David_Gerard comments on Open Thread, April 27-May 4, 2014 - Less Wrong

0 Post author: NancyLebovitz 27 April 2014 08:34PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (200)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: V_V 04 May 2014 10:18:20AM -1 points [-]

Sure, many informal fallacies derive from useful heuristics. The problem is occurs when these heuristics are used as hard rules, especially when dismissing criticism.

For instance, the typical 'privilege' argument is: "You are white/male/heterosexual/cisgender/educated/upper class/attractive/fit/neurotypical, therefore your arguments about non-white/female/gay/transgender/uneducated/working class/unattractive/fat/neuroatypical people are wrong."
It is reasonable that people with certain life experiences may have difficulties understanding the issues of people with different life experiences, but this doesn't mean that you need to share life experiences in order to make an informed argument. The "therefore you are wrong" part of the privilege rebuttal is a fallacy.

Comment author: David_Gerard 04 May 2014 10:31:06AM 1 point [-]

Indeed, "therefore you are wrong" does not follow logically. The usage I more often see is "please, you're being a dick, stop it."

Comment author: V_V 04 May 2014 12:46:47PM 1 point [-]

Which is even worse because it accuses the other party of bad faith. Clearly, that's a conversation stopper.