Very new to reddit but wanting to add some of my own thoughts that may or may not have been addressed. I haven't seen much talk about Jimmy saying this for the past few days, but personally it bothered me, as it kind of came across as a mass dismissal. I think this was before the community post saying he was going to be addressing the situation again. Basically in one of the live streams, Jimmy briefly "addressed" some of the drama. He was talking about a comment that someone said something about "theres a lot of people having a problem with what you said," or, "numerous people are criticizing you, you should address it."
The thing that caught my attention was Jimmy scoffing and saying, "that's literally a fallacy, its argument from ad populum." Then he continued on, unsurprisingly.
I'm paraphrasing a bit because it's been a few days since I heard it, it honestly kind of stunned me, and I'm about to head to bed If people are unfamiliar with this, I'll try to find the timestamps for it in the morning so I dont accidentally, actually, misrepresent what he said and meant. I just kind of wanted to get it out of my system before bed while it was on my mind, I feel like it was extremely dismissive of him to act like the amount of people disagreeing with him are just being fallacious if they bring that up. I feel like it's one thing to have someone say "hey all these people agree with me therefore you're wrong" when its moreso been individual interactions with Jimmy, people trying to reach out and say, "hey I have a problem, heres why," and while yes it's a lot of people, that doesn't mean people are just collectively being fallacious, or following someone else's narrative which... he implies a lot. And while he's allowed to have any opinion and response to that he wants, his extremely dismissive behavior has actually become my number one problem in this situation, and I'm really struggling to remain optimistic each day that goes by for an update video. (Which I acknowledge the update video is also frankly his choice, he doesn't have to go out of his way to explain himself, though I definitely think he should and hopefully itll go well, so I do give him credit for planning to re-address the situation, but... we'll see how that goes. Cautiously optimistic as usual)
In summary; just curious if anyone else, assuming they're aware, was kind of befuddled by Jimmy bringing up fallacies, and being dismissive, or was Jimmy just remarking about a comm
... keep reading on reddit ➡If you choose the product with the most positive reviews on Amazon, you still realize it doesn't mean it's the best choice or a flawless product, so it can't be Argumentum Ad Populum, right?
How would you explain the distinction?
I constantly see religious people of all stripes making arguments of popularity to bolster their religion. My thought is an argument of popularity can't prove the existence of God, but a lack of popularity for a religion that is claiming to be universal would follow that it is untrue.
Christianity:
Jesus died his disciples spread the world of God to a very small part of the world, and even today a minority of people are Christians, and of those people they still can't agree what the 'true' Christianity is.
Islam:
God chooses Muhammad as his messenger, because the world is ready for him. Muhammad spreads the word of God by war, winds up losing significant battles along the way, and his empire disintegrates within his first two successors. Even today more than 1300 years later the majority of the world is not Islamic and most of the Muslim countries became client States of Christian nations over the years.
If God had wanted to spread a universal religion with an illiterate warlord, wouldn't Genghis Khan have been a more apt choice?
Proof:
If god is real and he chose religion x to be the universal one, and religion x is followed by a minority of people it follows that religion is x is either not universal or false, and if religion x claims that it is universal still then it is false.
Two people are arguing about Mr X allegedly committing crimes
person A says "I believe Mr X is probably guilty because 10 people that have interacted with Mr X on separate occasions independent of each other have come forward claiming Mr X committed these crimes against them.
person B says "You can not draw the conclusion that Mr X is probably guilty. People lie all the time. Mr X says he did not commit the crime. Without other evidence, there is no reason to side with anyone."
person A concedes its possible that 10 people are lying, but not likely, especially since the only connection between complainants is through interactions with Mr X. Assuming the lack of a formal conspiracy, the more people claiming Mr X committed crimes against them, the more likely it is that Mr X committed at least one of these crimes. At some point it becomes probable that Mr X committed a crime to at least 1 of the ten complainants.
person B disagrees, and claims that the number of complainants is irrelevant to who is being truthful. Furthermore person B claims that person A is using the fallacy argumentum ad populum.
Is person B correct in claiming person A is using the fallacy argumentum ad populum?
If not, is person A using a different fallacy?
Argumentum ad populum, meaning "argument from the people", is an argumentative tool stating that what is most popular is the most correct. Obviously, when dealing in the objective realm, this is clearly a fallacy. However, if we start with the presupposed notion that something - like morality in this case - is subjective, does argumentam ad populum cease to become fallicious?
Basically the claim is that Theist's have already met the burden of proof as is evident from the " fact" that the overwhelming majority of the world believe in God and thusly the problem is not the evidence itself but us nontheists who must either have an unreasonable definition of evidence or are so biased against religion we will never accept any evidence.
