fallacies-examples

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cat is warm and sits on your lap. laptop is warm and sits on your lap. therefore, laptop is kibty?

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That's by choice, I don't want my personhood and ideas to get in the way of the education

I have no pronouns and no identity

whenever I see gimmick blogs I don't consider that they have a separate main blog or anything else. That's just what they do all the time. God put them on the internet to count the number of lobsters in other posts and nothing else.

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thank you very much for tagging me but i did actually manage to see this earlier lol

most murders are committed be people known to the victim, but next to zero murders are committed by men with meat hooks for fingers, so children are statistically safer around meat fingers than anyone else.

There's probably a name for this logical fallacy but I'm too tired to look it up right now.

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most murders are committed be people known to the victim, but next to zero murders are committed by men with meat hooks for fingers, so children are statistically safer around meat fingers than anyone else.

There's probably a name for this logical fallacy but I'm too tired to look it up right now.

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Correlation ≠ Causation

[Signal > Noise: Think critically and habitually]

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I'm not exactly sure what the term for this type of "damned if you don't, damned if you do" fallacy, but it's pretty much antisemitism 101. It basically comes down to starting from the conclusion (Jews/Israel are evil) and then giving whatever explanation of the facts you need to make your forgone conclusion look true.

As Arthur Conan Doyle put it, "twisting facts to fit theories rather than theories to fit facts."

(Here's an article about the study referenced in the second to last reblog. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/124674)

I think circular reasoning is the closest to what you're talking about. Circular reasoning is when the premises are supported by the conclusion and the conclusion is supposed by the premises (technically speaking an example that is like "jews are evil because they do xyz, xyz is evil because jews do it and they're evil so it must be" would be a more classic use of the fallacy but i think this fits too.)

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Can you explain how Zionism, which specifically calls for an all-Jewish Israel, therefore necessitating extermination of all others, *isn't* fascist?

Zionism, Fascism, and Loaded Questions

Anon's logical fallacy is The Loaded Question. 

The Loaded Question is a rhetorical tactic which embeds controversial, unjustified, unsupported, or false assumptions into the question itself. The goal is to force the responder to either:

Answer within the false frame

or

Reject the premise entirely, often at the cost of appearing evasive.

Anon will know in the future that this sort of rhetorical dishonesty works far better verbally. 

Doing it in writing gives the responder the opportunity to dissect the dishonesty and display its innards like a specimen in formalin.

(The metaphor works because what's on display is both repulsive and educational.)

First lie: "Zionism calls for an all-Jewish Israel"

No, it doesn't.

Zionism is the movement for Jewish national self-determination in a portion of the historic land of Israel, to which the Jewish people are indigenous.

That's it. 

Nothing about "only Jews allowed." Nothing about kicking everyone else out. Nothing about "extermination."

Israel's founding documents are explicitly pluralistic. 

From Theodore Herzl's Der Judenstaat:

Every man will be as free and undisturbed in his faith or his disbelief as he is in his nationality. And if it should occur that men of other creeds and different nationalities come to live amongst us, we should accord them honorable protection and equality before the law.

Israel's 1948 Declaration of Independence includes:

The State of Israel… will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture…

It also pledges to "Safeguard the Holy Places of all religions," and has consistently kept those promises. Talk to religious minorities in Israel and they'll tell you. (The Baha'i faith originated in Iran, but the Islamic regime has endlessly persecuted them. Their world headquarters is in Israel.)

The State of Israel has always had a sizable non-Jewish population and was founded with a commitment to equal rights for all its citizens regardless of religion or ethnicity. In 1948, Israel had about 156,000 Arab citizens. It has over 2 million Arab citizens today who vote, hold office, and serve in the judiciary and military.

If Zionism really called for an all-Jewish state, Israel wouldn't have:

21% non-Jewish citizens (mostly Arab)

Arab Supreme Court justices

Arab parties in the Knesset...including Antizionist parties

A movement which calls for extermination does not preserve voting rights and legal protections to those it supposedly seeks to destroy.

You don't have to like Zionism, Anon, but you don't get to invent your own definition for it.

Second  Lie: "Necessitating extermination of all others"

This is more than a lie, it's incitement.

Like falsely yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, the aim isn't to warn, but to provoke panic and hostility. The charge weaponizes moral outrage through fabricated stakes, collapsing any possibility for honest discourse under the weight of its dishonesty.

There is no Zionist doctrine that calls for extermination.

None.

I'd like to believe Anon has simply been misled by propaganda, but it's more likely they’re repeating this falsehood knowingly.

This accusation doesn’t come out of nowhere, it plays on longstanding antisemitic tropes.

For centuries, Jews have been accused of plotting secret control, poisoning wells, harvesting organs, and killing children. The idea that Jews need others to disappear in order to be free is one of the more recent remixes of that tune.

