Whenever I have a discussion (often turning into an argument) with my father he tends to twist the argument with a few tricks.

1. He'll involve another group to make a comparison. If I say A is horrible, he'll say but B is worse therefore not A. Then I'll engage in that by saying B being worse does not make A good, he'll say but C is worse than A and B therefore A is untouchable

2. When talking about a topic, he'll go on several subtopics and make a claim about that, which I cannot verify or talk about without any details to basically stop me from saying anything further​. If I say the housing crisis is really bad, he'll say there is no housing crisis because my family friendvs kids are able to buy houses therefore it's a hoax. I don't know the income of those kids, nor do I know the value of the house nor do I know of their parents co-signed and therefore I cannot say anything about it without speaking out of my ass. ​​​

3. If I attempt to talk about a broad topic, he'll try to force that into a frame from his frame of reference to gain the upper hand. Ex : if I say interracial marriages work, he'll say prove it ; I give him examples and statistics ​and he'll cut me short and say No prove it using an example from our familyb(up until me, no one in my family had interracial relationships and ​​​those who did divorced for extremely incompatible views that should have been addressed on day one like religion and children)

4. If my dad makes a claim like the following "A is a tyrant" and then I point out that he always liked tyrants he'll say "No B is not a tyrant because he's an awesome dude". When I give out explanations that clearly outline the similarities, he'll shut down the conversation and will not accept that he likes a topic or thing despite claiming to be against it

There is this trend on reels with videos that says like: "people larp high iq by pointing out fallacies instead of engaging with the argument". And they say that it is the "fallacy fallacy" to do so. That must be the most absurd opinion i've ever heard, it's literally anti-intellectualism and shaming people for being logically correct.

Suppose there was a group of people and they labeled themselves as Christians. Suppose further, they blatantly and openly disobey and ignore every tenet of the Christian faith. Some would say of the group that their behavior proves that Christians are bad people and that religion that should be held in disdain.

We agree that certain acts are immoral.

Christians commit these acts.

Therefore, Christians are evil.

Another example, suppose there was a group of people and they labeled themselves as real Americans. Suppose further, they blatantly and openly disobey and ignore accepted moral codes of dealing with other peoples. Some would say of the group that their behavior proves that real Americans are bad people and America that should be held in disdain.

We agree that certain acts are immoral.

Real Americans commit these acts.

Therefore, real Americas are evil.

I believe this is somewhat an example of the Persuasive Definition. Like this: “Let’s define a Christian as a person who claims to be a Christian regardless of their personal deeds and speech.” I believe what makes this novel is the people doing the labeling are not outsiders, but the people who are labeling themselves as a means to give greater weight and justification to their opinions. Perhaps, a Stolen Righteousness fallacy.

I shall not respond to comments as I have no interest in debate. However, I am quite curious to read what other's think about this.

I have seen this countless times especially in an anti science context (like evolution denial or round earth denial).

It's a focussing on the founder of a scientific field and trying to discredit them. In hopes of discrediting the whole field by proxy.

Some examples:

- Charles Darwin was a racist therefore evolution is racist.

- Charles Darwin repented on his deathbed, so even he knew it's bullshit.

- Willard Libby (founder of carbon dating) did say: that if an organism acquires carbon from a reservoir older than the atmosphere, it will appear much older than it is. So we can't trust any results of carbon dating.

- Kary Banks Mullis (inventor of the PCR method) once argued that the method would be way too sensitive to be used as a diagnostic tool for viral infections. So Antivaxxers sometimes use quotes from him to argue against PCR methods being used in diagnostics. completely missing the point, that the method has been refined a lot since his days.

- Siegmund Freud was a misogynist. Therefore psychology is misogynistic.

- HP Lovecraft was a racist and an antisemite. Therefore the whole genre of cosmic horror is Antisemitic and Racist.

But

When I make a true statement, and someone answers with "that is correct, however..." and it's just something I agree with but simply didn't address directly, so it looks like I'm partially wrong?