I know this is a version of " argumentum ad populum" with some Ad Hominem and psychological projection added in for extra taste but I want to know how to refute it.
Here is the way the YEC who I am arguing with who postulated this to me stated it word for word:
>You claim "insufficient proof" for the existence of God. In light of the fact that the overwhelming majority of the human race believes in some form of supreme Being, and a large percentage of that number not only consider the evidence for His existence to be overwhelmingly persuasive but openly testify to a personal encounter and experience with Him, I think that the problem here is that the body of evidence presented is only insufficient for you.
>And in light of your biases, it is doubtful that anything short of the Second Coming would constitute "sufficient evidence" for you. You have too much invested in NOT believing to ever contemplate the alternative with any seriousness.
> First, your ego. Bull us no crap, but every single atheist on earth, yourself included, clings, openly or secretly, to his atheism like it was an olympic medal... proof of his or her not-so-secret superiority to the rest of us superstitious ignorants.
> you fall back on the atheist catechism: "religion != science, God=religion, therefore God isn't scientific. In conclusion, that means no scientific proof of God exists...." Voila! you made all the naughty evidence go away. (And for your next trick, you'll prove black=white just in time to get trampled in a zebra stampede.)
>As another Christian noted: Why is it that someone viewing the evidence and becoming an evolutionist/atheist considered proof of their intellectual superiority..... while someone else viewing all the evidence and being persuaded to believe in God is proof of their ignorance?
I am well aware this guy is a lost cause ( home schooled YEC IFB preacher if anyone is interested) but he speaks forcefully and eloquently and his argument has a lot of mass democratic appeal. What can i say that will make it clear to other readers that this is logical fallacy k
... keep reading on reddit ➡the idea
"that because life is (allegedly) enjoyable for "most people" therefore it is acceptable to create more of it and force someone into existence"
is simply an argumentum ad populum they think that because alot of people "enjoy it" that hardly no one else will have too much of a problem with it either
people's optimism biases prevent critical thinking optimism is illogical because people are always expecting things to turn out in their favour when most of the time things do not they imagine the present moment & the future in an optimized/idealised state when the world simply doesn't work like that at all
optimism is just a delusion for the weak minded who can't face the world for how it really is or how it's more than likely going to be so they like to imagine everything how they would like it to be instead of facing reality for what it really is
optimism is just an extreme type of idealism & their idealism causes them to dismiss suffering try to hide it & try to pretend it doesn't even exist/isn't even that big a deal
they reject the idea that the present & future can & maybe even will hold pain & misery in some form or other instead they believe that the present moment is in an optimized state & they extend that belief to include hope for the future
if you for example ever had an accident you wouldn't want an optimist to help you because they'd offer the least amount of help because they only believe in the best possible outcome
so say for example you break a leg the optimist says "look on the bright side it's time for personal growth and challenges" (or some other such bs)
the pessimist says "your life will be even more miserable than before let me help you to the best of my abilities."
a pessimist would always put more effort into helping others as they believe in the worst possible scenarios therefore more help is needed
an optimist on the other hand would always help as little as possible as they believe in the optimal scenario where help is either not needed or the very least amount of help is needed
optimism is like a virus of the mind all suffering throughout history goes right back to the delusion of optimism & the sheer fucking levels of ignorance that come right along with it
Is there a name for the fallacy when a person justifies not working for a common good by referring that no one else is doing it?
Like: "I would like to remedy climate change but no one else is doing it"
Or: "I wish people would keep the speed limit, but i won't drive slow when noone else is".
It is sort of an inverse argumentum ad populum. Is there a name for it, so i can use it to sound smart in my dissertation?
For the non-Latin students: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
Argumentum ad populum (or "appeal to the people") is a logical fallacy in which one determines that your conclusion must be valid because a majority of people support it.
Since this is a fallacy, the democratic process is open to the same flaw - just because the majority of people would support a proposition / politician / political party / viewpoint does not mean it is the correct or best one.
In risk assessment, they teach us to balance the probability of each risk versus its impact - how much harm/good can come of it and what are the chances of each.
Government is no different - a good government policy takes into account all the needs of its citizens and balances the harm it does to some with the good it will to do others (in favour of the good we hope, or at least the least harm). Government should be blind to everything else except the good of its people as a whole, not just the 50%+1 that voted for it.
When you vote, you should not be voting for the politician who best represent your particular views but the one you feel is best able to do the most good/least harm to the country as a whole. The one who is going to make as many people as possible welcome in your country. The one who can set aside differences and personal opinion and do what's good for the country even if its not what's popular at the time, EVEN if you disagree with it personally. A person of strength, character and respect for all people.