Like Holocaust inversion, it accuses Jews of the very crimes committed against them. In this case, the ideology that gave rise to the actual genocide of Jews, fascism, is being projected onto Jews...for building a refuge against it.

That's more than  intellectually lazy. It's morally bankrupt.

Third lie: "Isn't that fascism?"

Words mean things. Specific things.

Fascism is not a term for "stuff I don’t like." It's a political ideology characterized by:

Authoritarian, centralized power

Suppression of dissent

Ethnic supremacy

Militarism and expansionism

The glorification of violence and obedience

Fascism was pioneered in Mussolini’s Italy, developed in Franco’s Spain, and perfected by Hitler’s Germany, the regime which murdered six million Jews while the world looked the other way.

It resulted in book burnings, secret police, mass exterminations, and world war.

Zionism, by contrast, is a democratic national movement. It exists across the political spectrum from far left to socialist to liberal to conservative to far right. It includes Orthodox Jews and secular atheists. It's messy, contested, and noisy. Israeli politics are combative and often infuriating, but Israel is not monolithic, authoritarian, or totalitarian. Israel has free press, regular elections, and independent courts. That's democracy, not fascism. Like all democracies, it is deeply flawed and not remotely comparable to fascist regimes.

If Israel was expansionist, it would not have given the Sinai (larger than Israel itself) back to Egypt for peace. If it was militaristic, it would have started at least some of the wars it has been forced to fight by being attacked.

Anon may not like nationalism, and that's fine if Anon is willing to condemn all nations similarly.

Anon may not like religion playing a role in state identity, and that’s fine if Anon also condemns the other ~80 countries which make religion part of their national identity.

But Anon is focused only on Israel. Huh.

Crying Wolf/Fascism

If they truly oppose fascism (as we all should), Anon should understand that diluting the meaning of the word through strategic misuse is a gift to actual fascists.

When you misuse the word fascism, you weaken its meaning. The word loses its power to describe real threats and that helps those threats go unrecognized. Movements which thrive on confusion and historical amnesia benefit from the kind of fog this strategic, dishonest misuse of the word creates. 

You're not calling out fascism, Anon. You're helping clear the way for it.

Turn out your pockets!

This indictment-disguised-as-a-question has three major components:

"Zionism means all-Jewish Israel." (False)

"All-Jewish Israel requires exterminating others." (False and inflammatory)

"That sounds like fascism." (Only if you rewrite history and all dictionaries)

This method of framing falsehoods as questions is common in conspiratorial thinking and was once seen mostly on the political far right (Tucker Carlson is famous for it).

It works by bypassing critical scrutiny. It attempts to shift the burden of proof onto the accused and then demands they explain why they're not guilty of something they never did.

Jews recognize this for what it is immediately because it's very familiar to us.

There’s an old Jewish saying:

The antisemite doesn't accuse the Jew of stealing because he thinks he stole something. He does it because he enjoys watching the Jew turn out his pockets to prove his innocence.

As Haviv Rettig Gur put it:

They’ve only got one trick. This is that trick. They think words are weapons, so they throw them around mindlessly and see what sticks.

Why Does This Seem Plausible to Some People?

It confirms what they want to believe.

When people have decided to see Israel as a colonial, racist, or imperialist project, every fact get twisted to fit that framing.

Arabs in Israel? Tokenism.

Elections? Apartheid theater.

Self-defense? Genocide.

This is confirmation bias at its most toxic. They first decide that Zionism/Israel is evil, and then reinterpret or contort every detail as proof to fit that assertion, no matter how contradictory or nonsensical.

What’s Actually Going On Here

Here's the trick at the core of this question:

It turns Jewish survival into Jewish aggression. 

It takes the desire of a historically oppressed people to live in safety and reframes it as domination. 

It takes victims of fascism and accuses them of being fascists. 

It takes a people who have been repeatedly expelled, persecuted, and murdered…and accuses them of genocidal intent for wanting a homeland.

It's DARVO. (Ironically, antizionists love to accuse Israel of DARVO!)

Yes, these inversions are antisemitic, and not because they seek to criticize Israel. 

This trick is antisemitic because it demands that Jewish nationhood be uniquely criminalized and uniquely illegitimate…based on provable, unsupported lies.

You don’t need to support Israel's policies. Many Israelis don't. 

You don't need to agree with Zionism. About ~10% of Jews don't.

But if you're going to accuse an entire national movement of being inherently fascist, genocidal, and illegitimate, the burden of proof is on you, Anon.

You've offered no proof. Just buzzwords, historical inversions, and invented definitions.

That's most of what we see from the antizionist camp. 

Lies don't build peace. Slanders don't help Palestinians. Calling Zionism fascism won’t bring a Palestinian state closer, it just fuels hatred and pushes compromise further out of reach.

