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You could ban cars entirely. Why wouldn't you? Would you rather people die than drive cars at all? I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the parent here; I'm ju

You could ban cars entirely. Why wouldn't you? Would you rather people die than drive cars at all? I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the parent here; I'm just saying your rebuttal is a strawman.

voxl 1y ago
Since we're pretending to know logical fallacies, your deflecting with a slippery slope. Lowering the speed limit by 20 mph is not an extreme change, and it if demonstrates to improve car safety then yes blood should be on your hands for not wanting to drive 20 mph slower. Alternatively, driving is sometimes necessary to deliver goods and travel. But the funny thing is, is that I would GLADLY ban cars in all cities and heavily invest in high speed rail. Cars would still be needed in this world, but again it's the relative change. So no, it's not a strawman. If anything it was an ad hom.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  "Slippery slope is a logical fallacy" is a logical fallacy. "Doing the proposed thing makes a bad thing easier or more likely" is a valid concern.
  - voxl 1y ago
    Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy. This is an undeniable fact. There is no syllogistic, propositional, predicate, or type theoretic argument you can make that uses a slippery slope to derive a theorem. Of course, we are not doing proper logic, which is why I balk at bringing up fallacies anyway, it's bad form and idiotic. Nevertheless, the argument that we shouldn't try to improve safety on the roads because that would lead us to the conclusion that we need to ban driving altogether is so incredibly pathetic that you should feel embarrassed for defending it.
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      A logical fallacy is a form of argument where the conclusion doesn't follow even if the premises are satisfied. The premises of the slippery slope argument are that a) doing X makes Y more likely, and b) Y is bad. The conclusion to be drawn is that doing X has a negative consequence, namely making the bad thing more likely, which actually follows whenever the premises are satisfied.
      - perching_aix 1y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope > This type of argument is sometimes used as a form of fear mongering in which the probable consequences of a given action are exaggerated in an attempt to scare the audience. When the initial step is not demonstrably likely to result in the claimed effects, this is called the slippery slope fallacy. > This is a type of informal fallacy, and is a subset of the continuum fallacy, in that it ignores the possibility of middle ground and assumes a discrete transition from category A to category B. Other idioms for the slippery slope fallacy are the thin edge of the wedge, domino fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy > Informal fallacies are a type of incorrect argument in natural language. The source of the error is not necessarily due to the form of the argument, as is the case for formal fallacies, but is due to its content and context. Fallacies, despite being incorrect, usually appear to be correct and thereby can seduce people into accepting and using them. For the record, I don't really think slippery slope was invoked there (nor do I think ad hominem was), but I do think it's an actual fallacy. I actually even disagree with them claiming it wasn't a strawman, too - they dramatized and reframed the original point.
        AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        Calling it an "informal fallacy" would still make it not a logical fallacy. The slippery slope argument is correct whenever the premises are satisfied. It's possible in some cases that the conclusion is weak, e.g. if Y is a negative outcome but not a very significant one, but that doesn't make it a fallacy and in particular doesn't justify dismissing arguments of that form as a fallacy when X does make Y significantly more likely and Y is a significant concern.
perching_aix 1y ago
Does this not make a double strawman? What's the point of that? For example, they might be of the opinion that danger doesn't increase linearly with speed, but more aggressively. This would result in a scenario where they could argue for lower speed limits without having to argue for complete car elimination. Case in point, this piece of news.
CalRobert 1y ago
Honestly that would be great.
SoftTalker 1y ago
Well Helsinki achieved their goal (zero fatalities) without banning cars, so that argument doesn't really work. And I count myself among those who would not have believed it possible. Of course in general you can avoid potential bad consequences of a thing by not doing the thing but that's just a tautology.
- dataflow 1y ago
  To be clear, what Helsinki achieved is awesome, and I'm not suggesting the outcome was obvious. But that is completely beside the point being discussed here. I was making a rebuttal to a very specific comment and that was it. If the point was not obvious with an outright ban as an example, pretend it said reduce to 10 km/h or something.
Muromec 1y ago
>You could ban cars entirely. Why wouldn't you? Would you rather people die than drive cars at all? We don't even ban drugs here and cars are more useful than drugs. It's all about harm reduction and diminishing returns. Also, autoluwe (but not autovrije) districts exist and are a selling point when buying/renting a house, so your attempt at a strawman is rather amusing.
- dataflow 1y ago
  Of course it's about harm reduction and diminishing returns. I have nothing against what Helsinki did. I was solely replying to that specific comment. Because it was an awful counterargument to an argument that I had explicitly noted I was not agreeing with in the first place.

