5 ms·

Naturalistic fallacy informs public about your preferences but doesn't really tell us anything about the concept itself. :)

talles 10y ago
I'm sincerely tired of those comments that uses overly complicated and shady use of the language to denote simple ideas. If you were in a middle of a philosophy book and have previously defined what you mean by "naturalistic fallacy" that would be fine, but you are literally throwing the term in an isolated sentence.
- badsock 10y ago
  And I'm tired of everything being dumbed down to within an inch of its life - filled with introductory noise, or worse, just avoiding complex arguments. We're all reading this on the internet - if you don't know what a term means it only requires a tiny hand movement and a few seconds to fix that. That way we can have discussions that build on previous abstractions and move on to more complex ideas. It's a shame that the "arrogant ivory-tower egghead" narrative sticks so easily. It's true that some people use words to obscure, but just as often it's someone trying to say something that's difficult to explain in any other way without ending up with a wall of text.
  - jemfinch 10y ago
    I'm on your side, no doubt. You got my up vote, your parent got my down vote, and his parent got my pathetic attempt to up vote back into readability, because I think even poorly phrased references to academic concepts benefit the audience. I absolutely agree with you in principle. With that said, that post about the "naturalistic fallacy" could just as easily been written "Your intuition is not an argument. What are you really saying about this?" There would have been no wall of text nor any deep explanation. It would have been strictly simpler and clearer. But if he'd said that, I wouldn't have learned about the naturalistic fallacy, and that would have been a loss. The real problem on the internet is not ivory-tower eggheads, but techies who say the adult equivalent of "I don't like green beans" and expect that to be of general interest or benefit.
  - talles 10y ago
    I'm arguing in favor of simplicity, not of simplicity of reach (tiny hand movement) but of simplicity of meaning. Bringing up Hume's guillotine [1] to show someone that version numbers is not what it seems to be to that individual is a bit of an overkill, don't you think? If we start to see everything as Kant's golden rule [2], Sartre's existence problem [3], Wittgenstein's private language [4] and Marx's worker struggle [5] is going to be very hard at all to communicate simple ideas, most of time those are arguments that raises more questions than answers. To make a programming analogy, is a bit like design patterns, sometimes is nice to say "it's just a factory" without having to go throughout the concept of factory, but if you overuse it and start talking only in patterns it all becomes a mess. If it's complex, suite yourself. If it ain't, don't make it so. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT7yXG2aJdY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT7yXG2aJdY [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_uUEaeqFog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_uUEaeqFog [3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpXNRrtuo38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpXNRrtuo38 [4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x86hLtOkou8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x86hLtOkou8 [5]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ4VzhIuKCQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ4VzhIuKCQ
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      You are introducing ideas named for people, rather than the idea itself. Of course that will obscure meaning, and you are only further deteriorating the SNR of the thread by doing so.
      - talles 10y ago
        And you didn't like that, right? You felt as being noise to the actual meaning I'm trying to convey. Precisely my point.
        nitrogen 10y ago
        No, it comes across as a deliberate tactic, entirely unrelated to the benign use of "naturalistic fallacy" in the original comment. I feel the actual meaning you are trying to convey is noise, and you've done so in a way that is not representative of the original comment.
- Retra 10y ago
  It's not really that complicated. I mean, everything is egregiously complicated if you're not willing to meet someone halfway to interpret what they mean in context, and that's the expectation here. The use of Naturalistic fallacy means here whatever it makes the most sense for it to mean. Ambiguity is not only a problem, it also has significant advantages.

talles 10y ago

I'm sincerely tired of those comments that uses overly complicated and shady use of the language to denote simple ideas. If you were in a middle of a philosophy book and have previously defined what you mean by "naturalistic fallacy" that would be fine, but you are literally throwing the term in an isolated sentence.

badsock 10y ago
And I'm tired of everything being dumbed down to within an inch of its life - filled with introductory noise, or worse, just avoiding complex arguments. We're all reading this on the internet - if you don't know what a term means it only requires a tiny hand movement and a few seconds to fix that. That way we can have discussions that build on previous abstractions and move on to more complex ideas. It's a shame that the "arrogant ivory-tower egghead" narrative sticks so easily. It's true that some people use words to obscure, but just as often it's someone trying to say something that's difficult to explain in any other way without ending up with a wall of text.
- jemfinch 10y ago
  I'm on your side, no doubt. You got my up vote, your parent got my down vote, and his parent got my pathetic attempt to up vote back into readability, because I think even poorly phrased references to academic concepts benefit the audience. I absolutely agree with you in principle. With that said, that post about the "naturalistic fallacy" could just as easily been written "Your intuition is not an argument. What are you really saying about this?" There would have been no wall of text nor any deep explanation. It would have been strictly simpler and clearer. But if he'd said that, I wouldn't have learned about the naturalistic fallacy, and that would have been a loss. The real problem on the internet is not ivory-tower eggheads, but techies who say the adult equivalent of "I don't like green beans" and expect that to be of general interest or benefit.
- talles 10y ago
  I'm arguing in favor of simplicity, not of simplicity of reach (tiny hand movement) but of simplicity of meaning. Bringing up Hume's guillotine [1] to show someone that version numbers is not what it seems to be to that individual is a bit of an overkill, don't you think? If we start to see everything as Kant's golden rule [2], Sartre's existence problem [3], Wittgenstein's private language [4] and Marx's worker struggle [5] is going to be very hard at all to communicate simple ideas, most of time those are arguments that raises more questions than answers. To make a programming analogy, is a bit like design patterns, sometimes is nice to say "it's just a factory" without having to go throughout the concept of factory, but if you overuse it and start talking only in patterns it all becomes a mess. If it's complex, suite yourself. If it ain't, don't make it so. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT7yXG2aJdY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT7yXG2aJdY [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_uUEaeqFog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_uUEaeqFog [3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpXNRrtuo38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpXNRrtuo38 [4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x86hLtOkou8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x86hLtOkou8 [5]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ4VzhIuKCQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ4VzhIuKCQ
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    You are introducing ideas named for people, rather than the idea itself. Of course that will obscure meaning, and you are only further deteriorating the SNR of the thread by doing so.
    - talles 10y ago
      And you didn't like that, right? You felt as being noise to the actual meaning I'm trying to convey. Precisely my point.
      - nitrogen 10y ago
        No, it comes across as a deliberate tactic, entirely unrelated to the benign use of "naturalistic fallacy" in the original comment. I feel the actual meaning you are trying to convey is noise, and you've done so in a way that is not representative of the original comment.
Retra 10y ago
It's not really that complicated. I mean, everything is egregiously complicated if you're not willing to meet someone halfway to interpret what they mean in context, and that's the expectation here. The use of Naturalistic fallacy means here whatever it makes the most sense for it to mean. Ambiguity is not only a problem, it also has significant advantages.