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It is, actually. I wish the MSM people were requiered to do the same. What's the problem with him admitting bias up front? Would he be a "better person" if he hid his bias, pretended it did not exist?

makes the obvious skewing in the rest of this 'test' marginally easier to swallow.

What obvious skewing? Are you just trying to poison the well or do you have any actual counter-argument to the results of his tests?

That's three different sources. But if you prefer a longer version: http://www.garlikov.com/philosophy/slope.htm
Or this: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/slipslop.html
The slippery slope is a logical fallacy, not a form of proof.

The slippery-slope argument claims that if one thing happens, a series of other things must happen without proving any of the subsequent claims.

How about, instead of making outrageous claims about what you think will happen, try to prove those steps or at least supply enough evidence to make them highly likely? What makes you believe that the introduction of ID cards would lead to a totalitarian police state? Especially when there are so many countries that have adopted ID cards without turning into police states?

You are using "begs the question" incorrectly, wiseguy. :)

Apple chose to not contribute, which is fine. But (and this is really the core issue) that means they really shouldn't pretend that they are contributing.

And you really shouldn't beat your wife.

(Before you mod me troll, I'm pointing out a specific logical fallacy).

As a part of Science, once it achieves even close to mainstream acceptance (or is even an adequate explanation). Once it progresses beyond a simple argument from ignorance, and offers a single falsifiable prediction.

Until then it's unsubstantiated opinion or kook pseudoscience, and as such has no place in schools at all, let alone Science as a discipline.

The universe we know of is 15 billion years old. Whatever has a beginning does not exist necessarily, for whatever exists necessarily cannot not exist, but clearly at some point, the universe did not exist.

Would you care to point out the fallacy?

Cheers,
Craig

The "slippery slope" argument is inherently fallacious

Remember, a slippery slope argument is only fallacious if the causality between the steps is unclear or non-existent.

Also remember, when free-speech activists decried the DMCA proposal because of its chilling effect, they were shouted down with "slippery slope fallacy!" as well. Yet one of the first to use the DMCA was the Church of Scientology to take down critics' sites.

Go get a logic class will you?

Really? I personally haven't heard any arguments against gay/poly marriages that were not rooted in ignorance, bigotry, or both. Every argument I've heard effectively boils down to one of the following:

1. It's wrong because the Bible says so. (Fallacy: Appeal to Authority)
2. It shouldn't be allowed because it goes against long-standing societal traditions (Fallacy: Appeal to Tradition)
3. It's a gay/liberal/$BUGBEAR conspiricy to undermine "traditional family values" (Fallacy: Appeal to Hatred

Their objections are not entirely without merit.

I disagree. Arguments based on logical fallacies are entirely without merit.

Fallacy: Straw man

How about this for a rational arguement.

For a society to survive it is necessary for it to have its cultural, social, and moral structure passed on to future generations.

Marriage is a legal construct to make having and raising children easier and more attractive economically due to tax breaks and other legal bonuses.

Thus marriages should only be granted to couples who are theoretically capable of producing offspring without undue expense.

While I happen to think that government has no business prohibiting families made up of same-sex couples (or even multiple-partner marriages), there are those who strongly feel otherwise, and not simply for reasons of puritan bigotry.

1. It's wrong because the Bible says so. (Fallacy: Appeal to Authority)
2. It shouldn't be allowed because it goes against long-standing societal traditions (Fallacy: Appeal to Tradition)
3. It's a gay/liberal/$BUGBEAR conspiricy to undermine "traditional family values" (Fallacy: Appeal to Hatred

Their objections are not entirely without merit.

There may be a well-reasoned, logical argment supporting the view that the state has a compelling interest to grant special legal benefits to people who are in one class of binding long-term relationships while denying those benefits to all other classes of long-term binding relationships, but I have yet to hear one.

While I happen to think that government has no business prohibiting families made up of same-sex couples (or even multiple-partner marriages), there are those who strongly feel otherwise, and not simply for reasons of puritan bigotry.

1. It's wrong because the Bible says so. (Fallacy: Appeal to Authority)
2. It shouldn't be allowed because it goes against long-standing societal traditions (Fallacy: Appeal to Tradition)
3. It's a gay/liberal/$BUGBEAR conspiricy to undermine "traditional family values" (Fallacy: Appeal to Hatred

Their objections are not entirely without merit.

