The Greatest Fallacy Perpetuated By Recent Generations

[Thaluikhain]

I think our greatest fallacy is the thought process along these lines: "Why should I donate 10$? It won't cure cancer!", "Why should I do an hour at a soup kitchen? People will still be hungry!"

This thinking is toxic for two reasons:
1) It prevents real progress. One hour wont elimanate world hunger. If everybody gave one hour a week however, it would sure as hell help

2) It's contagious. It only takes one person to start this, and before you know it, everybody is sitting around with a stupid look on their face.

Well...it's not technically a fallacy, though. $10 or one hour won't make much difference.

On the other hand, yes, every says that so nothing gets done, but none of them are actually wrong. Fortunately, we've developed a soulless, impartial buearacracy which doesn't concern itself with such issues.

 

[TWRule]

I disagree - this isn't a fallacy - it's a perfectly legitimate philosophy. Value being subjective to the perciever is a perfectly valid belief. If you don't feel that way, that's fine, but it doesn't make it a logical fallacy.

I wasn't saying that believing values are subjective is not an acceptable stance, I was saying that arguing that all viewpoints are meaningless or equally valid simply because they originate from humans is a fallacy. You are still expected to justify your viewpoint with reasoning if you want it to be taken as seriously as another.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I disagree - this isn't a fallacy - it's a perfectly legitimate philosophy. Value being subjective to the perciever is a perfectly valid belief. If you don't feel that way, that's fine, but it doesn't make it a logical fallacy.

I wasn't saying that believing values are subjective is not an acceptable stance, I was saying that arguing that all viewpoints are meaningless or equally valid simply because they originate from humans is a fallacy. You are still expected to justify your viewpoint with reasoning if you want it to be taken as seriously as another.

Oh. I don't think I'd heard that argued before. Huh. You are correct, that would be a fallacy. I just wasn't familiar with people actually arguing it.

Weird. It's like trying to argue that it is impossible to argue. Logically inconsistant.

 

[Krantos]

Sure, I won't argue those points - but when you say "human nature" you generally mean all humans regardless of age and background, irrevocably. If a human can will himself to not follow that nature, as anyone can by adulthood unless they are severely developmentally impaired, then it is no longer a "human" nature. That would make as many natures as humans. When people invoke human nature statements, they are essentially saying that you can't will yourself to be otherwise (whether they realize the content of their statement or not).

Ah, a see what you're saying. To be honest, I haven't run across many people who think there is an unalterable human nature. Rather, most people seem to think of it as a predisposition to behave in a certain way.

It seems most of our contentions revolve around utilizing different semantics. On the whole, I agree with you now that I see what you're referring to. When you say that some things are not subjective, I assumed you were speaking metaphysically. Is the movements of the planets subjective? No, they move it's a fact.

The intuition argument can be refuted, though. Not well, in my opinion, but the hard-line determinists certainly would have a thing or two to say. I don't embrace that ideology personally, but there you go.

 

[TWRule]

I disagree - this isn't a fallacy - it's a perfectly legitimate philosophy. Value being subjective to the perciever is a perfectly valid belief. If you don't feel that way, that's fine, but it doesn't make it a logical fallacy.

I wasn't saying that believing values are subjective is not an acceptable stance, I was saying that arguing that all viewpoints are meaningless or equally valid simply because they originate from humans is a fallacy. You are still expected to justify your viewpoint with reasoning if you want it to be taken as seriously as another.

Oh. I don't think I'd heard that argued before. Huh. You are correct, that would be a fallacy. I just wasn't familiar with people actually arguing it.

Weird. It's like trying to argue that it is impossible to argue. Logically inconsistant.

Well, to be fair - most people don't present it the way I am. I'm giving their implicit argument (what they are actually saying whether they realize it or not). Often it's just a matter of not thinking things through to their logical conclusions.

 

[II2]

The well practiced Cynicism and affected misanthropy...