You could ban cars entirely. Why wouldn't you? Would you rather people die than drive cars at all? I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the parent here; I'm just saying your rebuttal is a strawman.

voxl 1y ago

Since we're pretending to know logical fallacies, your deflecting with a slippery slope. Lowering the speed limit by 20 mph is not an extreme change, and it if demonstrates to improve car safety then yes blood should be on your hands for not wanting to drive 20 mph slower. Alternatively, driving is sometimes necessary to deliver goods and travel. But the funny thing is, is that I would GLADLY ban cars in all cities and heavily invest in high speed rail. Cars would still be needed in this world, but again it's the relative change. So no, it's not a strawman. If anything it was an ad hom.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago
"Slippery slope is a logical fallacy" is a logical fallacy. "Doing the proposed thing makes a bad thing easier or more likely" is a valid concern.
- voxl 1y ago
  Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy. This is an undeniable fact. There is no syllogistic, propositional, predicate, or type theoretic argument you can make that uses a slippery slope to derive a theorem. Of course, we are not doing proper logic, which is why I balk at bringing up fallacies anyway, it's bad form and idiotic. Nevertheless, the argument that we shouldn't try to improve safety on the roads because that would lead us to the conclusion that we need to ban driving altogether is so incredibly pathetic that you should feel embarrassed for defending it.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    A logical fallacy is a form of argument where the conclusion doesn't follow even if the premises are satisfied. The premises of the slippery slope argument are that a) doing X makes Y more likely, and b) Y is bad. The conclusion to be drawn is that doing X has a negative consequence, namely making the bad thing more likely, which actually follows whenever the premises are satisfied.
    - perching_aix 1y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope > This type of argument is sometimes used as a form of fear mongering in which the probable consequences of a given action are exaggerated in an attempt to scare the audience. When the initial step is not demonstrably likely to result in the claimed effects, this is called the slippery slope fallacy. > This is a type of informal fallacy, and is a subset of the continuum fallacy, in that it ignores the possibility of middle ground and assumes a discrete transition from category A to category B. Other idioms for the slippery slope fallacy are the thin edge of the wedge, domino fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy > Informal fallacies are a type of incorrect argument in natural language. The source of the error is not necessarily due to the form of the argument, as is the case for formal fallacies, but is due to its content and context. Fallacies, despite being incorrect, usually appear to be correct and thereby can seduce people into accepting and using them. For the record, I don't really think slippery slope was invoked there (nor do I think ad hominem was), but I do think it's an actual fallacy. I actually even disagree with them claiming it wasn't a strawman, too - they dramatized and reframed the original point.
      - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        Calling it an "informal fallacy" would still make it not a logical fallacy. The slippery slope argument is correct whenever the premises are satisfied. It's possible in some cases that the conclusion is weak, e.g. if Y is a negative outcome but not a very significant one, but that doesn't make it a fallacy and in particular doesn't justify dismissing arguments of that form as a fallacy when X does make Y significantly more likely and Y is a significant concern.

perching_aix 1y ago

Does this not make a double strawman? What's the point of that? For example, they might be of the opinion that danger doesn't increase linearly with speed, but more aggressively. This would result in a scenario where they could argue for lower speed limits without having to argue for complete car elimination. Case in point, this piece of news.

CalRobert 1y ago

Honestly that would be great.

SoftTalker 1y ago

Well Helsinki achieved their goal (zero fatalities) without banning cars, so that argument doesn't really work. And I count myself among those who would not have believed it possible. Of course in general you can avoid potential bad consequences of a thing by not doing the thing but that's just a tautology.

dataflow 1y ago
To be clear, what Helsinki achieved is awesome, and I'm not suggesting the outcome was obvious. But that is completely beside the point being discussed here. I was making a rebuttal to a very specific comment and that was it. If the point was not obvious with an outright ban as an example, pretend it said reduce to 10 km/h or something.

Muromec 1y ago

>You could ban cars entirely. Why wouldn't you? Would you rather people die than drive cars at all? We don't even ban drugs here and cars are more useful than drugs. It's all about harm reduction and diminishing returns. Also, autoluwe (but not autovrije) districts exist and are a selling point when buying/renting a house, so your attempt at a strawman is rather amusing.

dataflow 1y ago
Of course it's about harm reduction and diminishing returns. I have nothing against what Helsinki did. I was solely replying to that specific comment. Because it was an awful counterargument to an argument that I had explicitly noted I was not agreeing with in the first place.