[palmotea]

>> You should engage with the arguments the other side makes.

> The arguments are "Protect the children.", "Catch terrorists.", "Catch criminals.".

> Those arguments have been engaged with for decades. They are purely emotional arguments. Anyone who still pushes those arguments forth is most likely doing so with ulterior motives and cannot be reasonably "engaged" with.

Oh come on. Why do you think a "purely emotional arguments" are illegitimate? Are you some galaxy brain, coldly observing humanity from some ivory tower constructed of pure software?

Nearly all positions people take are, at their core, "emotional." And the disagreements that result in "arguments" are often really about differing values and priorities. You might value your "freedom" more than anything and are willing to tolerate a lot of bad stuff to preserve strong encryption, some other guy might be so bothered by child sexual abuse that he wants to give it no encrypted corner to hide in. You're both being emotional.

[lucianbr]

Those are both reasoned arguments. The emotional argument would be "some guy is so bothered by sexual abuse he wants to ban lightbulbs because once he heard about a lightbulb in the context of an abuse". The "solution" is not really a solution, but the emotional person does not really care about solutions, he's too emotional to think straight.

At least that is how I see the word used.

[palmotea]

> Those are both reasoned arguments. The emotional argument...

Rationality and emotionality are not mutually exclusive, and I would say there are very, very few arguments that are devoid of emotion.

The the GP was using "emotional" to dismiss the kind of arguments you're saying are reasoned.

[ziddoap]

>The the GP was using "emotional" to dismiss the kind of arguments

I'm dismissing arguments that are designed to appeal to (and manipulate) the emotions of the person listening. Such as the three examples I gave, which are, in almost every case, used to win an argument without having to consider any possible nuance of the situation.

Often, it's a completely thought-stopping appeal, because everything is simply countered with "so you don't care about children". Or, in your case, subtlety alluding to me being tolerant of CSAM (which was wildly inappropriate, albeit a great example of why I generally just don't talk to people who use those types of arguments).

Apparently that makes me galaxy-brained or whatever, though. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

[palmotea]

> I'm dismissing arguments that are designed to appeal to (and manipulate) the emotions of the person listening.

My point is that's pretty much all arguments, except maybe some very obtuse ones no one really cares about.

> Or, in your case, subtlety alluding to me being tolerant of CSAM (which was wildly inappropriate, albeit a great example of why I generally just don't talk to people who use those types of arguments).

That's not what I was doing. I was giving an example to show it's a trade-off driven by priorities and values. But if you want to be super-logical about it, supporting strong privacy-preserving uses of encryption necessarily implies a certain level of tolerance for CSAM, unless you support other draconian measures that are incompatible with privacy. Privacy can be used for good and bad.

[ziddoap]

>My point is that's pretty much all arguments, except maybe some very obtuse ones no one really cares about.

There is a distinct difference between a person having emotions while arguing, and using an appeal to emotion as a rhetorical tactic. I do not agree that "pretty much all arguments" contain an appeal to emotion (again, as a purposeful fallacious rhetorical tactic), even though all arguments obviously will have people feeling some sort of emotion.

Even looking through this entire thread, most of the disagreements here do not contain appeals to emotions.

I'm sure that any book on logic and rhetoric from the last few centuries would explain it better than I can. The wiki page has some good explanations and examples as well.

[ziddoap]

>Are you some galaxy brain, coldly observing humanity from some ivory tower constructed of pure software?

I just think arguments based on appeals to emotion are very often fallacious. But sure, I guess that means I'm a... whatever you just said.