Interesting Argument

[Shakeyhands]

http://www.break.com/index/tough-to-argue.html

Kinda makes sense in a simplified way.

[JerrySeinfeld]

http://www.break.com/index/tough-to-argue.html

Kinda makes sense in a simplified way.

I disagree.

One major flaw is the assumption that global warming will be massively net-negative for humans and the world.

As well, you could plug in "big meteor crashing into earth" in place of "global warming" and the same argument would be true so we'd have to do something about that too - just to be sure we didn't end up in column be row .2

[geoffrey]

Poor argument.

Full of logical fallicy.

Overall, it's a false dilemma paired with a nice dose of denying the conjunct. If you simplify everything down to two possible choices with two arbitrary outcomes, it all becomes very simple, but it's logically incorrect and unfair in debate to do so. X is bad, so Y is good. It's not logical. The undesirableness of the probability of some outcome is not justification for another proposal. The other proposal has to have merit in of itself.

You cannot slice down climate change as a random possibility then claim that doing something is right just because not doing something would be terrible.

Nah uh.

It also begs the question. The conclusion is based on many many premisses. Ugly! You cannot simply say 'if everyone agrees to

1. , then my conclusion is right.' I have questions about his premisses, they are not rational arugments when they stand alone.

[gc1765]

I vote for "doing nothing"...

....and by "doing nothing", I mean not polluting.

[Figleaf]

As well, you could plug in "big meteor crashing into earth" in place of "global warming" and the same argument would be true so we'd have to do something about that too - just to be sure we didn't end up in column be row .2

So, why would you not want to save the world from asteroid colisions?

[Figleaf]

Poor argument.

Full of logical fallicy.

Overall, it's a false dilemma paired with a nice dose of denying the conjunct.

Please explain.

If you simplify everything down to two possible choices with two arbitrary outcomes,

The outcomes are not arbitrary.

it all becomes very simple, but it's logically incorrect and unfair in debate to do so.

I don't see why its incorrect. Please explain.

X is bad, so Y is good.

You don't appear to understand his argument. He is not saying Y is good. He is saying Y is troublesome, and X is catastrophic (and includes all the troube of Y plus more misery).

It's not logical.

Please explain.

The undesirableness of the probability of some outcome is not justification for another proposal.

!!!! Of course it is!!!! Its the exact justification of another proposal.

The other proposal has to have merit in of itself.

Comparative merit.

You cannot slice down climate change as a random possibility then claim that doing something is right just because not doing something would be terrible.

Sure you can.

It also begs the question. The conclusion is based on many many premisses. Ugly! You cannot simply say 'if everyone agrees to

1. , then my conclusion is right.' I have questions about his premisses, they are not rational arugments when they stand alone.

Again, you appear to misunderstand the argument.

[JerrySeinfeld]

As well, you could plug in "big meteor crashing into earth" in place of "global warming" and the same argument would be true so we'd have to do something about that too - just to be sure we didn't end up in column be row .2

So, why would you not want to save the world from asteroid colisions?

Yes - agreed. I think we should stop doing everything given the assumption that doing something might possibly, down the road, lead to the "end of the world".

[ScottSA]

Poor argument.

Full of logical fallicy.

Overall, it's a false dilemma paired with a nice dose of denying the conjunct.

Please explain.

If you simplify everything down to two possible choices with two arbitrary outcomes,

The outcomes are not arbitrary.

it all becomes very simple, but it's logically incorrect and unfair in debate to do so.

I don't see why its incorrect. Please explain.

X is bad, so Y is good.

You don't appear to understand his argument. He is not saying Y is good. He is saying Y is troublesome, and X is catastrophic (and includes all the troube of Y plus more misery).

It's not logical.

Please explain.

The undesirableness of the probability of some outcome is not justification for another proposal.

!!!! Of course it is!!!! Its the exact justification of another proposal.

The other proposal has to have merit in of itself.

Comparative merit.

You cannot slice down climate change as a random possibility then claim that doing something is right just because not doing something would be terrible.

Sure you can.

It also begs the question. The conclusion is based on many many premisses. Ugly! You cannot simply say 'if everyone agrees to

1. , then my conclusion is right.' I have questions about his premisses, they are not rational arugments when they stand alone.

Again, you appear to misunderstand the argument.

Archtypical swealian line item arguing. Some things never change.

[Figleaf]

Some things never change.

Indeed, such as your penchant for disrupting threads with juvenile idiocies.

I would urge you to review the forum Rules and note particularly that posts are supposed to contribute to discussion. If you have a substantive rebuttal to make, please do so, if not, you are invited (and urged, and Ruled and Guided) to keep out of the way.

[ScottSA]

Some things never change.