There may be a well-reasoned, logical argment supporting the view that the state has a compelling interest to grant special legal benefits to people who are in one class of binding long-term relationships while denying those benefits to all other classes of long-term binding relationships, but I have yet to hear one.

This would necessarily occur when discussing the traveling time of light.

That's pretty mild as far as fundie double-think goes... if you really want to hear some convolouted logic, ask them how come "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" are not mutually contridictory.

In other words, your counterargument is tu quoque. It's a logical fallacy my dear uneducated friend You sound exactly like your enemies whom you hate so much.

Oh yes, you do care. Of you did not, you wouldn't be posting your "replies".

No, I really, really don't care what you do with your time or your money. Do whatever you want; I'll sleep fine. I'm posting to amuse myself, admittedly at your expense. You try to sound smart, but you *really* don't have the horsepower to back it up. That makes you low-hanging fruit that's easy to pick.

From their tone and contents I do relise that your second motivation is your bottomless love for hearing yourself talk but it is your burning desire to stick your snout into other people's business that is really driving you.

My tone is impatient and rude, but pointedly so. The first post I read on this topic was one where you unloaded one of your typically clumsy, slipshod ad hominem attacks on someone for no good reason. Hence, you suck and I'm willing to keep telling you how much until they kill this article.

Clearly there are those who do.

I've never argued you were the *only* raging dumbass on /.You're possibly the biggest, but you are not entirely without peer.

But I do not imagine you would notice this while having your cranium so deeply inside your rectum, a position notorious for obstructing one's view.

Oh, come *on* already. Can't you see how much you totally blew this quip? This is what happens when you try too hard to sound clever. The overly bloated, pseudo-formal construction *completely* dulls the edge. And, "You wouldn't know, because you have your head up your ass," is hardly a real barn-burner in the first place.

Which is your completely arbitrary, subjective and so far in no way substantiated opinion. But of course, your opinions constitute absolute law by which the universe operates. How dare I, oh insolent me, to defy you!?

My opinions on the original topic tend to be supported by current law and social mores. Your opinions don't. Is one more arbitrary than the other? It's hard to say.

BTW, that's the second time you've used the word "insolent" in this thread. I prefer "audacious". Arbitrarily, of course.

Yes. Like, say, the civil rights movement or Vietnam war oposition. Both were championed and resolved by pencil-necked paper pushers working "within the system". Not a law got broken. Right.

I'm glad you picked these examples, but your grammar school analysis lacks depth. I never once implied that civil disobedience doesn't generate change. I said it's much *harder* to change a system from the outside. Civil disobedience during 60's civil rights movement catalyzed wonderful changes in our society, but it was a hard, hard road marked by ugly violence and awful hardships. However, change accelerated greatly, with less strife, once minorities and women started acquiring and holding political offices. Politicians pushing paper command surprising power. Protests during the Vietnam War also catalyzed change, but it was political pressures on the presidential administration that ended it.

You know, I met some dumb idiots on Slashdot, and I also met some arrogant jerks. You combine both of these characteristics in a most impressive fashion.

I try my best.

Oh yea. Hyperbolized! A grammar correction! Wait, corrections which you quit counting at 10 in this last post alone. No, I take it back, you are the greatest jerk, asshole and idiot here on Slashdot. Congratulations.

Thanks! I couldn't have done it without you though. BTW, I didn't quit counting corrections, I quit counting *mistakes*.

This is the only thing you are ever going to do here anyways, so go ahead and amuse me.

Will do.

And by the way, genius, ad-hominem attacks are not logical fallacies.

You better let these folks know that then. They seem to agree with me.

After that, several million debate class texts may need updating

Yet another example of your frustration is that you have resorted to another language to try to regain control. Instead of confronting or arbitrating you choose to run away where you can argue in another syntax. The whole "fleeing from your problems" is probably a trend in your life. You are a sad sad individual.

My experience and actual knowledge puts me in a very confident position and you have nothing but rhetoric and fallacy. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/introtof.html

I didn't expect you to give up so soon.

The nexted issue was the war on terror/iraq. It wasn't that people were afraid to switch presidents in the middle of the war, it is that Kerry came out and tryed to slam the president as well as the military for everythign that went wrong. Even after he publicaly said he would have done it the same way or that he thought we were doing everythign in our power at the time it happened. Then we had Terry McCullough and the likes telling is we were lying or not able to unnderstand Kerry's statment when someone played the interview were he said stuff like that. There were too many claims of everythign being said was out of context as if you had to listen to the speech or interview from the previous time to understand the context of the statments being made a couple days later. This sounds too much like a con artist to me and alot of other americans. It is as if they were constantly trying to cover up something and it left alot of americans with a sence of not knowing for sure were he stood.

