I think it would probably be easy to sit there and listen to lectures about the evils of the Jews, it would probably be pretty frustrating but I wouldn't have to leave the room. What would be difficult is to sit there are be associated with anti-semites and Nazis, that is why I'd leave the room, to disassociate with them. (Though in reality I'd probably stick around as leaving might get me shot)
I, of course, can't speak for anyone else but me, but I wouldn't be so worried about being seen listening to Nazi propaganda, because people who know me know that I don't listen exclusively to things I agree with. I would find it more difficult to sit there, contemplating the injustice of innocent people being smeared, the fact that people are actually misguided and stupid enough to believe what they're listening to, and the helplessness associated with the fact that there is literally nothing in my power to stop it. Compared with the cumulative unpleasantness of these three realisations being rubbed in my face, the fact that I'm sitting in a group of Nazis would not be a concern.
I doubt you would have found any glaring logical inconsistencies per se, rather you'd just find a heavy reliance on appeals to authority to lend legitimacy to otherwise unjustified racial slurs. Basically, all you could do is ask, "How do you know that's true?" and the answer would be something of the form "I have a degree/I work directly with $RESPECTED_BIGOT/You're just a Jew-lover" or something else in that same vein. It wouldn't mean you were wrong, but it would mean you wouldn't convince anyone in the room, and you would probably polarise them more towards Nazism.
I have commented on this before, but bullshit is self-reinforcing. Once people believe something to be true, that makes the bullshit so much harder to break down. It no longer matters what kind of faulty reasoning that originated the idea, because they can find plenty of "evidence" around the place that looks convincing if you presuppose the conclusion, but is not at all convincing if you do not. For example, a Nazi might notice someone with a Jewish name at a bank, and think "Aha, they do control the country's wealth! I knew they were evil!", but a sceptic would realise the claim that the Jews (including the poor Jewish family next door) somehow collaborating to control national finances is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary proof. Despite this, just seeing that Jewish banker would add to the Nazi's confidence in his beliefs, and make it less likely for him to take anyone who contradicted him seriously.
So, yeah, it wouldn't be that easy to argue convincingly. Plus, even if you were to hypothetically go through with it, I'm sure you'd agree that it would be painful to sit through such bullshit being taught as fact, and watching people believe it.
The claim that it's possible that there is a God that affects evolution? That's a very weak claim that requires no evidence, since the burden of proof would be squarely on people to show the converse, i.e. it's not possible for a God that affects evolution to exist.
It's almost as if religious folks -know- that they're wrong. Thus to preserve their wrongheadedness, it's requires to not even learn about the alternatives. (presumably, learning would risk realising that the alternative theories are correct.)
I strongly disagree. If I had to go back in time to Nazi Germany, and listen to lectures about the evils of the Jews, I would not have the stomach to sit there and listen to it. It's not because I secretly fear that the Jews are indeed responsible for the world's suffering, just that I could only tolerate so much hatemongering bullshit before realising that I had better things to do with my time.
Of course, that's not to say that evolution is akin to Nazi propaganda, just that refusing to listen != you know you're wrong.
It addresses your question by pointing out how inane it is.
I'm not sure how asking for evidence is inane.
Apart from the sites I kindly provided to you (which further addresses your question-in-a-vacuum) you could simply click on the 'corruption' tag here on Slashdot.
If you think this addresses my point, then you clearly have not understood it. Perhaps if we work through an example. I looked at the list of stories tagged with "corruption", and took the first one on the list:
Surely if I looked around here, I could find some evidence to support the hypothesis of corruption, right? Well, no, I found an article without any comment on whether this is due to the corrupting influence of corporations on government. I also looked in the comments, but found nothing there either (from a quick skim read). Surely it must be a corrupting influence? Again, not necessarily. Protecting the music industry is consistent with looking out for the interests of the people, given how popular their product is, and how difficult it is to make demand match sales when anyone can pick it up for free. So, this story appears to be a bust. Let's try the next one on the list:
This one's a lot meatier. It points out that Siga obtained a no-bid contract to supply the US with the smallpox treatment, and that Siga is a donor to the democrats. It doesn't actually accuse the party of corruption, probably because it realises the evidence is just not there, and probably in no small part because they know they can state the facts suggestively enough that people will make the logical leap for them. Again, the comments offer no help, and the official explanation makes sense enough. So, once again, despite the high standards of rigour required to tag a story with the word "corruption", the actual stories themselves seem not to contain any evidence towards any such corruption actually existing.
