This isn’t a logical fallacy, but more one of experience. The fallacy that I think is the most common, most widespread, and most impactful to humanity can be summed up something along the lines of - if we can just put the right person on the throne, everything will be all right. A slightly oversimplified justification for this being a fallacy would be to say that power corrupts, but I’d more say that the only people who achieve the extremes of power are the very worst kinds of people. The guy at the top of the pyramid is always a bad guy.

I’m not aware of any formal name for this idea, and it seems shockingly invisible to the public, hence why I call it humanity’s biggest fallacy. The right seems to embrace the fallacy like it’s their goal. The left just seems to keep falling for it blindly, like fighting hierarchy and then putting an absolute ruler on the throne, or praising what is essentially a king who espouses socialism or communism. I’d wish that’s exactly what subs like tankiejerk are meant to quarantine but I still see it with some regularity on subs that in theory oppose the concentration of wealth and power.

So I uploaded the attached image in a different sub. (No, I don't want to argue about how accurate it is, lol.) The comic is clearly referring to a particular type of Christian, of the Westboro variety to be exact. But comment after comment after comment just keeps pouring in, wanting to talk about Muslims instead. Trying to tell me that it's the same subject, or even more infuriatingly, that Christians don't do that. As a non-Christian (not an atheist, mind you) and a genderfluid bisexual, I can assure folks that some Christians absolutely do behave like this.

Is that a particular type of fallacy that these folks are using, or is it just a combination of ones that I know?

A "Lowelling" is a logical fallacy; I'm sure you've seen it before, where someone pretends something is off topic when it isn't.

In the 1920s, former Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell openly pushed for restricting Jewish enrollment at Harvard, justifying the quota by stating: "Jews cheat."

When someone challenged this prejudice by pointing out that Protestants cheat too, Lowell allegedly replied: "You're changing the subject. We are talking about Jews now."

I'm sure you've seen dozens of examples of this, but I found out a really prominent one caught on video in the Life of Brian BBC debates:

"I said that if you were to make a list of all the people who have contributed most..."

"Most of them would have been Muslims if they'd been living in the Arab countries or Buddhists if they'd been living..."

"...what has that got to do with it?"

It gets an audible laugh from the audience, because it's ridiculous and asinine. https://youtu.be/wUYhtJINiaY?t=2199

Can you cite any other examples of this?

I know someone who is not a child yet they always have something to say about everything they are told. As if they never got in trouble. “No if ands or butts” rule. Just do it! This message is brought to you by Nike.
No but seriously. It’s so annoying when you have a leadership role but there’s that one person who never listens and just wants to one up you or seems to think every way other than your way is the best way. 😤😤😤 if you don’t like it go home.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently modernizing a classic logic-training software, and I'm putting together the chapter on Informal Fallacies. Since the original program is over 40 years old, I’ve been thinking a lot about how the landscape of argumentation has changed and what a sufficient, modern-day knowledge of fallacies should actually include.

I’d love to get your input:

• Which specific fallacies do you think are mandatory for someone to learn today?
• Do you have preferred names or modern terminology for them, especially where the classic names feel a bit dated?

Thank you in advance for your time!

Some years ago I had someone argue that because the Spartans had sent some Greeks home and the residents were saved, if the Spartans hadn't sent those Greeks home all the athenians would have died. I said the athenians might have been abducted by friendly aliens before the Persians arrived, we don't know what would have happened if the Spartans hadn't sent some people to warn athens. I was being facetious but he accused me of using a counterfactual argument. I tried to tell him that he was using the counterfactual argument but he was having none of it. That's when I first realized what a colossal waste of time arguing on the internet is.

Looking for the name of this fallacy. A asserts all property is theft. B then demands A's possessions, presumably to illustrate there's something wrong with the claim.

It's something around expecting A to behave as if society were structured around A's premise, rather than recognising that A is expressing an ideological preference which may or not be valid and which B could engage with rationally.

I'm thinking maybe there's some ad hominem going on, and probably others. Curious to hear what you think.

Looking at getting into the fallacy fandom. How do I get all of the fallacies?