It's not hard to see why this is.

It's been well established by the serious media that a large section of the public (those with republican convictions) is completely out of touch with reality. And it's no accident; that reality disconnect was deliberately engineered by the White House. As Hitler's Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels said, back in the 1930's:

If you tell a big enough Lie, and keep on repeating it, in the end people will come to believe it.

This dogma seems to have been most avidly embraced by the current administrations in both the UK and US, in order to suppress dissent over the Iraq invasion and the current occupation. In fact the re-election of George W. Bush illustrates how magnificently the White House has managed to contain reality and prevent the truth from leaking out and influencing too many people to any significant degree. Consider the following scary revelation, from Ron Suskind's in the October 17 issue of New York Times Magazine:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

The White House is so confident in its ability to socially engineer public perception (and thus create the reality they want) that they don't even need to care who knows about this manipulation.

This helps us understand what the Democrats were up against. Usually we would think of a presidential candidate's job as being to convince people by reasoned argument that he would do a better job of running the country. But a reasoned argument can't even take place unless both sides agree on both axioms and a consistent set of logical rules which together accurately describe reality. In all political contests I think it's fair to say there is a certain amount of wrongfooting one's opponent via all the dirty tricks you can read about here. But in the case of this election campaign I think it was made much more difficult than usual, because before Kerry could even get started on convincing people he would have to first re-educate them upon what the argument was about, upon where they stand in the world today. To take one of the most egregious examples: although a major plank of the Democrat platform was to offer a less gung-ho approac

A lot of the information was incorrect, but not unexpected, your own response proved your are just as much an ignorant ass and idiot.

Okay, we're off to a rocky start but maybe you will prove your ad hominum point...

From http://www.fallacyfiles.org/slipslop.html

This type is based upon the claim that a controversial type of action will lead inevitably to some admittedly bad type of action. It is the slide from A to Z via the intermediate steps B through Y that is the "slope", and the smallness of each step that makes it "slippery".

This type of argument is by no means invariably fallacious, but the strength of the argument is inversely proportional to the number of steps between A and Z, and directly proportional to the causal strength of the connections between adjacent steps. If there are many intervening steps, and the causal connections between them are weak, or even unknown, then the resulting argument will be very weak, if not downright fallacious.

If you think it is important to assert that illegally depriving someone of potential gain is not theft, that's fine with me. The distinction is not relevant.

The distinction is relevant because the comparison is dishonest and I will continue to make it for that reason.

If you can't tell the difference between diagreeing with someone's views and a personal attack, that's not my concern.

The point was that you dismissed the argument because of who made it and not because of any flaw in the argument. It's called argumentum ad hominem, literally "attack of the man" and is a logical fallacy.

Laws, of any kind, do not and cannot create or grant rights.

Yes, they can and do. Real property (physical or otherwise) rights exist because the law gives them to you. Without the law, anyone could take your property without your permission unless you yourself protected it. And if they succeeded, you would have little recourse except to go try and get it back.

The law can only recognize and protect rights that exist naturally.

You are really deluded if you believe this. Without law and a government to enforce it, the only "natural" right is the right to try to survive. There is no such thing as theft without law because there is no such thing as property. Ownership itself is a man made construct. Without law a thing is "yours", in the loosest sense of the word, only for as long as you can hold onto it.

The "expression of an idea" is in know way equivalent to an idea.

I didn't say it was. In fact, my claim has always been that the expression of an idea is what is covered by copyright, not the idea itself. Many copyright scholars use this term the same way I do.

I see no further purpose in continuing this. I've presented logical justifications for my positions.

No, you haven't. You've made assertions and not backed them up except with flawed analogies to real (however you define it) property. You've completely ignored the distinction between rivalrous and non-rivalrous uses of resources, pretending I never even mentioned them. You've yet to provide one bit of evidence that supports your assertions. You've distorted my arguments, and accused me of "harping" on arguments which you yourself brought up and abandoned as soon as they became inconvenient.

