Logical fallacies are one of the major tools used by people trying to bullsh*t you. Learning how to spot them is a crucial skill of intellectual self-defence.
It's problematic dealing with ANY humans on ANY topic - and trying to keep logic at the forefront! :-D
Just the other day, a pleasant older lady told me "I feel safer in a mask" and I said something along the lines of perhaps that was the crux of the matter (ie it's psychosomatic), because the studies show that wearing a mask doesn't make any difference at all with regards to transmission etc. She also said she'd never had covid - but then again, when you've not had obvious symptoms and you're using a 'test' that's anything but, who would know, right?!
The thing is, humans are naturally NOT logical, as far as I can tell in my almost 44 years on this planet! When you try to go through things logically, people invariably take offence at some point. Their emotions are at the forefront, not logic - but funnily enough, that's actually how it goes. In our brains, to make rational decisions, we have to first use emotion.
So perhaps as a species, we are destined NOT to place logic on the pedestal...?!
Aug 24, 2023·edited Aug 24, 2023Liked by Robyn Chuter
You’re a gem!
I was going to add on to your excellent list and also add more examples to the ones you listed. But, I thought better of opening my big yap. Let your genius-ness (this is now a word) stand.
Well, just one point and one point only. All of us should apply all of your examples not just against the ‘other side’ / enemy, but our side too. You’ll see ‘our side’ is chock full of bullsheeters and/or bullsheetery.
But the vast majority will never - never ever - even think of saying anything bad against the un“experts”/un leaders they’ve chosen to fall in love with. Look around on OUR side and you’ll be surprised how many of the people the masses gush over - fall deeply in love with - are lifelong BullSheeters.
I shan’t name names. I’ve done it often (backed by fact - kinda important) and it just agitates the hell out of people. They are NOT looking for truth, they are looking for ‘things’ to justify their narrative or their falling in love with idiotic, even evil, ‘experts’ and ‘leaders’. Holy Smokes, do people fall deeply in love with these folks. As they often screech: "Never question, backed by fact, the unexpert I’ve fallen in love with!!!!! You’re a bad person if you do!!!"
Notice this? :-)
Shutting big yap.
Great stuff (as always), Robyn.
P.S. Is it bullsh*t or baloney? I prefer the former. Without the asterisk. In caps. And bold. Red color. Multiple exclamation points always following.
Aug 27, 2023·edited Aug 27, 2023Liked by Robyn Chuter
People tend to rely on narrative and emotion when formulating an argument. Logic has little to do with it.
Consider "my body, my choice." Pro-abortionists act as if this chestnut clinches the matter. As if the peculiarities of abortion don't render application of the principle excruciatingly thorny. As if the principle hasn't proven maddeningly elusive in a wide range of applications far less thorny.
No woman has a right to shoot heroin into her own veins or snort cocaine into her own nostrils. No woman has a right to work for a healthcare provider without submitting to a dodgy injection. No woman has a right to drive a car without fastening her seatbelt. (No man has any of those rights, either.)
You might think that if a woman has a right to do what she chooses to her body when it comes to abortion, then *a fortiori* she has a right to do what she chooses to her body when it comes to drug use, vaccine refusal, or driving without a seatbelt. Talk about straining at gnats while camels enjoy free passage.
As in: I 'got Covid' and felt a bit off which proves that Covid is real and a real risk. The fact that you haven't ever 'had Covid' does not prove the contrary - it just shows that you must be a super-dodger (as opposed to a super-spreader) of the Covid virus. My personal anecdote trumps yours.
Can also be employed successfully for 'Long Covid'
Rosk solid stuff here. These dirty tricks are almost universally and frequently used to promote the jabbers and maskers and lockdwners. Get the fols too embrrassed to challenge their drivel and you've win. Until SOMONE pulls back the curtain to reveal to all who dare look just WHO hads been "running things". Phautchee and his minions ALWAYS put forward the greaiset slipperiest soft shoe in any situation.
