How Libertarianism was created by big business lobbyists

[FirstAscent]

Calling out someone for using ad hominem never refutes or denies the statement which is made by the one using ad hominem.

Yes, it does. An ad hominem argument is invalid. Pointing out that it's an ad hominem argument refutes it.

Sorry, but no. An example from Wikipedia:

"Candidate George's proposal about zoning is ridiculous. He was caught cheating on his taxes in 2003."

You may accuse someone of using ad hominem in the above quoted statement. But you have refuted nothing. You have not refuted that George's proposal is ridiculous, nor have you refuted that he cheated on taxes.

Acccusing someone of ad hominem is pointless, useless, and shows you have no argument to refute what was said.

Neither has the speaker proven that the zoning proposal is ridiculous, or that he was caught cheating on his taxes. He's just slinging mud.

It's not mud slinging if George's proposal is ridiculous. And it may not be the speaker's duty to prove everything back to first principles. And it might be worth knowing that George did cheat on his taxes.

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[iCEBREAKER]

Acccusing someone of ad hominem is pointless, useless, and shows you have no argument to refute what was said.

You don't accuse someone of ad hominem, you accuse their argument of ad hominem.

Otherwise, you'd be committing the exact same fallacy.

EG: I'm not surprised FirstAscent isn't sufficiently well educated to avoid embarrassing himself by utterly failing to comprehend well known rules of debate.
It's so typical for a Libertarian hater to be ridiculously deficient in intellectual rigor, yet go on the attack nevertheless.


/High School English Class

[myrkul]

It's not mud slinging if George's proposal is ridiculous. And it may not be the speaker's duty to prove everything back to first principles. And it might be worth knowing that George did cheat on his taxes.

No, it's still slinging mud. Even if he did cheat on his taxes, it doesn't affect the validity of the zoning proposal.
Ad Hominem:

"Candidate George's proposal about zoning is ridiculous. He was caught cheating on his taxes in 2003."

Valid argument:

"Candidate George's proposal about zoning is ridiculous. It puts the school next to a toxic chemical factory!"

Valid argument:

"Candidate George is not trustworthy. He was caught cheating on his taxes in 2003."

Valid arguments back up the first statement with the second. Ad hominem attacks back up the first statement with personally damning and irrelevant information.

[FirstAscent]

Acccusing someone of ad hominem is pointless, useless, and shows you have no argument to refute what was said.

You don't accuse someone of ad hominem, you accuse their argument of ad hominem.

You just used ad hominem in your argument! My usage of grammar is not related to my argument about ad hominem. LOL.

[ElectricMucus]

Ummm guys....

CAN I GET EVERY BODIES ATTENTION PLEASE!


http://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/13eyie/rlibertarian_users_invade_rprogressive_downvote/

very relevant.


also popcorn.gif

[FirstAscent]

It's not mud slinging if George's proposal is ridiculous. And it may not be the speaker's duty to prove everything back to first principles. And it might be worth knowing that George did cheat on his taxes.

No, it's still slinging mud. Even if he did cheat on his taxes, it doesn't affect the validity of the zoning proposal.
Ad Hominem:

"Candidate George's proposal about zoning is ridiculous. He was caught cheating on his taxes in 2003."

Valid argument:

"Candidate George's proposal about zoning is ridiculous. It puts the school next to a toxic chemical factory!"

Valid argument:

"Candidate George is not trustworthy. He was caught cheating on his taxes in 2003."

Valid arguments back up the first statement with the second. Ad hominem attacks back up the first statement with personally damning and irrelevant information.

Totally missing the point. You have not made an argument against the ridiculousness of George's proposal. Instead, you've deflected the statement about George's proposal into an argument about the integrity of the speaker's statement, which is in fact ad hominem in itself.

[iCEBREAKER]

You just used ad hominem in your argument! My usage of grammar is not related to my argument about ad hominem. LOL.

No I didn't, at least not until I added this example in an explicit yet futile attempt to educate you on the correct use of the phrase in question:

EG: I'm not surprised FirstAscent isn't sufficiently well educated to avoid embarrassing himself by utterly failing to comprehend well known rules of debate.
It's so typical for a Libertarian hater to be ridiculously deficient in intellectual rigor, yet go on the attack nevertheless.

See the difference between attacking a person vs. attacking a person's argument?

I doubt you can.  If you were capable of abstract thought and critical reasoning you wouldn't be going around spreading FUD about libertarians!   

/first two ad homs are free on Mondays   

[myrkul]

Totally missing the point. You have not made an argument against the ridiculousness of George's proposal. Instead, you've deflected the statement about George's proposal into an argument about the integrity of the speaker's statement, which is in fact ad hominem in itself.