So, now that I've established the difficulty in finding evidence amongst slashdot, and that pointing me to general sites indeed does not address my point, perhaps there is a specific story which is different? Can you find one where the official explanation contains a contradiction, or where someone in the know admits to corruption existing?
You're not interested in information.
Well, yes and no. I actually am interested in any evidence I can accumulate of the government's alleged corruption, but information on that topic is not what I expect to gain from this conversation. What I hope to do instead is make people aware of the basis for their beliefs, not just on the topic of DRM or the government, but all topics. Government corruption sticks out in my mind because I have not seen a topic with such an apparent high ratio of certainty to evidence, but it is by no means the only topic where that ratio seems high. What I ask from you is to think critically about things which are common sense. Exactly what makes you think they are true? Is it just that everyone else thinks they're true, or is there something beyond that?
Your delicately-worded inquiry amounts to argument in bad faith.
Thank you. I do word my arguments delicately. I try to word them to obtain optimal clarity, so that my reasoning is readily apparent to everyone, while not oversimplifying it and introducing weaknesses. That's one of the reasons why they often turn out so strong. I'm not sure how you obtained the conclusion that they were in bad faith, but that, like all ad hominems, seems lik
I have to admit, you are idiot. Sorry, but let me prove it: Proving that you are idiot, and that there is not even one responsible government: 1. Lets take USA government: not responsible 2. Lets take Greece government: not responsible 3. Lets take any random government (your choice, idiot): NOT RESPONSIBLE
*facepalm* Exactly where did you get your so called mathematics education?
Oh, one more thing idiot, you cry river for not giving you and example and definition and prove (like what? idiots like you?) that government A is irresponsible, but you, idiot, did you bother to ACTUALLY give any prove for the opposite? Sorry? What did you say idiot? NO? You don't wanna to???? It is your right to not incriminate yourself??? Moron.
Not that I actually expect you to understand this, since you seem to have missed my more obvious points, as well as the point of logic in general, but I was never actually claiming that governments were "responsible" (whatever that means) or that they were uncorrupted by other influences. It would be closer to correct to say that I was claiming that there wasn't sufficient evidence to do so, but that's still not quite correct. What I was really saying was that you should always be aware of how much evidence you have towards a hypothesis, and adjust your sureness accordingly to fit the evidence. Now, it may well be the case that every government is intrinsically "irresponsible"; I'm not contradicting you there. I'm merely asking for evidence.
Now, you have stated, repeatedly, that every government is irresponsible. You have given two examples, and failed to back up either one of them. Compare to the following argument:
"Every person is a donkey 1. I am a donkey 2. You are a donkey 3. Let's take any random person (your choice, idiot): they are a donkey This proves mathematically that everyone is a donkey!"
Notice I have given absolutely no evidence that either you or I are donkeys (although, from talking to you, it's quite clear you're an ass). I have said, take any random person, and claim that they will be a donkey, but provided no evidence for that either. In fact, from walking around and talking to people, I'm fairly sure I've seen at least one which isn't a donkey, so the conclusion is false. So, it should be noted that arguments in the above form do not necessarily imply the truth of their conclusions, i.e. they are fallacies.
I guess so. I admit I took a stab in the dark, since your first comment didn't make much sense
My college education was in math, my university was in math too, and computer science is just a coincedence, as it is for the most slashdoters.
Oh right, I get it. When you assumed I didn't have the experience of first grade logic, you knew you were probably wrong, and were just being a wanker.
With this said, you are forgetting (conveniently) some base facts: 1.Government is paid by our taxes. 2.The taxes are paid by us, you, me, regular Jo, commala, you name it. 3.Who do you think has the responsibility to prove anything at all? ME, that is paying their salary, or THEY, that are paid by ME?
I accept both 1 and 2, and 3 is not a statement. In fact, I can make hide nor hair of 3. I don't understand at all how employment structure has any bearing on burden of proof. In fact, it would make about as much sense to say "I pay scientists with my taxes indirectly through government grants, therefore they need to prove to me that God does not exist, not the other way around!". I don't see, at all, how the conclusion follows from the premises. And, judging by your unwillingness to actually make a clear point, and instead bury it rhetorical questions, neither do you.
Since the very beginning of our civilazation, there is not even one single case of responsible government, not even one, i repeat, not even one. In any math book, this fact proves that there is not even one responsible government.