Now, being unimpressed with things has long been 'cool', but being unimpressed in this day and age may be understandable, given the wealth of availability, but also paradoxically ignorant.

 

[Nimcha]

The biggest mistake every generation of young people makes, and young people have been doing this since at least the Baby Boomers, is valuing the individual over the broader goals of a group. A sense of belonging to something greater than oneself is one of the last stages of development, right at the end of extended adolescence. Some find it in religion, some find it when they join the army to get direction in their aimless lives, but for others, it takes a monumental event like a heart attack at a young age, a cancer scare, the birth of a child (most of the time---young parents these days legitimately scare me with their lack of maturity when faced with another human life completely dependent on them).

You know the speech Pacino gives in Any Given Sunday about the value of "team"? Watch it. Learn from it. And remember that what today is called an "individualist" was for years known simply as a "self-absorbed douchebag."

The biggest mistake every generation of middle aged people make is thinking the younger generation is worse than them and that at some point every generation will arrive at the same viewpoint as them.

 

[TWRule]

Ah, a see what you're saying. To be honest, I haven't run across many people who think there is an unalterable human nature. Rather, most people seem to think of it as a predisposition to behave in a certain way.

I don't think many people truly believe that either - but I do hear a lot of people saying things like that. I try to show them that such ideas are inconsistent with how they actually live their lives and so forth. If they aren't more careful in analyzing these things, then they could end up using them to impose injustices upon others. Pretty much all of the worst atrocities in human history were justified with blanket statements about human nature, or a similar generalization about those of minorities, etc. Every so often it's good to put things in perspective.

The intuition argument can be refuted, though. Not well, in my opinion, but the hard-line determinists certainly would have a thing or two to say. I don't embrace that ideology personally, but there you go.

Yes, I'm aware - there are some common arguments against my position; usually epistemological. I still see intuition as valid evidence, given that it be considered properly. Hard determinism tries to stretch the evidence they have too far, making it invalid, while my arguments are valid given the acceptance of certain presuppositions that may ultimately be neither provable nor refutable. It's a dispute that I don't see being solved anytime soon, but I'm comfortable with my position.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

I did not call them fallacies because I disliked them - I called them fallacies because they are logically flawed arguments.

When you make a statement about human nature, the logical equivalent is "All humans are (x)". That is different from saying that "humans tend to be (x) in situation" because that can be revealed by statistical data. Human nature statements cannot. If there is even one human that is not of that specific nature, then the argument is shown unsound. Furthermore, human nature statements carry the presupposition that humans even have one unified "nature" in the first place - which is essentially impossible to prove logically.

So this whole thread happened because you don't understand hyperbole?

Lawyer away, bro.

 

[Scarecrow]

This thread is onyl gonna follow this trend:
http://www.bash.org/?23396
Exactly.

And thus Zeeky_Santos proved to be right, and for his crimes was sentenced to be pulled apart by snowmobiles...until he died.

 

[FalloutJack]

The greatest fallacy ever perpetuated by the human race is...everything done with math or categorization.

That is, we created a system of numbers to measure and calculate everything, and we made a language to name and describe everything...but all of it hinges ENTIRELY on the notion that the universe accepts it as true. I do not mean that the universe has to deliver us a slip of paper saying "S'alright". I'm saying that these things work because they {A} seem to fit and {B} can technically be organized this way...since there isn't any reason for it not to.

The fallacy part is that nothing that exists that we have called a thing...is necessarily known as that thing. Calling a tiger a tiger is unimportant because THEY don't call themselves that. It's merely a title. Numbers are man-made things, an idea. The universe didn't create those when it came into existence. Our intelligence as humans is that we can decide what to call things and how to measure them, but that's our logic alone based on limited observations of a very big cosmos. In the end, that cosmos makes the rules and not us.

