Bitcoin Forum

This is based on my post on page 57 of some obscure thread and I am reposting it here as it was suggested in hope that someone will find it useful.

The level of discussion in this forum is appalling. It seems most people are either unable or unwilling to hold a civil and reasonable discussion. Let me give you some details and examples. Some of those are based on recent massive pirate related trolling campaign which I will use in my examples. Please note that even while my examples may refer mostly to the pirate affair (a popular topic at this time) the same low quality of argument is endemic. Perhaps we are indeed entering "eternal september" state.

Brief background is that user pirateat40 made an extraordinary claim that he has some kind of biz model that is producing >3400% APR AND that it is reasonable for him to buy capital at ~3400 APR% AND that his biz model is not a ponzi. Moreover he has taken deposits/money in rather significant amounts based on that claim directly and via intermediaries/partners/employees/etc.

The pirateat40's opponents have called this BS and reasonably  asserted that pirate is running a ponzi scheme based on logical reasoning and common sense.

Pirate and his shills, supporters, lieutenants and captives went on offensive employing every logical fallacy in the book (many of them anyway).

Let's just list some of fallacies that have been routinely used and/or likely will be used shortly by team "pirate, the miracle worker" (and by other community members on other topics too, of course):

Ad hoc:
  "pirate paid 1 account, hence he will pay all accounts", "pirate paid N weeks on time, hence he will continue paying on time" etc...

Anecdotal evidence:
  "we had a dinner with pirate, therefore he is not anonymous"

Argumentum ad baculum:
  "you say something against pirate, you get paid last"

Argumentum ad crumenam:
  "pirate has NNNNNN BTC, therefore he is right", "I bet NNNNNNN BTC, therefore I am right (or ballsy), you did not bet therefore you shut up"

Argumentum ad hominem:
  attacking opponents personally and on various unrelated matters, like their own businesses, bets they have or not have placed etc...

Argumentum ad ignorantiam:
  "Of course the Bible is true. Nobody can prove otherwise.", "pirate is not a ponzi because nobody can prove otherwise", "there is a giant teapot orbiting the sun, because nobody can prove otherwise". This also includes "shifting the burden of proof", btw.

Argumentum ad misericordiam:
  "I did not murder my mother and father with an axe! Please don't find me guilty; I'm suffering enough through being an orphan.", "I lost so much money on ponzi and stupid bets, I am suffering enough, do not tell me that I am guilty of promoting and conspiring in a ponzi scheme and a scammer"

Argumentum ad nauseam:
  ohh yea repeat utter BS until any reasonable person tells you "nuff off, no point to talking to you", nauseating it is indeed.

Argumentum ad numerum:
  "so many people invested in that, they cannot be all wrong"

Argumentum ad verecundiam:
  (Appeal to authority, false authority in this case): "Pirates's lieutenants and shills say they know him, and he has a magical biz model and it is not a ponzi, it must be so then"

Bifurcation:
  "if pirate pays all accounts now, he is not running a ponzi" (That is an interesting one, think about it)

Fallacy of presupposition:
  demanding an explanation of something that is not true or has not been established

Ignoratio elenchi:
  illogically concluding that some set of usually fallacious arguments support the desired conclusion

Non causa pro causa:
  "pirate has defaulted because his opponents were posting that he is running a ponzi"

Non sequitur:
  "pirate pays 7%, therefore he has some miracle biz model making lots of money and it is totally possible"

Petitio principii:
  "pirate is not running a ponzi, because he pays dividends, and must have some underlying biz model, and therefore he is not running a ponzi"

Plurium interrogationum:
  demanding a simple answer to a complex question.

Red herring:
  "some copies of bitcoin magazine were delivered late, therefore pirate is not running a ponzi"

Shifting the burden of proof (again):
  "pirate has claimed that he is not running a ponzi and that he needs to buy capital at 3000% APR and that he has some underlying biz model other than paying capital back as dividend and asked and received lots of money, now you need to prove that he is not running a ponzi."

Straw man:
  (happens ~10 times in every thread.) miscquote your opponent than attack his, taken out of context or misrepresented, opinion. Works especially well with typos and grammar/spelling mistakes.

Tu quoque:
  "you attacked me ad hominem, I will respond with ad hominem too."

I might have misunderstood some logical fallacies, missed some or gave not reasonably good examples. You are more than welcome to post in this thread and improve on what I have said above.

Persistent and pervasive abuse of all the logical fallacies is so annoying that continuing any serious discussion amounts to utter waste of time, not intellectually stimulating and often simply aggravating.

May I respectfully suggest the community to gently ostracise any member who blatantly abuses logical fallacies either intentionally or due to ignorance. No need to do anything harsh but maybe ignoring such a member or replying by citing the logical fallacies that were abused and, if feeling generous, including an appropriate wikipedia link to educate ignorant ones. Or just place link to this thread in your reply and let em figure out on their own what went wrong.

