Comments on: El Cheapo Book Review: The Change Function

By: Liam

Liam — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:14:25 +0000

It's been fun, sideshow, but goodbye is such a sad word...

By: "C" is for "conspiracy", chitlins

"C" is for "conspiracy", chitlins — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:33:44 +0000

Here endeth the lesson, homeslice.

By: Liam

Liam — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:21:17 +0000

Well, take credit at least for your instruction, which is as always, up with the best of education standards.

By: Sideshow Bibulus

Sideshow Bibulus — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:04:17 +0000

Not too fast, berrayboy - I'm not taking the credit for that.

By: Liam

Liam — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:14:02 +0000

I'll accept the correction and acknowledge my pwnage. I also acknowledge your cracking neologism testiclé which I intend to use, if possible, on the next official form I have to fill out.

By: Sideshow Bibulus

Sideshow Bibulus — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:07:47 +0000

Ad hominem IS gender neutral; “homo” in the context means person. The latin word used for a person of the testicl

By: Liam

Liam — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:27:49 +0000

redundantly neo-illogical

Suggest a gender-neutral latin pronoun, Capitonis Maxiumus, and I’ll use it.

By: Sideshow Bibulus

Sideshow Bibulus — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:14:56 +0000

That’s an ad hominem argument, Efdibus.

By: FDB

FDB — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:31:29 +0000

I reserve ad feminam for the particular case of dismissing someone’s argument because she’s a woman.

So it ain’t all that useless Terwilleger.

By: Piscodorus

Piscodorus — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:04:12 +0000

Ad hominem/feminam: the choice argument of both the very ill-informed and the very well-informed.

Argumentum ad grammaticam ad nauseam: ad feminam is the choyce expression of the redundantly neo-illogical.

By: Liam

Liam — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:52:35 +0000

I’ve got a book like that, the perfect size and shape to prop a shelf. It’s L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics, and fuck knows where it came from: books like that propagate parthenogenetically the second turn your back.
Ad hominem/feminam doesn’t have to be irrelevant, Jacques. Quite the contrary, adhom can be exceedingly relevant, biting and sometimes funny, it’s only the separation from the actual argument at hand which characterises it. For instance:

Argument: This development is good for the community and appropriate for the area.

Ad Hom Response: Didn’t the developer pay megabucks in campaign donations to you?

Ad hominem/feminam: the choice argument of both the very ill-informed and the very well-informed.

By: Melaleuca

Melaleuca — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 09:06:59 +0000

“Where else can I go to get a radical centrist perspective more often?”

Well if you prefer quantity over quality you can always check out this site: http://larvatusprodeo.net/

But Rob Merkel is probably the only centrist left in that particular stable.

By: mister zee

mister zee — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 06:46:21 +0000

Maybe Chris gets his emoluments by the emollient too, just without the Wharton waffle ;)

By: Jacques Chester

Jacques Chester — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 06:38:29 +0000

David: it’s a slim little volume so it would be suitable for propping duties.

Chris: I’ll try not be so emollient next time.

By: FDB

FDB — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:53:25 +0000

Good point David.

What wouldn’t I do for a book I knew I’d never read, of roughly 220 pages (Penguin Classics stock). I lost one of the feet from one of my turntables last weekend, but seem only to own books I don’t hate.

By: Chris Lloyd

Chris Lloyd — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:48:10 +0000

Mark, You can always go and re-start the “Worst piece of research…” thread. And Jacques. Next time tell us what you really think.

By: David

David — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:44:15 +0000

Jacques, is the book of a suitable thickness to prop up a wonky table, or elevate a monitor to the correct height? At least then you’ll get some return on your $6 investment.

By: FDB

FDB — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:20:28 +0000

Correction – they are equally fallacious, but the second family leads more often to correct conclusions.

By: Jacques Chester

Jacques Chester — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:19:51 +0000

I usually think of it as being in the form “Jim is bad and so is Jim’s idea”.

By: FDB

FDB — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:19:06 +0000

Ad hominem and ad verecundiam aren't strictly opposites. Ad hominem is all about aspects of someone's character or life's work or circumstances which have nothing to do with the argument or subject matter at hand. "Jim is Italian, and his cousin fucks donkeys, therefore he's wrong about this software". I'm not sure the reverse of this has a name, but it would run "Bernard is like, so hawt right now and can bench-press 250kg, therefore he's right about this software". Ad verecundiam is much less of a fallacy. "Bernard has always been right about software before, therefore he's right this time". And the obvious inversion for Jim, which again I don't think really has a name.

By: gilmae

gilmae — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:16:12 +0000

An Abusive Ad Hominem occurs when an attack on the character or other irrelevant personal qualities of the oppositionsuch as appearanceis offered as evidence against her position.

Sounds pretty much like “If ‘Jim’ thought of the idea, it is a bad one, because Jim is ‘bad’”.

By: Jacques Chester

Jacques Chester — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:11:25 +0000

Not quite -- ad hominem is essentially irrelevant abuse. It's a subclass of the red herring fallacy. That link takes you to the Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies page, my favourite resource for this sort of stuff.

By: gilmae

gilmae — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:21:33 +0000

No. An ad hominem is a direct attack on the arguer without relevance to the argument.

Isn’t it both? The dismissal of Jim’s argument has nothing to do with what Jim says, it is based on Jim being a ‘bad’ person. So Jim’s argument is dismissed by attacking Jim. And then because Bernard is deemed good, his argument must be good regardless of its actual merits. Ad hominem and ad verecundiam used in turn to attack and defend two distinct arguments.

By: JM

JM — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:07:37 +0000

“And Missing Link Daily, …. has disappeared without trace.”

Agree. MLD used to drive most of my interest in this site – I got a lot of pointers to things I otherwise didn’t see.

Bring it back.

By: Mark U

Mark U — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:08:05 +0000

What is happening here at Club Troppo? In the 18 days since 16 August there have been only 17 posts from 6 different authors. Overall, these posts have been relatively light on the “politics, economics and the law” referred to in the banner. And Missing Link Daily, which went on holiday in early July, with a promise to return on 21 July, has disappeared without trace.

Where else can I go to get a “radical centrist” perspective more often?