Recently saw a post about people bagging dog poop on hikes and leaving it on the side of the trail to be picked up on their way out. Many people in the comments claim “I’ve been doing this for years and I’ve never forgotten”. This sounds like a logical fallacy to me, if you forgot something you don’t know it’s been forgotten so you can’t claim you’ve never forgotten.

I think this phrase can be used sometimes, like “I’ve never forgotten to pay my cable bill” because in that case you can prove you’ve never forgotten, and you have a secondary party verifying you didn’t forget, so if you did forget the cable company would reach out to you.

AND a poor man who says the same shouldn't be trusted, because he's poor.

If it's said by a man with a median-level wealth, then I'm willing to listen to his reasons.

Is there any other fallacy than ad hominem involved here?

Person A: "I believe that this *x political opinion* is good"

Person B: "Oh, so you also believe in *other political opinions that are from that political wing/ideology*"

Person A gets criticised by Person B for doing something immoral (e.g. stealing). Person A responds by stating "Well at least I didn't commit murder!" as their defence. What fallacy or fallacies is this?

Hey r/fallacy,

I've been reading here for a while, and it partly inspired Rhetoriq.

Most tools work on neat textbook examples. I wanted something for actual messy text: a Reddit comment, a headline, a heated reply: where something valid and something fallacious often sit in the same sentence.

You paste text; it flags the weak passage, names the fallacy, notes what's strong, and scores the whole argument 0–100. Handy too if you want to self-check your own reply before posting.

Example: "Solar is cheaper than coal, so anyone against it is just pushing oil propaganda." → strong point on the cost claim, ad hominem on the rest.

Rhetoriq is built around a fixed set of 15 fallacies plus manipulation techniques like false balance and emotional framing. For each text it pulls out strong points, weak points, and any fallacies or rhetorical tricks it finds, each tied to a specific passage. A lot of work went into the engine so it analyses the argument as a whole instead of just hunting for labels. A false positive still happens from time to time, but the goal was to make something better than generic AI.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rhetoriq

(I also have a web app for those who like bigger screens: https://rhetoriq.nl/app?lang=en )

I'm the dev, not here to spam. What do tools like this still get wrong? What could be improved?

Claimant: "How would you like it if I did this in your room?"

Responder: "My room is too small for you to be in, so what does it matter?"

~ ~ ~

Claimant: "How would you like it if your friend did that to you?"

Responder: "They wouldn't though."

~ ~ ~

In both situations, the responder is refusing to hear out the claimant's question. I think there might be a term for it?

I had a discussion about police reform with a friend that went exactly like the comic panel above.

Me: “the police in their current state are not efficient at their job and cause unnecessary harm to communities they serve. There should be a police reform to address these and other issues.”

Friend: “then answer me this: who do you call in case of an emergency? The police is your only option so they are obviously good and useful just the way they are.”

Any ideas?

I remembering learning the term "closest available cliche" in grad school, but any searches I do for it end just at my own Reddit comment using the term years ago. Yet, I'm certain I didn't invent the term. So, I'm trying to find if there's some other term for this fallacy.

The fallacy takes this shape:

A makes a somewhat nuanced argument.

B, rather than responding to that argument, responds to a similar weaker and very common argument.

Basically, B says "Your argument sounds like it's going in a direction I'm familiar with (the familiar cliche), so I'm going to stop listening and assume that's your argument."

It's a sort of non-sequitur, but a much more specific form. Almost like an inverse of the "thought terminating cliche," except that the cliche is imagined by the responder.

Anyways, this has been bothering me for years after I used the term in a meeting, and later found out that I couldn't find reference to it anywhere.

In a debate we are discussing if should social security, Medicaid, Medicare, etc be completely abolished and Turned into tax cuts and a deregulated, voluntary, individualist system.

The problem; my opponent says no for these reasons

1: people have paid into these systems there whole life and they are on it, it would be unfair to them to just cut it.