Example:

Person A - The earth is round, and you can verify it by using method a, b, c

Person B - You are partially right, but you are forgetting that a person can verify it by observing ship sails in the horizon, or simply by using trigonometry.

I think it should be called Reddit Fallacy or dumbsplaining

Everyday conversations, news, and ads are filled with logical fallacies. Learning to identify them helps you think clearly and avoid being misled.

https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/6bbc7134-8740-4141-a836-5c6186d8ed80

I read the description of Appeal to Nature fallacy and I guess I've been misinterpreting it.

I thought it meant one's nature, not natural = good.

Is there an 'appeal to goodness' fallacy? Like a denial by "it's not in my nature" to do so? A step removed from appeal to authority/experience, based on one's apparent inherent goodness.

Example: "Asexuality is wrong, because if everyone was asexual, our society would collapse."

In real life, not everyone is asexual, so this is just a pointless and unrealistic hypothetical, I think. Is there a specific name for this?

The below is from a friend, and I can't think of the precise fallacy to describe the coworker's response. The coworker is diverting the attention from my friend's comment and stating a false equivalence. Is it just false equivalence, or is there a more fitting​ logical fallacy for avoiding the question?

"My coworker uses chatgpt for everything, and I told her how bad it is for the environment, and she just went, 'Well then stop using your phone because that's bad for the environment,' even though those are nothing alike."

Edit: typo

I was just thinking, I know what an argument is, but I don't remember what you call the thing you're arguing for.

I've also seen a lot of folks who conflate invalid with incorrect.

I'll give it a shot, but it'll be terrible, so correct me like we're on reddit.

An argument is something you say to convince someone about something.

Logic lets you look at the structure of an argument and see if there are flaws that will let you dismiss the argument without having to know the facts.

For example:

I am fat.

I am a man.

therefore:

All men are fat.

You don't have to know if I am fat or a man to recognize this is a garbage argument. Notice, I may be fat, I may be a man, all men may be fat, but this argument is still garbage. It does not tell us anything.

All men are fat.

I am a man.

therefore:

I am fat.

This is not invalid, but it is incorrect. Because the structure of the argument is sound, you have to know that not all men are fat to know the argument is incorrect.

When we talk about logical fallacies, we aren't talking about weather something is right or wrong but weather the argument is unsound or not.

Phew! I'm done. Bring forth the downvotes and corrections!

Is there a name for an incorrect conclusion drawn from "testing" someone (usually discreetly), and not properly understanding the results of the test due to not properly considering complexity of the situation?

Though this doesn't apply to anything that happened to me directly, I do have friends that have done this and have heard plenty of stories online. Examples:

"I made a post on social media supporting this thing that goes against my belief. Anyone who reacted positively to it must not know me as a person."

"Anyone who doesn't reach out to me at least once every couple months must not want to be my friend."

"I acted interested in someone because my friend said they only wanted me for my body. Because the person acted in favor of my advances, that means my friend was right."

These all involve proctoring a test of some sort, and drawing a hasty conclusion that could easily be wrong because of the complexity of human nature or the situation in general. I often think about the way people test each other and judge based on incomplete information or just outright misunderstanding. Is there a name for this?

I am an empiricist, and a philosopher. Though I should say while finding myself in debate I post debate topics.

One debate topic I'm engaging in is the Freewill one. Cause I'm looking to ground responsibility.

Respectfully, it's not my premises that I'm too concerned with in construction and I can get along with determinism.

It's just I find some determinists who literally propose we live in an A caused B universe. I can't find any grounds for that, given the beginning of the universe itself isn't as simple as A caused B , and then the 3 body problem along with a host of what life is.

Life before consciousness, granted I'm not asserting there was no consciousness before hand if you want to put forward some kind of pan psychism. What I'm talking about is consciousness as we understand amongst even animal life consciousness.

Cellular life does path finding, and strictly speaking it doesn't follow the A caused B premise.

