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>The actual source of this quote is a literal Nazi This is called the Genetic Fallacy, it is completely irrelevant who said anything as long as that thing is t

>The actual source of this quote is a literal Nazi This is called the Genetic Fallacy, it is completely irrelevant who said anything as long as that thing is true and/or useful. Nobody owns words. Aristotle supported slavery, you don't interrupt every logic lecture with "You know the source of those funny terms is a literal slavery supporter?" do you?. >It is also a silly idea. It is considered rude to make fun of autistic people at work This common retort completely misses the point, voltaire's rule of thumb is just that, it's a heuristic, an extremely good one for detecting and finding hegemonic ideologies, but not an algorithm. A necessary but not sufficient condition. The kind of offense is also different, nobody rages at you and assembles a mob because you made fun of an autistic person, at most you will get a cold stare and get ignored. Voltaire was talking about a different kind entirely of "Not allowed", the familiar hysteria coming from the fanatically religious when you speak ill of their idols, he was probably speaking about the church, but the wisdom is just as relevant to the new religions.

UncleMeat 5y ago
> This is called the Genetic Fallacy I'm well aware of the Genetic Fallacy. The post I was responding to was falsely attributing the quote to other sources. "Hey, somebody else said that" is relevant information. Discussion of fallacies is also largely worthless in ordinary conversation since we aren't actually making formal deductive arguments. It is completely reasonable for people to reason through other means than pure deductive logic. And further, my post did not stop there. > voltaire's rule of thumb It is not Voltaire's rule of thumb. We just discussed this.
- Banana699 5y ago
  >The post I was responding to was falsely attributing the quote to other sources. My point is that is irrelevant, it's the equivalent of correcting a misspelled comment in an open source repo and calling it a contribution, it is indeed, but a very minor one that makes little to no difference. You also didn't clarify that the quote doesn't belong to voltaire, you simply stated that the other quote paraphrasing it is from a Nazi. >"Hey, somebody else said that" is relevant information. Only if you don't want to discuss the thing that is being said itself by vaguely referencing the heretic who said it and implying that discredits the thing being said in and of itself. >Discussion of fallacies is also largely worthless in ordinary conversation since we aren't actually making formal deductive arguments It's the exact opposite in fact. Fallacies are literally called "Informal Fallacies", they are coined to give names to common sloppy reasoning tactics and rhetorical tricks in informal everyday conversations and arguments. They are worthless in formal deductive arguments because they are completely dependent on content and have no syntactical forms, unlike - say - deductive arguments like "If P Then Q, P, Therefore Q". Their usefulness is entirely in this kind of conversation where charged emotional words gets thrown left and right. >And further, my post did not stop there. Correct, it continues on to a naive misunderstanding of the quote. >It is not Voltaire's rule of thumb. I think you established that quite satisfactorily already, you can move on to other points.
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    Ok. Let's discuss the "merits" of this quote then if you insist. Which groups can you "not criticize" in the US? Or, at the very least, criticizing which groups will generate the most backlash? I have my own perspective on this list, but I'm very interested in hearing yours. And then I'm interested in hearing you describe how these groups in particular are "in power."
    - Banana699 5y ago
      >Which groups can you "not criticize" in the US? I can never answer this question from a personal experience because I don't live in the US and never have, but I can give a noisy estimate from my experience of the (quite US-dominated) internet and global media ecosystem. Here are groups you're not allowed to criticise on the internet without being held to much higher standards than most things : - Gays - Transgender people - 'Progressive' ideas in general, which includes the above two as special cases but also things like feminism and racial minorities. Those ideas are 'in power' in the sense that they are the semi-official ideologies of the public-facing institutional machinery of western countries: The EU and Euro-American news corporation will worry about the bigoted treatment of lgbt individuals even as an entire country of millions is threatened with an invasion, the UN has specialized bureaucratic organs for "Empowering Women" but not so for men, "Kill All Men" is a funny ironic joke you can make on twitter but "Kill All Women", or even the much milder "Good Morning I Hate Women", is a big bomb to blow anywhere, reddit admins - regardless of the subreddit - will routinely lock or delete any thread that even mentions that trans people are not the coolest thing since kittens were invented. I can go on and on.
