I asked you to because you made an insinuation[sic]/claim for the public record without making an argument.
I made a factual claim that was immediately verified by the link in the comment. No further argument was necessary, that's just how verification works.
When challenged, you simultaneously claimed you were not making any assumptions, after providing a favorable assumption
It's not a "favorable assumption" to observe someone say that an article changed their mind on something and then infer that the thing that it changed their mind on was probably something related to the topic of the article. That's just called having the most rudimentary possible theory of mind.
and since claimed you could not make an equivalent assumption on the same amount of information.
The two statements were not equivalent. I first said I presumed it was something relevant to the topic of the article without saying what that relevant thing would be. Then you asked which specific parts would be relevant, and I kindly speculated about that for you, which speculation was not entailed by what I had said before. Or if it was, then you'll have to give some (presently lacking) proof of that fact, which would confirm that your further question was pointless and thus you were being even more disingenuous than in your initial question. So which is it?
Because I was curious how you would respond in hopes of being proven wrong, and how you did was telling (and expected).
OK, so as I suspected, you were being disingenuous and asking in bad faith. Thanks for confirming. I don't plan to entertain such overtures from you in the future.
You did, however, feel comfortable assuming a section that agreed with you despite the same lack of information.
I don't need to assume that, it's already been demonstrated. I agreed with the whole article, McFaul said he agreed with a part, a fortiori there is some section on which he agrees with me. QED
Over-representing a one-line twitter comment in a more expansive and less charitable (to your opposition) way was rather the point of citing him.
I didn't assert anything that McFaul himself omitted to say, so that's impossible. Quote me anything in the initial comment that wasn't a direct paraphrase of something McFaul said, explain why, and try again.
The proper way to counter-argue a meta-argument of insufficient evidence is not to bring in new information, but to refute the relevancy of the categories of insufficient information.
But I don't care whether the original argument had sufficient evidence or not, I care whether its conclusion is correct, and I'd be happy to evaluate all the outside evidence necessary to decisively establish that either way. And what's being argued over in this thread is the conclusion of the argument, not its construction. (Or, at least, if you read my comments, you'll see that that's what I'm concerned to argue about, and I don't really care if others aren't.) This isn't debate club, there are no technical rules about what evidence you're allowed to invoke here. Most of the rest of your post is otiose in light of this fact. Sorry you wasted your time on it.
So, I leave it to any future thread finder to enter the thread, read through this latest exchange as one of their firsts based on the default thread formating, and approach the rest of the thread with the mindset this exchange is intended to give them.
Well, you come off quite poorly in this exchange, so I hope so.
And if I really cared about the thread formatting, then I could just pin every top-level comment besides the one above to force it to the bottom of the thread. But I don’t, so I’m not going to.
Now, mind you, responding for the last word after describing it as wasting your time, and thus demonstrating you both did not, in fact, have better things to do with your time and were predicted in doing so.
I said that you were wasting my time with your indirect approach to the issue, not that the whole conversation about that issue was a waste of time. In fact, I think it's a fine use of my time (that the all-important future readers may see, of course!) to tell you off for being disingenuous and inform you that you look incredibly silly. And maybe that will help you to do a bit better going forward, so my natural altruism pulls me to give you a hand in that regard as well.
Continuing after you characterize an argument a [sic] waste of time
Good thing I didn't do that then.
I would leave with asking if you thought this exchange brought about by your after-the-fact addition of a [perfectly legitimate factual update] strengthened or weakened the audience perception of the link-author's position, which you share. I will leave with asking you if you think that replying in any form will do the same.
Probably strengthened both, to be honest. You look extremely paranoid here, desperately trying to do damage control against an argument that wasn't even being made, on the basis of Kabbalah-level eisegesis over a single sentence. I think that I come off pretty well by comparison.
This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a
court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to
optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.
The weekly Culture War threads host the most
controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are
appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy;
if in doubt, post!
Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts.
You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.
Why are you called The Motte?
A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently,
it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey",
originally identified by
philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial
but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens
this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for
the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired
propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."
On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.
New post guidelines
If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it.
A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts
such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a
submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).
Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or
significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I made a factual claim that was immediately verified by the link in the comment. No further argument was necessary, that's just how verification works.
It's not a "favorable assumption" to observe someone say that an article changed their mind on something and then infer that the thing that it changed their mind on was probably something related to the topic of the article. That's just called having the most rudimentary possible theory of mind.
The two statements were not equivalent. I first said I presumed it was something relevant to the topic of the article without saying what that relevant thing would be. Then you asked which specific parts would be relevant, and I kindly speculated about that for you, which speculation was not entailed by what I had said before. Or if it was, then you'll have to give some (presently lacking) proof of that fact, which would confirm that your further question was pointless and thus you were being even more disingenuous than in your initial question. So which is it?
OK, so as I suspected, you were being disingenuous and asking in bad faith. Thanks for confirming. I don't plan to entertain such overtures from you in the future.
I don't need to assume that, it's already been demonstrated. I agreed with the whole article, McFaul said he agreed with a part, a fortiori there is some section on which he agrees with me. QED
I didn't assert anything that McFaul himself omitted to say, so that's impossible. Quote me anything in the initial comment that wasn't a direct paraphrase of something McFaul said, explain why, and try again.
But I don't care whether the original argument had sufficient evidence or not, I care whether its conclusion is correct, and I'd be happy to evaluate all the outside evidence necessary to decisively establish that either way. And what's being argued over in this thread is the conclusion of the argument, not its construction. (Or, at least, if you read my comments, you'll see that that's what I'm concerned to argue about, and I don't really care if others aren't.) This isn't debate club, there are no technical rules about what evidence you're allowed to invoke here. Most of the rest of your post is otiose in light of this fact. Sorry you wasted your time on it.
Well, you come off quite poorly in this exchange, so I hope so.
And if I really cared about the thread formatting, then I could just pin every top-level comment besides the one above to force it to the bottom of the thread. But I don’t, so I’m not going to.
I said that you were wasting my time with your indirect approach to the issue, not that the whole conversation about that issue was a waste of time. In fact, I think it's a fine use of my time (that the all-important future readers may see, of course!) to tell you off for being disingenuous and inform you that you look incredibly silly. And maybe that will help you to do a bit better going forward, so my natural altruism pulls me to give you a hand in that regard as well.
Good thing I didn't do that then.
Probably strengthened both, to be honest. You look extremely paranoid here, desperately trying to do damage control against an argument that wasn't even being made, on the basis of Kabbalah-level eisegesis over a single sentence. I think that I come off pretty well by comparison.
More options
Context Copy link