You have presented ideological fervor

I have presented logical arguments with supporting evidence which you have ignored at every turn.

falsely accused me of an ad hominem attack on Lessig

You discounted an entire argument because of who made it and not based on any flaw in the argument. That, by definition, is an ad hominem attack.

and continued to childishly harp on your "theft" sorepoint long after it became clear that I just don't care.

Whether or not you care does not change the fact that you are deliberately misleading people to believe that copyright infringement is the same as property theft in order to push the idea that every infringement necessarily harms the copyright holder and that the harm is more serious than it is. It is dishonest and I will continue to call you on it regardless of whether or not you care.

it begs the question...

No it doesn't. It raises the question.

This argument can be used to justify anything from virtual kiddie porn,

Child pornography is illegal because it harms actual children, the ones appearing in the pornography. Whether virtual child pornography is harmful is completely unrelated to why real child pornography is illegal.

to teaching kids about sex at a *very* early age (ala southpark), to putting goatse on PBS.

First, I am not claiming all content on television is suitable for children. Second, adults are offended by these words and are insisting they not be exposed to them.

First, they're just words. Then, they're just images. What next? They're only hypnotic suggestions?

Your engaging in a Slippery Slope argument. My argument was concerned entirely and exclusively with words. I said nothing about either images or hypnotic suggestions. At least with images the argument could be made that it is the ideas they convey that are offensive. Not so with these words.

So, "Mommy what does f__k mean?" or worse is not considered harm coming from a 4 year old who happened to see the wrong TV show?

"It's an impolite term for two people making love, dear." If they're old enough to ask, they're old enough to know.

Is your discomfort at seeing someone else decide to write f__k instead of the alternative also a superstition?

My discomfort is from the obvious hypocrisy of believing "f__k" is somehow not obscene when the word is quite obviously represents is. It merely reinforces the idea that it's the specific sequence of letters that is offensive rather than the idea it represents. So, no, there's no superstition, just exasperation at irrationality.

Actually I might have to take back my previous statement about that being a valid argument. After rereading it, it looks like this:

If p then q.
Not-q.
Therefore, not-p.

p = existance of more intelligent life
q = observation of event e

Basically this argument rests on the assumption that the only possible cause of event e is p. However, it is logically possible that event e could be caused by a different event (although in the case of alien contact and how you define event e, I will admit that this is unlikely).

You did hint to the first two premises in your original post, but didn't spell them out to the point that I considered them in my reply, although looking back I can see that they were covered.

Logically speaking you have commited an appeal to ignorance fallacy. Just because we have not seen any probes flying around our solar system does not mean that more intelligent life does not exist somewhere out there. Hell, it doesn't even mean that the existance of more intelligent life is "highly unlikely". All it means is that we have a question for which we have no confirmed answer.

What the fuck do you think happens on election day? You walk into a booth and check either Bush or Kerry and then walk out? There are other races, other candidates. You can have an effect on all of them.

No independent candidate has ever even come close to winning the election for president. Independents in the Senate are outnumbered 99 to 1. Independents in the House are outnumbered 434 to 1(source).Voting for an independent candidate, or worse, writing one in, has no more effect than not voting.

You're lazy and apathetic and just looking to excuse it.

Ad hominem. If you can't attack the argument, attack the man.

Bill Clinton was first elected by less than half of the voters. George Bush was also likely elected by less than half of the voters. Perot and Nader changed the outcome of elections. What was the result of this?

The result was we got Presidents that more than half the voters thought were not the best men for the job.

- Firstly, most of the people in the pictures on rotten.com are dead.

[cynical]So the exchange of CP should be allowed if the child died during the abuse?[/cynical]

Thirdly, rotten.com is a legally run site with a named owner and so can be dealt with through the criminal and civil law. Distribution of kiddy porn site illegal in almost all jurisdictions, and so people whose rights are violated won't have legal recourse.

You're contradicting your own argument - if banning CP makes it harder for victims to find legal recourse, why ban it in the first?

Fourthly, it's irrelevant. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Depends on whether you want to see rotten.com as a wrong. Personally, I don't. It's the perfect site to test freedom-of-speech rights...

Fifthly, answer my question: how would you feel if me and a bunch of pals were to come around to your place, forcibly rape you and submit you to terrible indignities, and then distribute the film on the net for the rest of eternity?

I certainly won't answer your question because it is loaded. You pretend that the rape itself was in question, but we're discussing the swapping of picture/movie material instead. So your question should look somewhat more like this: "Wouldn't being forcibly raped be much nicer if you knew that everyone who downloaded a movie clip of your rape would have to go to prison?"