You don't need to make an argument against the ridiculousness of George's proposal when the original argument for the ridiculousness is ad hominem. Nor do you deflect. You simply shoot down the ad hominem, and tell the speaker to make another argument.

"Candidate George's proposal about zoning is ridiculous. He was caught cheating on his taxes in 2003."
"Ad Hominem. Try again."
"Candidate George's proposal about zoning is ridiculous. It puts the school next to a toxic chemical factory!"
"That's better."

[FirstAscent]

Totally missing the point. You have not made an argument against the ridiculousness of George's proposal. Instead, you've deflected the statement about George's proposal into an argument about the integrity of the speaker's statement, which is in fact ad hominem in itself.

You don't need to make an argument against the ridiculousness of George's proposal when the original argument for the ridiculousness is ad hominem. Nor do you deflect. You simply shoot down the ad hominem, and tell the speaker to make another argument.

"Candidate George's proposal about zoning is ridiculous. He was caught cheating on his taxes in 2003."
"Ad Hominem. Try again."
"Candidate George's proposal about zoning is ridiculous. It puts the school next to a toxic chemical factory!"
"That's better."

You're still guilty of ad hominem yourself by attempting to imply that George's proposal is not ridiculous because the speaker used ad hominem. No way around it.

[bb113]

If pointing out logical fallacies is against the rule of the debate every debate would just descend into back and forth mudslinging (eg democratic party was founded by slave owners, etc forever). Its uncivilized to use ad hominems and really the debate should just end once someone does. Really the only chance for it to continue in some sort of productive fashion is myrkul's "try again" approach.

[phelix]

Was Bitcoin too? 

not by him but by his big brother 

[FirstAscent]

This is myrkul's argument against the speaker: "George's proposal is not ridiculous! The speaker used ad hominem when claiming George's proposal is ridiculous!"

That's ad hominem if I ever saw it.

[bb113]

This is myrkul's argument against the speaker: "George's proposal is not ridiculous! The speaker used ad hominem when claiming George's proposal is ridiculous!"

That's ad hominem if I ever saw it.

LOL, so this comes up again and again. You are right, but then what is the appropriate response to an ad hominem attack on yourself?

[myrkul]

Totally missing the point. You have not made an argument against the ridiculousness of George's proposal. Instead, you've deflected the statement about George's proposal into an argument about the integrity of the speaker's statement, which is in fact ad hominem in itself.

You don't need to make an argument against the ridiculousness of George's proposal when the original argument for the ridiculousness is ad hominem. Nor do you deflect. You simply shoot down the ad hominem, and tell the speaker to make another argument.

"Candidate George's proposal about zoning is ridiculous. He was caught cheating on his taxes in 2003."
"Ad Hominem. Try again."
"Candidate George's proposal about zoning is ridiculous. It puts the school next to a toxic chemical factory!"
"That's better."

You're still guilty of ad hominem yourself by attempting to imply that George's proposal is not ridiculous because the speaker used ad hominem. No way around it.

You're not implying that George's proposal is not ridiculous, you're simply saying that that argument will not prove it to be, and they should, as I said, try again.

This is myrkul's argument against the speaker: "George's proposal is not ridiculous! The speaker used ad hominem when claiming George's proposal is ridiculous!"

That's ad hominem if I ever saw it.

No, I didn't say that. I said, "That argument is ad hominem bullshit. Make another, valid argument."

Admit it, you just don't like to agree with me.

[FirstAscent]

Totally missing the point. You have not made an argument against the ridiculousness of George's proposal. Instead, you've deflected the statement about George's proposal into an argument about the integrity of the speaker's statement, which is in fact ad hominem in itself.

You don't need to make an argument against the ridiculousness of George's proposal when the original argument for the ridiculousness is ad hominem. Nor do you deflect. You simply shoot down the ad hominem, and tell the speaker to make another argument.

"Candidate George's proposal about zoning is ridiculous. He was caught cheating on his taxes in 2003."
"Ad Hominem. Try again."
"Candidate George's proposal about zoning is ridiculous. It puts the school next to a toxic chemical factory!"
"That's better."

You're still guilty of ad hominem yourself by attempting to imply that George's proposal is not ridiculous because the speaker used ad hominem. No way around it.

You're not implying that George's proposal is not ridiculous, you're simply saying that that argument will not prove it to be, and they should, as I said, try again.

This is myrkul's argument against the speaker: "George's proposal is not ridiculous! The speaker used ad hominem when claiming George's proposal is ridiculous!"

That's ad hominem if I ever saw it.

No, I didn't say that. I said, "That argument is ad hominem bullshit. Make another, valid argument."

Admit it, you just don't like to agree with me.

Instead of saying: "That argument is ad hominem bullshit. Make another, valid argument.", why don't you instead say, "Why is George's proposal ridiculous?", and optionally "I think his proposal is not ridiculous because it actually has the following merits..."

