Respectfully disagree. It’s not an appeal to authority at all, it was highlighting neurodiversity. It is quite common for autistic people to have heightened auditory perceptions, that does not make them authorities in the field of audio unless they have studied it and become a recognised authority. Everyone perceives the world differently. That’s exactly why a detective interviews multiple witnesses in an attempt to gain a more accurate perspective of the objective reality.
You’ve taken a tweet and you’re now trying to define a narrow window of acceptable discussion about the tweet based on it’s title. How many conversations are you having in real life that stick to such rigid parameters? That’s not how conversation works. This isn’t a formal paper that must be laser focussed on a single topic. It’s a much more relaxed space that allows for discussion of things that may even only be weakly related to the original content. Someone could post a story about their time in Amsterdam with no relation to Call of Duty or video games and I would still consider it valid discussion.
You can’t just just pick and choose that all technical discussion of the topic must now be about the improved graphics and nothing else. You also can’t assume that your interpretation of the title is the correct one or the one the author intended. Doing so is arrogance, which ironically enough, is one of the nine diagnostic criteria of Narcissistic Personality Disorder according to the DSM-5.
> It is quite common for autistic people to have heightened auditory perceptions, that does not make them authorities
Notwithstanding the contradiction and equivocation, this is an appeal to authority.
> You’ve taken a tweet and you’re now trying to define a narrow window of acceptable discussion about the tweet based on it’s title. How many conversations are you having in real life that stick to such rigid parameters? That’s not how conversation works.
Ad hominem, focused on me for some reason. Straw man, by inaccurately rephrasing my argument in order to attack it. And fallacy of control, apparently a belief that you control definitions of terms and how things work. This was followed by going beyond the scope of our discussion to other discussions you deem valid.
> You can’t just just pick and choose that all technical discussion of the topic must now be about the improved graphics and nothing else. You also can’t assume that your interpretation of the title is the correct one or the one the author intended. Doing so is arrogance, which ironically enough, is one of the nine diagnostic criteria of Narcissistic Personality Disorder according to the DSM-5.
More control fallacy, straw man, ad hominem, but I believe this also includes the mind-readers fallacy. Apparently I am being scolded for what I secretly believe and my argument has been completely lost to the void. To avoid fallacy, one must ignore the person, focus on their argument without molesting it, avoid attempts to control them or assert what is in their mind can be known. What is said is the realm of valid argument. I did none of these things and my right to my opinion, whether correct or incorrect, is absolute.
Anything I may have done is irrelevant. All that matters is the argument, and for discourse to be logically valid it must only address the argument. To be vague is to be unconvincing, and any attempt to personally characterize me is fallacious argument.
By my understanding of the definition of the fallacies you're quoting, you are using many of them incorrectly. This would be OK if you explained them in context along with the statement that you believe has caused the fallacy as I could then get a general feel for what you mean. It’s entirely possible that my interpretation of the fallacy is incorrect and I could be enlightened by your sage wisdom. But it’s impossible to debate with you because you won’t do so. You just quote a line, say it’s a fallacy and then refuse to hear otherwise. You consider none of your statements fallacious and consider everyone else’s are nothing but.
If you think something is ad hominem, tell me how you think I have attacked your character. For example, it is not obvious to me how you consider the following sentences to be ad hominem:
> You’ve taken a tweet and you’re now trying to define a narrow window of acceptable discussion about the tweet based on it’s title. How many conversations are you having in real life that stick to such rigid parameters? That’s not how conversation works.
It is impossible to have a debate with you because you’re not engaging in good faith debate. A definition of Good Faith [1]:
GOOD FAITH: A “Good Faith” argument or discussion is one in which both parties agree on the terms on which they engage, are honest and respectful of the other person’s dignity, follow generally-accepted norms of social interaction, and genuinely want to hear what the other person thinks and has to say.
So in turn, now I will engage in some bad faith debate. I’ve been through your comment history and you frequently repeat the same tactics, most often on comment threads to do with mental health. Now I’ll use the fallacy argumentum ad populum: many other people have called you out on this boy-who-cried-fallacy strategy and your general lack of good faith argument. Finally, here’s a fallacious appeal to common sense with a nice smattering of ad hominem:
'If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.'
Seriously dude. From your comments, you seem like a clever guy with a wealth of knowledge and a lot to share with the world. Why are you acting this way?
It's quite simple, and has nothing to do which character. Any mention of the person, focusing on the person, what they have done, what they have misunderstood, what they are doing wrong, rather than their explicit argument, is ad hominem. Pretty much anytime the word "you," is used, it's nearly always the start of an ad hominem. Straw man is changing the original argument in order to attack it rather than the original argument. Appeal to fallacy usually follows the form, "I know this is the case because it is my job," or along those lines, but in the case above, the claim was commenters may have knowledge of a subject that we're not aware of, and the only point here is that it does not matter. Control fallacy is assuming inappropriate control, such as asserting authority that something is not allowed. Mind reading fallacy is any assertion or speculation on what another is thinking rather than focusing on their argument.
