PPD’s Top 5 favourite fallacies

Purple-Confusion9656 · 2022-05-01T10:19:14+00:00

The older I get the more I see that humans basically lie to each other essentially constantly, including to themselves

Mark_Freed · 2022-05-01T11:40:06+00:00

1) Reification

This happens when Abstractions are treated as if they were a concrete real event or physical thing. This is when you confuse the model with reality.

The map is not the territory

Alpha's or stacies are just models, ideas, Archetypes. They are not actual people. People are complicated and don't fit neatly into a singular model. But these models are useful to describe people, we all have an alpha in us.. to varying degrees.

Just because we designed a way to measure IQ does not automatically make it a concrete entity. These ideas are tools, they are platonic ideals, they are proxies, measures... People don't see the boundaries and conflate the two and it hurts them.

2) Appeal to Common Sense

People often find it too hard to start with commonly agreed Axioms and work up to the logical conclusion. They would rather just reduce their claim to an axiom and thus it would be trivially true.

This is forcing people into their Frame, it is impolite to reject axioms. No one wants to contradict what they believe the majority of their peers believe.

People use phrases like, "This is basic stuff, basic respect". "This is the most fundamental thing you can expect in a relationship", "This is obvious, common sense", etc.

To pull this rhetoric tactic off you need to have complete certainty in your belief. This is also called the bandwagon fallacy, broad acceptance of something even if true does not mean it is factually justified.

3) Typical Mind Fallacy

You must have heard the phrase - "don't paint everyone with the same brush". We have the habit of modeling other people just like us - a brand of Solipsism. We only have access to our own mind, so our Theory of Mind is based on our own mind. It is easy to simulate other people's behavior as if they were a version of us. But this often fails because we are all different in many ways. So any arguments that are based on your beliefs, your friends belief fails partly due to this fallacy. We self-segregate and our friends are not a representative sample.

4) False Premise

We are polite most of the time and when people use words, we are kind enough to assume it means something real. We try our best to take a charitable interpretation. But this leads to a common fallacy where people take something controversial and nest it in a question as a premise. We are not used to calling out the incorrect premise in people's questions. We should practice listening carefully and point out if any premise used is incorrectly assumed to be true/exist.

it is lazy to just take the controversial claim as obvious. So many people don't do the hard work of explaining why. So many truths are "self evident" it seems lol... so convenient.

5) Moving the Goalposts

Often people make an argument which you neatly dismantle and show to be false. But they rarely admit your victory, rather they change their position to sidestep your refutation. This can happen multiple times as the person patches their theory on the fly to suit any rebuttal you might have.

This is why you got to point it out how they are doing motivated reasoning and trying hard to establish the result they already decided is true.

6) False dichotomy

People limit the possible options and present two options acting as if one of the two have to be true. This oversimplifies the choice and excludes nuanced alternatives. It is also known as false Dilemma.

"Since you don't support capitalism, you are a communist", It is possible to be for neither.

"Is gender due to Nurture or Nature?", Talent, gender identity, personality are all determined by a complex interaction of genetics and upbringing/socialization. It is a useful distinction but these two categories are not enough to represent all possible views on the topic.

This sort of a black and white thinking is gaining more popularity because it is hard to disseminate nuanced stances on issues while short crisp ideas like "Abortion is murder of a baby" can go viral.

This is the opposite of conflation error, here people make too strong of a boundary. Often the two things are interrelated, connected and affect each other.

7) No true Scotsman

When you are talking about what a group of people, say feminists, communists, or muslims does, you hear people will often say "They are not real feminists". The defense that "true" members of the community don't stand for that, read the actual holy book and note how this behaviour flies in the face of the orthodoxy etc. But practically they are the real life examples of people from that group, words on books don't define the group but the actions of that group matter. This fallacy depends on the fallacy of equivocation since everyone has to agree how to identify a member of that group.

People keep changing the boundaries around who is a TRP follower, fluid boundaries where anyone can be a "feminist" as long as they say there are makes it hard to attack the group. you need to describe the exact positions you hold in order to attack them.

8) Straw man

When you are trying to argue with someone, you might see them take your words and then attack an exaggerated version of your point. They can misrepresent your idea, oversimplify it, present it out of context and make it easy to refute.

If you claim women should be allowed to wear what they want and should not be shamed for showing skin, someone might try to say "So you think nude beaches are ok? can they wear bikinis in public places?". They argue in bad faith and act like you hold an extreme version of your actual views. They are just trying to win the debate and not really trying to reach a consensus.

The opposite side of this is steelmanning which I think every person who debates should know about and engage in. When you try to understand your opponent's viewpoint and then improve his argument, and then attack the best possible version of your opponent's argument.

9) Ad Hominem

This is a very common attack seen in public discourse. When people are unable to refute the argument the opponent makes on its own merit, they resort to attacking the opponent's character. This makes use of the halo effect, people are less likely to take a murder's argument seriously. By pointing out the speaker has some undesirable trait(s) they manage to avoid having to address the central point.

levels of refutation

Ad hominem is not the lowest level because you need to check for conflict of interest and expertise of the author so there is some merit in presenting that point.

People using incels, black pill, or any name calling should be aware they are refusing to engage with the point. It can be justified if you feel like the group has no valid points worth spending time on. I won't engage with flat earthers anymore. But I also don't join a subreddit made to debate flat earthers. This fallacy sucks in debating and ruins the atmosphere.

10) Law of the instrument

Some of you may have heard "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail", an expert in gender studies see the patriarchy as the cause of all problems, an engineering graduate might try engineering solutions to all problems they face.

It is important to recognize the kind of tool you are familiar with and whether that biases you towards or against certain solutions or framing of the problem.

