And, with modern philosophy on nuclear weapons, no-one really needs weapons bigger than that. It's much more efficient to use lots of smaller nuclear weapons than a few really big ones to achieve total destruction. If you actually want to take out the other countries hardened nuclear sites to prevent them from continuing to fire at you, you might want a bigger boom. If you just want to maintain a state of MAD, around 400-600 kilotons is ideal. Of course, you still need a delivery mechanism.
The thing is, as much as people tried to portray Kim Jong Il as crazy, and he probably was in some ways, he wasn't the kind of crazy that kills himself willingly in a nuclear war. Maybe he believed his own press releases (which would make him pretty crazy), but he also liked to spend a lot of his time partying with blond Swedish prostitutes. That doesn't seem to fit with someone who wants to kill themselves over their principles, just as someone who wants to ride their success in controlling the country as long as they can. On the other hand, there are lots of cult leaders who were self-evidently cynical manipulators who only cared about fleecing their followers (for money and multiple "wives") who still ended up drinking the poisoned kool-aid along with everyone else. Maybe they built cages around themselves, or maybe they had some sort of religious doublethink going where they were cynical manipulators and true believers at the same time. So, I guess the fear always exists that North Korea would eventually use its nuclear weapons against someone.
Yes, but a boosted fission bomb still achieves fusion and it's not a huge step from making a fission bomb to a boosted fusion bomb. I wasn't saying that they had a bomb from which most of the energy comes from fusion, just that it's not a bizarre claim for North Korea to say they've achieved some sort of fusion since teenagers manage it with old TV parts in their parents basements. I would say that a boosted fission bomb counts as net positive fusion also because, even if it does take more energy to cause the fusion than you get out of it, that energy is recouped in the giant explosion which is the actual point of the bomb so, in the final accounting, you get out more energy than you put in.
Now, if North Korea were claiming to have net positive stable, controlled and sustainable fusion for power generation that would be something. Then you could maybe call the claims bizarre. Of course, despite the huge grain of salt you'd have to take the claims with, they still might be worth checking out.
Binding maybe, but it's a contract of adhesion. Contracts of adhesion are not automatically invalid, but you generally need to make a very strong case for them if you want them to stick in court. Of course, I am not a lawyer.
Nuclear fusion is easy. Pretty much anyone can build a Farnsworth Fusor and there are all sorts of other ways to achieve fusion. Achieving net positive fusion isn't even that difficult for a country that already has fission-based atomic bombs. The problem is achieving net positive fusion that is stable, sustainable, and controlled.
The question asked by the story title: "did North Korea conduct secret nuclear tests?" has a simple answer. Yes. Of course they conducted secret nuclear tests. It's already public knowledge that they have a nuclear program. They also, like every nuclear power, keep the details hush hush. Therefore, secret nuclear tests.
But when you include the evidence they give, you're still fundamentally saying X says Y. Why are the results to be believed? _You_ are the one who wrote: "wikipedia cannot be considered a reliable research source - since the only evidence it offers for it's content is citations from authority". You said that the entirety of Wikipedia was fallacious due to that, but Wikipedia frequently includes evidence from authorities it cites. If you stand by that declaration, how can you believe that other people making an argument can cite an authority and the evidence they've gathered?
Jobs might have been well-educated and intelligent, but he was fundamentally a salesperson. A very high-powered one. They tend to be crazy. It's usually a fairly specific kind of crazy, but crazy nonetheless. Basically, their success leads them to believe that they can accomplish anything just by force of will and personality. These people are heavily into all that self-actualization motivational stuff. They also really _believe_ in it due to their own success. Confirmation bias leads them to believe that they will always succeed where others have failed.
Well, he wasn't cured, but he lasted a remarkably long time, and managed to get a liver transplant that was very questionable given that he was dying of pancreatic cancer. Usually they don't give organ transplants to people with such a bad prognosis. Getting the liver may have extended his life by about 2 years. It very well could have extended a different patient's life by twenty. He managed to get the liver by spending a lot of money to fly around and visit a lot of different doctors and get on a lot of different waiting lists. Whether he did anything even more questionable than just gaming the system is unknown.
Yes. I agree with that. But if _all_ appeal to authority is fallacious, then you can't use anything from any of the original researchers or peer reviewers or anyone reporting on the original research in any way in an argument.
But Elixir Sulfanilamide was a miracle drug! The FDA got all in a fit because of little naming issue. Turns out that it wasn't technically an elixir since it didn't have an alcohol base. Diethylene glycol tastes much better than ethanol anyway.
In simpler terms, it's actually written into the law that an entirely different law applies to offenses against you depending on how rich and powerful you are. If you're just a regular person, then offenses against you are just against you and you have to go yourself to civil court to seek justice in the form of limited monetary compensation. If you're big and powerful, offenses against you are offenses against the people, and the executive branch of government will take the vile offender to criminal court for you and see to it that they're thrown into a dark hole.
Now, I know that there are legitimate reasons for a certain volume being a more serious offense, etc. but in reality, it pretty much works out to justice for the rich and powerful being more important in the eyes of the government. Try going to the police of the Feds when you've been defrauded out of a paltry $40,000 and see how much they care, but if you have a major brand and someone is selling $5000 worth of merchandise with a fake version of your logo on it, they'll spring into action.
Well, a kilogram of mass directly into energy is easy to calculate. E=MC^2, so 1 kg of mass is equal to 1 kg* (300,000,000 m/s)^2 which is 90,000,000,000,000,000 (kg*m*m)/s*s or 90 petajoules. That's 25 billion kilowatt-hours. Average monthly household electric usage is 920 kilowatt-hours, so that's 27,173,913 households for a month, or 2,264,492 households for a year. So, assuming 100% conversion to electrical power and no transmission loss (in the real world, less than 25% of that original power would probably be eventually usable in homes), it would power civilization only in the state of Maryland for a year. Of course, most power usage by civilization isn't residential electric. Most home heating isn't electric, then there's all the energy people use to travel, the energy used to produce and transport their food (we'll give the energy from the sun that grows crops a free pass) and to maintain the infrastructure and power other kinds of services and to power businesses as well as households. So, it wouldn't really power all of Maryland.