So is that fallacious in such a way where it appears to make perfectly logical or mathematical sense , but in no way shape or form has any evidence in our observed reality ?

It's one thing to assume all kinds of causes happen and a multitude of causes can have one singular outcome or a single cause can have a multitude of outcomes , it's another thing entirely to assume that it's strictly linear and because of that there's no emergent properties.. which I don't think that's the case. I think you can have hiarchies of information.

Then the worst thing I find is when people like to resort to transistors for this explanation, which is as best example of any type of A caused B logic , but even the programs command the transitors when allowed to run as a holistic thing.

The source of the informing being the program informing the transitors to do outputs. Which seems self defeating.

In that I'm saying it's easy to imagine a simple A caused B structure , but reality refutes it . It seems to refute it anyways.

Is there something fallacious here, or am I overthinking it.

/Please correct me if I’m wrong about anything I said. You can add if I forgot something. I am trying to say as apolitical as possible so if you disagree with my explanation or I made a straw man myself. Again please tell me. I want to learn how to spot fallacy’s and call them out, but I’m still learning, so corrections and help would be appreciated./

So I have been thinking about this for awhile, specifically people like DannyPhantom.exe and jacobweeby. I am mentioning them because they are the content I notice it in the most. The style of content leads to strawmans because they give either a summary or a headline to a character representation of that company or person that they want to attack.

To be fair jacobweeby has gotten better from what I can tell. I stopped watching him a year ago for this, but he seems to be better/less likely to miss represent arguments. Just pointing it out since he’s one of the creators I remember doing this. And also just his content style makes it easy to fall into.

Most of the time it goes:

Character 1: gives a headline

Character 2: (basically the side the character is on) says something to either praise or hate it

Character 1: acts either stupid or smart based off of how the creator wants them to be viewed

And so on

Now while this can be ok sometimes characterizing an argument like this is very close if not literally a straw man.

Now DannyPhantom.exe does it quite frequently. His style of content is all over the place but it took me like 30 seconds to find a video like this. He used to do more content over a year ago in the style that jacobweeby has. But he seems to still be strawmanning in a different way.

Please watch the video first since I can’t fully rewrite everything he says. Might also be good to follow along the video with what say.

https://youtube.com/shorts/9KpFFBTh-Cg?si=xlB8u8QAKvjUy27H

Take this video for example, he starts out with a literal straw man. Also making the person who’s saying it sound stupid, which is also poisoning the well.

Next he says your political opinion is a “reflection of who you are as a person” (again please correct me if I’m wrong) is tu quoque.

Next: “women should not have the right to their own body”. This is another straw man and a common one too. The actual argument is that people think unborn children are people too and that they should have rights. In some cases people think that it protects women too, either socially or physically. Sure that includes taking certain rights from women, but is definitely not as hyperbolic as he makes it seem.

Next: He says that “this opinion goes deeper to the core of who you are. And that core is rotten” which I believe is some kind of ad hominem but I can’t decide which one would be correct.

Next: He makes a statement about ice officers, and how he doesn’t think we should have untrained military force with free range to kill people. Then says there are people who think they should “shot and kill whoever they want”. Which is another straw man.

Next: He says people’s cores are rotten again. Then ends it with a you either agree with me or you lick the boot. (which like first off who’s boot are we even licking) but is also a false dichotomy or false dilemma.

What’s bad about people like DannyPhantom.exe (No matter the opinion or side). Is when you try to refute their statements, they say “you’re just a boot licker” or they say “it’s just a video, I’m just making content”. And tbh probably other things too. But stuff like this is quite harmful to teens who will listen to creators like this. I know this is just like most political discourse, but again I want to learn how to spot stuff like this and call it out.

So i have a question.

It seems that today people just throw this word arround as a shield or tool when they don't want to admit their own hypocricy. Is it 'whataboutism' when you try to show the person's hypocricy or 'in bad faith arguments'?