Uh, no, a mathematics text book would only consider a deductively valid argument from a set of axioms a proof. A statistics book might be more favourable, as they work heavily with inductive reasoning (which is what the "Every example of X I have seen has had property Y, therefore all X has property Y" reasoning is called), but even then they would put some caveats on it (for example, if you only saw one such government that was irresponsible, and no others, then the stats book would not look favourably upon the inference).
That aside, the more troubling hole in your argument is the lack of evidence towards your assertion that there has not been even a single case of responsible government. In fact, what do you mean, exactly, by an "responsible" government? Can you comprehensively list the governments you've seen, as well as evidence for each that they have not been "responsible"? If not, then citing that doesn't really help your argument in the slightest.
Just for the sake of the argument, even if all this argument was some abstract argument, regarding the classics like Socrat, to name the most famous of them, the burden of proving anything is also abstract, and it is my duty to put this burden on you, to force you to argue, even to follow your argument and twist it until even you start to argue with me, and thus argue with yourself, and then i would have one another battle won.
Which is exactly what you are actually trying to do, but again, not here, not on this forum, not with the highly educated professional that happen to read and post on this forum.
Are you serious? Really? Are you even trying to make sense any more? You seem to be under the impression that putting together nonsensical sentence fragments is the key to winning an argument, but it just makes you look like an idiot and a troll. Judging by our respective mods, your highly educated peers agree with me.
Have you been living under a rock? Or are you seeking a reputation as an astroturfer?
Corruption by moneyed interests is a recurring theme here on Slashdot and many other sites, and much of that posting references hard news. Then again Slashdot is hardly the epicenter of concern for corruption on the web. So I suggest you try your strangely abstract (to put it kindly) arguments on a site like propublica.org or groklaw.net instead (and see how long your arguments last).
Thank you for demonstrating my point so nicely. Whenever I ask this same question (and I have done so many times), I inevitably get this kind of response*, pointing out that it's obvious, that it's widely believed by many people. Note that this does not even address the question! It does not at all contradict my position, since my contention is that such a low standard of evidence can make patently absurd hypotheses both seem obvious and widespread. Therefore, citing that it's obvious and the opinion is widespread does not, at all, provide evidence for it.
Also, since I want to foster a habit of directly answering any question that has any expectation of being answered, allow me to categorically respond to your first two questions. I have not been living under a rock. I have seen many of the news stories, and corresponding speculation, that both fuel, and are fuelled by, these stories. Very, very few seem to be strong evidence towards the hypothesis, where the official explanation seems significantly less plausible than the hypothesis that they're lying to cover corruption. A vast majority, on the other hand, tend to be mostly speculation, where the official explanation makes sense, and the speculation only seems more plausible if you take the corruption to be a foregone conclusion.
I'm also not an astroturfer, nor do I have any ambition to become one. I do wish, however, to promote logic and reason, even when (or especially when) the logical conclusion is highly contentious and held in low regard. For example, because I'm questioning the evidential basis belief in the hypothesis, you're now hoping that embarrassment over being duped by Big Corp/government could be used to convince me, in lieu of actual evidence.
Oh, and my day is going delightfully. How's yours?
* The only response I have ever received that addressed the question at hand, was someone who promised me that they had seen concrete evidence towards the hypothesis that Big Corp is corrupting government, but lamented that he could not find it at the time.
These kind of bullshit arguments like yours could only work for 1st grade kids, not for slashdoters, so please go to your local bar and try to read some classic books about dialogue, argument, and who Aristotel is. Please.
I don't know... It would seem like a little bit of a step down from the pure mathematics and philosophy that I do every day.
Your argument boils down to a burden of proof issue. You claim that the burden is on me to disprove Big Corporation's influence on government. Why? Explain to me exactly why this is the case. Bear in mind that, while I accept that most people believe it to be so, I am calling into question the inference "Everyone believes X, therefore X is probably true", so the fact that people widely believe it to be true is not really evidence in this argument. Is there some other reason why I should provide proof that such a connection does not exist, rather than wait for your proof on the issue?
