A Bad Practice in Argumentation

[Mr 3vil]

Non Sequitur, Straw Man, Ad Hominem.

All right, I've got to say this, every time I see these words used in an argument, I just get irritated. When getting into an argument and people just start throwing a bunch of names of fallacies, it's just getting retarded.

Imagine the court working like that.

Lawyer 1: "That sir is a contraction! By via proof reductio ad absurdum, it must be the other case!"

Lawyer 2:"You're denying the antecedent!"

Lawyer 1: "That's a Straw Man!"

Judge: "Order in the court!"

Lawyer 1: "Lawyer 2 cannot be trusted because he cannot argue logically!"

Lawyer 2: "Ad Hominem! AD HOMINEM!"

People should refute the fallacies correctly or not mention the name at all. I've noticed these words are thrown around the internet much more often than normal these days, especially on Youtube. And the arguments kind of resemble the top example.

And yes, I pulled a Straw Man. In some cases, it's a lot easier to just state that the person committed the fallacy, but to do the actual proof on the fallacy itself is much more important than to get into an argument about how to argue. When these words are thrown without the proof at hand, I get irritated.

[Avarice]

So are you trying to say something about this place?

[Tooie]

The main thing I hate about argumentators arguers is when the say an unusual opinion very bluntly without any reason for it or backup to support their claim. See: Mandolin in every Sunshine argument, or DragonBottles on just about everything, including Reese's.

[Oz the Gay and Powerful]

I was going to post this in Avarice's thread as an off-topic post but that wouldn't make much sense, so... Much of the time I feel bad for Bill Maher (going back to Avarice's thread). Not that he's seeing any of the things people say about him, but I see a lot of his stuff on Youtube, and I notice when most people attack him, it's like this. "He's wrong about that... so he must be wrong about everything he's ever said". People too often sit back and look for a loophole that they hope dismantles an argument completely unrelated to the subject. It gets ridiculous when you feel like you can label someone as an idiot just because they've made a mistake.


Oooo I can already sense the posts coming calling me a hypocrite


Actually does this even relate to this thread? I don't know. I'm too tired to fit my post within the right context *sigh*

[Avarice]

Well yeah, but some more detail on how it relates to here would have been nice.

I was going to post this in Avarice's thread as an off-topic post but that wouldn't make much sense, so... Much of the time I feel bad for Bill Maher (going back to Avarice's thread). Not that he's seeing any of the things people say about him, but I see a lot of his stuff on Youtube, and I notice when most people attack him, it's like this. "He's wrong about that... so he must be wrong about everything he's ever said". People too often sit back and look for a loophole that they hope dismantles an argument completely unrelated to the subject. It gets ridiculous when you feel like you can label someone as an idiot just because they've made a mistake.


Oooo I can already sense the posts coming calling me a hypocrite


Actually does this even relate to this thread? I don't know. I'm too tired to fit my post within the right context *sigh*

It does kind of relate to this, I guess. You do see a lot of "You got X fact wrong so you're wrong about unrelated Y fact and Z fact." I think it's called Part to Whole Fallacy or something like that.

I guess it's different if Y fact and Z fact directly require X fact to be true or right or whatever, but most of the time it's just like... wow.

Hopefully that made sense.

[Kaiser]

Well yeah, but some more detail on how it relates to here would have been nice.



It does kind of relate to this, I guess. You do see a lot of "You got X fact wrong so you're wrong about unrelated Y fact and Z fact." I think it's called Part to Whole Fallacy or something like that.

I guess it's different if Y fact and Z fact directly require X fact to be true or right or whatever, but most of the time it's just like... wow.

Hopefully that made sense.
It makes sense, dude.

On topic:
I'm going through a phase where I usually accept I'm wrong most of times, I just lay back and tell myself "Shut the **** up and listen".

I get a lot of respect for this, even being so called mature. Feels good, man.

[Dylan Yoshi]

What a Non Sequitur, Straw Man, Ad Hominem of a post.

[Adam]

Also, I thought non sequitur was a comedy device.

Crowbar.