Wikipedia lists world total energy consumption as about 474 Exajoules in 2008. So the 90 petajoules from the 1 kg of matter, with a miraculous 100% utilization, would last keep civilization running for about an hour and 40 minutes. For a whole year, you'd need 5.27 metric tons of matter. If you actually take conversion and transmission loses into account, it's more like 25 minutes and 21.07 metric tons.
The words of the treaty aren't just jurisdiction, they're "complete jurisdiction and control". The critical question is, what parts of the construct of ownership do not fall to the US under this agreement? As far as I can tell, the differences between the current state of affairs and true ownership are in name only.
Your accident/manslaughter/murder example isn't comparable to what I'm saying. The critical component of intent is missing in the accidental killing, whereas the intent in the treaty is clear, which is to give the US ownership of the area in all but name. A comparable example involve a killing would need to have an intentional killing that isn't considered murder even though it's functionally equivalent to murder. A better example might be someone with a grudge who invites someone to their home, then comes out with a gun when they arrive and shoots them in the back when they run, but aren't considered murderers legally thanks to Castle doctrine (the exact situation would be considered murder even with Castle doctrine of course, but maybe not with just a little sneakiness on the part of the murderer).
The axe I'm grinding has to do with your refusal to understand that mere differences of verbal semantics and hollow acknowledgement of one set of truths while acting completely contrary to them are irrelevant to reality. The US holds and treats Guantanamo bay as its own territory. Lip service to it just being a lease and Cuba still having sovereignty are meaningless because leases don't really work that way and Cuba doesn't really have sovereignty there unless the US grants it to them. I am being a pig-headed realist in the same way that you are being a pig-headed literalist. I strongly suspect, however, that your pig-headedness on this particular point stems mainly from strong US partisanship rather than an absolute belief in all things written down and signed.
Sure. Insulting my ability to read English is a great way to clear up a debate. Which points do I argue with you where you agree with me? Sorry, but the posts have gotten so long it would be nice if you could provide a reference.
As for sticking to the definition. I was sticking to the definition. Possibly a subtly different definition to yours. I had thought your definition had been pulled from Wikipedia, which you called Fallacious in its entirety, but I just went back and checked and that was an AC, was it you? In any case, if you're sticking to the definition, then you're appealing to the authority of whoever wrote that definition so, by your own argument, your argument is fallacious and should be dismissed. I really don't see how you can get around that with the statements you've made so far. Oh, I know how, insult my capacity to understand and declare the matter settled. Agreeing to disagree is one thing. Declaring that I'm just an idiot and you're right is another (as a matter of fact, it's another common rhetorical fallacy).
Actually, Jefferson's comment was both general and specific. He was talking about Shay's rebellion. You're onto something when you point out that Jefferson was a politician. The problem is that you then end up in the same morass as the global warming debate. No expert opinion, or research done by an expert is safe there because they are all accused of having political motives. The problem is, when you cut things finely enough, all knowledge is collected by authorities, so appeal to any knowledge in any way is a form of appeal to authority. So, if all appeals to authority are fallacious, where are we then?
I found the text of the 1934 treaty, by the way. It turns out it was signed by one of the 4 presidents from 1934, Manual Marquez Sterling. Now, he was only president for a day, and this was signed in June, after his presidency. I'm assuming that it was signed in his capacity as a diplomat. What I find interesting is that it does not appear that it actually was signed by the sitting President of Cuba.
Anyway, the part that's relevant to this discussion is:
ARTICLE III
Until the two contracting parties agree to the modification or abrogation of the stipulations of the agreement in regard to the lease to the United States of America of lands in Cuba for coaling and naval stations signed by the President of the Republic of Cuba on February 16, 1903, and by the President of the United States of America on the 23d day of the same month and year, the stipulations of that agreement with regard to the naval station of Guantanamo shall continue in effect. The supplementary agreement in regard to naval or coaling stations signed between the two Governments on July 2, 1903, also shall continue in effect in the same form and on the same conditions with respect to the naval station at Guantanamo. So long as the United States of America shall not abandon the said naval station of Guantanamo or the two Governments shall not agree to a modification of its present limits, the station shall continue to have the territorial area that it now has, with the limits that it has on the date of the signature of the present Treaty.
So, the station shall continue to have the territorial area it had as of 1934 with the limits it had due to the previous treaties and agreements:
ARTICLE I
The Republic of Cuba hereby leases to the United States, for the time required for the purposes of coaling and naval stations, the following described areas of land and water situated in the Island of Cuba: 1st. In Guantánamo (see Hydrographic Office Chart 1857). From a point on the south coast, 4.37 nautical miles to the eastward of Windward Point Light House, a line running north (true) a distance of 4.25 nautical miles; From the northern extremity of this line, a line running west (true), a distance of 5.87 nautical miles; From the western extremity of this last line, a line running southwest (true) 3.31 nautical miles; From the southwestern extremity of this last line, a line running south (true) to the seacoast. This lease shall be subject to all the conditions named in Article II of this agreement. [Removed the section about Bahia Honda] ARTICLE II
The grant of the foregoing Article shall include the right to use and occupy the waters adjacent to said areas of land and water, and to improve and deepen the entrances thereto and the anchorages therein, and generally to do any and all things necessary to fit the premises for use as coaling or naval stations only, and for no other purpose.
Vessels engaged in the Cuban trade shall have free passage through the waters included within this grant. ARTICLE III
While on the one hand the United States recognizes the continuance of the ultimate sovereignty of the Republic of Cuba over the above described areas of land and water, on the other hand the Republic of Cuba consents that during the period of the occupation by the United States of said areas under the terms of this agreement the United States shall exercise complete jurisdiction and control over and within said areas with the right to acquire (under conditions to be hereafter agreed upon by the two Governments) for the public purposes of the United States any land or other property therein by purchase or by exercise of eminent domain with full compensation to the owners thereof.
So, one thing that I'd expected in these treaties was a more overt statement that the US wouldn't make war against Cuba. The 1934 treaty where the terms of the Platt Amendment are abrogated takes away the right of the US to militarily intervene
Actually they ARE they claims of authorship. The only thing you argue in those lines is that Person X said Y. You said nothing about Y itself. It only becomes a fallacy if you add: "therefore Y is true".
Now I think you're being ridiculous just to be contrary. How in the blue blazes are those claims of authorship unless the physics professor and the literature professor _are_ Albert Einstein and Kurt Vonnegut? Also, the quotes did not say "nothing" about Y, they said that Y was stated by X, who is someone in a position to know, based on their title. There is clearly an implicit claim similar to "therefore Y is true". Those examples clearly are (non-fallacious) appeals to authority.