While you think of a response (I'm sure you can; you did pass the 1st grade, right?), allow me to point out that it is a staple of empirical reasoning to assumes your null hypothesis that connections do not exist, and require proof to say anything different. In first year statistics, they teach you how to formulate null and alternative hypotheses, and the difference between them. The null hypothesis is something we assume to be true by default, until evidence is presented against it (specifically, for an alternative hypothesis). Anyone who wants the scientific community to believe their alternative hypothesis must provide evidence against the null. Now, the null hypothesis is always in favour of randomness, against connections or structure, probably because out of the phenomena in the world, we have found many more that appear not to be connected than we have found phenomena that are. For example, if I wanted to establish a connection between taking vitamin C and being struck by lightning, the null hypothesis in this case would be that there is no connection. It would be absurd to believe these things have some kind of correlation without some kind of evidence.
Allow me to explain something about Aristolean logic. One of its features is that, once abstracted symbolically, the specific names or objects used in your argument don't mean anything other than their placeholder symbol. For example, I can make the logically valid modus ponens argument:
"If it's raining, I will get wet It's raining Therefore, I will get wet"
This abstracts to P ---> Q, P, Therefore Q. Being valid is not a property of the rain or the wetness, but of the symbolic expressions that argument abstracts to. Any other argument that abstracts to the same thing will also be valid. This, of course, doesn't just apply to modus ponens, but to any valid argument. If you wish to invoke specific properties about whatever it is you're dealing with, you must add extra premises. For example, if I said:
"It's raining Therefore, I will get wet"
then it is not technically valid, and requires the extra premise, which is a property of raining and wetness, that "If it's raining, I will get wet".
Consider now your example. You believe that, for whatever reason, Big Corp corrupts government is the null hypothesis. Since you seem to have no evidence for this, i.e. no added hypotheses, to distinguish government or Big Corp from other objects, it would seem you would have to also logically accept any statement "P corrupts Q" as a null hypothesis. Do you have any evidence contradicting the hypothesis that "Free political speech corrupts the heavy metal layers in the ionosphere?" I thought not.
The summary declares, without any evidence whatsoever, that Penguin's motives are not what they say, and furthermore that this is "One more example of DRM being about protecting business models, not content." If the examples are evidentially supported to the same degree as this one, then exactly how sure can we be about the trend? How much evidence do we have, in total, towards the hypothesis that companies do not use DRM to protect their content?
I'm not trying to take the companies' side here. It just frightens me that the standard of evidence required to become slashdot fact is so very low. Once you believe something to be fact, it will influence your beliefs, and what you believe to be fact in the future. If one starts accepting facts with such a low standard of evidence, the bullshit can snowball until the most tenuous of hypotheses can seem so sure that one will defend it against anything but the most blatant of contradictions. I've seen it many times, and I've had it happen to me before.
Here's another topic to think about. Everyone knows that the government is simply eating out of Big Corporation's wallet, right? How do they know this? Think back to all the times you think you've seen examples of this, and really consider the following questions: "Is this the only explanation that this at all likely? Can you find some kind of contradiction in the version of events that they offer? Did you even listen to their version of the events?". While seemingly disproportionate mistrust of government is vital to democracy, it doesn't hurt to fact check once and a while!
Thank you for reading. I hope you take some of this on board.
Perhaps I wasn't clear - I believe it's hypocritical of the RIAA to argue that a music purchase is sometimes a physical product (when used as evidence of "theft") and sometimes a license (when talking about "ownership") depending on context
I hate to do this, but I need to delve into some semantics here. I don't think the RIAA is literally calling music downloads a physical product, rather they liken them to physical product. So, I think it would be fair to say that the RIAA treat music downloads as though they are a license, which acts like a physical product in certain respects but not others. This means that, according to the RIAA, music downloads do not "turn back and forth into intangible constructs", rather that they are intangible, but resemble tangible objects in certain respects.
Also, it's not necessarily based around "how [they] feel about them". There's no evidence supporting this. The RIAA have been pretty consistent in their comparison of downloads to physical media, specifically where it's similar and where it's dissimilar. Of course, their position favours themselves very heavily, but that doesn't make them hypocrites.
Finally, I think you're placing an undue importance on my desk being a physical object. What we are talking about here is not so much the objects themselves, but how we view them. By calling my desk a table, or a chest of drawers, I'm not actually affecting the desk in any way. Rather, I'm offering an insight into how I view my desk, and as a consequence, how I would use it. None of this is actually physical. Similarly, what we are discussing is how the RIAA treats musical downloads, not the actual nature of these downloads. I am just as capable of being hypocritical about my desk as the RIAA has of being hypocritical about music downloads.
Yeah it's funny, but I wonder, is it's a bit too subtle and edgy. We want people to get it, you know? Maybe you could slightly dumb it down? For the masses, you understand.
