4 ms·

> I reject the assertion that these issues are "common" in the US On what grounds do you reject that? Do you have hard evidence that women and ethnic/sexual mi

> I reject the assertion that these issues are "common" in the US On what grounds do you reject that? Do you have hard evidence that women and ethnic/sexual minorities in the US are not at increased risk of violence and mistreatment? Or are you basing this on "feelings > reality", as you put it? > Further, it's getting rather tiring that the US is always listed as an example when countries/societies exist without legal protection for all races/genders and where slavery and forced labor is still legal. The "I can't be bad as long as someone, somewhere, is worse" argument is a classic excuse to get out of ever having to improve anything.

inlined 10y ago
> The "I can't be bad as long as someone, somewhere, is worse" argument is a classic excuse to get out of ever having to improve anything. Recently learned the awesome names for this fallacy. "Tu quoque"[1] is the general name. Whataboutism[2] is the awesome term for its use in soviet propeganda. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- mjolk 10y ago
  I don't think I was committing a logical fallacy -- I took exception to the article author's attempt at establishing alleged certainty, especially using relativistic terms. In any case, based on your mention of learning new fallacy names, you'll probably like this site: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
  - grzm 10y ago
    I vouched for this comment as I didn't see anything particularly egregious: looks like the included URI triggers some automatic down-voting behavior (perhaps to encourage better discourse rather than calling out fallacies?) Regardless, it's probably not worth including that link in the future :)
    - mjolk 10y ago
      Oh, sorry, didn't even think of that. Thank you for vouching for it.
    - Chris2048 10y ago
      > encourage better discourse rather than calling out fallacies? How is calling out fallacies not the best kind of discourse??
      - grzm 10y ago
        I agree with you that identifying weaknesses or fallacies in an argument is a good thing. What I am trying to express is that it can sometimes be reduced to little more than name calling if not done well. Say, for example, I identify what I believe to be a straw man. If my response is only "That's a straw man", while it may be accurate, it's not very useful to the discourse. It should include at least why I believe the argument to be building a straw man. It can also lead to a desire to score points rather than to reach some kind of mutual understanding (if not agreement), which also doesn't lend itself to constructive discussion. I hope it's clear that my explanation as to why that particular URI is banned is just speculation, and not very strong at that. I can't think of a better explanation, however. For what it's worth, it looks like I'm not alone in thinking along these lines: citing a logical fallacy is often employed by those who are lazy and aren't genuinely addressing a given argument. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7195076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7195076 For reference, a couple of other HN threads where this URI has been discussed: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391743 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5660078 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5660078
        Chris2048 10y ago
        The context in that first link is: https://web.archive.org/web/20140404202911/http://plover.net/~bonds/bdksucks.html https://web.archive.org/web/20140404202911/http://plover.net... This adds a little more nuance: 1) LOGICAL FALLACIES ARE USUALLY IRRELEVANT OR CITED INCORRECTLY... 2) CITING LOGICAL FALLACIES IS USUALLY COWARDLY AND LAZY ... " Rather than engage with the ideas in a text, it's much easier to skim through it trying to spot a quick fallacy; and once a fallacy is found, a baloney detector can safely ignore everything else. " I wouldn't say this at all demonstrates the weakness in identifying fallacies. Falsely identifying fallacies is not identifying fallacies (the fallacy fallacy?); and nothing says that one fallacy invalidates an entire text; also, I find there argument there weak, e.g "these people seem to have no other opinions on the text" - so what?
sgift 10y ago
> On what grounds do you reject that? Do you have hard evidence that women and ethnic/sexual minorities in the US are not at increased risk of violence and mistreatment? The burden of proof is usually on those who state that something is a problem. So .. are there reliable sources for that claim?
mjolk 10y ago
> On what grounds do you reject that? Do you have evidence that women and ethnic and sexual minorities are not at increased risk of violence and mistreatment? The FBI gathers data on bias in crimes[0]; I reject that the issues are specifically "common" in the US because they constitute a small number of the total crimes committed[1] and are taken very seriously (harsher sentences and being racist/sexist has severe social stigma). The article's use of "common" is an attempt at alleged certainty, much like saying "we all know that developers.." to avoid having to actually back the claim. > The "I can't be bad as long as someone, somewhere, is worse" argument is a classic excuse to get out of ever having to improve anything. That's not the argument here. It's stating that it's tiring that the US is always singled out as if it's somehow _specifically_ bad. Strong people fought for equal protection of people under the law in the US, so why is it consistently picked as an example over, say, Pakistan or Mauritania? Even if I was to concede that calling someone a "bitch" on Twitter falls under "violence and mistreatment" (as is suggested by the Coral Project's cited source), why should US shoulder all of the blame for the global site? [0] https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2015-hate-crime-statistics-released https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2015-hate-crime-statistics-... [1] https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2015-crime-statistics https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-release...
- 7Z7 10y ago
  >That's not the argument here. It's stating that it's tiring that the US is always singled out as if it's somehow _specifically_ bad. And that isn't the case in the original quote. The US isn't listed as specifically bad, it is included as a member of a list where the author contends mistreatment of some groups is common: "In societies including the US where violence.." Nothing special or notably different there. Additionally, usually the kind of articles you are alluding to are addressing a US, or at the very least a Western/Anglophone audience, so if the US or UK are pointedly included, the intent may be read as "'we' are not any better at this thing than we imagine 'other' countries are".
  - mjolk 10y ago
    > And that isn't the case in the original quote. The US isn't listed as specifically bad, it is included as a member of a list where the author contends mistreatment of some groups is common: I contend that the US doesn't belong in that list, and also that a generalization with a single enumeration is almost comical to defend as not attempting to identify as a specific case. e.g. "Software pirates, including 7Z7, often..." > the intent may be read as "'we' are not any better at this thing than we imagine 'other' countries are". Except that the UK and the US is quite good about these things to the extent that the author had to cite something written about _Twitter_ (with a title mocking a perception of men, no less) to make a point about violence.
nhaehnle 10y ago
> On what grounds do you reject that? Do you have hard evidence that women and ethnic/sexual minorities in the US are not at increased risk of violence and mistreatment? Or are you basing this on "feelings > reality", as you put it? That's beside the point of what the parent comment actually said. To illustrate: Certainly, national park rangers are at increased risk of being struck by lightning during the course of their work (as compared to, say, software developers). However, it would be silly to claim that lightning strikes of rangers are common. What your parent comment basically did (in the analogy) is state that lightning strikes are not common for park rangers. You try to counter that by saying that lightning strikes are more common for park rangers than for others. That makes no sense. You're engaged in a discussion that is purely about the definition of fuzzy words. What is "common"? It's about trying to get the upper hand rhetorically by defining words (from both of you). Not a particularly enlightening debate.
- mjolk 10y ago
  > You're engaged in a discussion that is purely about the definition of fuzzy words. What is "common"? It's about trying to get the upper hand rhetorically by defining words (from both of you). Not a particularly enlightening debate. Good catch and I considered that as well, but decided it was worth commenting on for discussion as I took the use of "common" with the context of a named country/society to be a claim of happening with increased frequency relative to other countries/societies or to mean "likely for one in that country to experience" (while also noting the author was casually asserting something quite bold). I quite strongly believe in online anonymity, and as such, I don't want the argument for it to become weakened against debate.