Oh, now it looks like a really ridiculous question, but that is my point. Compared to the rape itself, the video swapping looks like a minor nuisance. And note that the alternative to unlimited swapping is not "no swapping", because this is simply unenforcable. So the alternative is: it will be swapped, but swappers can go to prison if they get caught. Does this help you as a rape victim in any way? Most definitely not!

Anyway, I don't really mind restrictions on CP exchange as long as they remain just that. People here have ridiculed "liberal" arguments as slippery slope, like "Yeah, first they ban murder, and then they ban softdrinks". However, I don't think you would find this as funny any more, if a ban on softdrinks was actually already passed as a law in Germany, and being planned by the EU commission - at least not if you're an EU citizen!

And precisely this - as applied to "protection of minors" - is the case. Let me state a few facts:

1. In Germany, it is now illegal to display any images involving minors (where a minor is a person younger than 18) in a "posture with sexual emphasis". Note that it is not even a requirement that this person is nude, and it may be a 17 year old girl/young woman who has had sexual feelings since >=5 years! Any erotic posture is sufficient - or maybe even a laszive facial expression?
2. The EU is planning to do the same with the added goodie that it is not even a requirement that the person in question actually is a minor. Instead, merely looking like <18yrs qualifies this person for "protection" and anyone who displays him/her in a "posture with sexual emphasis" will be committing a crime!
3. This movie will have to be banned (or crippled by cutting it). Sad - I found it a lot more worthwile than your average Police Academy 17. Well - I guess it's okay, since such movies are obviously degenerate art.
4. The German conservatives are trying to enact a complete ban on movies and computer games which "glorify violence". Computer games of this kind have long been severely penalized in Germany. In fact, you may not even resell used games like Quake over ebay, since this counts as (illegal) advertising. If the conservatives have their way, even "mainstream" movies like Terminato

Let's punish them for their greed by pirating the hell out of the game and calling it a social protest!

Do you even read the posts you're replying to? Where did I say anything that justified copyright infringement?

Selling at below cost is always good for business.

Yeah, and selling for above what people will pay for it is just as good. Consumers don't give a shit about how much it costs to produce, only about the value of the product to them compared to the price. If it costs more to make than people are willing to pay for it, the product fails. That's economics.

And, I'm sure that Slashdotters

Ah, yes. The sure sign of a reasonable argument: pigeon-holing everyone into a small subset of people you disagree with. That must mean I'm wrong.

have a much better understanding of the supply/demand curve in the record industry than, say, the accountants and economists who actually work for that industry.

You don't have to be an economist to see that the DVD, with 114 minutes of movie, plus bonus features, has more value to the consumer than the CD with 15 tracks that are, surprise, in the movie, for the same price. If I've got $15 to spend on entertainment, guess which one I'm buying.

I'm looking forward to the first person to +5 insightfully point out that CDs cost only $0.25 to press [blah blah blah]

Nice strawman. You can't prove your point by winning an argument against yourself.

"So let me get this straight. You are saying you would prefer that 24 million people were kept under an oppressive regime because that regime kept cute, fluffy bunnies out? What do you think causes people to become so zealous that they begin to behave like cute, fluffy bunnies? Adequeate channels to express yourself politically and economically are needed to prevent the formation of rouge herbivories such as cute, fluffy bunnies."

See also:
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/strawman.html

Furthermore, even if you are concerned about the subtle details, all it takes is some basic adjustments to a system such as using good crossovers and keeping different frequencies on two or three separate amps to achieve a roomful of sound. And speaking of the room, this could be the most important part of all. An MP3 encoded at 56kbps played on a well balanced stereo system in a room with a pyramid shaped ceiling will sound far richer and subtle than a DVD audio played in four channel stereo in a box-shaped room. This four channel ploy is a classic example of a red herring.

You quote the very section of copyright law that would allow you to
make three personal copies of an article you had compensated the
copyright holder for. Just in-case you don't realize this, that
quote is not very supportive of your notion that re-printing a copyrighted
article in a public forum is ok to do.

There's your problem! You are equating using english properly with supporting copyright infringement. Well, I shouldn't have to go any further with this (but will, just to be sure); I think it's pretty obvious, even to you, now, where your error is.