An amusing thought whacked me upside me haid as I read this: take ALL these phoney bogus "arguments" and slid them over a few pages to the left, and apply them to the whole "climate change" madness. Spefically, regarding the Maui fires, those on a whinge have been moaning about "sea surface temps rising over the pkast two or three dacades. (they are not.. one guy went and got the readings for every month going back into the 1930's. Range is 78 to 85. Average 81, mean 82. At time of fires, 81. Hurridane Dora was blamed as well: another guy backtracked the data from NOAA and tracked the 'cane's progress from the Baja California coast to where it was two days after the fires, Nearest it got to Maui was 500 miles, and it was 800 miles away during the fires. Too fr away to have been a significant factor to Maui's wnds that day. When self-appointed pohbahs grands begin making any such claims I want to stop them in their tracks and demand they cite their source for the specificdata they are spewing. If he can''t do that, he's a jaw flapping quack at best, and an inverete liar.manipulator most likely. I will take NOAA data off their site for sea temp readings over the past eighty years as valid over any talking head on the TeeVee set.
I also want, every time I hear these lars, to pin them to quoting hard reliable data, AND to explain the "mechanosms" involved in "CO2 being a green =house gas", and other f=such fun things. NOT ONE of hese wonks knows the slightest thing about the water or carbon cycles.. things learned about when I was in third grade and we had "geography" class every day. Collectively my fifty five classmates know more about that then all the gummit wnks tied up together. I'd love to get any of these wonks backed into a corner and have him explain the various steps and pathways the carbon moleclue moves through its common cycles. No one of them could explain it in any coherent, let alne accurate.way. All fifty five of us were able to back in that third grade classroom.
I am convinced there is far more carbon dioxide released iinto the atmosphere in North America from the opeinging of all the soda cans/bottles, beer, seltzer water,, champagnes, sparkling wines and juices, CO2 pressurised fountain drinks, etc, than all the cars in Californi and New York State put togther over the corse f one year. Ye NOBOY moans and whinges about THAT release of CO2. Its also used, compressed, in many other items.. CO2 guns, instand bike ttyre inflators, whipped cream frothers at restaurants, smll airhorns, spray paint rattle cans, Maybe that's why the ems in LA and NYC are going up.. all tthe CO released when the taggers get busy!!
An addendum would've been nice, asserting that "slippery slope" is no longer a logical fallacy when arguing with leftist totalitarians. Thanks for the article. I'm here because it was linked on Revolver!
The most egregious fallacy is #6, the one used to wave away the most basic question: the existence of a novel coronavirus called Covid19, in the first place. When we stipulate to the existence of the imaginary virus, we hand the most important point over to the fraudsters.
I ask for evidence of the "virus" having been isolated and identified and being linked to any deaths whatsoever. That evidence has never been presented anywhere. Short of proving its existence, there is and was no pandemic and there is and was no killer plague virus named Covid19.
When you are paid millions+ to count every death, regardless of reason, as 'covid' if a pos PCR test & DENY safe, effective early intervention/prophylactic treatments, what is that called? Doing your job?
actually.....like statistics, these techniques are only as good as the person wielding them...statistics and these techniques in the hands of a good person will strengthen truth....in the hands of a fool or evil person, they will promote lies....JESUS is the way, the truth, and the life....the reason these techniques work so well for evil these days is people don't use Jesus as their lens for seeing the world
There is a common false argument which is often stated as "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. What this means, by implication, is that no one can validly say that unicorns do not exist. In fact no one can validly say that there is anything which does not exist.
This false argument insists that everything imaginable may exist. But "may" is not a fact. And we need, rhetorically, a way to distinguish fact from non-fact. And we have a way. We say that some things “do not exist”.
The mistake here is to treat "...does not exist" as if it means "...there is evidence that it does not exist" and then demand such evidence be presented as proof of non-existence.
However things which do not exist do not have evidence and, in fact that is the correct meaning of "...does not exist; it means "...does not have evidence".
Therefore "evidence of absence" is an oxymoron. Given common usage of language, "absence" simply means no evidence. "Little Billy was absent from class today" means "there was no evidence of little Billy in class today." It does not mean, "little Billy may be in class today because we have no evidence of absence".
Thanks for another great read!