Indeed, such as your penchant for disrupting threads with juvenile idiocies.

I would urge you to review the forum Rules and note particularly that posts are supposed to contribute to discussion. If you have a substantive rebuttal to make, please do so, if not, you are invited (and urged, and Ruled and Guided) to keep out of the way.

Archtypical swealian pseudo-legal threat. I would urge you to understand that the reason no one replies to your line item rebuttals is that no one reads them. Not, as you seem wont to think, because they are clever in any way. Lets look at a couple instances, for example: someone says: "The other proposal has to have merit in of itself. " Your line item comment: "Comparative merit." So what? What's your point? Buried as it is in a series of largely irrelevant nitpicks, who cares? The only one who read that far is me, and I'm only doing it to teach you the error of your ways. Here's another: Someone says: "You cannot slice down climate change as a random possibility then claim that doing something is right just because not doing something would be terrible." Your response: "Sure you can." Very deep sweal. Did it require a whole seperate section to make that unsupported throwaway comment?

You'll note of course that I am addressing the topic at hand, so step away from the "report this post" button.

[Figleaf]

Archtypical swealian pseudo-legal threat.

Are you secretly Conrad Black? I ask because a similar PSEUDO-intellectual quality pervades both your styles.

I would urge you to understand that the reason no one replies to your line item rebuttals is that no one reads them. Not, as you seem wont to think, because they are clever in any way.

I don't give a rat's ass about this sort of comment, so spare yourself the effort (or don't -- w/e).

[Geoffrey] says: "The other proposal has to have merit in of itself. " Your line item comment: "Comparative merit." So what? What's your point?

Sorry if my point was too succinct and acute for brontosaurian posters to follow. My comment is a correction to Geoffrey's comment, modifying his use of "merit" to my "comparative merit", with the implication that this change means the original argument Geofrey was criticising is actually sound.

[Geoffrey] says: "You cannot slice down climate change as a random possibility then claim that doing something is right just because not doing something would be terrible." Your response: "Sure you can."

His unsupported assertion was simply wrong, so I pointed that out.

You'll note of course that I am addressing the topic at hand, so step away from the "report this post" button.

Actually, of course, you are not. You are vapidly critiquing my posting style, and totally ignoring the arguments I made, as well as the whole topic of the thread.

How long do you think it will be before you are banned again, on grounds of utter worthlessness?

[ScottSA]

Archtypical swealian pseudo-legal threat.

Are you secretly Conrad Black? I ask because a similar PSEUDO-intellectual quality pervades both your styles.

I would urge you to understand that the reason no one replies to your line item rebuttals is that no one reads them. Not, as you seem wont to think, because they are clever in any way.

I don't give a rat's ass about this sort of comment, so spare yourself the effort (or don't -- w/e).

[Geoffrey] says: "The other proposal has to have merit in of itself. " Your line item comment: "Comparative merit." So what? What's your point?

Sorry if my point was too succinct and acute for brontosaurian posters to follow. My comment is a correction to Geoffrey's comment, modifying his use of "merit" to my "comparative merit", with the implication that this change means the original argument Geofrey was criticising is actually sound.

[Geoffrey] says: "You cannot slice down climate change as a random possibility then claim that doing something is right just because not doing something would be terrible." Your response: "Sure you can."

His unsupported assertion was simply wrong, so I pointed that out.

You'll note of course that I am addressing the topic at hand, so step away from the "report this post" button.

Actually, of course, you are not. You are vapidly critiquing my posting style, and totally ignoring the arguments I made, as well as the whole topic of the thread.

How long do you think it will be before you are banned again, on grounds of utter worthlessness?

Hey, I'm not the one who is supposed to be banned, sweal...you are. Remember? And tsk tsk with the pottymouth.

Anyway, I'm merely suggesting an improvement for your own good, certainly not attacking you or calling you names. I of course didn't have time to read whatever line item attack you perpetrating on innocent lil' me for my helpful critique, but I gather that the gist of it is that I am a poopypants and that you'll continue to spam the internet with line item drudgery ranging from the torpidly turgid to the incredibly inane. That's fine with me...just trying to help out.

[geoffrey]

You don't appear to understand his argument. He is not saying Y is good. He is saying Y is troublesome, and X is catastrophic (and includes all the troube of Y plus more misery).

X being catastrophic is not a rational justification for Y (which is less catastrophic).

The other proposal has to have merit in of itself.

Comparative merit.

Not really. Take two random outcomes that I'll pick kind of like he did... killing 100 babies or just 50. Obviously killing 50 is comparatively better. Is that the morally correct choice then? That horror of killing 100 babies justifies me killing 50?

It's a logical fallacy, completely invalid argument. It's called denying the conjunct and follows the form:

Not both x and y.

Not x.