Zionism isn't above criticism because no national movement should be above criticism.

Criticism based on fiction, however, is propaganda. 

If you're sincerely interested in understanding Zionism (as a movement, a history, and a lived reality for millions of Jews), you need to start with what it is, not with what its enemies say it is.

The path to a better conversation (and maybe even a better future) starts with honesty.

TLDR:

Zionism isn’t fascism. It doesn’t call for extermination. It doesn’t seek ethnic purity. What it seeks is what nearly every people on Earth seeks: a place to live freely, safely, and with dignity.

If you have a problem with that only when it applies to the Jewish people, Anon, your issue isn’t Zionism.

Your issue is Judenhass.

[fallacies-examples]

fallacy-adjacent but I like it anyway

random anecdote for father's day: one time during a long car ride my dad asked me, "you're familiar with Murphy's Law, right?" and i was like "isn't that the one about how anything that can go wrong will go wrong?" and he said "yeah, exactly" and i said "why do you ask?" and he went "well, have you heard of Cole's Law?" and i said "no, actually, what's that?" and he said "it's mostly lettuce and carrots with a little dressing mixed in"

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i mean i follow a lot of you guys for a reason, no demographic (except maybe lawblr lol) has such command of argumentative rhetoric

really bold of antisemites to come onto jumblr and try to win an argument. like we are professional arguers. get clowned on. we have been arguing about stuff for fun for like 2,500 years. I dare you to win an argument. my family has had arguments about everything from the capabilities of shrimp to categorizing napkin positions. our religious texts are full of ditch digging specifications and property law and how deep one should bow in (x) situation. You cannot talk to a rabbi without getting at least one book recommendation. Come on give us a challenge instead of screaming buzzwords. You have to say we are lying because that is the only way for you to compete. Smh ...

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Palate cleanser logic puzzle

In the spirit of Hank Green, to prevent the onset of the Horrors im gonna have periodic breaks with a quick lil grid logic puzzle- my favourite type!

Here's this one's story: The International Bigfoot Sighting Registry (IBSR) has recorded a number of unusual witnesses accounts this year from different parts of Caribou County. Using only the clues below, match each witness to the month and time of his or her sighting, and determine the location in which it occurred.

Instructions under cut if you're new to the type

Put an X anywhere something can't be true (e.g. gloria could not have done the seryl forest event so put an X in the intersection between her and seryl forest) and an O on true things (thelma and seryl forest). Each category only has one for each person so you can put an X on everything else in the row/column the O is in. Eventually you will get a column or row with only one space left and you can put a new O and repeat until all the clues are addressed and the grid is full

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Appeal to authority: "proving" a claim by saying that since an authority said or did it it must be true, without any other evidence offered.

Moving the goalposts: changing the points made after an argument was satisfactorily refuted, retreating/changing meanings retroactively in a similar way to motte-and-bailey

Yes it is an actual fact that Adam Savage has spent his life in the shop but that doesn't negate the fact actual health and safety standards say he should be wearing a mask when spraying aerosols. His position as an authority in the maker sphere doesn't negate his disregard for safety and catherine acting like they didn't try to present their dad's anecdotal experience is unreasonable considering the MOST WIDESPREAD fallacy in the safety field is "well I did it for years and I'm fine" style anecdotal evidence. (You may also note they re-appeal to authority by bringing up their degree in epidemiology)

Genuinely I am bewildered by how anyone could interpret the first comment as anything other than insinuating that its safe because of the "personal story" quote unquote

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Aight so my friend @the-library-alcove was kind enough to send me some discord screenshots but tumblr absolutely nerfed the quality so I am going to transcibe the conversation for yall before I analyse it. I have done my best to pick colours with the b&w filter on my phone turned on in an attempt to make it as colourblind accessible as tumblr lets me but they don't exactly have high contrast options, my apologies

the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few

no that's stupid. Even star trek said that was nonsense

@ green First, kind of a rude response, don't you think? Second I posted that quote because of the similarity in the situations. Spock sacrificed himself to save the crew of the enterprise, and fearless sacrificed himself to save the rest of the nest

I'm over here heating my breakfast with the most dead look in my eyes istg-

Look i just want to nip that in the bud, the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few has been and will always be a stupid philosophy

[reply to im over here...] hugs

@ green Instead of just insulting it, why don't you explain what issues you have with it as a philosophy? Cause I gotta be honest, just throwing around "that's stupid" and "that's nonsense" doesn't do a lot to convince anyone of anything

Okay so the problem is it justifies a utilitarian mindset without acknowledging the long term problems or the value of the individual

finally got round to reading the new chapter 10/10 would recommend

I mean you're not going to find many well thought out philosophers in a single sentence

Like I usually go with the metaphor I saw used in Fake/Zero because it's a perfect criticism of the utilitarian mindset

