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Calling someone a crackpot is clearly an ad hominem argument. Claiming it is not in a followup, and then furiously downvoting is neither a valid nor legitimate

Calling someone a crackpot is clearly an ad hominem argument. Claiming it is not in a followup, and then furiously downvoting is neither a valid nor legitimate response.

ajkjk 11y ago
Hm. I think you're confused about what 'ad hominem' means. That or you're struggling to read more than one sentence at a time as a coherent thought. Do you realize that every sentence past the one with the word 'crackpot' in it was a justification of that statement? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem says "... is an attack on an argument made by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, rather than attacking the argument directly". So can we agree, at least, that I have attacked the argument directly, at length, and therefore the "rather than..." clause is not satisfied? Moreover, even if you don't agree with that: I have no obligation not to attack a person directly if it gets the point across faster. I am, after all, writing to the readers as much as gd1 - and if gd1 is truly irrational then I'm not particularly interested in trying to convince them of anything, nor avoiding offending them. And my attack (if you can call it that - I did say "Really hard to not take you for a crackpot", which intentionally gives him a wide benefit of the doubt) was, I think, well-justified: The definition of the word "crackpot" that I am reaching for is that of "a person who believes absurd notions". That would be as opposed to "a person who believes rationally justifiable notions". I called gd1 a crackpot because as a way of capturing the notion that they were not defending their argument via rationality, but by insistence that it was correct, and were (as I pointed out in my original post) intentionally evading challenges to the argument - but responding to things to that did not challenge it. These to me suggest that they had no ability to defend the argument (and I invited a proper defense), and therefore that they would be a person who believes an argument without rational defense, aka a crackpot. So I posted the argument that "gd1 is behaving like a crackpot for reasons A, B, C, D", and I listed the reasons. We can substitute the phrase "one who believes absurd notions" for "crackpot". Both the word and its substitution are derogatory terms - we can't get around that. It's a negative quality to believe absurd things.
- droithomme 11y ago
  "a person who believes absurd notions" A person directly citing unbiased factual sources containing empirically measured data does not meet this criteria.
  - jshen 11y ago
    The data he cites refutes the claim he made so ...
    - droithomme 11y ago
      You have a lot of aliases. Consider consolidating them. He noted that the specific claims regarding amount of rise over time were not validatable from evidence, and he posted specific reliable credible third party sources that validated his claim. Yet here we are several hours later, long enough for every last person to review the data and still many aliases claim it is not so. A notable exclusion is these person's lack of data, but rather reposted claims supposing to refute empirical data, while offering no sources whatsoever. What may we then conclude about those posters other than that they are unreliable sources of data who do not respect the scientific method and actual verifiable data?
      - ajkjk 11y ago
        What do you mean by 'aliases'? Do you think those posters are me? Should I be wondering if you, kevinskii, and gd1 are the same person? S/he didn't post anything that validated his claim. S/he posted additional data that continued to leave it contentious, and then pretended like it validated the claim. How is that not clear? The whole point of this is that not defending a claim is the opposite of defending it.
- kevinskii 11y ago
  No. You called gd1 a crackpot because that's an easy way to gain karma when people express views contrary to the HN consensus.
DanBC 11y ago
> and then furiously downvoting Isn't the downvote karma threshold 750?
- kevinskii 11y ago
  I believe it's 500.

Calling someone a crackpot is clearly an ad hominem argument. Claiming it is not in a followup, and then furiously downvoting is neither a valid nor legitimate response.

ajkjk 11y ago

Hm. I think you're confused about what 'ad hominem' means. That or you're struggling to read more than one sentence at a time as a coherent thought. Do you realize that every sentence past the one with the word 'crackpot' in it was a justification of that statement? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem says "... is an attack on an argument made by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, rather than attacking the argument directly". So can we agree, at least, that I have attacked the argument directly, at length, and therefore the "rather than..." clause is not satisfied? Moreover, even if you don't agree with that: I have no obligation not to attack a person directly if it gets the point across faster. I am, after all, writing to the readers as much as gd1 - and if gd1 is truly irrational then I'm not particularly interested in trying to convince them of anything, nor avoiding offending them. And my attack (if you can call it that - I did say "Really hard to not take you for a crackpot", which intentionally gives him a wide benefit of the doubt) was, I think, well-justified: The definition of the word "crackpot" that I am reaching for is that of "a person who believes absurd notions". That would be as opposed to "a person who believes rationally justifiable notions". I called gd1 a crackpot because as a way of capturing the notion that they were not defending their argument via rationality, but by insistence that it was correct, and were (as I pointed out in my original post) intentionally evading challenges to the argument - but responding to things to that did not challenge it. These to me suggest that they had no ability to defend the argument (and I invited a proper defense), and therefore that they would be a person who believes an argument without rational defense, aka a crackpot. So I posted the argument that "gd1 is behaving like a crackpot for reasons A, B, C, D", and I listed the reasons. We can substitute the phrase "one who believes absurd notions" for "crackpot". Both the word and its substitution are derogatory terms - we can't get around that. It's a negative quality to believe absurd things.

droithomme 11y ago
"a person who believes absurd notions" A person directly citing unbiased factual sources containing empirically measured data does not meet this criteria.
- jshen 11y ago
  The data he cites refutes the claim he made so ...
  - droithomme 11y ago
    You have a lot of aliases. Consider consolidating them. He noted that the specific claims regarding amount of rise over time were not validatable from evidence, and he posted specific reliable credible third party sources that validated his claim. Yet here we are several hours later, long enough for every last person to review the data and still many aliases claim it is not so. A notable exclusion is these person's lack of data, but rather reposted claims supposing to refute empirical data, while offering no sources whatsoever. What may we then conclude about those posters other than that they are unreliable sources of data who do not respect the scientific method and actual verifiable data?
    - ajkjk 11y ago
      What do you mean by 'aliases'? Do you think those posters are me? Should I be wondering if you, kevinskii, and gd1 are the same person? S/he didn't post anything that validated his claim. S/he posted additional data that continued to leave it contentious, and then pretended like it validated the claim. How is that not clear? The whole point of this is that not defending a claim is the opposite of defending it.
kevinskii 11y ago
No. You called gd1 a crackpot because that's an easy way to gain karma when people express views contrary to the HN consensus.

DanBC 11y ago

> and then furiously downvoting Isn't the downvote karma threshold 750?

kevinskii 11y ago
I believe it's 500.