MixedNuts comments on The noncentral fallacy - the worst argument in the world? - Less Wrong

157 Post author: Yvain 27 August 2012 03:36AM

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Comment author: Yvain 27 August 2012 09:38:42PM *  28 points [-]

The challenge is an interesting exercise, and I will try to think up some examples, but your comment also contains an implied accusation which I'd like to respond to first.

By my count, this post includes critiques of four weak right-wing arguments (abortion, euthanasia, taxation, affirmative action) and three weak left-wing arguments (eugenics, sexism, capital punishment). As far as I know, neither side thinks MLK was a criminal. That means I'm 4-3, ie as balanced as it's mathematically possible to get while seven remains an odd number.

And I think the responses I see below justify my choice of examples. Shminux says the pro-choice converse of "abortion is murder" would be "forced pregnancy is slavery"; TGM suggests below it "denying euthanasia is torture". These would be excellent examples of TWAITW if anyone ever asserted them which as far as I know no one ever has. Meanwhile, I continue to walk past signs saying "Abortion Is Murder!" on my way to work every day. I don't know who exactly it would be helping to give "Forced Pregnancy Is Slavery" equal billing with "Abortion Is Murder" here and let my readers conclude that I'm arguing against some fringe position irrelevant to the real world.

If you can think of left-wing WAITWs that are as well-known and catchy as "abortion is murder!", I will happily edit the post to include them (well, to include one of them; otherwise it'll be 5-4 and the leftists will start complaining). The best I can do at the moment is anti-war arguments that seem to equate for example humanitarian intervention in Rwanda with invading your next-door neighbor to steal their land because they're both "war", but that one doesn't come in convenient slogan form as far as I know.

Comment author: MixedNuts 16 October 2012 03:30:05PM 4 points [-]

"Arguing against homosexuality is hate speech!". Many anti-queer statements are hate speech, e.g. promotion of murder, but others are along the lines of "People shouldn't act on same-sex attraction because...". Quite a few conservatives complain that the latter form of argument is dismissed as "hate speech", even though "People shouldn't drive SUVs because..." is never taken to mean you hate SUV drivers.

Comment author: Nisan 16 October 2012 03:46:49PM 0 points [-]

That's not the worst argument in the world. "People shouldn't act on same-sex attraction because..." is closer to the central archetype of hate speech than "People shouldn't drive SUVs because..." is. And the full argument is probably something like "Arguing against homosexuality is hate speech, and therefore harms homosexuals." — which is a sloppy argument, but a cleaned-up version would be "Arguing against homosexuality encourages people (through the magic of virtue ethics) to view homosexuals as vicious. And it legitimizes (through the affect heuristic) the established pattern of homophobia. Therefore, you should not argue against homosexuality. By the way, hate speech shares these features."