Comment author: arundelo 02 September 2013 02:44:29AM 25 points [-]

You argue that it would be wrong to stab my neighbor and take all their stuff. I reply that you have an ugly face. I commit the "ad hominem" fallacy because I'm attacking you, not your argument. So one thing you could do is yell "OI, AD HOMINEM, NOT COOL."

[...] What you need to do is go one step more and say "the ugliness of my face has no bearing on moral judgments about whether it is okay to stab your neighbor."

But notice you could've just said that without yelling "ad hominem" first! In fact, that's how all fallacies work. If someone has actually committed a fallacy, you can just point out their mistake directly without being a pedant and finding a pat little name for all of their logical reasoning problems.

-- TychoCelchuuu on Reddit

Comment author: snafoo 05 September 2013 02:22:22PM 21 points [-]

Yeah.

It's like when those stupid car buffs say "Hmmm...yeah, transmission fluid" when telling each other what they think is wrong rather than "It sounds like the part that changes the speed and torque with which the wheels turn with respect to the engine isn't properly lubricated and able to have the right hydraulic pressure, so you should add some green oil product."

-rekam

Comment author: undermind 16 August 2013 12:59:58AM *  17 points [-]

Now you're just being paranoid.

Which is totally appropriate.

So...maybe.

Comment author: snafoo 16 August 2013 10:03:16PM 5 points [-]

CONSTANT VIGILANCE

Comment author: wedrifid 04 August 2013 04:30:43AM 0 points [-]

"Because the dollar is dirty" is one of those pained, stretched explanations people come up with to explain why they do what they do, not the actual reason (even in some small part) the bookmark was invented and became popular.

The question wasn't "Why was the bookmark invented?". If it was, I might have, for example, tried to determine the first time someone used a bookmark (or when it became popular). Then I could have told you precisely how many dollars in present value that dollar would have been worth. That is, moving the goalposts in this way has made your quote worse, not better.

not the actual reason (even in some small part)

Not even is some small part? That's absurd. Can you not empathise in even a small part with the aesthetic aversion many people have to contaminating things with used currency?

Comment author: snafoo 09 August 2013 05:11:04AM -1 points [-]

Can you not empathise in even a small part with the aesthetic aversion many people have to contaminating things with used currency?

Are you sure you didn't just go ahead and basically make up these people who don't want money to touch their book because it's dirty?

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 August 2013 05:01:11PM 17 points [-]

This phrase was explicitly in my mind back when I was generalizing the "notice confusion" skill.

Comment author: snafoo 04 August 2013 05:53:01PM 4 points [-]

When you were what?

Comment author: snafoo 04 August 2013 05:51:26PM 31 points [-]

When the axe came into the woods, many of the trees said, "At least the handle is one of us.

Turkish proverb

Comment author: snafoo 04 August 2013 05:50:23PM 13 points [-]

I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.

Stephen Jay Gould

Comment author: snafoo 04 August 2013 05:48:35PM 7 points [-]

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

misattributed often to Plato

Comment author: snafoo 04 August 2013 05:46:45PM 27 points [-]

Some say imprisoning three women in my home for a decade makes me a monster, I say it doesn’t, and of course the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Ariel Castro (according to The Onion)

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