It's not an analogy, it's a counterexample. It proves that it's not inherently hypocritical to recognise that things can resemble something in some situation, and another other thing in another situation. Sometimes, different situations change what attributes are relevant, and as such, whether we consider two things to be analogous depends on what we consider important. When I write at my desk, I value its hard flat surface. When I file my documents, I value the drawers underneath it. No-one would begrudge me likening to a table in one situation and a chest of drawers in another. Therefore, we cannot conclude that the RIAA are hypocrites from the argument presented. If you want to convince me that the RIAA are hypocrites, you'll need to draw on the abundance of other evidence!
It's going to be an interesting legal case because (practically) every 'move' operation on a computer is really a copy-and-delete-the-original operation, so the idea of selling the original doesn't really make sense because the original was an ephemeral copy in your network stack - the version on your hard disk is a copy of that, the version on your media player or on a backup disk is a copy of the copy.
It is an interesting topic. I was thinking about this distinction between reselling physical and non-physical media, but I realised that it was significantly flawed. The same problems exist with a CD. You can easily copy a CD to your hard drive and sell it afterwards, like how you can copy non-physical copies before selling one of them. Either way, it comes down to trust that the seller is legitimate. The only real difference is in the ease of dispossessing yourself of the copy.
Slashdot Mirror
I, of course, can't speak for anyone else but me, but I wouldn't be so worried about being seen listening to Nazi propaganda, because people who know me know that I don't listen exclusively to things I agree with. I would find it more difficult to sit there, contemplating the injustice of innocent people being smeared, the fact that people are actually misguided and stupid enough to believe what they're listening to, and the helplessness associated with the fact that there is literally nothing in my power to stop it. Compared with the cumulative unpleasantness of these three realisations being rubbed in my face, the fact that I'm sitting in a group of Nazis would not be a concern.
I doubt you would have found any glaring logical inconsistencies per se, rather you'd just find a heavy reliance on appeals to authority to lend legitimacy to otherwise unjustified racial slurs. Basically, all you could do is ask, "How do you know that's true?" and the answer would be something of the form "I have a degree/I work directly with $RESPECTED_BIGOT/You're just a Jew-lover" or something else in that same vein. It wouldn't mean you were wrong, but it would mean you wouldn't convince anyone in the room, and you would probably polarise them more towards Nazism.
I have commented on this before, but bullshit is self-reinforcing. Once people believe something to be true, that makes the bullshit so much harder to break down. It no longer matters what kind of faulty reasoning that originated the idea, because they can find plenty of "evidence" around the place that looks convincing if you presuppose the conclusion, but is not at all convincing if you do not. For example, a Nazi might notice someone with a Jewish name at a bank, and think "Aha, they do control the country's wealth! I knew they were evil!", but a sceptic would realise the claim that the Jews (including the poor Jewish family next door) somehow collaborating to control national finances is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary proof. Despite this, just seeing that Jewish banker would add to the Nazi's confidence in his beliefs, and make it less likely for him to take anyone who contradicted him seriously.
So, yeah, it wouldn't be that easy to argue convincingly. Plus, even if you were to hypothetically go through with it, I'm sure you'd agree that it would be painful to sit through such bullshit being taught as fact, and watching people believe it.
The OP didn't ask what was scientific, rather what was right.
The claim that it's possible that there is a God that affects evolution? That's a very weak claim that requires no evidence, since the burden of proof would be squarely on people to show the converse, i.e. it's not possible for a God that affects evolution to exist.
If you haven't, don't bother. They're lousy conversationalists.
Pro tip: the brown doesn't rub off on your skin. You should be fine!
I strongly disagree. If I had to go back in time to Nazi Germany, and listen to lectures about the evils of the Jews, I would not have the stomach to sit there and listen to it. It's not because I secretly fear that the Jews are indeed responsible for the world's suffering, just that I could only tolerate so much hatemongering bullshit before realising that I had better things to do with my time.
Of course, that's not to say that evolution is akin to Nazi propaganda, just that refusing to listen != you know you're wrong.
You lost an argument. It happens to the best of us. Get over it.
I'm not sure how asking for evidence is inane.
