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Can anyone name this fallacy, where your evidence is that people have been complaining about the same thing for a long time, so complaining is merely the status
by zach 16y ago
Can anyone name this fallacy, where your evidence is that people have been complaining about the same thing for a long time, so complaining is merely the status quo and there isn't a real issue?
I know we all enjoy quotes from ancient Greece about how children "these days" are disrespectful, and yet regardless of what you think about the topic, this is a stinker of an argument. You can employ it in the same way to say, for example, that political discourse only seems to be less civil than it was any number of years ago.
- ShardPhoenix 16y agoHow is it a fallacy to say that moderate levels of people complaining about something is weak evidence for there being a real problem?
- tkahn6 16y agoThroughout history people have condemned war. I would argue that war is still a real problem.
- nopassrecover 16y agoThe fallacy is that "we've heard this complaint before therefore your complaint is invalid" which is obviously an invalid argument. In this case "moderate levels of people complaining" is treated as negative evidence, that is to say, counter to their complaints. My vote for the name of this fallacy is "the boy who cried wolf" fallacy.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- ubernostrum 16y agoYou can employ it in the same way to say, for example, that political discourse only seems to be less civil than it was any number of years ago. When, of course, it's not; it is in fact much more civil than it used to be :)
- billswift 16y agoLate 19th century legislator to and about another: "With a few more brains you could be a halfwit." "He never opens his mouth without subtracting from the sum of human intelligence." I wrote them down a couple of years ago, but forgot to note the source.
- balding_n_tired 16y agoThe second at least I have seen attributed to Thomas Reed, Speaker of the House in the late 1890s.
- jff 16y agoI know it's pretty cool on HN to shout "fallacy!!!!111" whenever somebody claims something you don't like, but... Since ancient Greece (and certainly before), some people have complained that the children of today are spoiled, useless, and will destroy the civilization. Sometimes it's true, but I'd say far more often it isn't. Is it really a fallacy to point out that the same claims have been made for over 2,000 years, and yet the world continues to advance and survive somehow? Could it be that (gasp!) people get crotchety and tend to forget what they were like as kids when they get old? I'll bring up a counter-fallacy, the "rose-tinted glasses" fallacy, in which everything was so much better when you were a kid, and kids these days don't know nothin' 'bout nothin'. Or the "I call fallacy" fallacy, in which you claim an opponent is committing a fallacy of some sort and hope it sticks.
- fr0sty 16y agoThis analysis ignores the possibility of a cyclic-nature to such claims. I'm sure you could find a citation for a 'kids these days' rant in every decade of the last 200 years but such simple analysis ignores the evidence presented for the claim and the overall popularity of the sentiment. in other words: curmudgeons are universal and constant, societal apathy is cyclical.