> basing your argument on an appeal to authority is just a logical falacy
This is incorrect. An appeal to an authority is a valid argument. The fallacy is an appeal to a false authority.
When you make a statement like "it makes me cringe", you are making an appeal to your own authority. Cringe-worthiness has nothing to do with reasoning or logic: it's only relevant if your opinion matters, and your opinion only matters if you're (1) the audience of the argument or (2) an authority. If you do not claim to be an authority, you are dismissing your own argument: you acknowledge its own fallaciousness.
I have to disagree on this one. Even if you appeal to a True authority, you're just moving the onus to the one you're arguing with. You're not giving a valid argument, but ask your opponent to go find a counterargument himself. I think many eod consider that a fallacy.
> Even if you appeal to a True authority, you're just moving the onus to the one you're arguing with. You're not giving a valid argument, but ask your opponent to go find a counterargument himself.
This is always the case, though. If I say, "Fish need water, fish are good, so we should provide water," you have to independently verify my claims yourself or choose to accept the assertion.
No claim is exempt from this.
> I think many eod consider that a fallacy.
Sorry, I don't know what an "eod" is.
Unless you mean "end of day", in which case you're making an argument from popularity which, I'm sure you know, is a fallacious argument because popularity isn't a valid authority for determining whether or not something is a fallacy.
Blah blah blah. Knowing about logical fallacies can be instructive for the skeptical among us, but often bringing them in every-day discussions is pedantic.
Regardless of whether the statement was an appeal to authority, regardless of whether Joe Armstrong or arianvanp are "true authorities" or if that's even objectively determinable, regardless of whether we consider inductive arguments as persuasive... regardless of all that.. we have brains. You can see what Joe Armstrong wrote. You can pick up Erlang and Elixir and use them yourself. You can see what arianvanp wrote. Some of us (excepting jacquesm, of course) have the capacity to use our own brains to consider the validity of the arguments at hand without having to resort to the lazy inductive argument that Joe Armstrong is smart about Erlang and therefore is probably right.
If you have a brain, use it instead of checking it in at the door.
This is incorrect. An appeal to an authority is a valid argument. The fallacy is an appeal to a false authority.
When you make a statement like "it makes me cringe", you are making an appeal to your own authority. Cringe-worthiness has nothing to do with reasoning or logic: it's only relevant if your opinion matters, and your opinion only matters if you're (1) the audience of the argument or (2) an authority. If you do not claim to be an authority, you are dismissing your own argument: you acknowledge its own fallaciousness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority