siodine comments on Cleaning up the "Worst Argument" essay - Less Wrong

13 Post author: Yvain 06 September 2012 12:09AM

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Comment author: siodine 06 September 2012 12:23:39AM *  2 points [-]

Looks much better to me. I think you could improve it even more by adding a precautionary addendum that's something like the following:

So, there we have the Worst Argument In The World, but what about the Second Worst Argument In The World? I declare that to be: "If we attribute a fallacy or bias to an argument without demonstrating why exactly an argument is fallacious or biased, and especially when the particular flaw isn't fundamental to the point of the argument." So, for example, saying something like "well, that's obviously the worst argument in the world!" would be the second worst argument in the world.