4 ms·
The safest way to ski is not to ski. The safest way to sky-dive is not to sky-dive. The safest way to have sex is not to have sex (I like the last one the mos
by pmalynin 11y ago
The safest way to ski is not to ski.
The safest way to sky-dive is not to sky-dive.
The safest way to have sex is not to have sex (I like the last one the most as it is touted by various groups).
That logic is absolutely broken.
- maxerickson 11y agoTo be fair, ski enthusiasts don't spend a lot of words on how skiing can enhance your personal safety.
- otterley 11y agoWhat's broken about the logic? All of those things are logically consistent. If you mean that foregoing experiences for safety's sake isn't your cup of tea, that's one thing; but claiming it's logically broken is simply false.
- pmalynin 11y agoIt's not logically consistent. You're claiming that p implies not p
- rwjwjuwjudf 11y agoOh come on, the claim is that safe (p) <-> !p, which is a bit different. Attack the actual claim.
- woodman 11y ago@pmalynin, you forgot the safety variable. p | q | p ∧ q → ¬q --+---+----------- T | T | F You can't be safe and own a gun. T | F | T You can be safe and not own a gun. F | T | T You can be unsafe and own a gun. F | F | T You can be unsafe and not own a gun. @rwjwjuwjudf, logical implication is correct - logical equivalence leads to this trainwreck: p | q | p ∧ q ↔ ¬q --+---+----------- T | T | F You can't be safe and own a gun. T | F | F You can't be safe and not own a gun. F | T | T You can be unsafe and own a gun. F | F | F You can't be unsafe and not own a gun.
- rwjwjuwjudf 11y agoNice analysis! I was thinking safety is a function equivalent to negation. But I agree if safety and gun ownership are separate variables. p | safe (p) | ¬p | safe (p) ↔ ¬p --+----------+----+-------------- T | F | F | Owning a gun is unsafely owning a gun. F | T | T | Not owning a gun is safely owning a gun. I think this is the original reason why it's confusing, because the sentence "not owning a gun is safely owning a gun" is highly unintuitive. There is a contradiction because safely owning it conflicts with not owning it. edit: I think we can legitimately fix the confusing sentence to read "not owning a gun is safely not owning a gun".
- woodman 11y agoSafety as a negation would be an xor operation, which leads to the wacky logic. Both of you are right though, I was probably far too generous in treating @minikites's use of the word "is" as a logical implication instead of the logical equivalence that you suggested. The resulting logic leads to conclusions that both support and refute the likely intent of the original statement. So either the logic is broken or the intent is :) If only @minikites had used the word "maybe" instead of "is"... the weaker position would have been supported with a logically consistent argument.
- rwjwjuwjudf 11y agoI think the original expression was poor, it could perhaps be paraphrased as "gun safety is an oxymoron".
- woodman 11y agoThat still leaves five words to debate about, to quote a very sly fellow "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." I'm pretty sure we could distill the argument to the point where we find ourselves debating the finer points of chaos theory.
- fugue12 11y agoNo it's not, it is perfectly self-evident that you eliminate all risks involved in doing a thing by not doing it. I'll grant you that this is an boring and unhelpful way of minimising risk, but not an invalid one.
- pmalynin 11y agoThe constraint is to do the activity. One cannot do the activity by not doing it.