The GP did so - he gave a quote implying he believes it true, with no evidence of his own.
I think you meant GGGGGGGGP since the GP of your post was you. And why is an implicit belief that it's true suddenly ok to make it a an appeal to authority (fallacious or not), but my examples needed a "therefore it's true"? I think you're just making this up as you go along. As for it being a fallacy or not, let's consider who Jefferson was. He was one of the founding fathers of the country and he was its third President. He was the principal author of the declaration of independence, which was one of the founding documents of the country and highly relevant to the discussion at hand and his writings influenced the US constitution and later interpretation of it. So, Jefferson is an acknowledged expert the subject. That doesn't make him absolutely right, but his opinion does matter. Simply parroting the opinion of someone who had a lot to do with founding the country in the first place certainly qualifies as an appeal to authority and the expert nature of the subject prevents it from being a fallacy. That doesn't make it automatically right, it just makes it an argument for a particular position and an appeal to authority. I should also note that the GGGGGGGGP quoted Jefferson's whole (admittedly poetic) argument.
Yes, it's a perfect example. Now replace "Physics professor with "Thomas Jefferson" and everything after "that" with the GP's quote - and you have the argument that I responded to the in the first place. Hence I called it a fallacy.
Except that Jefferson isn't just an alleged "really smart" guy. His expertise is clearly applicable to the subject at hand. Fred Hoyle was a really smart guy, and he insisted that Archaeopteryx was a fake. No actual palaeontologist believed that, to my knowledge. Citing his opinion as an argument for a palaeontology debate was fallacious, but citing his opinion for a debate about stellar formation, where he was an acknowledged expert, was not. He could still be wrong, of course.
Sorry, but it is, this is one reason why wikipedia cannot be considered a reliable research source - since the only evidence it offers for it's content is citations from authority. That is not proof - therefore the entire wikipedia is fallacious. Not all fallacy's are untrue of course, but you cannot consider a fallacious argument proven.
Ok. You've completely jumped the shark here. "the entire wikipedia is fallacious", because they only cite authorities? Now you're just being an epistemological nihilist. You're essentially saying that every collection of knowledge is false with the possible exception of your own personal research, and then only to yourself (and maybe you don't think that's valid either). Fortunately, I don't have have to listen to your argument because you can't prove that you exist. I should point out that your argument here about Wikipedia disagrees with something you wrote in a previous post:
"Einstein said the universe follows the theory of relativity and offered significant scientific evidence for this which has thus far stood up to experimental verification and supported numerous other theories that have likewise stood up to testing"
I insist that it's not Cuban territory because, except for playing diplomatic and legal semantic games in which they can never explicitly claim it as their own territory, the US treats it as its own territory. Any claims by the US that it's Cuba's territory aren't sincere, because they're saying one thing, but doing another. It sounds something like this: "I don't dispute that it's yours, but that you can have it back and I don't recognize any of your rights to it, I signed your name on deal that lets me use it under terms that I'm not following, but I don't recognize you diplomatically anyway."
You also state: "If countries can unilaterally declare treaties void on a whim, then what is the point of having treaties in the first place?" apparently unaware that countries declare treaties void on a whim all the time. The US, for example, breaks treaties whenever it's convenient for them. One example of treaties they break whenever it's convenient to them is the treaty they have with Cuba over the use of Guantanamo Bay. Despite the fact that the US has broken its side of the treaty, you insist that the treaty can only go away if both the US and Cuba mutually agree. In contract terms, this is known as an unconscionable contract. Also, with regards to Cuba, you keep saying that "they" agreed to it. Quite aside from the revolution changing the government, do you recognize the fact that the treaty and its modification in 1934 were with what amounts to a US puppet state? Does that have any bearing, in your mind, on the validity of the treaty? I don't see how you can argue all of this nonsense about Cuba having sovereignty over Guantanamo Bay while simultaneously stating that their only recourse if they don't like the situation is to engage the US militarily. That's some kind of wacky doublethink
You say: "You keep going back and forth on this point, arguing that the current government is party to the treaty in some respects, but isn't in others - which is it?" Where the hell are you getting that? I've said nothing about the current Cuban government being party to the treaty in some respects. I've said that the US has violated the terms of the Treaty, but that doesn't require the Cuban government to be party to the treaty, it just requires a fair-dealing US to say, when Cuba says to get out, "well, our only claim to the place is a treaty that we're not following, so we should leave". Anyway, whichever president was presiding over the country at the time of the treaty, the point is that Cuba at the time was clearly in political turmoil and pretty much everything the government did was controlled by shadowy undemocratic forces.
Bitching about a treaty, and then saying "But we're not bound by that treaty, and we don't recognize it as valid anyway," is a little foolish.
??? I don't follow your reasoning here. Are you trying to saying that "bitching about a treaty" is somehow equivalent to saying you are bound by the treaty and that you do recognize it as valid? That doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, but bomb disposal robots aren't really robots. They're glorified remote control cars with cameras. They are very much waldos. But, then, this is one of those common usage arguments. If enough people say it is then yadda yadda yadda.
Ok. Claims of authorship you say, not appeals to authority. I would say that they're both, but fine, if it will satisfy you, here are some modified versions: "My physics professor says that the theory of relativity says X" "My literature professor says that the meaning of _Harrison Bergeron_ is Y" There. Modified versions that are not claims of authorship, but are appeals to authority, and are non-fallacious. As for my third example, I do not mistakenly "think that only that particularly extreme form is a fallacy". That is another kind of fallacy, known as a strawman argument. You are claiming that I made an argument that I did not make and demonstrating how easily you can demolish that argument. The reality is that I presented an example that very clearly was a fallacious appeal to authority using the same subject as one of the prior examples. I made no claim whatsoever that it was the only form that a fallacious appeal to authority could take. Also, since I've changed the subjects in my other examples, I'll go ahead and modify my third example: "My physics professor says that the clear meaning of _Harrison Bergeron_ is Z, and he's a really smart guy, so it must be Z, so there, argument closed." There, I think that still works well as an example of a fallacious appeal to authority.