Just because I don't think it's the crime of stealing doesn't cause it to necessarialy follow that I think it's right or wrong. In the same way I don't think murder is "stealing" a life, I still believe a murderer is in the wrong. And, if we were to accept your supposition, backing up a game cartridge to use in an emulator would be stealing (it *is* against copyright law), but not morally wrong.

I hope that helps clear this debate up for you.

I expect to be compensated for my efforts. You expect to consume the
efforts of others as though they were your servants.

Again, I must suggest you don't put words into the mouths of others. I invite you to re-read what I have said in the previous comment, and, if you still feel the way you do, I ask that you explain what led you to come to that conclusion.

I also suggest you may wish to read the following debating fallacies; the crux of your argument rests on them, and it's not good (IMHO, of course).

You quote the very section of copyright law that would allow you to
make three personal copies of an article you had compensated the
copyright holder for. Just in-case you don't realize this, that
quote is not very supportive of your notion that re-printing a copyrighted
article in a public forum is ok to do.

There's your problem! You are equating using english properly with supporting copyright infringement. Well, I shouldn't have to go any further with this (but will, just to be sure); I think it's pretty obvious, even to you, now, where your error is.

Just because I don't think it's the crime of stealing doesn't cause it to necessarialy follow that I think it's right or wrong. In the same way I don't think murder is "stealing" a life, I still believe a murderer is in the wrong. And, if we were to accept your supposition, backing up a game cartridge to use in an emulator would be stealing (it *is* against copyright law), but not morally wrong.

I hope that helps clear this debate up for you.

I expect to be compensated for my efforts. You expect to consume the
efforts of others as though they were your servants.

Again, I must suggest you don't put words into the mouths of others. I invite you to re-read what I have said in the previous comment, and, if you still feel the way you do, I ask that you explain what led you to come to that conclusion.

I also suggest you may wish to read the following debating fallacies; the crux of your argument rests on them, and it's not good (IMHO, of course).

Some people have made this same point already in approx 2 lines "It is wrong because I say so!" without actually proving their argument, like parent did with the use of latin. I didn't understand all of the latin phrases in parent post at first (and there's nothing to be ashamed of, since unlike parent I am not Philosophiae Doctor) but after some googling for that phrases I found www.fallacyfiles.org and everything in the parent post turned out to be true and extremely insightful. Please mod parent up as +5, Insightful. But first verify it with Fallacy Files yourself. I wish everyone could use such a briliant reasoning in future discussions on Slashdot. I, for one, am saving the parent post and am going to quote it in the future. Thanks!

First, let me say, you're either an idiot or new to /.

Which means that therefore, I guess, I somehow lost the argument? (Please take no offense but I find your childish rhetoric hilariously amusing.)

No, it means you're either too dumb to understand the moderation system or too new to know better than to make statements, such as you made.

I was not asking about the literal meaning of that sentence, since it seems to be quite obvious, even if in a somewhat immature, yet humourous way. I was asking about its implication in the context of our dispute---the very implication which you wanted to discuss. I am sorry if I had not been precise.

The fact that I have to spell out, with such an obvious statement, pretty squarely points the needle on the, "you're an idiot", rather than the, "you're new", indicator.

I have already disproven the validity of this very argument in my previous post. Replying to "The fact that I have to point all this out, is reason enough to acknowledge that you're either new here or a complete idiot." I wrote, I quote: "Even if having to point it out would somehow prove that I am indeed either new here or a complete idiot (which it does not), you would still have to prove that you had to point it out in the first place, for that sentence to make any sense whatsoever, even if only as a a rhetorical figure, and still quite poor at that."

The point is that you take your ad hoc, unproven, question-begging premiss for granted ("The fact that I have to spell out") and furthermore construct an argument which in itself could hardly be considered valid.

If the argument is invalid (even having true premiss) or the premiss is false (even if the argument is otherwise perfectly valid), your argument fails to prove your conclusion that I am an idiot or new here. This is not to say, though, that invalidity of your argument means validity of counterargument, id est that I am neither an idiot nor new here, which---needless to say---would be a classical example of argumentum ad logicam, no more, no less.

Therefore I assert that the sentence "Mr. Pan T. Hose, PhD, is either an idiot or new on Slashdot weblog" has yet to be proven.

I see.

Sadly, you don't, or I wouldn't be here typing again. What a dolt.

You have quoted me completely out of context. It should be:

[Second, let me say, it is fairly common to idiots to have moderation points and thusly, you have articles modded up, which only make sense to other idiots. This is exactly why meta-moderation exists...and even then meta-moderation is only partially effective.]