It's problematic dealing with ANY humans on ANY topic - and trying to keep logic at the forefront! :-D
Just the other day, a pleasant older lady told me "I feel safer in a mask" and I said something along the lines of perhaps that was the crux of the matter (ie it's psychosomatic), because the studies show that wearing a mask doesn't make any difference at all with regards to transmission etc. She also said she'd never had covid - but then again, when you've not had obvious symptoms and you're using a 'test' that's anything but, who would know, right?!
The thing is, humans are naturally NOT logical, as far as I can tell in my almost 44 years on this planet! When you try to go through things logically, people invariably take offence at some point. Their emotions are at the forefront, not logic - but funnily enough, that's actually how it goes. In our brains, to make rational decisions, we have to first use emotion.
So perhaps as a species, we are destined NOT to place logic on the pedestal...?!
You’re a gem!
I was going to add on to your excellent list and also add more examples to the ones you listed. But, I thought better of opening my big yap. Let your genius-ness (this is now a word) stand.
Well, just one point and one point only. All of us should apply all of your examples not just against the ‘other side’ / enemy, but our side too. You’ll see ‘our side’ is chock full of bullsheeters and/or bullsheetery.
But the vast majority will never - never ever - even think of saying anything bad against the un“experts”/un leaders they’ve chosen to fall in love with. Look around on OUR side and you’ll be surprised how many of the people the masses gush over - fall deeply in love with - are lifelong BullSheeters.
I shan’t name names. I’ve done it often (backed by fact - kinda important) and it just agitates the hell out of people. They are NOT looking for truth, they are looking for ‘things’ to justify their narrative or their falling in love with idiotic, even evil, ‘experts’ and ‘leaders’. Holy Smokes, do people fall deeply in love with these folks. As they often screech: "Never question, backed by fact, the unexpert I’ve fallen in love with!!!!! You’re a bad person if you do!!!"
Notice this? :-)
Shutting big yap.
Great stuff (as always), Robyn.
P.S. Is it bullsh*t or baloney? I prefer the former. Without the asterisk. In caps. And bold. Red color. Multiple exclamation points always following.
People tend to rely on narrative and emotion when formulating an argument. Logic has little to do with it.
Consider "my body, my choice." Pro-abortionists act as if this chestnut clinches the matter. As if the peculiarities of abortion don't render application of the principle excruciatingly thorny. As if the principle hasn't proven maddeningly elusive in a wide range of applications far less thorny.
No woman has a right to shoot heroin into her own veins or snort cocaine into her own nostrils. No woman has a right to work for a healthcare provider without submitting to a dodgy injection. No woman has a right to drive a car without fastening her seatbelt. (No man has any of those rights, either.)
You might think that if a woman has a right to do what she chooses to her body when it comes to abortion, then *a fortiori* she has a right to do what she chooses to her body when it comes to drug use, vaccine refusal, or driving without a seatbelt. Talk about straining at gnats while camels enjoy free passage.
Argument/proof by (selective) anecdote.
As in: I 'got Covid' and felt a bit off which proves that Covid is real and a real risk. The fact that you haven't ever 'had Covid' does not prove the contrary - it just shows that you must be a super-dodger (as opposed to a super-spreader) of the Covid virus. My personal anecdote trumps yours.
Can also be employed successfully for 'Long Covid'
Rosk solid stuff here. These dirty tricks are almost universally and frequently used to promote the jabbers and maskers and lockdwners. Get the fols too embrrassed to challenge their drivel and you've win. Until SOMONE pulls back the curtain to reveal to all who dare look just WHO hads been "running things". Phautchee and his minions ALWAYS put forward the greaiset slipperiest soft shoe in any situation.
