3 ms·

a) That actually isn't a refutation or a response of the parent argument. It's just some random point. b) The topic wasn't indicated to be about the American s

by tekla 3y ago

a) That actually isn't a refutation or a response of the parent argument. It's just some random point. b) The topic wasn't indicated to be about the American slave experience, it could have been about slavery in general, or about slavery in the Incan empire etc etc, so you could be making an argument against a point isn't even relevant. This is why debate is important. Its trivially easy to see through bad arguments.

vacuity 3y ago
On the topic of bad arguments, is (b) supposed to suggest that any form of slavery was good to the slaves and not an unreasonable cruelty as US slavery was? Not sure how Mike Tyson is any more valid by describing a different instance of slavery. Not all slavery is equally bad per se, but I'd say it's all bad enough.
- tekla 3y ago
  No. I said what I said. Slavery being good is not refuted by bringing up a single instance of slavery. The point is that if your response to "Slavery good" is that "US Slavery was really really bad" and spend a ton of time on this argument, the opposing team could easily stand up respond with "We concede US slavery was bad, here are the reasons why that doesn't really matter and why it doesn't even refute our generic arguments that slavery is good across the board except for this one time" So you've wasted a ton of time arguing something that can easily be made irrelevant with very little effort. You can't go up there and say Slavery is bad because I think Slavery is bad and expect to win.
  - vacuity 3y ago
    Except I'm not saying "only consider one instance of slavery that is bad". By all means, consider them all. Then there's the question of whether slavery can inherently be remotely good. Also, I said "instance of slavery" but that downplays the scale and impact of the systems that enabled slavery. Of course I'm not pointing at an example of slaves being mistreated as my only reasoning.
  - cycomanic 3y ago
    But then the other side is not arguing slavery is good, but slavery is good except for this exception, which could likely be continued at infinitum. At some point we end up at the true scotsman fallacy, where no existing slavery was ever "real" slavery. . If we take a scientific view, one example acn falsify and statement, so shouldn't

by tekla 3y ago

vacuity 3y ago

On the topic of bad arguments, is (b) supposed to suggest that any form of slavery was good to the slaves and not an unreasonable cruelty as US slavery was? Not sure how Mike Tyson is any more valid by describing a different instance of slavery. Not all slavery is equally bad per se, but I'd say it's all bad enough.

tekla 3y ago
No. I said what I said. Slavery being good is not refuted by bringing up a single instance of slavery. The point is that if your response to "Slavery good" is that "US Slavery was really really bad" and spend a ton of time on this argument, the opposing team could easily stand up respond with "We concede US slavery was bad, here are the reasons why that doesn't really matter and why it doesn't even refute our generic arguments that slavery is good across the board except for this one time" So you've wasted a ton of time arguing something that can easily be made irrelevant with very little effort. You can't go up there and say Slavery is bad because I think Slavery is bad and expect to win.
- vacuity 3y ago
  Except I'm not saying "only consider one instance of slavery that is bad". By all means, consider them all. Then there's the question of whether slavery can inherently be remotely good. Also, I said "instance of slavery" but that downplays the scale and impact of the systems that enabled slavery. Of course I'm not pointing at an example of slaves being mistreated as my only reasoning.
- cycomanic 3y ago
  But then the other side is not arguing slavery is good, but slavery is good except for this exception, which could likely be continued at infinitum. At some point we end up at the true scotsman fallacy, where no existing slavery was ever "real" slavery. . If we take a scientific view, one example acn falsify and statement, so shouldn't