There is no point whatsoever to continue any discussion with anyone after a logical fallacy has been deployed by this person. The argument is invalid and should be discarded simply because it is utter nonsense.

Some logical fallacies are considered to be more abusive than others, specifically such as ad hominem, tu quoque, ad baculum, straw man, red herring, ad nauseam. These ones probably deserve more harsh reaction than others.


For your reference:

Just google name of any logical fallacy and you will get plenty of resources explaining it in depth. Wikipedia is particularly great with this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_burden_of_proof
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_teapot
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

example of an excellent retort:

Thanks Vladimir - nice summary of logical fallacies. This should be required reading for anyone attempting to undertake a discussion  on Bitcointalk.org. Especially if said discussion may involve logic.

However, I am rather disappointed you do not believe in the giant sun-orbiting teapot. Just because you have never seen it doesn't mean it's not there. ;)

Hmm I might have been mistaken there. It is supposed to actually be not a giant teapot but a regular sized or maybe even a tiny one. Giant teapot we would have likely spotted somehow.

Well my friend said that he had put a teapot in space using model rockets; are you calling him a liar?!?!1111

Uh Oh!

I can see this coming:

https://i.imgur.com/fH9e2.gif

Selling tickets to visit Vladimir's teapot in space, 100 btc a ticket.

http://speechdudes.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/teapot-in-space.gif?w=300&h=225

sticky

Unfortunately, any amount of pleading or asking will not help. The only way to achieve what you asking for is by actively selecting which forum members are welcome and which are not. For example, by using forum as purgatory for invite-only sub-forum, or by actively bannig members with big number of low quality posts. Whichever way it is done it would require a lot of additional work from moderators.

The population will screams "ABUSE" at any smell of censorship, no matter how well intentioned. I am sorry, you're going to have to start a new forum to compete with bitcointalk.

Yeah.

Or we just use this existing thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=103044.0;topicseen

I've added a short (heh) list of primers on the cognitive science of how to arrive at beliefs that are true,
not get robbed by pirates and win free money from crazy people making extremely overconfident bets:

• http://lesswrong.com/lw/jw/a_rational_argument/
• http://lesswrong.com/lw/in/scientific_evidence_legal_evidence_rational/
• http://lesswrong.com/lw/gx/just_lose_hope_already/
• http://lesswrong.com/lw/lt/the_robbers_cave_experiment/
• http://lesswrong.com/lw/hz/correspondence_bias/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representativeness_heuristic
• http://lesswrong.com/lw/i4/belief_in_belief/
• http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Dragon.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/conjunction_fallacy
• http://lesswrong.com/lw/ji/conjunction_fallacy
• http://lesswrong.com/lw/jj/conjunction_controversy_or_how_they_nail_it_down/
• http://lesswrong.com/lw/iw/positive_bias_look_into_the_dark/
• http://lesswrong.com/lw/ka/hold_off_on_proposing_solutions/
• http://lesswrong.com/lw/gz/policy_debates_should_not_appear_onesided/
• http://lesswrong.com/lw/i3/making_beliefs_pay_rent_in_anticipated_experiences/
• http://www.overcomingbias.com/2006/12/you_are_never_e.html
• http://www.gwern.net/Prediction%20markets
• http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Narrative_fallacy
• http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Black_swan
• http://lesswrong.com/lw/je/doublethink_choosing_to_be_biased/
• http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Litany_of_Gendlin
• http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Litany_of_Tarski
• http://lesswrong.com/lw/o4/leave_a_line_of_retreat/

I may or may not add some context to some of these links at some later time.

Kill a day with this and you haven't wasted a minute.
For now, just click on one, see where it takes you. :)

I'd just like to point out that a personal attack is only argumentum ad hominem when it is used as the premise of an argument. e.g. "You are an idiot, therefore you are wrong" is an ad hominem argument, but "You are wrong, therefore you are an idiot" is not an ad hominem argument (though it is still abusive). This is one of those things that just irritates me when people get it wrong.

I agree on all other points though.

To bring up a very small point in Vladimir's otherwise very handy post, I think there is very little actual abuse of logical fallacies. Most people using logically fallacious arguments are unaware that they are doing so, and I think this is the root cause of most fallacious arguments on this forum.

Some people may be using logical fallacies on purpose to further an agenda - for example in religious arguments or when a large amount of pirated money is at stake. However, most of the time I think most people involved in presenting illogical arguments here are unaware that they are not arguing logically (or rationally). Hence the importance of Vlad's summary of logical fallacies. This should be a sticky in several boards I can think of. As well as some politeness rules.

I have ignored most of the idiots and trolls on the forum.  It is a great place now.

It would be great if someone posted a Top 10 users to ignore list, stochastic. Just sayin'.