Now, as to your claim that "ANY case where you cite authority WITHOUT other evidence is a fallacy", I just don't agree. When you cite an authority as your only evidence, it's generally a weak argument, to be sure, but it's not a fallacy. That's one of the reason I used original authors in my first two examples the first time around. Original authors are generally considered to be very reliable experts on their own original works. Their own assertions about those works are therefore constitute very strong arguments all by themselves. If you insist that there's some special case when the subject of an appeal to authority is an author, then you can substitute any other expert who really should know. In the case of Einstein you could use a physicist who worked on the GPS system all the way from its original conception, for example.
Your other examples are pretty good. I will point out that I'm not sure your first example actually is the fallacy of appeal to authority. Is there a variant that covers putting words in the mouth of a respected authority? Is that the appeal to authority fallacy or just an outright false statement? I'm not aware of Einstein ever stating that the theory of relativity was actually a law of the universe and I'm pretty sure he understood that it was just a model.
If it's Cuban territory, but Cuba has absolutely no rights to it unless they fight the US for it, then it's not _really_ Cuban territory. You can niggle over unimportant technicalities all you want. You can tell that they're unimportant technicalities because the US treats them as unimportant. Even if you ignore the fact that the treaty was basically an agreement between the United States and itself, there were various stipulations in the agreement such as Cuban vessels both civilian and military having access. Do they? The treaty was also very specific about the scope of the use of the base, and yet the US has gone well beyond that scope. So, there really isn't any agreement with Cuba, either the Cuba of today or the Cuba of over century ago. You must be crazy if you really think that the US is using Guantanamo Bay in accordance with some old treaty rather than just treating the area as its own territory because it can. The US does not explicitly officially call it its own territory for political reasons, in pretty much every real sense, it is, however.
The 1934 treaty was still before the Cuban revolution. As it is, I'm having trouble figuring out which of the 4 presidents Cuba had in 1934 actually signed the Avery Porko treaty, the actual details of which are pretty hard to find. I assume it was Carlos Mendieta who, by most accounts, was just a puppet for Batista. Just read up on the rent checks. I'm wondering if they're still for $4,085 per year or if the US has inflation adjusted the payments? Either way, it's a ridiculously small amount. Apparently, Cuba's treasury, after the revolution, cashed one of the checks very early on, and the US claims that's ratification of the treaty and has called no takesies backsies.
In any case, it's clearly ridiculous to try to claim that Cuba has sovereignty over that area when the US is clearly denying it to them. Cuba has said "leave!" and the US has said "No!". The US bases its claim to the "lease" on a treaty that it treats as worthless and doesn't follow. The US treats Guantanamo Bay as its own territory and Cuba is powerless to stop them.
Well, here's the thing. If I rent a car from Hertz and, as I'm leaving the parking lot, they stop me and tell me that they've changed their mind on renting me the car, I'm going to get annoyed. I might even sue them afterwards (not very likely). One thing I'm not going to do is shoot them when they try to take it back. The overall problem here is what the actual definition of territory. I would argue that having complete military dominion over an area along with legal jurisdiction to the degree that children born there satisfy the "natural born citizen" requirement for the US presidency. I don't think we're going to agree on it. And, as much as you seem to think it's a settled matter, I'm pretty sure that no qualified legal scholar is going to agree with you that it's a settled matter, either. Nations have been quibbling and warring over such definitions for millenia and they haven't stopped.
It's not a case of "we don't like the treaty an old administration signed on behalf of our country" though. It wasn't an old administration, it was a completely different government that happened to occupy the same island that the current Cuban government occupies. On the US side, the treaty was signed by the US President, on the Cuban side, it was signed by the Cuban president, who was also a US citizen. Immediately before this treaty, the US government _was_ the government of Cuba. The creation of the treaty was one of the conditions of the US withdrawal. The US is currently in violation of pretty much all parts of the treaty and has been for longer than I've been alive. The "lease" is perpetual and, as far as I know, the current Cuban government is paid nothing for it.
So, the US has dominion over the area because it occupied the island militarily and refused to leave unless they were allowed to keep the base and they've held it for years, in violation of the original agreement. The US clearly does _not_ recognize Cuba's sovereignty over the area. So, the area is clearly de facto US territory.
I'm a little unclear on what you're saying is wrong with what I was saying about the appeal to authority fallacy. Are you saying that appeal to authority is always fallacious when the opinion of only one individual is cited? Let's try that on for size: "Einstein says that the theory of relativity says X" "Kurt Vonnegut says that the meaning of _Harrison Bergeron_ is Y" Those clearly are not fallacious appeals to authority, whereas: "Einstein says that the clear meaning of _Harrison Bergeron_ is Z, and he's a really smart guy, so it must be Z, so there, argument closed." is a fallacious appeal to authority.
Based on what he said, I sadly have to agree with you. On the other hand, based on what he said, I think there might be a case against anyone who takes money from him in the future. In any case, strictly illegal, or not, his statement throws into sharp relief how clearly corrupt the system is.
You misunderstand the concept of the Appeal to Authority fallacy. Appeal to authority is the name of a type of fallacy, but that doesn't mean that it's a fallacy every time you point to an authority on a subject and see what they have to say. Here's an excerpt from a description of the fallacy found through a quick google search:
Description of Appeal to Authority
An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:
1. Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
2. Person A makes claim C about subject S.
3. Therefore, C is true.
This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.
If the person being referenced is, indeed, an authority, appealing to them is still a valid argument. It doesn't constitute absolute proof, but it's still valid. Thomas Jefferson, as one of the principal authors of the philosophy that the Unites States was founded on, is most certainly a valid authority on this subject. If we were arguing about cooking, and someone argued that tarragon was the king of spices because Thomas Jefferson said so, then that would be an example of the appeal to authority fallacy (unless Thomas Jefferson actually was renowned for his cooking ability as well).
Now, the general case about "famous and generally respected people share his ideas" that AniMoJo suggested really could match the fallacy, but that's only because AniMoJo re-framed it in such a general way. The actual specific facts in this case are that Thomas Jefferson was famous, generally respected, and also an acknowledged expert on the subject at hand. He can still be wrong. That's very important to remember. Any expert can be wrong. But, he's someone who is very clearly knowledgeable about the subject and put the work in.
Well, some people are born in a persistent vegetative state... There's some uncomfortable semantic and philosophical questions over whether they still count as people, at least for the purposes of this discussion.