Maybe you are a nerd who uses system 2 too much, maybe you are too used to looking for certain types of patterns. Are you too comfortable with analogies? induction?

Paliant · 2022-05-01T13:38:47+00:00

Apex fallacy: characteristics of the most visible persons of a group, can be applied to all persons of said same group (close to stereotyping)

Men as a cohort being blamed for rapist, pump n dump bad boys, child molestation, assumptions of “patriarchal power” when most mens were pawns for other, more elite men, and assumptions as the predator in any given situation. The reality is 9/10 guys were brought up to contribute to their community and have a family.

Whenever you see the apex fallacy, just remember that that woman is likely showing you the archetype of men she deals with.

“He won’t commit! He’s such an asshole.” And you keep entertaining him too Becky, y’all are both clowns.

spunkystoic · 2022-05-01T09:19:41+00:00

I've always said it and I'll say it again: PPD is the strawman capital of Reddit.

I once made a point along the lines of: population decline has big downsides.

And the response I got was, almost to the word: OMG SO YOU'RE SAYING THAT WOMEN MUST BE FORCED TO HAVE KIDS LIKE SLAVES, THAT'S DISGUSTING.

😂😂😂

2022-05-01T11:16:26+00:00

I doubt there has ever been a pure debate in all of reddit history that didn't glaringly ignore at least one logical fallacy.

The one I seem to see the most (not necessarily here) is the no true Scotsman fallacy.

I don't particularly try to prove anything in a pure debate sense anyway, I'm just here to have some semblance of social contact, and because some of the convos are interesting.

wub1234 · 2022-05-01T11:35:05+00:00

The fundamental attribution error (also known as correspondence bias or over-attribution effect) is the tendency for people to over-emphasize dispositional, or personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing situational explanations.

In other words, people have a cognitive bias to assume that a person's actions depend on what "kind" of person that person is rather than on the social and environmental forces that influence the person.

PlayfulLawyer · 2022-05-01T07:57:40+00:00

male and female attraction being symmetrical
the exception to the rule somehow being a new standard
false equivalence as well

I'll think about the other two

FenaPugi · 2022-05-01T08:36:56+00:00

If you don't see a single ounce of logic in these 'fallacies' then that would imply an inherent lack of being able to connect sociological dots even if we're only communicating hypotheticals on the internet.

It's almost as if there's a party going on at your house, everyone can smell dog shit and they quickly move outside while you're still inside wondering why everyone has gone.

Soon enough you'll realise that your lack of a sense of smell isn't a character trait. It isn't a sovereign sense of smell either.

It's something that requires introspection, not another layer to your belief system.

You also might want to get a covid test done unless that's against your sovereign belief system..

1Here4Bach · 2022-05-01T12:23:27+00:00

I was told I was a eugenicist for only wanting to fuck men I found attractive lol.

cuckedalt · 2022-05-01T07:35:34+00:00

Human society operates fallaciously

Always has and always will

The fallacy fallacy

t_minus_420 · 2022-05-01T12:01:06+00:00

Would like this better with the most used examples of each

2022-05-01T15:01:57+00:00

I can't believe you snubbed my man tu quoque like this

RedPill115 · 2022-05-02T05:20:01+00:00

Strawman fallacy definitely #1 here.

Next up:
An appeal to pity relies on provoking your emotions to win an argument rather than factual evidence.

My favorite for this sub is Recycled 60's Feminist Narratives.

PM_ME_ZED_BARA · 2022-05-01T08:42:58+00:00

My favorite fallacy that PPD, my fellow researchers, and I sometimes make is Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. It's a fallacy where data that fit the trends or the hypotheses that people expect or propose are given more weight than data that do not.

This can happen when you want to know if a claim is true or not. You look for research and among what you find you notice that some research supports the claim, then you proceed to conclude that the claim is true.

A good way to avoid the fallacy is to ask whether you have given alternative hypotheses as much thought as you have given yours.

Another favorite fallacy is the Look-elsewhere effect. It happens where the more you search for things that are statistically significant, the more likely you will find things that appear statistically significant by chance.

ClaraBow01 · 2022-05-01T08:08:17+00:00

Good post

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Ylduts · 2022-05-01T10:43:48+00:00

Oooooh I loved my logic classes in college. The amount of logical fallacies on social platforms is insane. PPD being a debate type sub you would expect these to be called out more but it isn’t. Then again I don’t really view this place in that way.

hairy_bamboo · 2022-05-01T10:55:49+00:00

I'd like to add about pick 2, while correlation does not always imply causation, it's one of the most commom connections, yet ppd always likes to go "ehem, correlation doesn't mean causation" and it's quite annoying

DifferenceEconomyAD · 2022-05-01T12:42:15+00:00

Forgot fallacy fallacies.

2022-05-02T02:10:22+00:00

Idk if this is the same but whataboutsim is so common by both sexes and tho I get why, because usually you’re trying to compare situations with a similar point, sometimes I feel like “okay yes the other sex, does this which is similar but I’m not talking about that right now”

Idk. A little bit is okay when it’s offering perspective but sometimes it feels like you can’t get a point across without someone being like WELL WHAT ABOUT PATERNITY FRAUD

BlackPorcelainDoll · 2022-05-02T23:50:30+00:00

Logical fallacies only apply if there are arguments being had, which I see little. If anything, what is most common here is assertion(s) without argument. :)

But there are many unchecked biases here. My favorite is of all time is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declinism.

Title	PPD’s Top 5 favourite fallacies
Author	decoy88
Upvotes	44
Comments	89
Date	May 1, 2022 7:19 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/ufuhya/ppds_top_5_favourite_fallacies/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/ppds-top-5-favourite-fallacies.1113656 https://theredarchive.com/post/1113656

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