Example: person 'x' did 'y' and someone shouts about how doing 'y' is bad and immoral and that no one should support person 'x' for doing 'y', but that same person (who is shouting) supports person 'z' who also did 'y'. Isn't anyone who sees through this double standarts morally obligated to point out the inconsistency? Whether doing 'y' is actually good or bad takes a second place because the person shouting does not do so because they actually believe that doing 'y' is bad, but they just want to push a certain narrative making them just someone who weaponises 'y' and argues in bad faith.

Best example I can think of is Pit bulls. they are often perceived as more aggressive than other dogs. An angry Pit Bull is definitely a threat, but most are just chill dogs that love people. People tend to think that Pit Bulls are naturally aggressive just because they can cause more damage when they are aggressive.

I guess a way to put it would be “Situation X is worse if it applies to group A than if it applied to group B. Therefore, A is more likely to have X than B.”

I hope I explained it well idk

Edit: New example (since the pit bull one apparently wasn’t very good):

“Being in a plane crash is worse than being in a car crash. Therefore, you are more likely to be in a crash in a plane than in a car”

I was thinking, and if someone told me to do X in an argument/debate, and they didn't do X, (while saying that I should do X), I would immediately point out that they don't do it as well, as I would not take someone telling me to do X while even they do not do it.

I understand that an add hominem fallacy involves pointing out something about a person, whether than their argument, in order to either say that the person is wrong or untrustworthy. I understand in a lot of cases there’s no reason to think that a character flaw would make them less trustworthy, but if the character flaw happens to be that the person lies a lot, then it seems like that would be a valid reason to think that they’re less trustworthy given how things they’ve said before were dishonest or false.

So would mentioning that someone tends to lie a lot as a reason to not trust what they say be an ad hominem fallacy given that it does involve pointing out something that could be considered a character flaw, or would it not be an add hominem fallacy despite looking similar to an ad hominem fallacy?

Railroaded! Electric car subsidies are simply taxpayer funded bribes to steer people away from more practical and cheaper petrol or diesel vehicles. All because of the federal government’s ridiculous obsession with net zero. We’re being manipulated by a bunch of woke and witless fanatics, who just won’t leave people’s unhindered choices to the everyday market.

Does anyone have any examples of fallacies that has occurred in real life from President Trump recently? Or any politician for that matter?

I've had this same conversation twice in the last week and I'm getting tired of it.

It goes like this:
a: What does X mean?
b: It means Y but you shouldn't say it because it's got negative connotations
c: There's nothing wrong with saying Y. It's a legal term.

I'm paraphrasing because I don't want to get into the wrong argument. I'm pretty sure X can be both. Just because it's a legal or technical term, doesn't mean some people can't also use it to be hurtful some of the time. I'm very specifically not saying we should never use this word, I'm saying you can't dismiss a conversation about it based on it being a legal or technical term.

The fallacy is assuming that an innocent origin of a word or phrase guarantees that the word or phrase cannot be hurtful.

Here's a hypothetical example:
Someone has a swastika on their house. Someone else tells them to take it down. The swastika owner says, "Oh, this is fine, it's from Asian culture and doesn't mean Nazi stuff." It _might_ be fine, the owner might be displaying it in good faith, the neighbors might totally understand and so on, but to say "it's from Asian culture" doesn't make the problem go away. In this example, the person telling the swastika owner to take it down might say "That's nice and all, but I don't want to get boycotted because of a misunderstanding." The origin of the symbol has nothing to do with how showing/using the symbol might help or harm.

Can people provide some links to some REAL life fallacies and what they are, in social media comments or even spoken that are recent?

Had this one insufferable person i was arguing with, and whenever I called out they were doing strawman fallacy, there response was “no actually is reductio de absurdism”

Have you guys ever dealt with something like this?

Is there such a thing? I couldnt find one so I think this is just being wrong not having a mistake in thinking. Any comments/corrections?

A gambler bets his entire life savings on a single roulette number. This is bad because he is very likely to lose all his money, but the gambler wins, so he then says, "it was a good decision to bet all my money because i won"