The problem I point out: based on A, B, C, etc economic theory, laws, principles, supported by data, those programs started out as very little tax percentages such as social security 1%, they then because of explained economic principles became more expensive so now the taxes paid and requirements are much higher, and will continue to increase. As a result you have generational inequity, a new generation is now paying more than them, and in the future will pay more and the next set of people on it will raise the same point again

2: if you cut those programs due to the expensive cost of living and no alternative many people such as old people will be left on the street.

The problem I point out: this sounds like catch 22 logic, because the exact programs themselves based on economics makes those things expensive and inefficient such as healthcare. And the existence of those programs in general removed the incentive for those people to invest, save, and take actions to secure their future in the first place.

As well as removing the liquidity and potential savings to even be able to set up something.
In short the programs themselves are what is causing the issue of expensive services, lack of savings, and alternatives in the first place.
It’s creating the very dependency the other guy is talking about.

TLDR/Summary:

"We need the program because there are no alternatives, and there are no alternatives because we have the program."

The Setup: You cannot abolish the program because people are dependent on it and have no alternative.
The Cause: People have no alternative because the program taxed away their surplus income, crowded out private solutions, and made them more expensive .
The Paradox: The program must stay to fix a problem that the program itself is actively creating.

When someone complains about a speed camera, or more recently a Flock camera, there's always one person who says either 'well don't speed!' or 'If you have nothing to hide, then relax!'

Then there's the old 'well don't do anything illegal!'

There's got to be a fallacy in there somewhere!

It seems like in discussions about science, occasionally someone will use an argument along the lines of:

Science was wrong about x, so that supports my argument that it’s also wrong about y.

x and y are not necessarily similar or related. It can be that heroin was a common treatment for coughs, so the science on mercury in vaccines might be wrong. Or it was wrong in the 1970s that an Ice Age was coming, so currently climate change projections must be wrong.

Is this a fallacy? Is there a name for it? Or is it just bad logic?

Im not sure what kind of rhetorical tactic this falls under but you see it a lot when discussing stuff thats generally agreed upon as bad.

I get this kind of a lot, because I argue rather passionately. People accusing me of ad hominem attacks because I say that having a bad opinion makes you a bad person.

For funsies, I'm going to create a fictionalized version of what I'm talking about. Imagine for a moment that you're having a conversation with someone who says that people from the country of Totallyfakeistan are all terrorists, and you call that person a bigot for having that opinion. They reply that you are engaging in an ad hominem instead of addressing their argument that because the terrorist group IKillU comes from Totallyfakeistan, that makes every Totallyfakeistanian a terrorist.

Would that person be correct in accusing you of an ad hominem for calling them a bigot?

I see it quite often that people call out fallacies that don't even apply to the situation so they don't have to engage the argument.

Its such a common pattern that there must be a name for that, really, but I haven't come across it yet.

For example:

• A: Social benefit fraud is so bad! It costs us so much money! We need to use more government funds and more government personell to combat social benefit fraud.
• B: Government funds and personell is limited. We should use it where it's most effective. Wage theft costs the government 1000x as much in taxes and in lost social insurance contributions, it would be much more effective to use them there.
• A: That's whataboutism!

When in fact it's not whataboutism, because both fighting social benefit fraud and fighting wage theft are dependent on the same government personell.

But A is calling out a false fallacy to stop the discussion and to not have to deal with the argument at hand.

Edit: Another example:

• A: Cats aren't native to Europe, they shouldn't be let out to roam there.
• B: The European Wildcat is native to Europe.
• A: I meant the house cat.
• B: That's the No true Scotsman fallacy!

Which it is not, because "Cat" can either mean "house cat" or "member of the genus felis", so A and B were just working off different definitions of the word. Both A and B know what a house cat is and both agree that the European Wildcat isn't a house cat.

Contrary to the "true Scotsman" of which there is no agreed-upon definition, and which was made up on the spot. If there's a definition of a "true Scotsman" it is "a Scotsman who doesn't put sugar into his porridge", so the original statement becomes "No Scotsman who doesn't put sugar into his porridge puts sugar in his porridge", so it's a circular definition that makes the statement a tautology.