An amusing thought whacked me upside me haid as I read this: take ALL these phoney bogus "arguments" and slid them over a few pages to the left, and apply them to the whole "climate change" madness. Spefically, regarding the Maui fires, those on a whinge have been moaning about "sea surface temps rising over the pkast two or three dacades. (they are not.. one guy went and got the readings for every month going back into the 1930's. Range is 78 to 85. Average 81, mean 82. At time of fires, 81. Hurridane Dora was blamed as well: another guy backtracked the data from NOAA and tracked the 'cane's progress from the Baja California coast to where it was two days after the fires, Nearest it got to Maui was 500 miles, and it was 800 miles away during the fires. Too fr away to have been a significant factor to Maui's wnds that day. When self-appointed pohbahs grands begin making any such claims I want to stop them in their tracks and demand they cite their source for the specificdata they are spewing. If he can''t do that, he's a jaw flapping quack at best, and an inverete liar.manipulator most likely. I will take NOAA data off their site for sea temp readings over the past eighty years as valid over any talking head on the TeeVee set.
I also want, every time I hear these lars, to pin them to quoting hard reliable data, AND to explain the "mechanosms" involved in "CO2 being a green =house gas", and other f=such fun things. NOT ONE of hese wonks knows the slightest thing about the water or carbon cycles.. things learned about when I was in third grade and we had "geography" class every day. Collectively my fifty five classmates know more about that then all the gummit wnks tied up together. I'd love to get any of these wonks backed into a corner and have him explain the various steps and pathways the carbon moleclue moves through its common cycles. No one of them could explain it in any coherent, let alne accurate.way. All fifty five of us were able to back in that third grade classroom.
I am convinced there is far more carbon dioxide released iinto the atmosphere in North America from the opeinging of all the soda cans/bottles, beer, seltzer water,, champagnes, sparkling wines and juices, CO2 pressurised fountain drinks, etc, than all the cars in Californi and New York State put togther over the corse f one year. Ye NOBOY moans and whinges about THAT release of CO2. Its also used, compressed, in many other items.. CO2 guns, instand bike ttyre inflators, whipped cream frothers at restaurants, smll airhorns, spray paint rattle cans, Maybe that's why the ems in LA and NYC are going up.. all tthe CO released when the taggers get busy!!
No bullshit.
https://rumble.com/v2ohtte-physicist-dr-denis-rancourt-presents-his-findings-on-all-cause-mortality-ot.html
Excellent
An addendum would've been nice, asserting that "slippery slope" is no longer a logical fallacy when arguing with leftist totalitarians. Thanks for the article. I'm here because it was linked on Revolver!
Aren't you wonderful!
This should be a curriculum PreK-12+
We need generational change.
The most egregious fallacy is #6, the one used to wave away the most basic question: the existence of a novel coronavirus called Covid19, in the first place. When we stipulate to the existence of the imaginary virus, we hand the most important point over to the fraudsters.
I ask for evidence of the "virus" having been isolated and identified and being linked to any deaths whatsoever. That evidence has never been presented anywhere. Short of proving its existence, there is and was no pandemic and there is and was no killer plague virus named Covid19.
Missed the clot shot as the real mass murderer.
When you are paid millions+ to count every death, regardless of reason, as 'covid' if a pos PCR test & DENY safe, effective early intervention/prophylactic treatments, what is that called? Doing your job?
actually.....like statistics, these techniques are only as good as the person wielding them...statistics and these techniques in the hands of a good person will strengthen truth....in the hands of a fool or evil person, they will promote lies....JESUS is the way, the truth, and the life....the reason these techniques work so well for evil these days is people don't use Jesus as their lens for seeing the world
There is a common false argument which is often stated as "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. What this means, by implication, is that no one can validly say that unicorns do not exist. In fact no one can validly say that there is anything which does not exist.
This false argument insists that everything imaginable may exist. But "may" is not a fact. And we need, rhetorically, a way to distinguish fact from non-fact. And we have a way. We say that some things “do not exist”.
The mistake here is to treat "...does not exist" as if it means "...there is evidence that it does not exist" and then demand such evidence be presented as proof of non-existence.
However things which do not exist do not have evidence and, in fact that is the correct meaning of "...does not exist; it means "...does not have evidence".
Therefore "evidence of absence" is an oxymoron. Given common usage of language, "absence" simply means no evidence. "Little Billy was absent from class today" means "there was no evidence of little Billy in class today." It does not mean, "little Billy may be in class today because we have no evidence of absence".