Basically, by focusing on the argument alone, comprehending it simply and accurately, ignoring all else, there is less likelihood of going off into fallacy. The argument was in answer to a question, and was simply, paraphrasing, that any that are never impressed, typically always put down, dismiss, belittle, any others' achievement likely do so to compensate for their anxiety of self-worth, and have a fragile ego. The rest of my comment talks about narcissism, by definition; it's not an argument.
> Pretty much anytime the word "you," is used, it's nearly always the start of an ad hominem.
To me, this is nonsense. Your definition of ad hominem is way too broad. The sentence was:
You’ve taken a tweet and you’re now trying to define a narrow window of acceptable discussion about the tweet based on it’s title.
From the Wikipedia page:
> Fallacious ad hominem reasoning occurs where the validity of an argument is not based on deduction or syllogism, but on an attribute of the person putting it forward.
The sentence is not based on an attribute of your character. It is stating that your logic is as follows:
1. There exist sets A, B and C.
2. Set A = { a, a, z }
3. Set B = { a, b, y }
4. Set C = { a, c, x }
5. The title of the tweet is “a, z”.
6. Therefore, all discussion must be about Set A.
That however, is both a pain in the arse to read and write so we just say:
You’ve taken a tweet and you’re now trying to define a narrow window of acceptable discussion about the tweet based on it’s title.
Claiming a fallacy and saying I’ve attacked you and not your argument because I’ve used the word “you” is bad faith debating. We don’t have days to sit around writing all our arguments out in formal logic, especially in an online forum.
In my opinion, your straw man definition is accurate but again you’re using it with a scope that is way too broad. You’re using the control fallacy to try and restrict the scope of the debate to the very first point. Any criticisms of the defences you use to defend your original position, or my criticisms of your criticisms of my defences, you are labelling straw men because they are not about the very first point you made. We can’t get back to discussing the original point because we’re disagreeing about our disagreement. This doesn’t make them “straw men”. In order to get back on track the disagreements need to be resolved first.
An analogy might be two archers firing at a target. You hit the target, but I notice that you’ve stepped over the agreed upon line in order to do so. You then say this is a straw man because it’s not about hitting the target. I disagree because the rules of the game are that you need to be behind the line to take the shot. You then claim this is another straw man and that I’m using the control fallacy because I’m stating one of the game rules. Meanwhile you’re guilty of the control fallacy yourself because simply by disagreeing with the rule you’re setting your own rule which is that the rules don’t apply to you.
On to, the mind reading fallacy. You state:
> While the OP title claims realism, what they meant were that the graphics are improved and exceptional
If this isn’t an example of mind reading then I don’t know what is. But I call you out on it and you dismiss it an ad hominem, straw man, and control fallacy.
Finally, to your misapplication of fallacy of authority:
> Clearly this new version of CoD is graphically superior to previous versions, yet the criticism is focused on less than perfect minutia that probably also existed in or was inferior in previous versions.
As far as I can see it, people are debating what matters to them. What matters to you is clearly graphical superiority. If you became visually impaired tomorrow and were playing a game, would you care about the graphical superiority? I highly doubt it. You’d be much more focussed on the sound. Asking to consider other people’s experiences as being valid isn’t an appeal to authority, especially when the discussion thread is filled with subjective experience of a video game. If I’d have said, “you must consider sound of utmost importance because Hans Zimmer said it was the most important thing in video games” it would be an appeal to authority. But I didn’t. I simply stated that people value and perceive different things and will comment based on that and we shouldn’t be labelling them nitpickers, narcissists or haters without first finding out more about how they perceive the world.
No doubt you will dismiss this final argument as ad hominem because it’s got the word “you” in it and because I asked you to put yourself in someone else’s shoes which is irrelevant to the argument apparently. And of course I’ve committed the mind reading fallacy by assuming you wouldn’t care about graphical concerns if you were blind. And of course, according to your definitions, I’m also guilty of the control fallacy and a straw man because this isn’t about your original point but your defence of your point which is apparently above all criticism.
Are you enjoying this style of debate? Or shall we agree to speak like normal human beings again?
When the argument is ignored and all focus is only on the person, this is ad hominem fallacy. In discussion and in debate what someone does is irrelevant. What is argued is all that matters.
You’ve taken a tweet and you’re now trying to define a narrow window of acceptable discussion about the tweet based on it’s title. How many conversations are you having in real life that stick to such rigid parameters? That’s not how conversation works. This isn’t a formal paper that must be laser focussed on a single topic. It’s a much more relaxed space that allows for discussion of things that may even only be weakly related to the original content. Someone could post a story about their time in Amsterdam with no relation to Call of Duty or video games and I would still consider it valid discussion.
You can’t just just pick and choose that all technical discussion of the topic must now be about the improved graphics and nothing else. You also can’t assume that your interpretation of the title is the correct one or the one the author intended. Doing so is arrogance, which ironically enough, is one of the nine diagnostic criteria of Narcissistic Personality Disorder according to the DSM-5.