      - UncleMeat 5y ago
        But the quote isn't about "ideas" being in power. It is about people. I think it is plain to see that gay people and transgender people are definitely not "in power" in the west in any special way. For somebody to believe this is to believe a wild conspiracy based in no facts whatsoever. And I think this is a pretty compelling argument for why the quote is horseshit. Unless there is some actual secret shadow government operated by women, gay people, and transgender people, the existence of "Kill All Men" as a joke on Twitter is a rather intense indictment against the merits of the quote. So in addition to being originally coined by a Nazi to argue that Jews secretly control the world, the quote is idiotic on its merits.
dibujante 5y ago
It's also just a stupid idea. You "can't criticize" many groups of people who hold no real power. The quotation was devised solely to apply to criticizing "the Jews" (and by extension implying they "rule over you") and laundering it through Voltaire just puts the flakiest of intellectual veneers on top of this nonsense statement.
kemayo 5y ago
> This is called the Genetic Fallacy, it is completely irrelevant who said anything as long as that thing is true and/or useful. Nobody owns words. Is it irrelevant, though? I mean, there's a reason you haven't edited your post to say "Kevin Strom, a noted white nationalist[1], is credited with". (Or even just "Kevin Strom is credited with", with no reference to his politics at all.) Notably, you're employing a fallacy as well -- "Tacitus or Voltaire" functions as an appeal to authority here. These famous people said this, it must have merit. A resistance to correctly attributing the quote suggests that the mantle of authority is the point. (I don't care about debate fallacies, really. I just like to bring up when people complaining about them are employing their own. Petty, I know.) [1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/05/30/fact-check-quote-viral-post-misattributed-voltaire/7415187002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/05/30/fac...
- Banana699 5y ago
  >Is it irrelevant, though Yes, it's as irrelevant as Aristotle's opinions on slavery is to his work on formal logic. The words bear no evidence whatsoever of the author's opinions, therefore it's fallacious and irrelevant to bring them up. >there's a reason you haven't edited your post to say Correct, and that reason is that I don't care. I'm entirely ok with quoting a white nationalist, I have quoted worse human beings. >Notably, you're employing a fallacy as well -- "Tacitus or Voltaire" functions as an appeal to authority here. I think you're overreaching here a little bit to fit my words to a fallacy rather than the other way around. I don't care one bit who said the words, you can attribute them to whoever you like, go ahead and attribute them to Einstein or Ghandi, that won't increase or decrease their truth value. It's a tautologically true aphorism, anybody can say it and it would still ring true. >A resistance to correctly attributing the quote No such thing, I immediately conceded that point when it became clear to me it's a misattribution, the reason I haven't back-edited the comment is that my comment doesn't depend on it, you can substitute "X" or "Santa Claus" for "Voltaire" and you would still get a comprehensible argument that you can either side with or oppose. >people complaining about them are employing their own Eh, I wouldn't say your rather stretched interpretation of my words are evidence they are an appeal to authority, sounds to me like you really just wanted to use the words "Appeal To Authority" in a sentence. Regardless, if the mention of Voltaire annoys you, remove it from your mental cache of the comment and I will defend every single word of the resulting argument, provided you didn't remove or add any other thing. >I don't care about debate fallacies, really You should, they are convenient names for extremely common and sometimes-involuntary logical shortcuts that people take all the time which make arguments and conversations blurrier and less fruitful. Me naming a fallacy in an argument doesn't automatically mean that argument is invalid, it just means the argument defender wants to hide something (possibly from themselves), it's not a gotcha to catch your opponent doing then declare victory, it's a "code review" tool to make conversations clearer, more honest and consequently better.