If you think this addresses my point, then you clearly have not understood it. Perhaps if we work through an example. I looked at the list of stories tagged with "corruption", and took the first one on the list:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/11/19/2124236/france-to-tax-the-internet-to-pay-for-music
Surely if I looked around here, I could find some evidence to support the hypothesis of corruption, right? Well, no, I found an article without any comment on whether this is due to the corrupting influence of corporations on government. I also looked in the comments, but found nothing there either (from a quick skim read). Surely it must be a corrupting influence? Again, not necessarily. Protecting the music industry is consistent with looking out for the interests of the people, given how popular their product is, and how difficult it is to make demand match sales when anyone can pick it up for free. So, this story appears to be a bust. Let's try the next one on the list:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/11/17/2228251/the-443-million-smallpox-vaccine-that-nobody-needs
This one's a lot meatier. It points out that Siga obtained a no-bid contract to supply the US with the smallpox treatment, and that Siga is a donor to the democrats. It doesn't actually accuse the party of corruption, probably because it realises the evidence is just not there, and probably in no small part because they know they can state the facts suggestively enough that people will make the logical leap for them. Again, the comments offer no help, and the official explanation makes sense enough. So, once again, despite the high standards of rigour required to tag a story with the word "corruption", the actual stories themselves seem not to contain any evidence towards any such corruption actually existing.
So, now that I've established the difficulty in finding evidence amongst slashdot, and that pointing me to general sites indeed does not address my point, perhaps there is a specific story which is different? Can you find one where the official explanation contains a contradiction, or where someone in the know admits to corruption existing?
Well, yes and no. I actually am interested in any evidence I can accumulate of the government's alleged corruption, but information on that topic is not what I expect to gain from this conversation. What I hope to do instead is make people aware of the basis for their beliefs, not just on the topic of DRM or the government, but all topics. Government corruption sticks out in my mind because I have not seen a topic with such an apparent high ratio of certainty to evidence, but it is by no means the only topic where that ratio seems high. What I ask from you is to think critically about things which are common sense. Exactly what makes you think they are true? Is it just that everyone else thinks they're true, or is there something beyond that?
Thank you. I do word my arguments delicately. I try to word them to obtain optimal clarity, so that my reasoning is readily apparent to everyone, while not oversimplifying it and introducing weaknesses. That's one of the reasons why they often turn out so strong. I'm not sure how you obtained the conclusion that they were in bad faith, but that, like all ad hominems, seems lik
You lost an argument. It happens to the best of us. Let it go.
*facepalm* Exactly where did you get your so called mathematics education?
Not that I actually expect you to understand this, since you seem to have missed my more obvious points, as well as the point of logic in general, but I was never actually claiming that governments were "responsible" (whatever that means) or that they were uncorrupted by other influences. It would be closer to correct to say that I was claiming that there wasn't sufficient evidence to do so, but that's still not quite correct. What I was really saying was that you should always be aware of how much evidence you have towards a hypothesis, and adjust your sureness accordingly to fit the evidence. Now, it may well be the case that every government is intrinsically "irresponsible"; I'm not contradicting you there. I'm merely asking for evidence.
Now, you have stated, repeatedly, that every government is irresponsible. You have given two examples, and failed to back up either one of them. Compare to the following argument:
"Every person is a donkey
1. I am a donkey
2. You are a donkey
3. Let's take any random person (your choice, idiot): they are a donkey
This proves mathematically that everyone is a donkey!"
Notice I have given absolutely no evidence that either you or I are donkeys (although, from talking to you, it's quite clear you're an ass). I have said, take any random person, and claim that they will be a donkey, but provided no evidence for that either. In fact, from walking around and talking to people, I'm fairly sure I've seen at least one which isn't a donkey, so the conclusion is false. So, it should be noted that arguments in the above form do not necessarily imply the truth of their conclusions, i.e. they are fallacies.
I guess so. I admit I took a stab in the dark, since your first comment didn't make much sense
Oh right, I get it. When you assumed I didn't have the experience of first grade logic, you knew you were probably wrong, and were just being a wanker.
I accept both 1 and 2, and 3 is not a statement. In fact, I can make hide nor hair of 3. I don't understand at all how employment structure has any bearing on burden of proof. In fact, it would make about as much sense to say "I pay scientists with my taxes indirectly through government grants, therefore they need to prove to me that God does not exist, not the other way around!". I don't see, at all, how the conclusion follows from the premises. And, judging by your unwillingness to actually make a clear point, and instead bury it rhetorical questions, neither do you.
Uh, no, a mathematics text book would only consider a deductively valid argument from a set of axioms a proof. A statistics book might be more favourable, as they work heavily with inductive reasoning (which is what the "Every example of X I have seen has had property Y, therefore all X has property Y" reasoning is called), but even then they would put some caveats on it (for example, if you only saw one such government that was irresponsible, and no others, then the stats book would not look favourably upon the inference).