 

[pretzil]

I believe you are wrong, I myself have the greatest phallus of recent generations

 

[SimuLord]

The biggest mistake every generation of young people makes, and young people have been doing this since at least the Baby Boomers, is valuing the individual over the broader goals of a group. A sense of belonging to something greater than oneself is one of the last stages of development, right at the end of extended adolescence. Some find it in religion, some find it when they join the army to get direction in their aimless lives, but for others, it takes a monumental event like a heart attack at a young age, a cancer scare, the birth of a child (most of the time---young parents these days legitimately scare me with their lack of maturity when faced with another human life completely dependent on them).

You know the speech Pacino gives in Any Given Sunday about the value of "team"? Watch it. Learn from it. And remember that what today is called an "individualist" was for years known simply as a "self-absorbed douchebag."

The biggest mistake every generation of middle aged people make is thinking the younger generation is worse than them and that at some point every generation will arrive at the same viewpoint as them.

And every generation, young folks get older and become the middle aged folks to the next generation of young folks...and the cycle begins anew

 

[CosmicSpiral]

No and no. You didn't address the first issue and the second issue is so vague that there's really no point to saying anything about it. Besides, generalized statements about human nature were made as far back as Heraclitus so blaming the Y generation doesn't earn you any points on the philosophical respect meter.

Now if Fallacy #2 was addressing the lazy attribution of all possible human behavior to genetics (which is what people generally mean by "nature") then I see your point.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I think the greatest fallacy is that the question of why is greater than the question of how.

If you know how, you won't ask why. However, to achieve this, one must be able to be open, not only to themselves but to all things around them and possess the ability to critically think.

I thank George Carlin for that ability to question and challenge all things intelligently and Bill Hicks to be open to all things and to myself.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Yeah, I'm tired of hearing "I've lost faith in humanity", too. Damn cynics.

 

[TWRule]

I did not call them fallacies because I disliked them - I called them fallacies because they are logically flawed arguments.

When you make a statement about human nature, the logical equivalent is "All humans are (x)". That is different from saying that "humans tend to be (x) in situation" because that can be revealed by statistical data. Human nature statements cannot. If there is even one human that is not of that specific nature, then the argument is shown unsound. Furthermore, human nature statements carry the presupposition that humans even have one unified "nature" in the first place - which is essentially impossible to prove logically.

But they're not. Not using stastics doesn't mean that something is illogical. Most of these "human nature" statements can be proven by looking at a history book and noting the similarities between cultures across the ages. This is observational, a study does not need to be conducted before something is deemed "logical".

And they don't carry any prresupposition of the sort. Where did you get that idea? If I say "It's human nature to wage war" (it is) I'm not saying that all humans do is wage war, I'm saying it comes naturally, and my point can be proven by looking at any historical period ever.

On top of this, it's not even referring to the individual, but to common behavior. It's not a certainty, and nothing is with the tenacity of them human. It's a gneralisation about how we act, it doesn't need to be true for EVERYONE EVER, that's not what human nature means.

That is one meaning of human nature, and the most literal one. If it is human nature, it cannot be defied just by willing it such - at least, that's the idea.

I was not saying that doing a study makes it logical, quite the contrary. Looking at any point in history does nothing to confirm any generalizations about humanity. "These particular humans here did this, thus all humans ever will act in the same manner" is what you are saying - and that is the fallacy. Even if you use "human nature" only in the sense of a loose tendency, nothing is proven by looking at particulars. All you've proven is that those particular humans chose - for any number of reasons - to act a certain way.

 

[TWRule]

No and no. You didn't address the first issue and the second issue is so vague that there's really no point to saying anything about it. Besides, generalized statements about human nature were made as far back as Heraclitus so blaming the Y generation doesn't earn you any points on the philosophical respect meter.

Now if Fallacy #2 was addressing the lazy attribution of all possible human behavior to genetics (which is what people generally mean by "nature") then I see your point.

Both arguments are invalid and I've shown them such. If you disagree, please ask a specific question that I can address to clear things up.

I'm not saying that these are new issues in this generation - merely making an observation that I see them commonly now. I'm also not trying to earn points on some "philosophical respect meter."

Edit: Yes, that is one possible and common use of the fallacy.