UncleMeat 5y ago

> This is called the Genetic Fallacy I'm well aware of the Genetic Fallacy. The post I was responding to was falsely attributing the quote to other sources. "Hey, somebody else said that" is relevant information. Discussion of fallacies is also largely worthless in ordinary conversation since we aren't actually making formal deductive arguments. It is completely reasonable for people to reason through other means than pure deductive logic. And further, my post did not stop there. > voltaire's rule of thumb It is not Voltaire's rule of thumb. We just discussed this.

Banana699 5y ago
>The post I was responding to was falsely attributing the quote to other sources. My point is that is irrelevant, it's the equivalent of correcting a misspelled comment in an open source repo and calling it a contribution, it is indeed, but a very minor one that makes little to no difference. You also didn't clarify that the quote doesn't belong to voltaire, you simply stated that the other quote paraphrasing it is from a Nazi. >"Hey, somebody else said that" is relevant information. Only if you don't want to discuss the thing that is being said itself by vaguely referencing the heretic who said it and implying that discredits the thing being said in and of itself. >Discussion of fallacies is also largely worthless in ordinary conversation since we aren't actually making formal deductive arguments It's the exact opposite in fact. Fallacies are literally called "Informal Fallacies", they are coined to give names to common sloppy reasoning tactics and rhetorical tricks in informal everyday conversations and arguments. They are worthless in formal deductive arguments because they are completely dependent on content and have no syntactical forms, unlike - say - deductive arguments like "If P Then Q, P, Therefore Q". Their usefulness is entirely in this kind of conversation where charged emotional words gets thrown left and right. >And further, my post did not stop there. Correct, it continues on to a naive misunderstanding of the quote. >It is not Voltaire's rule of thumb. I think you established that quite satisfactorily already, you can move on to other points.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  Ok. Let's discuss the "merits" of this quote then if you insist. Which groups can you "not criticize" in the US? Or, at the very least, criticizing which groups will generate the most backlash? I have my own perspective on this list, but I'm very interested in hearing yours. And then I'm interested in hearing you describe how these groups in particular are "in power."
  - Banana699 5y ago
    >Which groups can you "not criticize" in the US? I can never answer this question from a personal experience because I don't live in the US and never have, but I can give a noisy estimate from my experience of the (quite US-dominated) internet and global media ecosystem. Here are groups you're not allowed to criticise on the internet without being held to much higher standards than most things : - Gays - Transgender people - 'Progressive' ideas in general, which includes the above two as special cases but also things like feminism and racial minorities. Those ideas are 'in power' in the sense that they are the semi-official ideologies of the public-facing institutional machinery of western countries: The EU and Euro-American news corporation will worry about the bigoted treatment of lgbt individuals even as an entire country of millions is threatened with an invasion, the UN has specialized bureaucratic organs for "Empowering Women" but not so for men, "Kill All Men" is a funny ironic joke you can make on twitter but "Kill All Women", or even the much milder "Good Morning I Hate Women", is a big bomb to blow anywhere, reddit admins - regardless of the subreddit - will routinely lock or delete any thread that even mentions that trans people are not the coolest thing since kittens were invented. I can go on and on.
    - UncleMeat 5y ago
      But the quote isn't about "ideas" being in power. It is about people. I think it is plain to see that gay people and transgender people are definitely not "in power" in the west in any special way. For somebody to believe this is to believe a wild conspiracy based in no facts whatsoever. And I think this is a pretty compelling argument for why the quote is horseshit. Unless there is some actual secret shadow government operated by women, gay people, and transgender people, the existence of "Kill All Men" as a joke on Twitter is a rather intense indictment against the merits of the quote. So in addition to being originally coined by a Nazi to argue that Jews secretly control the world, the quote is idiotic on its merits.

dibujante 5y ago

It's also just a stupid idea. You "can't criticize" many groups of people who hold no real power. The quotation was devised solely to apply to criticizing "the Jews" (and by extension implying they "rule over you") and laundering it through Voltaire just puts the flakiest of intellectual veneers on top of this nonsense statement.

kemayo 5y ago

> This is called the Genetic Fallacy, it is completely irrelevant who said anything as long as that thing is true and/or useful. Nobody owns words. Is it irrelevant, though? I mean, there's a reason you haven't edited your post to say "Kevin Strom, a noted white nationalist[1], is credited with". (Or even just "Kevin Strom is credited with", with no reference to his politics at all.) Notably, you're employing a fallacy as well -- "Tacitus or Voltaire" functions as an appeal to authority here. These famous people said this, it must have merit. A resistance to correctly attributing the quote suggests that the mantle of authority is the point. (I don't care about debate fallacies, really. I just like to bring up when people complaining about them are employing their own. Petty, I know.) [1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/05/30/fact-check-quote-viral-post-misattributed-voltaire/7415187002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/05/30/fac...

Banana699 5y ago
>Is it irrelevant, though Yes, it's as irrelevant as Aristotle's opinions on slavery is to his work on formal logic. The words bear no evidence whatsoever of the author's opinions, therefore it's fallacious and irrelevant to bring them up. >there's a reason you haven't edited your post to say Correct, and that reason is that I don't care. I'm entirely ok with quoting a white nationalist, I have quoted worse human beings. >Notably, you're employing a fallacy as well -- "Tacitus or Voltaire" functions as an appeal to authority here. I think you're overreaching here a little bit to fit my words to a fallacy rather than the other way around. I don't care one bit who said the words, you can attribute them to whoever you like, go ahead and attribute them to Einstein or Ghandi, that won't increase or decrease their truth value. It's a tautologically true aphorism, anybody can say it and it would still ring true. >A resistance to correctly attributing the quote No such thing, I immediately conceded that point when it became clear to me it's a misattribution, the reason I haven't back-edited the comment is that my comment doesn't depend on it, you can substitute "X" or "Santa Claus" for "Voltaire" and you would still get a comprehensible argument that you can either side with or oppose. >people complaining about them are employing their own Eh, I wouldn't say your rather stretched interpretation of my words are evidence they are an appeal to authority, sounds to me like you really just wanted to use the words "Appeal To Authority" in a sentence. Regardless, if the mention of Voltaire annoys you, remove it from your mental cache of the comment and I will defend every single word of the resulting argument, provided you didn't remove or add any other thing. >I don't care about debate fallacies, really You should, they are convenient names for extremely common and sometimes-involuntary logical shortcuts that people take all the time which make arguments and conversations blurrier and less fruitful. Me naming a fallacy in an argument doesn't automatically mean that argument is invalid, it just means the argument defender wants to hide something (possibly from themselves), it's not a gotcha to catch your opponent doing then declare victory, it's a "code review" tool to make conversations clearer, more honest and consequently better.