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You wrote this like Tucker Carlsen doing a takedown with Facts and Logic. If you had a good point, I wouldn't know, because how can I trust someone who can't ev

You wrote this like Tucker Carlsen doing a takedown with Facts and Logic. If you had a good point, I wouldn't know, because how can I trust someone who can't even hold back derision until their done talking down to their interlocutor?

revelio 3y ago
The author of the article isn't an interlocutor as there's no dialog here, just an article and a response she'll never read. You don't like the capitalization on the Highly Credentialed Expert, presumably. The derision is there for a purpose. It's highlighting that the author presents herself as a logic professor, so we'd hope she's an expert in logic, but her argument isn't logical. Her argument for why climate footprint calculators are a subtle manipulation by oil companies is that they're "red herrings". A red herring is a fallacy in which irrelevant information is presented alongside relevant information. Personal CO2 footprints seem pretty relevant to any discussion of climate change, but she doesn't like that because it implies that anyone other than oil companies needs to do anything. See, she assigns all emissions to oil companies alone. If you buy a car then drive it on a long trip you didn't need, the emissions don't come from you, you did nothing. Every last atom was emitted by whoever pulled it out of the ground originally. This isn't a logical way to talk about emissions because the act of putting oil in a tank doesn't emit any CO2. It's the decision to burn it that does. BTW, if you judge an argument purely by its tone then you'd have to ignore all claims about the climate in outlets like Salon. They're all filled with derision, scorn and visceral hatred for anyone who disagrees. The Salon author says things like "If our collective philosophical literacy were better" and asserts anyone who disagrees with her are "pros" in misdirection who "assume that the average American is not much smarter than a Cocker Spaniel".

revelio 3y ago

The author of the article isn't an interlocutor as there's no dialog here, just an article and a response she'll never read. You don't like the capitalization on the Highly Credentialed Expert, presumably. The derision is there for a purpose. It's highlighting that the author presents herself as a logic professor, so we'd hope she's an expert in logic, but her argument isn't logical. Her argument for why climate footprint calculators are a subtle manipulation by oil companies is that they're "red herrings". A red herring is a fallacy in which irrelevant information is presented alongside relevant information. Personal CO2 footprints seem pretty relevant to any discussion of climate change, but she doesn't like that because it implies that anyone other than oil companies needs to do anything. See, she assigns all emissions to oil companies alone. If you buy a car then drive it on a long trip you didn't need, the emissions don't come from you, you did nothing. Every last atom was emitted by whoever pulled it out of the ground originally. This isn't a logical way to talk about emissions because the act of putting oil in a tank doesn't emit any CO2. It's the decision to burn it that does. BTW, if you judge an argument purely by its tone then you'd have to ignore all claims about the climate in outlets like Salon. They're all filled with derision, scorn and visceral hatred for anyone who disagrees. The Salon author says things like "If our collective philosophical literacy were better" and asserts anyone who disagrees with her are "pros" in misdirection who "assume that the average American is not much smarter than a Cocker Spaniel".