quote:

Originally posted by CHRles I'll try and refrain from using that reference. Have you noticed though how certain individuals on this board who don't like what I said immediately tried to play down everyone that lives in the South, or one individual going so far as to say "bomb Nashville"? I could just as easily be posting from Kansas City. That same poster could have just as easily said "bomb Kansas City", and he has a long history of encouraging such things on the West in the past. Posters like that will blame all of society's ills on western governments. They fail to look at the bigger picture. The US sadly has its own homegrown terrorist movements, which we've seen in action during the bombings on OKC. These were Americans so they couldn't come up with the same lame excuses as given by people like Bin Laden. Bin Laden can blame the US all he wants, but he and his followers are to blame for their actions. Furthermore, the country in which they were based out of, Afghanistan, did nothing to eradicate terrorism from its borders prior to US intervention. That is why there is American presence abroad b/c many of the governments in the Middle East are too weak to take care of their own terrorist groups.

The first thing you need to do is accept that other people strongly disagree with you. There's no way around that. Once you accept that fact, then you can concentrate on addressing our arguments with facts, sources, etc. You began using "terrorist lover" days ago, before anyone began reacting to your slanders. We can flame each other all day, but it gets childish after a while.

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Good to see this thread finally calm down. I was getting tired of the name calling.

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 I think we're coming pretty near to seeing your "terrorist lover" branding and name calling to a close, CHRles. No one in their right mind on this board that I've seen on either side of the aisle (or in between for that matter) supports the acts of any terrorist. That branding in of itself does not add anything worthwhile to the discourse on this thread or any other that you posted. I'm sure you're fully awre of that, yet you continue unabated. I will state one more time for you - the Mods do not take kindly to name calling in the PDD forum. I can guarantee you with near 100% certainty that you will either be banned or suspended out of PDD should you continue with your willful abuse of #2 rule posted by Lira. Numerous other posters who've demonstrated similar (even less) behavior than this have been banned from this forum in the past. I think you have an opinion that's worth offering, and no one wants to quell your voice in the debate. But the inevitable will happen if you cannot debate with integrity and cease with the "terrorist lover" branding. That simply does not bolster your points.

Mod Approved

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Hey, I invoked Godwin's Law on one occassion on an elitist forum on Discogs and got noted for it, but I still won the argument. To the curious minds, I was defending the "inferior" electronic music genres (new house, eurodance, and pretty much any popular club music), because some people like to label some genres as better and superior to others, aka least popular and least listened to music is better and more superior in all ways than the most popular mainstream music. Eventually the argument got heated so much with their elitist comments, I accidentaly compared their elitist mentality to Hitler's supremacy ... I think I was set up in that one, but I learned my lesson. I basically showed after dozens of posts that there's no such thing as inferior music.

The stupid thing about the Godwin's Law is that its not the only "law" out there to cover the discussions. In effect, if you take all the laws of arguments, you can use any number of them to sidestep an argument and limit the discussion.

There are too many of them dam laws out these, so I just learned to disregard them. and here the ones I could think of:

Benford's law of controversy
Hofstadter's Law
Finagle's law
Sod's law
Peter Principle
Russell's law
Strathmann's law
Murphy's law
Sturgeon's Law
Hanlon's razor
Clark's Law
Ko³akowski's Law
Littlewood's law
Keynes's Law

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Whenever you go and buy something, you are affecting someone somewhere, be it environment, a person, or a community - you're making a statement with what you buy. So make it a smart choice ... Its a big picture

Oh, Jesus, how could I forget about the Duffy's law — "Most people are wrong about most things most of the time."

or the

Goodhart's law — When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

Hartman's Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation — "any statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one error".

Hlade's Law — If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person; they will find an easier way to do it.

Littlewood's law — States that individuals can expect miracles to happen to them, at the rate of about one per month.

I like this one:
Moynihan's law — "The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of complaints about human rights violations heard from there. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country."

Reilly's law — of Retail Gravitation, people generally patronize the largest mall in the area.

OH HOW MANY TIMES PEOPLE ON THIS FORUM HAS INVOKED THIS ONE: Rothbard's law — everyone specializes in his own area of weakness.

ETC. ETC. ETC. ETC.

The point is, guys, these laws are dumb. A great way to disrupt a diiscussion, nothing more. A childish way to win an argument. There's a law available out there for every discussion, some make more sense than others, most are still dumb.