I see. [It is fairly common to idiots to have moderation points and my comment has been moderated as high as it could possible have, therefore it must be wrong and I must be an idiot, must I not? Have you learned your logic from The Fallacy Files by any chance?]

Sadly, you don't [see], or I wouldn't be here typing again. What a dolt.

As you can clearly see now whithout the contextomy distorting my intended meaning of that sentence, you failed to disprove the invalidity of your argument which I pointed out previously. Furthermore, calling me a "dolt," whatever that was supposed to mean, does not make your reasoning sound any more valid, to say the very least. You might consider avoiding such invectives for your arguments to be sound at least, even if not valid.

First, let me say, you're either an idiot or new to /.

Which means that therefore, I guess, I somehow lost the argument? (Please take no offense but I find your childish rhetoric hilariously amusing.)

Having a score of 5, indicates that people will blindly buy into the information that it provided without thinking if it even applied.

No. It might indicate it only if the said information did not apply indeed, which you have failed to prove so far.

Thusly, pay attention now, this is where my comment comes in.

Great! I could hardly wait.

That is, again, pay attention, the article is about a guy that rips people off by using physics which don't exists and hides that fact by mumbling about quantum attributes of magnetic fields that simply don't work they way he indicates.

Really? I would have never guessed it myself! Good thing I was paying attention, like you kindly asked me, because otherwise I would have no idea what I was linking to and talking about all the time. I am truly grateful for the enlightment.

Second, let me say, it is fairly common to idiots to have moderation points and thusly, you have articles modded up, which only make sense to other idiots. This is exactly why meta-moderation exists...and even then meta-moderation is only partially effective.

I see. It is fairly common to idiots to have moderation points and my comment has been moderated as high as it could possible have, therefore it must be wrong and I must be an idiot, must I not? Have you learned your logic from The Fallacy Files by any chance?

The fact that I have to point all this out, is reason enough to acknowledge that you're either new here or a complete idiot.

Again, not quite correct. Even if having to point it out would somehow prove that I am indeed either new here or a complete idiot (which it does not), you would still have to prove that you had to point it out in the first place, for that sentence to make any sense whatsoever, even if only as a a rhetorical figure, and still quite poor at that. See: Basic Logic 101.

So, unless the current research is going to be applied toward developing quantum devices to make this happen, the long article is completely off topic.

Literally tons of pointless research has been applied toward developing devices to make this happen (the same one could say about e.g. lossless random data compression, reusable key one time pad cryptography, homeopathy, perpetuum mobile, and any other snake oil) with the unsurprising result that it in fact cannot be built, the only logical consequence of which would be to forget about the whole idea, because as I have already said countless times, everything one could do with power line, one could also do with copper which is just like power line only without the high voltage 60 or 50 Hz signal interfering, without the need to pass transformators and amplifiers both ways and with much better physical properties of the medium, while the only advantage the power lines were supposed to have was billion gigabits per second.

Besides, AFAIK, broadband over powerlines have long sense been a desire before that scam artists got involved with it. The article in question even mentions this.

But only the ridiculously high bandwidth would justify the higher cost of deployment and all of the problems inherent to power grid being used as a data transfer medium. Remember that y

It's a game we can all play...

There seems little doubt that SCO was targeted - illegally and unacceptably, lest anyone be in any doubt - because it has enraged many people devoted to the Linux operating system.

There's no proof, of course, but it must be one of the theories at the top of any investigator's list.

Extra points for identifying the fallacy.

No, you should not consider the point proven. It is proper to consider that there is not enough evidence, however. See Argumentum ad Ignorantiam.

Whether the RIAA is using bootlegged software or whether many of Kaza's users are illegally trading music is immaterial to the issue. The actions of one do not excuse the actions of the other. Both the RIAA and many of Kaza's users are in the wrong.

See tu quoque for more information.

Also, you will note I wrote "many of Kaza's users" above. If you believe this justifies Kaza as a whole is also guilty (which you seem to be doing), then see also: composition.

HTH

Whether the RIAA is using bootlegged software or whether many of Kaza's users are illegally trading music is immaterial to the issue. The actions of one do not excuse the actions of the other. Both the RIAA and many of Kaza's users are in the wrong.

See tu quoque for more information.

Also, you will note I wrote "many of Kaza's users" above. If you believe this justifies Kaza as a whole is also guilty (which you seem to be doing), then see also: composition.