That aside, the more troubling hole in your argument is the lack of evidence towards your assertion that there has not been even a single case of responsible government. In fact, what do you mean, exactly, by an "responsible" government? Can you comprehensively list the governments you've seen, as well as evidence for each that they have not been "responsible"? If not, then citing that doesn't really help your argument in the slightest.
Are you serious? Really? Are you even trying to make sense any more? You seem to be under the impression that putting together nonsensical sentence fragments is the key to winning an argument, but it just makes you look like an idiot and a troll. Judging by our respective mods, your highly educated peers agree with me.
Thank you for demonstrating my point so nicely. Whenever I ask this same question (and I have done so many times), I inevitably get this kind of response*, pointing out that it's obvious, that it's widely believed by many people. Note that this does not even address the question! It does not at all contradict my position, since my contention is that such a low standard of evidence can make patently absurd hypotheses both seem obvious and widespread. Therefore, citing that it's obvious and the opinion is widespread does not, at all, provide evidence for it.
Also, since I want to foster a habit of directly answering any question that has any expectation of being answered, allow me to categorically respond to your first two questions. I have not been living under a rock. I have seen many of the news stories, and corresponding speculation, that both fuel, and are fuelled by, these stories. Very, very few seem to be strong evidence towards the hypothesis, where the official explanation seems significantly less plausible than the hypothesis that they're lying to cover corruption. A vast majority, on the other hand, tend to be mostly speculation, where the official explanation makes sense, and the speculation only seems more plausible if you take the corruption to be a foregone conclusion.
I'm also not an astroturfer, nor do I have any ambition to become one. I do wish, however, to promote logic and reason, even when (or especially when) the logical conclusion is highly contentious and held in low regard. For example, because I'm questioning the evidential basis belief in the hypothesis, you're now hoping that embarrassment over being duped by Big Corp/government could be used to convince me, in lieu of actual evidence.
Oh, and my day is going delightfully. How's yours?
* The only response I have ever received that addressed the question at hand, was someone who promised me that they had seen concrete evidence towards the hypothesis that Big Corp is corrupting government, but lamented that he could not find it at the time.
No, it just makes them seem more plausible than they actually are.
I don't know... It would seem like a little bit of a step down from the pure mathematics and philosophy that I do every day.
Your argument boils down to a burden of proof issue. You claim that the burden is on me to disprove Big Corporation's influence on government. Why? Explain to me exactly why this is the case. Bear in mind that, while I accept that most people believe it to be so, I am calling into question the inference "Everyone believes X, therefore X is probably true", so the fact that people widely believe it to be true is not really evidence in this argument. Is there some other reason why I should provide proof that such a connection does not exist, rather than wait for your proof on the issue?
While you think of a response (I'm sure you can; you did pass the 1st grade, right?), allow me to point out that it is a staple of empirical reasoning to assumes your null hypothesis that connections do not exist, and require proof to say anything different. In first year statistics, they teach you how to formulate null and alternative hypotheses, and the difference between them. The null hypothesis is something we assume to be true by default, until evidence is presented against it (specifically, for an alternative hypothesis). Anyone who wants the scientific community to believe their alternative hypothesis must provide evidence against the null. Now, the null hypothesis is always in favour of randomness, against connections or structure, probably because out of the phenomena in the world, we have found many more that appear not to be connected than we have found phenomena that are. For example, if I wanted to establish a connection between taking vitamin C and being struck by lightning, the null hypothesis in this case would be that there is no connection. It would be absurd to believe these things have some kind of correlation without some kind of evidence.
Allow me to explain something about Aristolean logic. One of its features is that, once abstracted symbolically, the specific names or objects used in your argument don't mean anything other than their placeholder symbol. For example, I can make the logically valid modus ponens argument:
"If it's raining, I will get wet
It's raining
Therefore, I will get wet"
This abstracts to P ---> Q, P, Therefore Q. Being valid is not a property of the rain or the wetness, but of the symbolic expressions that argument abstracts to. Any other argument that abstracts to the same thing will also be valid. This, of course, doesn't just apply to modus ponens, but to any valid argument. If you wish to invoke specific properties about whatever it is you're dealing with, you must add extra premises. For example, if I said:
"It's raining
Therefore, I will get wet"
then it is not technically valid, and requires the extra premise, which is a property of raining and wetness, that "If it's raining, I will get wet".
