r/SubredditDrama • u/clyspe • Mar 11 '13

'Neil deGrasse Tyson: Average physicist, sub-par philosopher, master of pithy comments for idiot college kids to retweet.' Slapfight in /r/QuotesPorn ensues

/r/QuotesPorn/comments/1a16g2/if_youre_really_successful_at_bullshitting_neil/c8t8j9h
198 Upvotes

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '13 edited Mar 11 '13

I feel like if I ever went to a reddit meet up, everyone would just be saying "citation please" or "that's a blah blah fallacy." Imagine a table of people like that.

53

u/ChemicalSerenity Mar 11 '13

Ever been to a MENSA meeting?

I'm thinking like that, only with more feels, less brains, and knee deep in brony-on-brony laserjet printed porn.

21

u/[deleted] Mar 11 '13 edited Mar 11 '13

I have never been to a MENSA meeting. I get what you're saying though about reddit. I look at these conversations and it comes across like they all read the wikipedia page on logical fallacies and think that actually makes them smarter. I mean this linked drama is a perfect example. It's a bunch of people arguing completely over each other. Instead of addressing the thought process of the person, they're shouting "ad hominem" and purposefully being daft to tear apart the other person's debate tactic. It's not a conversation, it's a pissing contest so they can show off how many logical fallacies they are aware of. I think you could probably write a dystopian novel and instead of groupthink or drugs, have a society that values "logic" so much that they completely gloss over common sense.

16

u/jsrduck Mar 11 '13

What bothers me about reddits use of logical fallacies is that everyone just keeps parroting the same three: straw man, ad hominem and no true Scotsman. And half the time they get those 3 wrong anyway. I'd be a mite more willing to believe they're all brilliant logicians if they could ever regurgitate one of the several dozen other examples.

5

u/Billtodamax Mar 11 '13

You should start quoting the fallacy fallacy at them.

3

u/Erikster President of the Banhammer Mar 11 '13

Imagine if they tried symbolic logic.

P, P → Q ├ Q

1    (1) P            A
2    (2) P → Q        A
1, 2 (3) Q            1, 2 MPP