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And, with modern philosophy on nuclear weapons, no-one really needs weapons bigger than that. It's much more efficient to use lots of smaller nuclear weapons than a few really big ones to achieve total destruction. If you actually want to take out the other countries hardened nuclear sites to prevent them from continuing to fire at you, you might want a bigger boom. If you just want to maintain a state of MAD, around 400-600 kilotons is ideal. Of course, you still need a delivery mechanism.
The thing is, as much as people tried to portray Kim Jong Il as crazy, and he probably was in some ways, he wasn't the kind of crazy that kills himself willingly in a nuclear war. Maybe he believed his own press releases (which would make him pretty crazy), but he also liked to spend a lot of his time partying with blond Swedish prostitutes. That doesn't seem to fit with someone who wants to kill themselves over their principles, just as someone who wants to ride their success in controlling the country as long as they can. On the other hand, there are lots of cult leaders who were self-evidently cynical manipulators who only cared about fleecing their followers (for money and multiple "wives") who still ended up drinking the poisoned kool-aid along with everyone else. Maybe they built cages around themselves, or maybe they had some sort of religious doublethink going where they were cynical manipulators and true believers at the same time. So, I guess the fear always exists that North Korea would eventually use its nuclear weapons against someone.
Yes, but a boosted fission bomb still achieves fusion and it's not a huge step from making a fission bomb to a boosted fusion bomb. I wasn't saying that they had a bomb from which most of the energy comes from fusion, just that it's not a bizarre claim for North Korea to say they've achieved some sort of fusion since teenagers manage it with old TV parts in their parents basements. I would say that a boosted fission bomb counts as net positive fusion also because, even if it does take more energy to cause the fusion than you get out of it, that energy is recouped in the giant explosion which is the actual point of the bomb so, in the final accounting, you get out more energy than you put in.
Now, if North Korea were claiming to have net positive stable, controlled and sustainable fusion for power generation that would be something. Then you could maybe call the claims bizarre. Of course, despite the huge grain of salt you'd have to take the claims with, they still might be worth checking out.
Binding maybe, but it's a contract of adhesion. Contracts of adhesion are not automatically invalid, but you generally need to make a very strong case for them if you want them to stick in court. Of course, I am not a lawyer.
Nuclear fusion is easy. Pretty much anyone can build a Farnsworth Fusor and there are all sorts of other ways to achieve fusion. Achieving net positive fusion isn't even that difficult for a country that already has fission-based atomic bombs. The problem is achieving net positive fusion that is stable, sustainable, and controlled.
The question asked by the story title: "did North Korea conduct secret nuclear tests?" has a simple answer. Yes. Of course they conducted secret nuclear tests. It's already public knowledge that they have a nuclear program. They also, like every nuclear power, keep the details hush hush. Therefore, secret nuclear tests.
But when you include the evidence they give, you're still fundamentally saying X says Y. Why are the results to be believed? _You_ are the one who wrote: "wikipedia cannot be considered a reliable research source - since the only evidence it offers for it's content is citations from authority". You said that the entirety of Wikipedia was fallacious due to that, but Wikipedia frequently includes evidence from authorities it cites. If you stand by that declaration, how can you believe that other people making an argument can cite an authority and the evidence they've gathered?
Jobs might have been well-educated and intelligent, but he was fundamentally a salesperson. A very high-powered one. They tend to be crazy. It's usually a fairly specific kind of crazy, but crazy nonetheless. Basically, their success leads them to believe that they can accomplish anything just by force of will and personality. These people are heavily into all that self-actualization motivational stuff. They also really _believe_ in it due to their own success. Confirmation bias leads them to believe that they will always succeed where others have failed.
Well, he wasn't cured, but he lasted a remarkably long time, and managed to get a liver transplant that was very questionable given that he was dying of pancreatic cancer. Usually they don't give organ transplants to people with such a bad prognosis. Getting the liver may have extended his life by about 2 years. It very well could have extended a different patient's life by twenty. He managed to get the liver by spending a lot of money to fly around and visit a lot of different doctors and get on a lot of different waiting lists. Whether he did anything even more questionable than just gaming the system is unknown.
Yes. I agree with that. But if _all_ appeal to authority is fallacious, then you can't use anything from any of the original researchers or peer reviewers or anyone reporting on the original research in any way in an argument.
But Elixir Sulfanilamide was a miracle drug! The FDA got all in a fit because of little naming issue. Turns out that it wasn't technically an elixir since it didn't have an alcohol base. Diethylene glycol tastes much better than ethanol anyway.
In simpler terms, it's actually written into the law that an entirely different law applies to offenses against you depending on how rich and powerful you are. If you're just a regular person, then offenses against you are just against you and you have to go yourself to civil court to seek justice in the form of limited monetary compensation. If you're big and powerful, offenses against you are offenses against the people, and the executive branch of government will take the vile offender to criminal court for you and see to it that they're thrown into a dark hole.
Now, I know that there are legitimate reasons for a certain volume being a more serious offense, etc. but in reality, it pretty much works out to justice for the rich and powerful being more important in the eyes of the government. Try going to the police of the Feds when you've been defrauded out of a paltry $40,000 and see how much they care, but if you have a major brand and someone is selling $5000 worth of merchandise with a fake version of your logo on it, they'll spring into action.
Well, a kilogram of mass directly into energy is easy to calculate. E=MC^2, so 1 kg of mass is equal to 1 kg* (300,000,000 m/s)^2 which is 90,000,000,000,000,000 (kg*m*m)/s*s or 90 petajoules. That's 25 billion kilowatt-hours. Average monthly household electric usage is 920 kilowatt-hours, so that's 27,173,913 households for a month, or 2,264,492 households for a year. So, assuming 100% conversion to electrical power and no transmission loss (in the real world, less than 25% of that original power would probably be eventually usable in homes), it would power civilization only in the state of Maryland for a year. Of course, most power usage by civilization isn't residential electric. Most home heating isn't electric, then there's all the energy people use to travel, the energy used to produce and transport their food (we'll give the energy from the sun that grows crops a free pass) and to maintain the infrastructure and power other kinds of services and to power businesses as well as households. So, it wouldn't really power all of Maryland.
