Re:Results of the GitHub Investigation
by TheRealDunkirk on Monday April 21, 2014 @09:44PM
(#7625278)
> Can you show me a work environment that is not hostile to anyone?
That strikes me like saying that all sex is rape, it's just a matter of how violent or unwilling.
Thank you for contribution. I'm trying to figure out which of the common relevance fallacies it falls under if anyone can help? Here are the possible options as I see it.
* reductio ad absurdam
* red herring
* strawman
* non sequiter
Reductio ad absurdum is actually a completely legitimate method of argument. There is nothing fallacious about it whatsoever.
Thanks for that. Went ahead and googled "reductio ad absurdam vs strawman" to learn how the two differ and realized I erred including it in the list. Since the person I replied to either meant to replace my premise with one I do not hold or change the subject slightly, so it's either a strawman or a red herring.
RAA is actually viewed with some skepticism in some branches of logic (not so much because it is invalid but because it can be more easily misused in arguments where the underlying assumptions are not apparent). RAA is kind of analogous to the Axiom of Choice if you like — some logicians go out of their way to avoid it.
Not disagreeing with you, just raising a point.
Here's a relevant link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitionistic_logic
Incidentally (a further parallel to the Axiom of Choice) Intuitionist Logic is also referred to as Constructive Logic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_mathematics
One branch of constructivist mathematics eschews the axiom of choice, and all do not allow proof of existence by RAA on non-existence.
Every work environment has hostilities. The only way they each differ is in who is the recipient of the hostilities, the degree of hostility present and if that hostility is illegal or not.
In that sense, the statement "We don't have a provably illegal hostile work environment" means exactly nothing, making Github no different than all the other workplaces you are evaluating.
There are three sides to every side of a story... TPW's side, JAH's side and the facts. Given that all we really know are TPW's side and JAH's side and that we have no real facts beyond admitted errors in judgement, we really have no more information upon which to base judgement than before. I know of no company in the world provably immune from errors in judgement, do you?
In other words, you and everyone else should evaluate github based on everything else you know about github and completely discount this entire debacle, since it has not shed light on anything that isn't as equally possible at every other company you may be considering.