[rektide]

Ad hominem is a problem when you are arguing with people who argue in good faith & who can demonstrate unbiased willingness to engage in open discussion, who can hold & respect a broad set of interests when they argue.

But when the person you are arguing with has a permanent bent that will distort & warp every argument, it's just a defense of open society to call the person out on that bias, on their forever grinding that axe.

This mention was an excellent & valuable warning to me. That it happens to resemble an attack to some people, is, in my view, far secondary to the broad public good this post served.

[pessimizer]

> Ad hominem is a problem when you are arguing with people who argue in good faith & who can demonstrate unbiased willingness to engage in open discussion, who can hold & respect a broad set of interests when they argue.

No, this is changing your standards of logic to support intolerance. You don't get to decide people's motivations against their will, or accuse them of bad faith without an example of the display of that bad faith.

[rektide]

In this case I think there is some pretty significant examples linked showing exactly what kind of faith this group has. I think it's up to the reader to decide for themselves whether this group deserves positive, neutral or negative bias against them.

I have significant reservations about my statements on when ad-hominem is ok or not. I think there's more than the logic of debate that is important: that I re-affirm. But how & when & where the things beyond the logic happen is still a big question for me. In this case, I think this is pretty core & vital context that everyone is going to have to parse & interpret for themselves.

Running into an article like this online & not knowing the context isn't good. The meat of the top post here, to me, set some basics about who this group is & linked some wikipedia articles. This is obvious public benefit. The top post & I both have additional editorial things to say, that these people are actively detrimental to society for their own good & we should be careful reading this. That's a bit of an attack, but neither of us have said to reject the article or disbelieve it; we have not put to the audience logical conclusions; there is context (who the carrier is), and (designated opinioned) caution/hazard about the meta-message being delivered.

[jeegsy]

On this particular topic, I don't think it really matters who the source is, especially since the problems brought up in the article are generally accepted to be true at least from the comments I have read. Even a broken clock is right twice a day as the saying goes.

[philosopher1234]

I don’t think their affiliation means they’re completely wrong. Just that their ideas should be expected to bias in a particular direction.

[1123581321]

How is a comment inciting fear and anger, in order to protect rent seeking that harms education, a public good?

[haswell]

> in order to protect rent seeking that harms education

Without making any value judgements about the comment in question, it’s worth noting that it is possible to be both against rent seeking and take issue with the source.

These are not mutually exclusive, and the accusation is unnecessary.

[1123581321]

That is essentially what I believe is the only reasonable answer, which is that some people want to be informed but they do not want to inform others (i.e. share the link) if they think the source will embarrass them. The public value would come from their work to unearth and share an alternate source.

There are also people who do not want to be informed if the source is “bad,” but they’ll never admit it so shouldn’t be asked, and I don’t think OP or most people here are that entrenched.