Perplexed comments on Hollow Adjectives - Less Wrong
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Comments (44)
I read this twice, but didn't come away with anything beyond that there are some kinds of arguments you don't like, and that you wish people didn't use them. But you were unsuccessful in communicating how to recognize those kinds of arguments.
The sentence which is supposed to explain the posting title is apparently this:
This sentence is bad on multiple levels. Hell, it even contains words (like "who's") that are bad on multiple levels. And I still have no idea what it was intended to mean.
There may be something worth savaging here, but I think you need to do a serious rewrite before promoting this. As other people have suggested, add some examples outside the mind-killer arenas of theology and politics. In fact, lose the theology completely. And see if you can come up with a precise characterization of what it is you are objecting to.
I interpreted that sentence as: "A hollow adjective is a descriptor used in a counterexample (counterargument?) to an argument. By its literal definition, the descriptor causes the counterexample to invalidate the argument. However, it actually doesn't invalidate the argument if you think about it."
And yes, I agree that the original sentence is completely confusing and needs be rewritten. Clearly a descriptor itself does not make an argument invalid. What is actually making the argument "self-evidently bad" needs to be explicitly stated.
Hmmm, insidious type. It should read "seems sound if you don't actually think about it." I meant to write, "A, not B," and apparently got distracted and wrote, "A, not A." And the contraction instead of possessive form of who was decidedly a typo - like I said, this is a draft. Thanks!