of them is equivocal. Some do good, some do evil.
This is normal honesty: you say what you think, and your feelings are in harmony with your thoughts. It is good enough for normal life, but it is not what I mean by intellectual honesty, and it has led you astray in arguing here on HN with people who demand that special kind of honesty.
I think redistribution of wealth from the rentier class to those whose communities face upheaval, exploitation and decimation because of the creative destruction of capitalism that benefits rentiers at the expense of commodity labour, is and of itself just. If it happens to hurt those who today have profited from slavery, well, that's a class of misfortune that I might regard as just deserts. I think trying to actually target these beneficiaries in a precise manner is, for the kind of reason you gave.
Generally, if a fallacy is found in one's arguments and one values intellectual honesty, the best response is to apologise for the error first and only then attempt to restart the argument. If you don't do this, but try to act as if there was no error, you do avoid loss of face in the eyes of the unthinking that comes from admitting error, but you lose the respect of readers who understood the error and saw the evasion.
It is a sad fact that today most people have little awareness of this risk of losing respect in heated arguments, let alone place high importance to it.