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by scott_s
3841 days ago
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You could create a neutral version of the claim: I have no idea what X truly believe and I don't even care too much. What I care about is the effects of Y ... Z is an organic outgrowth from it. And it's just one of many... Your claim is that if you substitute in any X, Y and Z (where X, Y and Z are consistent with each other), the statement is equivalent. You want the original poster to reply to this idea. Dan's point, which I agree with, is that putting in emotionally charged X, Y and Z is not civil, promotes emotional responses and is effectively trolling. (I also happen to agree with Dan that the particular X, Y and Z matter, and the sentences are not necessarily logically equivalent with any X, Y and Z. But it's still possible to make the above argument without the emotional baggage. I understand it's a rhetorical technique to shock the reader into seeing what you perceive as sloppy thinking, but I think it is more likely to inflame and prevent discussion on the original topic.) |
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I agree that the particular X/etc sometimes matters. And a valid argument against mine would be to give a clear limiting principle (something unstated in the original post, but perhaps implicit?) that applies to the critique of less wrong but fails for Islam.
Pron kind of tried to do this - he said Johann30's argument can only apply to small groups and Islam is large (though where this large vs small distinction comes from is unstated).
To take a mathematical (and hopefully completely uncontroversial) example of this:
Fool: "The sum of IID random variables is gaussian. Therefore $Z"
Smartass: "Oh yeah? What about C/(1+x^2)? Your argument is invalid."
Fool: "Oops I meant IID random variables with finite variance, just thought that was implicit and obvious."
Of course, if Fool can't come up with that added clause then the Smartass has disproven him.