A Lot of People Watch American Idol, That Doesn't Make It Good.

Being the type of person I am I like to listen to people discuss a lot of topics. I believe that there is a lot of uncertainty in our world so I try to give multiple sides of an argument at least some credit. I am a firm believer in evolution, but I still listen to the reasons that creationists have problems with it. hearing dissenting opinions is a good thing because it forces you to justify why you believe what you believe.

Evidence is the key here. Statements alone don't hold a lot of sway for me. You can say that creationism is laughed out of academic circles before being examined, and that might be true, but unless I see evidence of this, I don't know if you are bullshitting or not.

My point is that evidence is the best way to make an argument. This makes the common practice of appealing to the popularity of an idea so fucked up. Instead of offering evidence people will say some number of people can't be wrong about something because so many people believe it (this is known as the bandwagon fallacy by the way). Its used a lot in commercials for restaurants or other subjective products, which might be the only place such rhetoric belongs. It is also used as evidence for moral or scientific beliefs, which is where I get frustrated.

A lot of people smoke crack, that doesn't mean its a good thing, it just means that a lot of people have a reason for smoking that crack rock. Dave Foley (one of my favorite comedic actors/comedians) makes this point rather well in his stand up act. The only thing that gives any sort of credence to religion is that a lot of people believe in it. If only one person believed in something like that they would seem crazy.

I am not saying that you should immediately assume that if a lot of people believe in some thing that they are all wrong, just don't except that alone as proof. If a lot of people believe something and all provide studies and evidence of why their beliefs are justified, and especially when its the job of the group of people you are talking about to know about the subject, then they would have a very strong argument (kinda like this).

Children in Africa are the Primary Determinants of the Price of Beans

So, here's the thing, I'm going to try not to flip out about this so bear with me. People who bitch about how their life isn't blowjobs and free booze are fucking idiots. It sucks that your phone can't take on an SUV and then load up what ever bullshit app draws your fancy. It is not a tragedy, it is not a miscarriage of justice. People who complain about social injustice and first world oppression are not those people.

This particular rant has been building for a while so I will try to stay focused. I will admit that there are things worthy of the ignominy of the title of "first world problems". Nearly anything relating, with the noted exception of matters of cyber security, to whatever gadget happens to be shining up pop culture, be it 'phone, 'pad, or 'tooth, is a bullshit problem. I think on some level we all comprehend this. Really, any time the person complaining could intelligibly insert the phrase, "don't you know who I am" and not break the flow of the complaint we're talking about a bullshit problem. Ditto with any situation where the person bitching feels comfortable tapping social/political/monetary status as leverage, and any time someone mistakes a luxury for a right. Those who fall into this pit of indulgence and entitlement are barely even people, at best they're children bitching about their birthday presents.

That said, discussing actual, meaningful concerns and abuses is always pertinent. Someone fearing rape or abuse for discussing rape or abuse is never okay, no matter what else is going on in the world. Note, I linked that whole sentence but I could quite easily have linked every fucking word to a different story, no single one more than five years old. The problems of racism, sexism, oppression and corruption in the first world are in no fucking way mitigated by atrocities and injustice in other parts of the world. This seems to be a problem of flawed comparison, but its important to keep in mind that the fact that there are places in this world where representatives of the local government can go a-full on-viking in civilian communities doesn't make the insidious othering and knee-jerk, reactionary defensiveness of American police better. Its like the terrible high school girl who surrounds herself with less attractive people to make herself look better. She isn't making herself less of a horrible person, isn't actually improving her appearance, just lowering the local average to make herself seem more worthwhile. Knowledge of the fact that there are children fighting and starving in Africa doesn't reduce the tragedy of children who work themselves to ruin in American tobacco farms.

I'm starting to run the risk of spitting bile on this so I will just finish up by paraphrasing my least favorite mythology, maybe take care of your own shit before you start trying to solve problems halfway around the fucking world.

Appeal to Authority

So, it has been a while since I have talked about a fallacy on here, so I wanted to talk about one that happens a little to often for comfort. Appeal to authority on its most base principal goes something like this:

A says X about subject matter Y.
A should be trusted about subject matter Y due to them holding some form of sway in the field of Y.
Therefore, X is correct.