Instead we find people who wish to lead countries saying anything and everything just to get votes. Democracy has turned into a game show, a popularity contest, where the winner gets to do what they thinks best because the majority of people support them. And doing those things will get them re-elected - not because they are the right person for the job, but because they pandered to enough of the voters.
People push to move to a method where the popular vote more accurately represents who gets in. I agree, it's a step up from the current systems in North America, but its not the only problem with democracy.
The system is flawed because its relies on this idea that because the majority of people support something, it therefore it must be the right course. It wasn't a problem when we elected people of integrity - people who could stand strong and debate the proper balance between how X will impact group A and how it will impact group B.
Today, we've turned it into
... keep reading on reddit ➡In logic, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or most people believe it. In other words, the basic idea of the argument is: "If many believe so, it is so."
This type of argument is known by several names, including appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to democracy, argument by consensus, consensus fallacy, authority of the many, and bandwagon fallacy, and in Latin as argumentum ad numerum ("appeal to the number"), and consensus gentium ("agreement of the clans"). It is also the basis of a number of social phenomena, including communal reinforcement and the bandwagon effect. The Chinese proverb "three men make a tiger" concerns the same idea.
EXAMPLES
This fallacy is sometimes committed while trying to convince a person that a widely popular thought is true.
- Nine out of ten of my constituents oppose the bill, therefore it is a bad idea.
- Nine out of ten of my fellow congressmen favor the bill, therefore it is a good idea.
Other examples:
- Fifty million Elvis fans can't be wrong.
- Everyone's doing it.
- In a court of law, the jury vote by majority; therefore they will always make the correct decision.
- Google gives more hits when this spelling is applied, therefore this has to be the correct spelling.
- Many people buy extended warranties, therefore it is wise to buy them.
EXPLANATION
The argumentum ad populum is a red herring and genetic fallacy. It appeals on probabilistic terms; given that 75% of a population answer A to a question where the answer is unknown, the argument states that it is reasonable to assume that the answer is indeed A. In cases where the answer can be known but is not known by a questioned entity, the appeal to majority provides a possible answer with a relatively high probability of correctness.
There is the problem of determining just how many are needed to have a majority or consensus. Is merely greater than 50% significant enough and why? Should the percentage be larger, such as 80 or 90 percent, and how does that make a real difference? Is there real consensus if there are one or even two people who have a different claim that is proven to be true?
It is logically fallacious because the mere fact that a belief is widely-held is not necessarily a guarantee that the belief is correct; if the belief of any indi
... keep reading on reddit ➡argumentum ad populum: In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition is true because many or most people believe it. In other words, the basic idea of the argument is: "If many believe so, it is so." (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum)
critical thinking:The National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking defines critical thinking as the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking)
A post to my fellow participants who have yet to form a final opinion of Adnan Syed's guilt or innocence. Tell me how other posters have demonstrated argumentum ad populum mentality in an effort to argue their point of view. Tell me how you have used critical thinking to remain undecided.
*clarification: tell me how you used critical thinking to remain undecided if you feel that you did indeed use critical thinking to remain undecided.
A common fallacy I've been seeing lately is an inversion of Ad Populum. The crux is an assumption that unpopular opinions are more likely to be correct. Here's some examples:
"They wouldn't be attacking you if you weren't right."
"If so many people disagree with you, it just shows you're thinking for yourself and not drinking the koolaid."
"If the Great Unwashed agrees with you, you should reevaluate your position."
Is there a name for this fallacy?
Argumentum ad Wojakum is an attempt to refute an argument by posting memes (almost always some kind of a Wojak) about how much of a loser the holder of such an opinion is, often accompanied by how based and Chad the maker supposedly is
EDIT: The fallacy can also be named Argumentum per Wojakum in accordance with Latin grammar rules
The PoS algorithm works as an alternative to PoW with the purpose of reducing the energy consumption of operations based on protecting the system with its own wealth instead of work.
The philosophy of this is that the person who has the greatest number of wealth in the system is the one who should be concerned about its security, however, would this not be a fallacy "argumentum ad crumenam"?
We could say the same sense of government institutions and bankers that are the ones that have the greatest wealth, however we all know that those mentioned are an human disgrace and that was the initial reason for creating cryptocurrencies in the first place.
I'm not saying that the PoW algorithm is a perfect alternative, especially to the 51% problem, but I think that with the PoS algorithm, not only would it make you more vulnerable to such an attack, but it would make the rich even richer and monopolize the market.