Therefore y.

The only validating factor for this is to change it to X or Y. Unfortunately there is more than just X or Y in this case so yes, the entire premiss is a logical fallacy.

Sure you can.

You can do whatever you want, but it doesn't make it right or a valid argument.

Again, you appear to misunderstand the argument.

No I get it. Pretty clear if you ask me. Completely constructed on fallacy, but that's ok. It looks cool and he speaks at the average level of intelligence so people assume he knows what's going down.

[Figleaf]

You don't appear to understand his argument. He is not saying Y is good. He is saying Y is troublesome, and X is catastrophic (and includes all the troube of Y plus more misery).

X being catastrophic is not a rational justification for Y (which is less catastrophic).

Why on Earth not? Your choice is between terrible and merely bad. Unless you can convincingly assign some probabilities to one outcome or the other, acting to avoid the worst is rational.

The other proposal has to have merit in of itself.

Comparative merit.

Not really. Take two random outcomes that I'll pick kind of like he did... killing 100 babies or just 50. Obviously killing 50 is comparatively better. Is that the morally correct choice then? That horror of killing 100 babies justifies me killing 50?

If the defined consequence of not killing 50 babies is that 100 babies are killed, then as horrible as the choice is, it seems to me that it is better that 50 die rather than 100.

It's a logical fallacy, completely invalid argument. It's called denying the conjunct...

This argument does not fall into that fallacy. The fallacy requires that double conditions fail to exclude eachother, however in this case they are sufficiently distinct. Nice try though.

[Electric Monk]

Much as I'd like to agree with the video author, I don't think he has a good argument. He has set the values for each worst-case scenario arbitrarily, which biases the whole exercise in the direction of the "best" worst case scenario. I immediately thought of Pascal's Wager as an example of a similarly flawed argument.

[Figleaf]

Much as I'd like to agree with the video author, I don't think he has a good argument. He has set the values for each worst-case scenario arbitrarily, which biases the whole exercise in the direction of the "best" worst case scenario.

You're bogging down in detail about how he describes the scenarios. Leave out the description and you'll note that they are not arbitrary, he defines them as worst-case. The argument will be sound as long as he is correct that the Warming is True condition includes the same costs as the Warming is not True.

Regarding Pascal's Wager, you are misapplying it.

Pascal's Wager is not fallacious in regards to whether it's a better bet to bet on God, it is only fallacious to the extent it is put forward to prove God exists. The argument made in the video is not attempting to prove global warming exists.

[Electric Monk]

Deleted due to serious formatting issues.

[Electric Monk]

Both Pascal's wager and this argument assume that the worst case scenario for the false premise/action situation is better than the worst case for the true premise/inaction situation. The entire argument fails if you simply come up with a worse outcome for the false premise/action situation. In other words, the argument only serves to expose the biases of the one using it. (Note: this is not meant negatively, we are all biased.)

[bush_cheney2004]

Deleted due to serious formatting issues.

Too bad.....you illustrated the problematic logic in both method and reasoning...and the formatting challenges only serve to warn us that complex issues cannot be reduced to truth tables on a dry erase board.

Good show.....

[Figleaf]

Both Pascal's wager and this argument assume that the worst case scenario for the false premise/action situation is better than the worst case for the true premise/inaction situation. The entire argument fails if you simply come up with a worse outcome for the false premise/action situation.

Yes. But as I pointed out, that cannot apply if the false premise/action outcome is built into the harms of the catastrophic case. With global warming, it is built in -- economic collapse and hardship will occur if catastophic global warming occurs.

[Electric Monk]

That's the built-in bias I'm referring to, essentially he is saying that whatever happens in the false premise/action side, the true premise/inaction side will be worse, when he hasn't even attempted to prove that.

I agree that catastrophic global warming would be...catastrophic. The outcome simply hinges upon which box you choose to put the worst outcome in. What happens if I follow the same reasoning, and put global nuclear war in the false premise/action box? Does it then follow that I should automatically include it in the true premise/inaction box?

[Mad_Michael]

http://www.break.com/index/tough-to-argue.html

Kinda makes sense in a simplified way.

One of the commenters raises a good point. The argument given is the same one used about Saddam's WMD's.

[JerrySeinfeld]

http://www.break.com/index/tough-to-argue.html

Kinda makes sense in a simplified way.

One of the commenters raises a good point. The argument given is the same one used about Saddam's WMD's.

Haha - that's brilliant

But the environmentalists have been doing it for decades - so the credibility factor is even lower. Hasn't the end of the world been coming for a long time for these watermelons?

Didn't Jimmy Carter estimate we'd run out of oil by the '90s?

The end of the world is nigh - but never quiet nigh enough for these crisis peddlers (the environazis)