Although your post is unnecessarily biased and focused on one particular incident (some of the examples are in and of themselves borderline straw man fallacies or anecdotal evidence), the points are mostly reasonable and at least intelligently stated, so I thank you.
Hopefully this can motivate everyone, regardless of their views on any one particular subject, to reason more logically.

However, I have a few gripes.


Please explain to me how this statement is remotely objective in any sense whatsoever. "reasonably"? "common sense"?

In general, I fail to understand how using specific examples, most of which are (albeit in my opinion) extreme cases, from one particular incident lends credibility to your points; I would postulate that it does the opposite through alienating those pro-Pirate and causing those anti-Pirate to be motivated to agree with you for reasons related to the political leaning of your post rather than the legitimacy of logical fallacies presented therein. What is the goal here: more objective debates, or another pro/anti Pirate battleground thread?


Anecdotal evidence is a highly subjective term, and not clearly or uniformly defined. The point relating to "Meet A Pirate" could perhaps be more accurately argued to be a case of subjective validation. In either case, categorizing this as anecdotal or subjective validation without further explanation or proof of such is meaningless.

All in all, please do not forget to remember that all generalizations are false. ;)

I agree that many of the points made by Pirate supporters are logical fallacies. The same can be said about points made by Pirate opponents. The same can be said about half the posts in this forum. The fact that some proponents of a certain viewpoint utilize logically flawed methodologies of debate does not in any way whatsoever invalidate that viewpoint.

@BinaryMage: all good points.



I understand it was mostly use of Occam's razor and "celectial teapot" argument that effectively shifted burden of proof to pirate et al. Until such proof is provided it seems to be reasonable to treat the scheme as a poinzi.


This obviously spices up the thread and takes away some purity. On the other hand, simply quoting usual examples, would make my post a trivial restatement of usual sources. The post itself was based on argument posted elsewhere about the pirate affair, and we can squarely blame my laziness and corners cutting for not coming up with pure and abstract post.

what category the "go .... yourself" argument belongs to?

"losing".

Burden of proof on Pirate I agree with. (Side note: I hadn't heard of the "celestial teapot", thanks, that's quite intriguing!)

Mostly, I strongly object to the term "common sense" as I have yet to see it used in any way not effectively synonymous to "This is obvious, and if you don't see it, you're {wrong,stupid}". Serious subjective bias creeping in on my part, probably, but regardless, I don't think the term "common sense" can really be used objectively.


Fair enough, the whole Pirate controversy is quite the poster child for everything you mentioned, that I cannot debate. I probably responded more spitefully than necessary. I'm just tired of all the Pirate threads, regardless of what side they're arguing for.

That's a command, not an argument. The arguments (if any) accompanying such a command are usually fallacious (but not always - there are more than a few members of this forum who enjoy hurling abuse and sound logic in equal measure, which is always entertaining to watch).

While I don't disagree with your observations, this isn't a formal debate forum and people posting here aren't writing a thesis to be challenged or peer reviewed. I wonder whether there'd be any interest in a formal debate sub-forum.  Internet Infidels used to have one and it reduced a lot of frustration for everyone.

Isn't that what the Politics forum is for? ;)

It is the only possibility known that explains all the available evidence. If you know of another possible explanation, please tell us what it is.

When you have a set of facts, one explanation that covers them perfectly, that has always been the correct explanation for that set of facts, no other explanation is known, and people who would know another explanation if there is one refuse to provide one, that is sufficient to accept the explanation.

I turn on my light switch and my light comes on. I accept the explanation that electricity from the power company made it come on. That has always been the explanation before. And that case is even weaker, because I can think of other possible explanations. Someone might have disconnected by house from the grid and powered it by generator. Of course, nobody has any reason to do that. Nobody has done that before.

This is logical reasoning and common sense. It is more than sufficient for accepting an explanation under ordinary circumstances. (Those where nobody has a vested interest in convincing others or themselves that the obviously true is not true.)

I'll try not to respond further about this in this thread, since there are already 800 threads about that and this thread is about something else.

I would hope that a formal debate board wasn't necessary to have a logical conversation with someone.

It would be nice to have some means of keeping the logical discussions separate from the threads where people really just want to vent or ramble, though.  As in real life, not all conversations need to have some higher purpose or be intellectual - it would just be nice if those discussions where people do want a higher level of discourse didn't get derailed by people who just want to dribble bullshit.

This has nothing to do with a higher level of discourse. Any forum member who makes some kind of earnest claim should expect to defend that claim.

Just my preference, but I'd rather have "Let's dribble bullshit" boards, and try to keep the rest of the forum discussions.

This.

It's nice to see that there are people who value logic and reason in an 'everyday' context. I feel such values can only benefit the community (or any community for that matter).

To aid this cause, I've noticed that appreciate a certain look and feel of websites, so I submit http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

Unfortunately, I don't suspect anyone would ever put their threads in a "Let's Dribble BS" board. Most people consider themselves logical, whether they are or not.

And that's where the moderators come in. ;)