With thanks to Schwern and Kenny for helping me understand these. Also, if you aren't familiar with Geek Social Fallacies, you might want to read them
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10 years ago I was definitely guilty of each of these (and many more that, unfortunately, I can't remember easily). Ending them is a slow process, I've found, but possible.
Nice. I have been guilty of each of these at one time or another, and I think it's a very worthwhile battle to try to cast them aside. I also like the links--thanks
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Yes! I'm glad you added that, and I think it's a huge fallacy.
Unfortunately, I think it's also a fallacy to make an emotional statement in universal truth terms, because I think it encourages the speaker to believe the universal truth terms -- thus have I heard people actually arguing for "Oregon drivers are idiots" and even "Oregon drivers are worse than anywhere else" long after any preexisting emotional event, because they've been saying it so long.
And much, much worse examples. You're right that noncontrived examples are hard.
ah. right. these are why I wind up friends with geeks, yes, despite not having an obsessive detail-hungry interest in anything worth mentioning and therefore totally failing at geek myself. I like these behaviors.
I think #3, forgetting shared context is only a problem in combination with #1, purifying the argument. Semantics are actually important and if you suspect you're using word definitions that are different from those that the person you're arguing with is using, it's worth your time to stop and talk through that. It's only when you allow the semantics conversation to devolve in to a semantics fight that you're in trouble.
Oh, a tip: you can ease a geek-arguer past the generalization problem by saying "with obvious exceptions, it's statistically true that..."
#3 definitely makes #1 worse, you're right about that, and is most often a problem in conjunction with it (I separated them because #1 does happen alone), but I think forgetting shared context happens in other situations too.
This is a spectrum, or maybe many spectra. On one end of at least one spectrum is arguing over differing definitions, on the other end is requiring everything be spelled out letter perfect in a casual argument before you're willing to agree (maybe this comes from our overeducation -- in an academic paper or other formal argument, you should probably not rely on shared context)
I think the XKCD comic is related, but not the same. Also awesome, as usual. =)
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Unfortunately, I think it's also a fallacy to make an emotional statement in universal truth terms, because I think it encourages the speaker to believe the universal truth terms -- thus have I heard people actually arguing for "Oregon drivers are idiots" and even "Oregon drivers are worse than anywhere else" long after any preexisting emotional event, because they've been saying it so long.
And much, much worse examples. You're right that noncontrived examples are hard.
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oh, except when anyone but me does them, I guess.
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http://xkcd.com/309/
I think #3, forgetting shared context is only a problem in combination with #1, purifying the argument. Semantics are actually important and if you suspect you're using word definitions that are different from those that the person you're arguing with is using, it's worth your time to stop and talk through that. It's only when you allow the semantics conversation to devolve in to a semantics fight that you're in trouble.
Oh, a tip: you can ease a geek-arguer past the generalization problem by saying "with obvious exceptions, it's statistically true that..."
Reply
This is a spectrum, or maybe many spectra. On one end of at least one spectrum is arguing over differing definitions, on the other end is requiring everything be spelled out letter perfect in a casual argument before you're willing to agree (maybe this comes from our overeducation -- in an academic paper or other formal argument, you should probably not rely on shared context)
I think the XKCD comic is related, but not the same. Also awesome, as usual. =)
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