The Money Mustache Community
Other => Off Topic => Topic started by: Kris on April 16, 2017, 10:14:46 AM
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I have a "friend" who seems to really enjoy figuratively spitting on his other friends' attempts at political activism. So, for example, if you go out and do political activity A, he will roll his eyes and say, why are you doing A, when B and C are the real problems? As though it is possible to do only one thing. Even though many of us are doing A, B, C, D, and anything else we can think of.
So, what is the logical fallacy that he is employing here?
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This sounds like a false dichotomy to me (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma).
Also relevant is Voltaire's "Perfect is the enemy of good" aphorism. It also reminds me of one of my favorite David Eggars quotes from You Shall Know Our Velocity: "The inactive must justify their sloth by picking nits with those making an attempt"
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I think it's the Fallacy of Relative Privation:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as)
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppealToWorseProblems (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppealToWorseProblems)
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You may like this related web site: http://www.yourlogicalfallacyis.com (http://www.yourlogicalfallacyis.com)
Just discovered it recently myself.
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You may like this related web site: http://www.yourlogicalfallacyis.com (http://www.yourlogicalfallacyis.com)
Just discovered it recently myself.
Yes, I know this site, and it's where I went first.
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I have a "friend" who seems to really enjoy figuratively spitting on his other friends' attempts at political activism. So, for example, if you go out and do political activity A, he will roll his eyes and say, why are you doing A, when B and C are the real problems? As though it is possible to do only one thing. Even though many of us are doing A, B, C, D, and anything else we can think of.
So, what is the logical fallacy that he is employing here?
While there may be a logical fallacy in there, I suspect the real problem is that they are being a bit of a jerk.
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I have a "friend" who seems to really enjoy figuratively spitting on his other friends' attempts at political activism. So, for example, if you go out and do political activity A, he will roll his eyes and say, why are you doing A, when B and C are the real problems? As though it is possible to do only one thing. Even though many of us are doing A, B, C, D, and anything else we can think of.
So, what is the logical fallacy that he is employing here?
While there may be a logical fallacy in there, I suspect the real problem is that they are being a bit of a jerk.
Oh, yes, indeed. But he is a lawyer, and specializes in thinking he's smarter than everyone around him. So the best way to get him to back the hell off is to point out that his logic is shitty.