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> It's an ad hominem. This really just impugns people and invites an argument. It might be cathartic, but generally it doesn't advance the conversation to cast

> It's an ad hominem. This really just impugns people and invites an argument. It might be cathartic, but generally it doesn't advance the conversation to cast aspersion like this. It is not an ad hominem in any sense! For one thing, this part isn't even an attack - here the author is trying to explain and essentially forgive why the (allegedly) sub-optimal design was chosen: that there wasn't enough information at the time to make a fully informed decision! He's saying "it wasn't their fault they designed it like so, at the time it probably seemed like the best decision". Second, even if it were some form of attack - it wouldn't be an ad hominem because it is not an _irrelavant_ personal attack. It is directly relevant whether some group made decisions based on sufficient existing information etc. The author might be totally wrong about the facts, but at least he believes and offers evidence regarding the situation at the outset of development. It hurts to have your work criticized, and I can't comment on the factual accuracy of the timeline and other claims, but the piece does not come off at all badly-intentioned, personal or otherwise unreasonable: it comes off mostly as purely technical criticism.

devwastaken 8y ago
That's not technical criticism. You can't know if the devs are 'flying blind', and given the lack of knowledge the author had, they were throwing deprecating words around. It is saying they didn't know what they're doing. Regardless it's still ad hominem, and unnecessary if the author could show it instead of say it.
- derefr 8y ago
  No: an ad hominem is a specific thing, and this is not an example of one. For something to be an ad hominem, it has to make an assertion that—if true—would still be completely irrelevant to the truth-value of the syllogism, and yet will serve to convince the reader anyway, usually by the rhetorical power of the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect causing them to think that something that has irrelevant faults must also have (possibly unknown) relevant faults. An example of an ad hominem: saying that someone must have cheated on their taxes, because they have some depraved sexual kink. Whether or not the assertion (“X is a fetishist”) is true, it is obviously irrelevant to ascertaining the truth of whether X cheats on their taxes. An example of a not-ad-hominem: saying that someone is more likely to have cheated on their taxes, because they are an old rich white man. This might be stereotyping (i.e. inductive reasoning), it might be a “personal attack”, and it might be disallowed in a debate for any number of other reasons, but it’s not an ad hominem: being in the relevant class really does have some correlation (however small) with cheating on one’s taxes (mostly because all groups other than the relevant group consist of people with less access to the resources that would allow them to get away with cheating on their taxes.) Therefore, the truth-value of the assertion is not entirely irrelevant to the syllogism—so it’s not an ad hominem.
- BeeOnRope 8y ago
  > That's not technical criticism. To be clear that particular phrase wasn't direct technical criticism - but it was embedded in an article that was largely technical and it was in direct support of the technical arguments (essentially "it ended up like that because no compilers, streaming or not, existed yet"). I think you should look carefully at the definition of ad hominem. You say that the author couldn't have known what he was asserting. Maybe, sure! That doesn't relate to it being an ad hominem though (it would make it simply false). You say the worse are deprecating. I don't really agree, but even if they were that doesn't by itself make it an ad-hominem. Ad hominem needs all three factors: _personal_, _irrelevant_ and _an attack_. I think you can make very good arguments that it was not an attack and certainly that it was not irrelevant. I would even argue it's not personal, since it is not an about a personal characteristic of any person, but simply an observation about what point in time an event took place. Like if I said "you were FLYING BLIND because you had to decide whether to take you umbrella before knowing the weather at your destination", it is not even a personal thing: just observing that you had to decide before you had all the information.

devwastaken 8y ago

That's not technical criticism. You can't know if the devs are 'flying blind', and given the lack of knowledge the author had, they were throwing deprecating words around. It is saying they didn't know what they're doing. Regardless it's still ad hominem, and unnecessary if the author could show it instead of say it.

derefr 8y ago
No: an ad hominem is a specific thing, and this is not an example of one. For something to be an ad hominem, it has to make an assertion that—if true—would still be completely irrelevant to the truth-value of the syllogism, and yet will serve to convince the reader anyway, usually by the rhetorical power of the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect causing them to think that something that has irrelevant faults must also have (possibly unknown) relevant faults. An example of an ad hominem: saying that someone must have cheated on their taxes, because they have some depraved sexual kink. Whether or not the assertion (“X is a fetishist”) is true, it is obviously irrelevant to ascertaining the truth of whether X cheats on their taxes. An example of a not-ad-hominem: saying that someone is more likely to have cheated on their taxes, because they are an old rich white man. This might be stereotyping (i.e. inductive reasoning), it might be a “personal attack”, and it might be disallowed in a debate for any number of other reasons, but it’s not an ad hominem: being in the relevant class really does have some correlation (however small) with cheating on one’s taxes (mostly because all groups other than the relevant group consist of people with less access to the resources that would allow them to get away with cheating on their taxes.) Therefore, the truth-value of the assertion is not entirely irrelevant to the syllogism—so it’s not an ad hominem.
BeeOnRope 8y ago
> That's not technical criticism. To be clear that particular phrase wasn't direct technical criticism - but it was embedded in an article that was largely technical and it was in direct support of the technical arguments (essentially "it ended up like that because no compilers, streaming or not, existed yet"). I think you should look carefully at the definition of ad hominem. You say that the author couldn't have known what he was asserting. Maybe, sure! That doesn't relate to it being an ad hominem though (it would make it simply false). You say the worse are deprecating. I don't really agree, but even if they were that doesn't by itself make it an ad-hominem. Ad hominem needs all three factors: _personal_, _irrelevant_ and _an attack_. I think you can make very good arguments that it was not an attack and certainly that it was not irrelevant. I would even argue it's not personal, since it is not an about a personal characteristic of any person, but simply an observation about what point in time an event took place. Like if I said "you were FLYING BLIND because you had to decide whether to take you umbrella before knowing the weather at your destination", it is not even a personal thing: just observing that you had to decide before you had all the information.