inlined 10y ago

> The "I can't be bad as long as someone, somewhere, is worse" argument is a classic excuse to get out of ever having to improve anything. Recently learned the awesome names for this fallacy. "Tu quoque"[1] is the general name. Whataboutism[2] is the awesome term for its use in soviet propeganda. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

mjolk 10y ago
I don't think I was committing a logical fallacy -- I took exception to the article author's attempt at establishing alleged certainty, especially using relativistic terms. In any case, based on your mention of learning new fallacy names, you'll probably like this site: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
- grzm 10y ago
  I vouched for this comment as I didn't see anything particularly egregious: looks like the included URI triggers some automatic down-voting behavior (perhaps to encourage better discourse rather than calling out fallacies?) Regardless, it's probably not worth including that link in the future :)
  - mjolk 10y ago
    Oh, sorry, didn't even think of that. Thank you for vouching for it.
  - Chris2048 10y ago
    > encourage better discourse rather than calling out fallacies? How is calling out fallacies not the best kind of discourse??
    - grzm 10y ago
      I agree with you that identifying weaknesses or fallacies in an argument is a good thing. What I am trying to express is that it can sometimes be reduced to little more than name calling if not done well. Say, for example, I identify what I believe to be a straw man. If my response is only "That's a straw man", while it may be accurate, it's not very useful to the discourse. It should include at least why I believe the argument to be building a straw man. It can also lead to a desire to score points rather than to reach some kind of mutual understanding (if not agreement), which also doesn't lend itself to constructive discussion. I hope it's clear that my explanation as to why that particular URI is banned is just speculation, and not very strong at that. I can't think of a better explanation, however. For what it's worth, it looks like I'm not alone in thinking along these lines: citing a logical fallacy is often employed by those who are lazy and aren't genuinely addressing a given argument. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7195076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7195076 For reference, a couple of other HN threads where this URI has been discussed: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391743 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5660078 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5660078
      - Chris2048 10y ago
        The context in that first link is: https://web.archive.org/web/20140404202911/http://plover.net/~bonds/bdksucks.html https://web.archive.org/web/20140404202911/http://plover.net... This adds a little more nuance: 1) LOGICAL FALLACIES ARE USUALLY IRRELEVANT OR CITED INCORRECTLY... 2) CITING LOGICAL FALLACIES IS USUALLY COWARDLY AND LAZY ... " Rather than engage with the ideas in a text, it's much easier to skim through it trying to spot a quick fallacy; and once a fallacy is found, a baloney detector can safely ignore everything else. " I wouldn't say this at all demonstrates the weakness in identifying fallacies. Falsely identifying fallacies is not identifying fallacies (the fallacy fallacy?); and nothing says that one fallacy invalidates an entire text; also, I find there argument there weak, e.g "these people seem to have no other opinions on the text" - so what?