Wikipedia lists world total energy consumption as about 474 Exajoules in 2008. So the 90 petajoules from the 1 kg of matter, with a miraculous 100% utilization, would last keep civilization running for about an hour and 40 minutes. For a whole year, you'd need 5.27 metric tons of matter. If you actually take conversion and transmission loses into account, it's more like 25 minutes and 21.07 metric tons.
The words of the treaty aren't just jurisdiction, they're "complete jurisdiction and control". The critical question is, what parts of the construct of ownership do not fall to the US under this agreement? As far as I can tell, the differences between the current state of affairs and true ownership are in name only.
Your accident/manslaughter/murder example isn't comparable to what I'm saying. The critical component of intent is missing in the accidental killing, whereas the intent in the treaty is clear, which is to give the US ownership of the area in all but name. A comparable example involve a killing would need to have an intentional killing that isn't considered murder even though it's functionally equivalent to murder. A better example might be someone with a grudge who invites someone to their home, then comes out with a gun when they arrive and shoots them in the back when they run, but aren't considered murderers legally thanks to Castle doctrine (the exact situation would be considered murder even with Castle doctrine of course, but maybe not with just a little sneakiness on the part of the murderer).
The axe I'm grinding has to do with your refusal to understand that mere differences of verbal semantics and hollow acknowledgement of one set of truths while acting completely contrary to them are irrelevant to reality. The US holds and treats Guantanamo bay as its own territory. Lip service to it just being a lease and Cuba still having sovereignty are meaningless because leases don't really work that way and Cuba doesn't really have sovereignty there unless the US grants it to them. I am being a pig-headed realist in the same way that you are being a pig-headed literalist. I strongly suspect, however, that your pig-headedness on this particular point stems mainly from strong US partisanship rather than an absolute belief in all things written down and signed.
Sure. Insulting my ability to read English is a great way to clear up a debate. Which points do I argue with you where you agree with me? Sorry, but the posts have gotten so long it would be nice if you could provide a reference.
As for sticking to the definition. I was sticking to the definition. Possibly a subtly different definition to yours. I had thought your definition had been pulled from Wikipedia, which you called Fallacious in its entirety, but I just went back and checked and that was an AC, was it you? In any case, if you're sticking to the definition, then you're appealing to the authority of whoever wrote that definition so, by your own argument, your argument is fallacious and should be dismissed. I really don't see how you can get around that with the statements you've made so far. Oh, I know how, insult my capacity to understand and declare the matter settled. Agreeing to disagree is one thing. Declaring that I'm just an idiot and you're right is another (as a matter of fact, it's another common rhetorical fallacy).
Actually, Jefferson's comment was both general and specific. He was talking about Shay's rebellion. You're onto something when you point out that Jefferson was a politician. The problem is that you then end up in the same morass as the global warming debate. No expert opinion, or research done by an expert is safe there because they are all accused of having political motives. The problem is, when you cut things finely enough, all knowledge is collected by authorities, so appeal to any knowledge in any way is a form of appeal to authority. So, if all appeals to authority are fallacious, where are we then?
I found the text of the 1934 treaty, by the way. It turns out it was signed by one of the 4 presidents from 1934, Manual Marquez Sterling. Now, he was only president for a day, and this was signed in June, after his presidency. I'm assuming that it was signed in his capacity as a diplomat. What I find interesting is that it does not appear that it actually was signed by the sitting President of Cuba.
Anyway, the part that's relevant to this discussion is:
ARTICLE III
Until the two contracting parties agree to the modification or abrogation of the stipulations of the agreement in regard to the lease to the United States of America of lands in Cuba for coaling and naval stations signed by the President of the Republic of Cuba on February 16, 1903, and by the President of the United States of America on the 23d day of the same month and year, the stipulations of that agreement with regard to the naval station of Guantanamo shall continue in effect. The supplementary agreement in regard to naval or coaling stations signed between the two Governments on July 2, 1903, also shall continue in effect in the same form and on the same conditions with respect to the naval station at Guantanamo. So long as the United States of America shall not abandon the said naval station of Guantanamo or the two Governments shall not agree to a modification of its present limits, the station shall continue to have the territorial area that it now has, with the limits that it has on the date of the signature of the present Treaty.
So, the station shall continue to have the territorial area it had as of 1934 with the limits it had due to the previous treaties and agreements:
ARTICLE I
The Republic of Cuba hereby leases to the United States, for the time required for the purposes of coaling and naval stations, the following described areas of land and water situated in the Island of Cuba:
1st. In Guantánamo (see Hydrographic Office Chart 1857). From a point on the south coast, 4.37 nautical miles to the eastward of Windward Point Light House, a line running north (true) a distance of 4.25 nautical miles;
From the northern extremity of this line, a line running west (true), a distance of 5.87 nautical miles;
From the western extremity of this last line, a line running southwest (true) 3.31 nautical miles;
From the southwestern extremity of this last line, a line running south (true) to the seacoast.
This lease shall be subject to all the conditions named in Article II of this agreement.
[Removed the section about Bahia Honda]
ARTICLE II
The grant of the foregoing Article shall include the right to use and occupy the waters adjacent to said areas of land and water, and to improve and deepen the entrances thereto and the anchorages therein, and generally to do any and all things necessary to fit the premises for use as coaling or naval stations only, and for no other purpose.
Vessels engaged in the Cuban trade shall have free passage through the waters included within this grant.
ARTICLE III
While on the one hand the United States recognizes the continuance of the ultimate sovereignty of the Republic of Cuba over the above described areas of land and water, on the other hand the Republic of Cuba consents that during the period of the occupation by the United States of said areas under the terms of this agreement the United States shall exercise complete jurisdiction and control over and within said areas with the right to acquire (under conditions to be hereafter agreed upon by the two Governments) for the public purposes of the United States any land or other property therein by purchase or by exercise of eminent domain with full compensation to the owners thereof.
So, one thing that I'd expected in these treaties was a more overt statement that the US wouldn't make war against Cuba. The 1934 treaty where the terms of the Platt Amendment are abrogated takes away the right of the US to militarily intervene
Actually they ARE they claims of authorship. The only thing you argue in those lines is that Person X said Y.
You said nothing about Y itself. It only becomes a fallacy if you add: "therefore Y is true".