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Whenever you go and buy something, you are affecting someone somewhere, be it environment, a person, or a community - you're making a statement with what you buy. So make it a smart choice ... Its a big picture

quote:

Originally posted by Magnetonium Oh, Jesus, how could I forget about the Duffy's law — "Most people are wrong about most things most of the time." or the Goodhart's law — When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Hartman's Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation — "any statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one error". Hlade's Law — If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person; they will find an easier way to do it. Littlewood's law — States that individuals can expect miracles to happen to them, at the rate of about one per month. I like this one: Moynihan's law — "The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of complaints about human rights violations heard from there. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country." Reilly's law — of Retail Gravitation, people generally patronize the largest mall in the area. OH HOW MANY TIMES PEOPLE ON THIS FORUM HAS INVOKED THIS ONE: Rothbard's law — everyone specializes in his own area of weakness. ETC. ETC. ETC. ETC. The point is, guys, these laws are dumb. A great way to disrupt a diiscussion, nothing more. A childish way to win an argument. There's a law available out there for every discussion, some make more sense than others, most are still dumb.

I'de disagree.

Debate requires some general guidelines and rules to follow so the discussion will not turn into an unproductive flame fest, and instead remains on topic, and intellectual. What's wrong with asking for sources or restricting arguments known to be detrimental to the discussion? The ad hominem (I think I spelled it right) law is by far our best rules here on these forums, and its kept our discussions on point, and generally productive. I mean just think of some of the idiots who have been banned from here, and how shitty this forum would be if some of these people remained here.

My point is rules are needed to keep the debate structured enough to prevent fallacies such as name calling and making unrelated cause & effect comparisons like nazis and iran.

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quote:

Originally posted by Krypton Thank you sunsnail for bringing this little rule into my conscious. Taken from Wiki... "Godwin's Law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1] is an adage formulated by Mike Godwin in 1990. The law states:[2] As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

How did a law of probablility become memetically engineered into one of immediate censure?

While I understand that Nazi analogies are often invoked for the wrong reasons, there are also many good reasons why they might be called upon (i.e. for the sake of comparative history.)

quote:

Originally posted by Trancer-X How did a law of probablility become memetically engineered into one of immediate censure? While I understand that Nazi analogies are often invoked for the wrong reasons, there are also many good reasons why they might be called upon (i.e. for the sake of comparative history.)

The rule does not make any statement whether any particular reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that one arising is increasingly probable.

What is a fallacy is the Reductio ad Hitlerum logical fallacy which states...

"""Hitler supported A. Therefore, A must be evil."""

Goodwin's Law is essentially a bunch of nonsense narrowing down the framework of discourse, forcibly discluding any reasonalable comparison or parallel to the third reich. Placing further restrictions on a subject already poisoneded with cultural taboos, one must essentially ignore a pretty recent and important historical phenomenon to accept the prevelance of an asinine law like this. Yes, there are cases where the Nazi analogy is overextended or not appropriate in the first place, but to disclude anything remotely related to it is a relfection of nothing more than an inability to deal with and process analogies and parallels with simple facets of modern history. So this Goodwin guy's basically a wuss that had to make up a rule in avoidance of dealing with his own hang ups, complexes, and cultural baggage.

quote:

Originally posted by Krypton The rule does not make any statement whether any particular reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that one arising is increasingly probable. What is a fallacy is the Reductio ad Hitlerum logical fallacy which states... """Hitler supported A. Therefore, A must be evil."""

No, that's utter bullshit. What you're refering to is a tautolaugical implication. It has nothing to do with "Hitler" or "Nazis."

We Know:

• A --> B
  
• B is true
  

If one argues from the above that A is true, that a very elementary and basic fallacy. Only someone completely unfamiliar with a tautological implication and it's truth table could make an assertion like that.

Plus you made quite a few leaps in logic there to begin with.

"Hitler supposerted A" is a single premise in itself.
"A is evil" or "A is not evil" is a logically unrelated statement with any selfevident correlation or reltiontion between the two premises.

So any freshman who's taken a formal logic 101 class can own this Goddwin clown in a matter of a few seconds.

EDIT: There's a difference between tautological equivilances and implications, in the former case that would be a legitimate inference but it's simply not the case here.

EDIT2: BTW, nothing personal Krypton. I unfortunately have a tendency snap in response to a forced limitation discourse or obfuscation of legitimate arguments. So don't take my response the wrong way buddy .

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"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

Last edited by shaolin_Z on Jan-28-2008 at 02:07

quote:

Originally posted by shaolin_Z

The Reductio ad Hitlerum is an association fallacy. Association fallacies are an inductive formal fallacy of the type hasty generalization or red herring which asserts that qualities of one thing are inherently qualities of another, merely by an irrelevant association. The two types are sometimes referred to as guilt by association and honor by association. Association fallacies are a special case of red herring, and can be based on an appeal to emotion.

Interestingly, the probability that someone will make a comparison involving dish soap also increases as the sample of text in which it might be found expands. Therefore, by analogy, you should also carefully avoid making an inappropriate comparison to dish soap in an online discussion.

Since dish soap and Hitler are so similar in this regard, I think it is fair to assume that anyone who purchases dish soap must be a Nazi. I know I am.