HTH

I think you meant, "begs the question."

No, begging the question is:

Any form of argument in which the conclusion occurs as one of the premisses, or a chain of arguments in which the final conclusion is a premiss of one of the earlier arguments in the chain. (...)

The phrase "begs the question" has come to be used to mean "raises the question" or "suggests the question" (...) This is a confusing usage which is apparently based upon a literal misreading of the phrase "begs the question". It should be avoided, and must be distinguished from its use to refer to the fallacy.

The definition of "begging the question" should be in the slashdot FAQ or something.

Begging the question is a logical fallacy where you assume the conclusion.

This article raises the question: "Who's next?"

Begging The Question

To understand "why are people up in arms when KISS ... does the same," look here: Tu Quoque.

You've pointed out what appears to be a false dilemma in that I haven't justified the "no 'ethical' employer willing to hire you at a living wage exists" premiss. A "no $foo exists" premise often comes from a lack-of-imagination fallacy. I'll confess to such an appeal to ignorance in this premiss, but remember that such appeals are not fallacies when one can show that the cost of obtaining such information exceeds one's resources. Let me reformulate my argument:

• Cultural mores require JD to feed his children.
• JD cannot feed his children without working for an employer.
• Ethical(person, time) can be TRUE or FALSE.
• JD cannot work for an employer where Ethical(employer, now) is FALSE.
• The value of now changes over time.
• JD has discovered that Ethical(his current employer, now) has become FALSE.
• New premiss: JD can apply only to firms whose identity he knows.
• Only firms with open positions where JD is qualified will hire JD.
• JD knows of no firms hiring new candidates with his qualifications and where Ethical(firm, now) is not FALSE.
• New premiss: All sources of information available to JD within his means regarding the identities and openings of firms have been exhausted.

Under these premisses, what would be the appropriate action for JD to take? Or, which premiss lacks justification?

wrong. it RAISES the question. see this page and this page.

using language which you yourself clearly do not understand isn't good for your credibility; in other words, it's obvious that you're talking out your ass. please: never post your ill-considered drivel again.

Don't hate people for being evangelical Christians. Their motivation is to get as many people to heaven as possible.

Hate them? I love them. They give me something to do over coffee on a boring day.

And I've lost count of how many I've converted to Buddhism (which I don't practice myself) - Did you know that most strongly religious people don't realize that most religions repeat the same tired themes over and over and over, and if you can point them to something "close enough" that entirely predates what they believe, it confuses them? ;-)

Boy, would Uncle Screwtape feel proud of me (if he didn't patiently wait for me to fail so he can consume my soul slowly and painfully).


But the worst are evangelical atheists. The only motivation there is for you to be godless just like them so you won't be happier than they are.

Joking aside, I think you have committed the logic error called bifurcation, or the "false dilemma" - You propose that, if they don't want to "save" you so you can go to heaven, they must want to deprive you of that reward. In this case, it counts as a "false" dilemma because they do not believe such a reward exists, therefore they do not intend to "deprive" you of it.

Atheists (who I consider almost as amusingly wrong as anyone claiming to know the "one true" religion) believe, in the same way a Christian believes (ie irrationally, that no god exists. Therefore, they only want to free people from the oppressive shackles of religion. Any resources you devote to a nonexistant afterlife must, in their opinion, count as purely wasted. Any restrained behavior for reasons outside the law (or basic health and safety) deprives you of pleasure for no good reason. Any praying for cures or money or peace or whatever just tries to put off the inevitable outcome of having to deal with your problems yourself, since no divine intervention will come.

For an analogy, if you met someone who, for every dollar they get, they throw a dime straight up into the air so the Great BunnyRabbit will bring them good luck, would you consider that a valid belief, or nonsense that, assuming said person doesn't have a screw loose, you would do them a favor by showing them the error of their ways? (For amusement, now go back and change "Great BunnyRabbit" to "Jesus" or "Jehovah", and look up the idea of the tithe).


So, as hard as it may seem to accept this, the evangelical atheists have just as noble a goal as the evangelical Christians (or any group that hypes itself to an absurd extreme). If, of course, you consider it "noble" to stubbornly considering oneself as absolutely, unyieldingly correct, and all others need to learn "the truth".

that some of the gamers-turned-psychotics blow these fuckers away.

But seriously, the anti-video game people are guilty of several types of non causa pro causa .