Now I think you're being ridiculous just to be contrary. How in the blue blazes are those claims of authorship unless the physics professor and the literature professor _are_ Albert Einstein and Kurt Vonnegut? Also, the quotes did not say "nothing" about Y, they said that Y was stated by X, who is someone in a position to know, based on their title. There is clearly an implicit claim similar to "therefore Y is true". Those examples clearly are (non-fallacious) appeals to authority.
The GP did so - he gave a quote implying he believes it true, with no evidence of his own.
I think you meant GGGGGGGGP since the GP of your post was you. And why is an implicit belief that it's true suddenly ok to make it a an appeal to authority (fallacious or not), but my examples needed a "therefore it's true"? I think you're just making this up as you go along. As for it being a fallacy or not, let's consider who Jefferson was. He was one of the founding fathers of the country and he was its third President. He was the principal author of the declaration of independence, which was one of the founding documents of the country and highly relevant to the discussion at hand and his writings influenced the US constitution and later interpretation of it. So, Jefferson is an acknowledged expert the subject. That doesn't make him absolutely right, but his opinion does matter. Simply parroting the opinion of someone who had a lot to do with founding the country in the first place certainly qualifies as an appeal to authority and the expert nature of the subject prevents it from being a fallacy. That doesn't make it automatically right, it just makes it an argument for a particular position and an appeal to authority. I should also note that the GGGGGGGGP quoted Jefferson's whole (admittedly poetic) argument.
Yes, it's a perfect example. Now replace "Physics professor with "Thomas Jefferson" and everything after "that" with the GP's quote - and you have the argument that I responded to the in the first place. Hence I called it a fallacy.
Except that Jefferson isn't just an alleged "really smart" guy. His expertise is clearly applicable to the subject at hand. Fred Hoyle was a really smart guy, and he insisted that Archaeopteryx was a fake. No actual palaeontologist believed that, to my knowledge. Citing his opinion as an argument for a palaeontology debate was fallacious, but citing his opinion for a debate about stellar formation, where he was an acknowledged expert, was not. He could still be wrong, of course.
Sorry, but it is, this is one reason why wikipedia cannot be considered a reliable research source - since the only evidence it offers for it's content is citations from authority. That is not proof - therefore the entire wikipedia is fallacious. Not all fallacy's are untrue of course, but you cannot consider a fallacious argument proven.
Ok. You've completely jumped the shark here. "the entire wikipedia is fallacious", because they only cite authorities? Now you're just being an epistemological nihilist. You're essentially saying that every collection of knowledge is false with the possible exception of your own personal research, and then only to yourself (and maybe you don't think that's valid either). Fortunately, I don't have have to listen to your argument because you can't prove that you exist. I should point out that your argument here about Wikipedia disagrees with something you wrote in a previous post:
"Einstein said the universe follows the theory of relativity and offered significant scientific evidence for this which has thus far stood up to experimental verification and supported numerous other theories that have likewise stood up to testing"
I insist that it's not Cuban territory because, except for playing diplomatic and legal semantic games in which they can never explicitly claim it as their own territory, the US treats it as its own territory. Any claims by the US that it's Cuba's territory aren't sincere, because they're saying one thing, but doing another. It sounds something like this:
"I don't dispute that it's yours, but that you can have it back and I don't recognize any of your rights to it, I signed your name on deal that lets me use it under terms that I'm not following, but I don't recognize you diplomatically anyway."
You also state: "If countries can unilaterally declare treaties void on a whim, then what is the point of having treaties in the first place?" apparently unaware that countries declare treaties void on a whim all the time. The US, for example, breaks treaties whenever it's convenient for them. One example of treaties they break whenever it's convenient to them is the treaty they have with Cuba over the use of Guantanamo Bay. Despite the fact that the US has broken its side of the treaty, you insist that the treaty can only go away if both the US and Cuba mutually agree. In contract terms, this is known as an unconscionable contract. Also, with regards to Cuba, you keep saying that "they" agreed to it. Quite aside from the revolution changing the government, do you recognize the fact that the treaty and its modification in 1934 were with what amounts to a US puppet state? Does that have any bearing, in your mind, on the validity of the treaty? I don't see how you can argue all of this nonsense about Cuba having sovereignty over Guantanamo Bay while simultaneously stating that their only recourse if they don't like the situation is to engage the US militarily. That's some kind of wacky doublethink
You say: "You keep going back and forth on this point, arguing that the current government is party to the treaty in some respects, but isn't in others - which is it?" Where the hell are you getting that? I've said nothing about the current Cuban government being party to the treaty in some respects. I've said that the US has violated the terms of the Treaty, but that doesn't require the Cuban government to be party to the treaty, it just requires a fair-dealing US to say, when Cuba says to get out, "well, our only claim to the place is a treaty that we're not following, so we should leave". Anyway, whichever president was presiding over the country at the time of the treaty, the point is that Cuba at the time was clearly in political turmoil and pretty much everything the government did was controlled by shadowy undemocratic forces.
Bitching about a treaty, and then saying "But we're not bound by that treaty, and we don't recognize it as valid anyway," is a little foolish.
??? I don't follow your reasoning here. Are you trying to saying that "bitching about a treaty" is somehow equivalent to saying you are bound by the treaty and that you do recognize it as valid? That doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, but bomb disposal robots aren't really robots. They're glorified remote control cars with cameras. They are very much waldos. But, then, this is one of those common usage arguments. If enough people say it is then yadda yadda yadda.
Ok. Claims of authorship you say, not appeals to authority. I would say that they're both, but fine, if it will satisfy you, here are some modified versions:
"My physics professor says that the theory of relativity says X"
"My literature professor says that the meaning of _Harrison Bergeron_ is Y"
There. Modified versions that are not claims of authorship, but are appeals to authority, and are non-fallacious. As for my third example, I do not mistakenly "think that only that particularly extreme form is a fallacy". That is another kind of fallacy, known as a strawman argument. You are claiming that I made an argument that I did not make and demonstrating how easily you can demolish that argument. The reality is that I presented an example that very clearly was a fallacious appeal to authority using the same subject as one of the prior examples. I made no claim whatsoever that it was the only form that a fallacious appeal to authority could take. Also, since I've changed the subjects in my other examples, I'll go ahead and modify my third example:
"My physics professor says that the clear meaning of _Harrison Bergeron_ is Z, and he's a really smart guy, so it must be Z, so there, argument closed."
There, I think that still works well as an example of a fallacious appeal to authority.