This all falls apart in step two. Unless a person displays competence in a field and has evidence to back up their claim, believing their claim based on the fact that they are perceived as an authority alone is fallacious. This is not to say that you shouldn't accept information from a person who holds authority, it just needs to be accompanied by proof.

A big example of this in popular culture is with evolution. If you watch most news reports/debates about evolution you will see a representative from both sides of the argument given equal airtime and voice based on them both being experts in their fields, despite the evidence being mostly one sided (that is about global warming, but I think it still makes a good point). Creationists/Intelligent designers don't show a good knowledge of how things work so taking that half formed knowledge and using it as a place of authority is wrong.

Aristotelians had this problems as well. Aristotle was taken as a genius and that everything he said was the truth. The problem with this is that he was often wrong. Because he was considered an authority for so long a lot of his statements were accepted with no thought for a long time, until people decided to check on his facts. One of which was that because women have a smaller jaw than men they have less teeth. Despite this being observably false with just a little effort people accepted it for a long time.

There are a couple of off shoots of this argument that are used fairly commonly.

Dismissal of evidence 

A says X about Y with Evidence Z
B, an authority, says X is false.
Therefore A is wrong.

Once again, without evidence of how X is false B's claim is fallacious. This might just be a disagreement in how the evidence was interpreted, but that doesn't discount A.

The last variation of this that I want to talk about is Argumentum ad verecundiam, which means argument from authority. This is basically a person of authority shutting down someone because they are not an authority on a subject. Without supporting evidence of why the person without authority is wrong this argument is fallacious.

Eshi had this happen to him when he was talking to a professor about the aesthetic nature of morality. Eshi claimed that at its core morality was an aesthetic subject, while the professor claimed that morality was based on absolutes. Their argument went on for a while and ended when the professor said something akin to "well I have a doctorate, so there is no way that I am wrong on this." This is clearly a shitty thing to do.

So there you have it, the appeal to authority fallacy. Its all to common, but knowing what it is takes away its power. So, unless someone has evidence to backup their claims, don't accept them offhand.

The Way It's Always Been Done

One of my least favorite fallacies that is used commonly in arguments today is the appeal to tradition. This fallacy revolves around the idea that something has long been valued as true, so there for it must be maintained. This comes up anytime someone says something like "this is the way it's always been done" or in just claiming that something is traditional, and therefore akin to, or even just straight up, sacred.

This is, of course, bullshit.

Traditions exist for many reasons. Going to church is a way of reaffirming your faith. As situations change the need for specific traditions, or rituals associated with these traditions, can also change. If you just go to church because that's what you have always done, going to church loses meaning and, I would argue, value to you as a person. I am not saying that traditions don't have value, I would just like to point out that doing things without thinking  about why you are doing them is harmful to you and the tradition. I would rather see a tradition change then see it stagnate and become meaningless.

Here is a modern example of how sticking to a tradition is damaging to societal growth: Marriage.  Marriage has always been between a man and a woman, so you cannot change it. The thing is, marriage is not just between a man and a woman. In the history of marriage there have been many iterations: one man and multiple women, one women married to multiple males, sets of people intermarried with one another. If this was something that didn't affect other people I would have not problem with it, after all if you want to put limits on yourself, who am I to stop you. But those arguments infringe upon the rights of others because the people making them are too fragile to consider changing their misapprehended term, and that is something that I cannot abide.

Traditions change, and that is the crux of why this fallacy bugs me. We had slaves for a long time, should we have kept that tradition? Women couldn't vote for the bulk of our country's history, should we have kept it that way? Doctors didn't clean themselves before surgery for 90% of human history, should it have stayed that way because it was how it has always been done? The answer to all of these, and any other version is "fuck no, we know more now than we did back then". Context fucking changes constantly (thanks science) and should be taken into account.

The reason this fallacy exists is because people are afraid of change. They are comfortable now, and change might upset their delicate constitutions or whatever. I have stated before, and will probably have to state again, that change is inevitable. Entropy is a thing. You will have to change or you will fall by the wayside, never to be heard from again. Tradition without context is just masturbation. You need to change traditions/rituals to survive with cultural context as time passes and the context inexorably changes, otherwise your traditions become anchors that weigh you down.