Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by pg 5142 days ago
I'm not going to attack the logic of an article that is illogical

It seems to me that is the exactly the type of article you'd want to attack in that way.

If you won't attack arguments with faulty logic on logical grounds, and you can't (correctly) attack arguments with correct logic on logical grounds, that implies you can never refute anyone logically, and that all your arguments will be ad hominems and suchlike.

2 comments

That makes sense to me. But I also think maybe Zed is saying something along the lines of that proverb, "Don't argue with a fool," and that when it comes to people who are unreasonable it's sometimes easier to point out that they're generally unreasonable. (Though I see your point in that this bad in the same way any generalizations can be bad.)
I would rather write the books that disprove it than waste my time debating it pointlessly. Thus the reason why I'm now going to go work on my C book.