I've witnessed too many people sling (yes, sling, as in mud) comments which accuse others of using ad hominem too much to not see it for what it really is: hypocrisy.

More to the point, the original poster posted an article. Let's assume a similar case where the article is this:

George's zoning proposal is ridiculous. He has no integrity.

Let's say the author of the article is Bob. Since no dialog will actually ensue with Bob, because it's an article copied from somewhere else, and the dialog will only occur between forum members, it's pointless to accuse the author of the article of using ad hominem in his article. Such a statement about the article does not refute the notion that George's proposal is ridiculous. Not one iota.

The only valid argument against Bob's article would be to show how George's proposal is not ridiculous.

[bb113]

Well anyway there are many people who identify themselves as "libertarian" or similar who don't agree with milton freedman at all.

 I'm with myrkul on the agorism front. Just build better alternatives to government provided services and eventually it will go away as it collapses under its own weight. If the better alternatives can't be built... well I guess as a society we aren't grown up enough yet and still need government. Of course a government can be like a clingy parent stunting the growth of society as well.

[MoonShadow]

Well anyway there are many people who identify themselves as "libertarian" or similar who don't agree with milton freedman at all.

 I'm with myrkul on the agorism front. Just build better alternatives to government provided services and eventually it will go away as it collapses under its own weight. If the better alternatives can't be built... well I guess as a society we aren't grown up enough yet and still need government. Of course a government can be like a clingy parent stunting the growth of society as well.

Yes, and they can be pretty effective at that for long periods of time.  Still, the overall trend across recorded human history appears to have civilizations moving in the agorist direction; regardless of what governments may want or how 'mature' society in general may or may not be.

[FirstAscent]

Well anyway there are many people who identify themselves as "libertarian" or similar who don't agree with milton freedman at all.

 I'm with myrkul on the agorism front. Just build better alternatives to government provided services and eventually it will go away as it collapses under its own weight. If the better alternatives can't be built... well I guess as a society we aren't grown up enough yet and still need government. Of course a government can be like a clingy parent stunting the growth of society as well.

We don't live in a world of 300 million people. We live in a world of 7 billion people pushing 10 billion plus. Problems which did not manifest before are becoming obvious today. These problems require uniform efforts and awareness to solve. Do you see all nations uniformly applying solutions cooperatively to solve these problems? No. Individual agents seek to maximize their own situation, often at the expense of others. They also optimize for the near future, not the long term.

I have seen nothing in Libertarian values which is any different than the analogous scenario outlined in the above paragraph.

[bb113]

Well anyway there are many people who identify themselves as "libertarian" or similar who don't agree with milton freedman at all.

 I'm with myrkul on the agorism front. Just build better alternatives to government provided services and eventually it will go away as it collapses under its own weight. If the better alternatives can't be built... well I guess as a society we aren't grown up enough yet and still need government. Of course a government can be like a clingy parent stunting the growth of society as well.

We don't live in a world of 300 million people. We live in a world of 7 billion people pushing 10 billion plus. Problems which did not manifest before are becoming obvious today. These problems require uniform efforts and awareness to solve. Do you see all nations uniformly applying solutions cooperatively to solve these problems? No. Individual agents seek to maximize their own situation, often at the expense of others. They also optimize for the near future, not the long term.

I have seen nothing in Libertarian values which is any different than the analogous scenario outlined in the above paragraph.

The only real issue is the cost of energy (both pollution as well as the labor and infrastructure). It is a technological problem.

Even solar is not a real answer since if deployed at massive scale it will start affecting the earth's albedo and thus heat it up, plus there will be more waste heat wherever the energy gets used which will alter energy profile of the earth and thus may lead to unexpected problems with the environment. In the end it will probably be easier to move most economic activity to a giant space station that can dissipate waste heat easier, leaving earth as a garden.

This is generations away but it should be what we work towards.

The rest of the stuff is just what needs to be dealt with in the meantime so we don't destroy ourselves before someone figures it out. Perhaps this requires governments, perhaps it is inevitable that malicious entities eventually take control of governments and this ends up doing more harm then good. For that reason, along with the "government as clinging parent stunting growth" analogy put forward earlier, there are people of the opinion we should limit the harm that can be caused when this happens by not making governments so powerful to begin with. Currently the -ism most in line with this viewpoint (at least in the united states) is called libertarianism.

[myrkul]

Instead of saying: "That argument is ad hominem bullshit. Make another, valid argument.", why don't you instead say, "Why is George's proposal ridiculous?", and optionally "I think his proposal is not ridiculous because it actually has the following merits..."

Those are kinder, of course, but the first one amounts to the same thing (Make another argument.), while the second actually legitimizes the argument. Don't respond to fallacies except to call them fallacies.