sgift 10y ago

> On what grounds do you reject that? Do you have hard evidence that women and ethnic/sexual minorities in the US are not at increased risk of violence and mistreatment? The burden of proof is usually on those who state that something is a problem. So .. are there reliable sources for that claim?

mjolk 10y ago

> On what grounds do you reject that? Do you have evidence that women and ethnic and sexual minorities are not at increased risk of violence and mistreatment? The FBI gathers data on bias in crimes[0]; I reject that the issues are specifically "common" in the US because they constitute a small number of the total crimes committed[1] and are taken very seriously (harsher sentences and being racist/sexist has severe social stigma). The article's use of "common" is an attempt at alleged certainty, much like saying "we all know that developers.." to avoid having to actually back the claim. > The "I can't be bad as long as someone, somewhere, is worse" argument is a classic excuse to get out of ever having to improve anything. That's not the argument here. It's stating that it's tiring that the US is always singled out as if it's somehow _specifically_ bad. Strong people fought for equal protection of people under the law in the US, so why is it consistently picked as an example over, say, Pakistan or Mauritania? Even if I was to concede that calling someone a "bitch" on Twitter falls under "violence and mistreatment" (as is suggested by the Coral Project's cited source), why should US shoulder all of the blame for the global site? [0] https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2015-hate-crime-statistics-released https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2015-hate-crime-statistics-... [1] https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2015-crime-statistics https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-release...

7Z7 10y ago
>That's not the argument here. It's stating that it's tiring that the US is always singled out as if it's somehow _specifically_ bad. And that isn't the case in the original quote. The US isn't listed as specifically bad, it is included as a member of a list where the author contends mistreatment of some groups is common: "In societies including the US where violence.." Nothing special or notably different there. Additionally, usually the kind of articles you are alluding to are addressing a US, or at the very least a Western/Anglophone audience, so if the US or UK are pointedly included, the intent may be read as "'we' are not any better at this thing than we imagine 'other' countries are".
- mjolk 10y ago
  > And that isn't the case in the original quote. The US isn't listed as specifically bad, it is included as a member of a list where the author contends mistreatment of some groups is common: I contend that the US doesn't belong in that list, and also that a generalization with a single enumeration is almost comical to defend as not attempting to identify as a specific case. e.g. "Software pirates, including 7Z7, often..." > the intent may be read as "'we' are not any better at this thing than we imagine 'other' countries are". Except that the UK and the US is quite good about these things to the extent that the author had to cite something written about _Twitter_ (with a title mocking a perception of men, no less) to make a point about violence.

nhaehnle 10y ago

> On what grounds do you reject that? Do you have hard evidence that women and ethnic/sexual minorities in the US are not at increased risk of violence and mistreatment? Or are you basing this on "feelings > reality", as you put it? That's beside the point of what the parent comment actually said. To illustrate: Certainly, national park rangers are at increased risk of being struck by lightning during the course of their work (as compared to, say, software developers). However, it would be silly to claim that lightning strikes of rangers are common. What your parent comment basically did (in the analogy) is state that lightning strikes are not common for park rangers. You try to counter that by saying that lightning strikes are more common for park rangers than for others. That makes no sense. You're engaged in a discussion that is purely about the definition of fuzzy words. What is "common"? It's about trying to get the upper hand rhetorically by defining words (from both of you). Not a particularly enlightening debate.

mjolk 10y ago
> You're engaged in a discussion that is purely about the definition of fuzzy words. What is "common"? It's about trying to get the upper hand rhetorically by defining words (from both of you). Not a particularly enlightening debate. Good catch and I considered that as well, but decided it was worth commenting on for discussion as I took the use of "common" with the context of a named country/society to be a claim of happening with increased frequency relative to other countries/societies or to mean "likely for one in that country to experience" (while also noting the author was casually asserting something quite bold). I quite strongly believe in online anonymity, and as such, I don't want the argument for it to become weakened against debate.