Now, as to your claim that "ANY case where you cite authority WITHOUT other evidence is a fallacy", I just don't agree. When you cite an authority as your only evidence, it's generally a weak argument, to be sure, but it's not a fallacy. That's one of the reason I used original authors in my first two examples the first time around. Original authors are generally considered to be very reliable experts on their own original works. Their own assertions about those works are therefore constitute very strong arguments all by themselves. If you insist that there's some special case when the subject of an appeal to authority is an author, then you can substitute any other expert who really should know. In the case of Einstein you could use a physicist who worked on the GPS system all the way from its original conception, for example.
Your other examples are pretty good. I will point out that I'm not sure your first example actually is the fallacy of appeal to authority. Is there a variant that covers putting words in the mouth of a respected authority? Is that the appeal to authority fallacy or just an outright false statement? I'm not aware of Einstein ever stating that the theory of relativity was actually a law of the universe and I'm pretty sure he understood that it was just a model.
If it's Cuban territory, but Cuba has absolutely no rights to it unless they fight the US for it, then it's not _really_ Cuban territory. You can niggle over unimportant technicalities all you want. You can tell that they're unimportant technicalities because the US treats them as unimportant. Even if you ignore the fact that the treaty was basically an agreement between the United States and itself, there were various stipulations in the agreement such as Cuban vessels both civilian and military having access. Do they? The treaty was also very specific about the scope of the use of the base, and yet the US has gone well beyond that scope. So, there really isn't any agreement with Cuba, either the Cuba of today or the Cuba of over century ago. You must be crazy if you really think that the US is using Guantanamo Bay in accordance with some old treaty rather than just treating the area as its own territory because it can. The US does not explicitly officially call it its own territory for political reasons, in pretty much every real sense, it is, however.
The 1934 treaty was still before the Cuban revolution. As it is, I'm having trouble figuring out which of the 4 presidents Cuba had in 1934 actually signed the Avery Porko treaty, the actual details of which are pretty hard to find. I assume it was Carlos Mendieta who, by most accounts, was just a puppet for Batista. Just read up on the rent checks. I'm wondering if they're still for $4,085 per year or if the US has inflation adjusted the payments? Either way, it's a ridiculously small amount. Apparently, Cuba's treasury, after the revolution, cashed one of the checks very early on, and the US claims that's ratification of the treaty and has called no takesies backsies.
In any case, it's clearly ridiculous to try to claim that Cuba has sovereignty over that area when the US is clearly denying it to them. Cuba has said "leave!" and the US has said "No!". The US bases its claim to the "lease" on a treaty that it treats as worthless and doesn't follow. The US treats Guantanamo Bay as its own territory and Cuba is powerless to stop them.
Well, here's the thing. If I rent a car from Hertz and, as I'm leaving the parking lot, they stop me and tell me that they've changed their mind on renting me the car, I'm going to get annoyed. I might even sue them afterwards (not very likely). One thing I'm not going to do is shoot them when they try to take it back. The overall problem here is what the actual definition of territory. I would argue that having complete military dominion over an area along with legal jurisdiction to the degree that children born there satisfy the "natural born citizen" requirement for the US presidency. I don't think we're going to agree on it. And, as much as you seem to think it's a settled matter, I'm pretty sure that no qualified legal scholar is going to agree with you that it's a settled matter, either. Nations have been quibbling and warring over such definitions for millenia and they haven't stopped.
It's not a case of "we don't like the treaty an old administration signed on behalf of our country" though. It wasn't an old administration, it was a completely different government that happened to occupy the same island that the current Cuban government occupies. On the US side, the treaty was signed by the US President, on the Cuban side, it was signed by the Cuban president, who was also a US citizen. Immediately before this treaty, the US government _was_ the government of Cuba. The creation of the treaty was one of the conditions of the US withdrawal. The US is currently in violation of pretty much all parts of the treaty and has been for longer than I've been alive. The "lease" is perpetual and, as far as I know, the current Cuban government is paid nothing for it.
So, the US has dominion over the area because it occupied the island militarily and refused to leave unless they were allowed to keep the base and they've held it for years, in violation of the original agreement. The US clearly does _not_ recognize Cuba's sovereignty over the area. So, the area is clearly de facto US territory.
I'm a little unclear on what you're saying is wrong with what I was saying about the appeal to authority fallacy. Are you saying that appeal to authority is always fallacious when the opinion of only one individual is cited? Let's try that on for size:
"Einstein says that the theory of relativity says X"
"Kurt Vonnegut says that the meaning of _Harrison Bergeron_ is Y"
Those clearly are not fallacious appeals to authority, whereas:
"Einstein says that the clear meaning of _Harrison Bergeron_ is Z, and he's a really smart guy, so it must be Z, so there, argument closed."
is a fallacious appeal to authority.
Based on what he said, I sadly have to agree with you. On the other hand, based on what he said, I think there might be a case against anyone who takes money from him in the future. In any case, strictly illegal, or not, his statement throws into sharp relief how clearly corrupt the system is.
You misunderstand the concept of the Appeal to Authority fallacy. Appeal to authority is the name of a type of fallacy, but that doesn't mean that it's a fallacy every time you point to an authority on a subject and see what they have to say. Here's an excerpt from a description of the fallacy found through a quick google search:
If the person being referenced is, indeed, an authority, appealing to them is still a valid argument. It doesn't constitute absolute proof, but it's still valid. Thomas Jefferson, as one of the principal authors of the philosophy that the Unites States was founded on, is most certainly a valid authority on this subject. If we were arguing about cooking, and someone argued that tarragon was the king of spices because Thomas Jefferson said so, then that would be an example of the appeal to authority fallacy (unless Thomas Jefferson actually was renowned for his cooking ability as well).
Now, the general case about "famous and generally respected people share his ideas" that AniMoJo suggested really could match the fallacy, but that's only because AniMoJo re-framed it in such a general way. The actual specific facts in this case are that Thomas Jefferson was famous, generally respected, and also an acknowledged expert on the subject at hand. He can still be wrong. That's very important to remember. Any expert can be wrong. But, he's someone who is very clearly knowledgeable about the subject and put the work in.
Well, some people are born in a persistent vegetative state... There's some uncomfortable semantic and philosophical questions over whether they still count as people, at least for the purposes of this discussion.