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"My comment is entirely focused on the hypocrisy of the _current_ media, pretending to stand on the moral pedestal of society, but really just trying to incite

"My comment is entirely focused on the hypocrisy of the _current_ media, pretending to stand on the moral pedestal of society, but really just trying to incite outrage to generate pageviews, which generates ad revenue and keeps them in business. Second, has anybody ever taken a look at the editors, bloggers, and writers at media outlets? I'd predict they as a group are not as diverse as you'd expect. Liberal arts college educated, making middle class salaries. Probably not the group of deep thinkers and intellectuals we'd like to believe." As ad hominems go, this is one of the poorest attempts I've seen on HN recently. Not only it is an ad hominem, but you didn't even bother to provide anything but hypothetical accusations. Especially this part: "I'd predict they as a group are not as diverse as you'd expect". I'm actually surprised that you didn't use a burner account to post this.

gnicholas 9y ago
IMO, this is not actually an attempt at an ad hominem, which is probably why it comes across as "the poorest attempt [you've] seen on HN recently". Ad hominem attacks occur when someone tries to discredit the validity of a claim by disparaging some irrelevant aspect of the person making the claim. For example: "Don't believe my opponent because he is Jewish/Black/White/etc." In contrast, there is no ad hominem fallacy if someone says: "Don't believe my opponent — he has an ulterior motive, and I think he has conflicts of interest as well." This is basically what the GP said: the media has ulterior motives (profit), and they may have a conflict of interest (if their industry is also predominated by white men). I'm not saying I agree with all of what the GP said, but I think it's inappropriate to call this an ad hominem attack. As you point out, he doesn't supply citations for his claim of media homogeneity, but this isn't exactly rare on HN.
- chasing 9y ago
  > In contrast, there is no ad hominem fallacy if someone says: "Don't believe my opponent — he has an ulterior motive, and I think he has conflicts of interest as well." That is absolutely an ad hominem attack. It engages a feature of the person (their motives) instead of the actual substance of the argument.
  - gnicholas 9y ago
    Actually, it engages the substance of his argument, which he lays out in the first sentence: > My comment is entirely focused on the hypocrisy of the _current_ media... He explicitly disclaims that he is not defending the VCs' behavior — he is just saying that perhaps the media behavior is not great as well. Having limited his claim to the behavior of the media, it is not logically inappropriate (i.e., not a logical fallacy) to talk about the media's motives and conflicts of interest. I can understand why this might seem, at a glance, like ad hominem, because it bears some similarities to the logically fallacy. In the law, this distinction is described and handled by the evidentiary rules related to impugning a witness' character. Such character attacks are generally irrelevant and not allowed — but if they relate to the trustworthiness of the witness in general, or as it relates to their specific testimony, then they are relevant and allowable.
- ucaetano 9y ago
  The attack is a tu quoque, essentially a sub-set of ad hominem where the attack is the "hypocrisy attack".
  - gnicholas 9y ago
    The latter part is, but the main argument (they have an ulterior motive) is not. Also, since the GP made clear that his argument is actually specifically limited to the media's coverage (not whether the alleged and admitted behavior actually took place), questions of media bias and hypocrisy are actually relevant.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - ucaetano 9y ago
      Again, no. The ulterior motive is irrelevant to the validity of the claim. This is the exact definition of ad hominem.
      - gnicholas 9y ago
        You seem to be missing what the claim is. The claim is "the media are talking about this too much". Whether the media have an ulterior motive is highly relevant to this.
        ucaetano 9y ago
        The claim isn't "the media is talking too much", it's "the media is hypocritical". And that claim is a response to the thread. It's all about ethics in journalism, again...

gnicholas 9y ago

IMO, this is not actually an attempt at an ad hominem, which is probably why it comes across as "the poorest attempt [you've] seen on HN recently". Ad hominem attacks occur when someone tries to discredit the validity of a claim by disparaging some irrelevant aspect of the person making the claim. For example: "Don't believe my opponent because he is Jewish/Black/White/etc." In contrast, there is no ad hominem fallacy if someone says: "Don't believe my opponent — he has an ulterior motive, and I think he has conflicts of interest as well." This is basically what the GP said: the media has ulterior motives (profit), and they may have a conflict of interest (if their industry is also predominated by white men). I'm not saying I agree with all of what the GP said, but I think it's inappropriate to call this an ad hominem attack. As you point out, he doesn't supply citations for his claim of media homogeneity, but this isn't exactly rare on HN.

chasing 9y ago
> In contrast, there is no ad hominem fallacy if someone says: "Don't believe my opponent — he has an ulterior motive, and I think he has conflicts of interest as well." That is absolutely an ad hominem attack. It engages a feature of the person (their motives) instead of the actual substance of the argument.
- gnicholas 9y ago
  Actually, it engages the substance of his argument, which he lays out in the first sentence: > My comment is entirely focused on the hypocrisy of the _current_ media... He explicitly disclaims that he is not defending the VCs' behavior — he is just saying that perhaps the media behavior is not great as well. Having limited his claim to the behavior of the media, it is not logically inappropriate (i.e., not a logical fallacy) to talk about the media's motives and conflicts of interest. I can understand why this might seem, at a glance, like ad hominem, because it bears some similarities to the logically fallacy. In the law, this distinction is described and handled by the evidentiary rules related to impugning a witness' character. Such character attacks are generally irrelevant and not allowed — but if they relate to the trustworthiness of the witness in general, or as it relates to their specific testimony, then they are relevant and allowable.
ucaetano 9y ago
The attack is a tu quoque, essentially a sub-set of ad hominem where the attack is the "hypocrisy attack".
- gnicholas 9y ago
  The latter part is, but the main argument (they have an ulterior motive) is not. Also, since the GP made clear that his argument is actually specifically limited to the media's coverage (not whether the alleged and admitted behavior actually took place), questions of media bias and hypocrisy are actually relevant.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - ucaetano 9y ago
    Again, no. The ulterior motive is irrelevant to the validity of the claim. This is the exact definition of ad hominem.
    - gnicholas 9y ago
      You seem to be missing what the claim is. The claim is "the media are talking about this too much". Whether the media have an ulterior motive is highly relevant to this.
      - ucaetano 9y ago
        The claim isn't "the media is talking too much", it's "the media is hypocritical". And that claim is a response to the thread. It's all about ethics in journalism, again...