Consider now your example. You believe that, for whatever reason, Big Corp corrupts government is the null hypothesis. Since you seem to have no evidence for this, i.e. no added hypotheses, to distinguish government or Big Corp from other objects, it would seem you would have to also logically accept any statement "P corrupts Q" as a null hypothesis. Do you have any evidence contradicting the hypothesis that "Free political speech corrupts the heavy metal layers in the ionosphere?" I thought not.
The summary declares, without any evidence whatsoever, that Penguin's motives are not what they say, and furthermore that this is "One more example of DRM being about protecting business models, not content." If the examples are evidentially supported to the same degree as this one, then exactly how sure can we be about the trend? How much evidence do we have, in total, towards the hypothesis that companies do not use DRM to protect their content?
I'm not trying to take the companies' side here. It just frightens me that the standard of evidence required to become slashdot fact is so very low. Once you believe something to be fact, it will influence your beliefs, and what you believe to be fact in the future. If one starts accepting facts with such a low standard of evidence, the bullshit can snowball until the most tenuous of hypotheses can seem so sure that one will defend it against anything but the most blatant of contradictions. I've seen it many times, and I've had it happen to me before.
Here's another topic to think about. Everyone knows that the government is simply eating out of Big Corporation's wallet, right? How do they know this? Think back to all the times you think you've seen examples of this, and really consider the following questions: "Is this the only explanation that this at all likely? Can you find some kind of contradiction in the version of events that they offer? Did you even listen to their version of the events?". While seemingly disproportionate mistrust of government is vital to democracy, it doesn't hurt to fact check once and a while!
Thank you for reading. I hope you take some of this on board.
Seconded. Although, by the third season, the show all but collapses under all its self-reference.
Who?
I hate to do this, but I need to delve into some semantics here. I don't think the RIAA is literally calling music downloads a physical product, rather they liken them to physical product. So, I think it would be fair to say that the RIAA treat music downloads as though they are a license, which acts like a physical product in certain respects but not others. This means that, according to the RIAA, music downloads do not "turn back and forth into intangible constructs", rather that they are intangible, but resemble tangible objects in certain respects.
Also, it's not necessarily based around "how [they] feel about them". There's no evidence supporting this. The RIAA have been pretty consistent in their comparison of downloads to physical media, specifically where it's similar and where it's dissimilar. Of course, their position favours themselves very heavily, but that doesn't make them hypocrites.
Finally, I think you're placing an undue importance on my desk being a physical object. What we are talking about here is not so much the objects themselves, but how we view them. By calling my desk a table, or a chest of drawers, I'm not actually affecting the desk in any way. Rather, I'm offering an insight into how I view my desk, and as a consequence, how I would use it. None of this is actually physical. Similarly, what we are discussing is how the RIAA treats musical downloads, not the actual nature of these downloads. I am just as capable of being hypocritical about my desk as the RIAA has of being hypocritical about music downloads.
Yeah it's funny, but I wonder, is it's a bit too subtle and edgy. We want people to get it, you know? Maybe you could slightly dumb it down? For the masses, you understand.
It's not an analogy, it's a counterexample. It proves that it's not inherently hypocritical to recognise that things can resemble something in some situation, and another other thing in another situation. Sometimes, different situations change what attributes are relevant, and as such, whether we consider two things to be analogous depends on what we consider important. When I write at my desk, I value its hard flat surface. When I file my documents, I value the drawers underneath it. No-one would begrudge me likening to a table in one situation and a chest of drawers in another. Therefore, we cannot conclude that the RIAA are hypocrites from the argument presented. If you want to convince me that the RIAA are hypocrites, you'll need to draw on the abundance of other evidence!
Or like how my study desk is like a table when I want to write on it, and a chest of draws when I want to file something away.
It is an interesting topic. I was thinking about this distinction between reselling physical and non-physical media, but I realised that it was significantly flawed. The same problems exist with a CD. You can easily copy a CD to your hard drive and sell it afterwards, like how you can copy non-physical copies before selling one of them. Either way, it comes down to trust that the seller is legitimate. The only real difference is in the ease of dispossessing yourself of the copy.
It's not hypocrisy. It's perfectly possible for some things to be alike in some respects and not alike in others.
That's what I would have thought too, given the name. However, I can't for the life of me explain what they're doing here within that framework.
And yes, I have read their explanation.