[reply to finally got round...] that score is way too low

You have 500 people divided between two boats 300 on one 200 on the other both boats are sinking you are the only one who can fix the boats

10/10 these zeroes are actually teardrops

If you choose to fix the boat with 300 people the boat with 200 people will die. Lets say you make that choice. The remaining survivors divide again between two boats 200 on one 100 on the other. The same situation occurs. Because of the utilitarian choice youve killed more people than saved due to not thinking about the future and only going for the immediate quickest solution. the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few is stupid because life isnt like bread or coin it cant be weighed. im sorry if I was rude thats a major trigger for me

There is a bit more but it's not relevant so im keeping the post short (lol sure fallacies-examples this is definitely short). What we have ourselves here is self-contradiction fallacy: Where on earth did the second boat come from?? If you had an extra boat the whole time why would you let the 200 people drown? And if a random boat pops up why would the boat that fit 300 perfectly fine suddenly need to split between people? Even if there was a reason they split if one boat broke could the 100 not just go back on to the boat they left the 200 on?. A self contradiction is basically "mate, you make no sense, and the thing you said already proves that new thing wrong".

However, I do want to bring up another fallacy that green all but admitted to in the end. Rationalization (in the context of fallacies) is when someone offers up fake or illogical excuses for a claim because the real reasoning is embarrassing or unconvincing. Green's reasoning is what we in the logic biz would call "extremely contrived word salad" that doesn't need a discussion of fallacies to be obviously nonsense - But I don't think it's supposed to be logical. This may be too generous of a reading for me to make but I think they know someone who says "needs of the many" a lot and that person wasn't nice to them. Maybe that person even used "needs of the many" to justify doing something immoral to green. It would not surprise me if the real reason green makes this nonsense argument is because they think saying "hey, that specific phrasing strikes a nerve for me for unrelated-to-you-lot reasons, could we talk about utilitarianism as a whole instead?" is an uncomfortable argument to make even though these people seem like friends and it most likely would be better than how this played out.

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This entire thing is absolutey mad, library mate i appreciate your contributions immensely but I fear slightly for your mental health.

Biiig ol pile of fallacies going on here but im grabbing guilt by association because it's new to the blog.

Guilt by association is a variation of ad homenim where an individual who has an unfavorable reputation is linked to the arguer's opponent by a shared view or, in this case, use of a singular word (‽)

It is not corroborating your point. You are missing a middle term in your argument where you link the use of the word goy to the harmful beliefs of those people you mentioned specifically. Otherwise you're just making a "hitler drunk water" argument. (See I couldn't even isolate to one fallacy while trying 🥲 agreekstranger you don't have anywhere near enough grasp on logic to be locating yourself anywhere near political arguments. Although honestly you're probably dunking us all in a bucket of fallacies on purpose which i guess congratulations at being a skilled arsehole)

hey @ goyim could y'all reblog this if you're actually willing to listen to Jewish people and protect us?

we really need allies right now, and I know seeing this on people’s blogs could be comforting to other Jewish people.

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Been seeing Nirvana Fallacy-spouting idiots on the left whining about Biden a lot, so I’m just going to put this here:

In essence, since the US Government is a deeply corrupt and violent institution–which I do agree with–defeating Trump and electing Biden is not worthy of celebration, because Biden is not perfect.  Ergo, the person argues, we should stop celebrating Trump’s loss.

This is stupid.

We know that Biden is not perfect.  But saying that we shouldn’t celebrate the defeat of a fascist and attempted dictator because his replacement isn’t perfect and ideal is absurd, and that sort of self-defeating attitude isn’t worth engaging with.  

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Ay lookit that, we've got an equivocation fallacy!

Equivocation changes the meaning of a word to make it easier to defend.

In this case, library-alcove is pretty clear that they are using the replacement related definition of missionising (a valid definition!) and shyocean is defending one that means just mentioning the religion to them. Double whammy here though almost an inverse equivocation - they responded to library's statement of "this is xenophobic" as if it was equivalent to "they need to give up their religion" which was NOT said. It's either a fallacy attempting to make library's position harder to defend, or a subtle admission that giving up participating in cultural genocide is so intrinsically part of these religions that giving it up would be giving up the religion itself. either of those things seem reasonable to argue honestly.

(But as an aside - if your religion REALLY cannot be observed without being intolerant to other cultures that's the paradox of tolerance at play and you do not ethically have the right to religous freedom in that case)

How many mass graves and extinct cultures are needed to convince Christian apologists that missionaries and missionizing are inherently xenophobic?

The answer is apparently always, "At least one more."

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No literally it's so common but the instant I started running this blog it was like those scenes in western movies where it's just tumbleweeds 😂

watching the oceangate documentary and they showed a 2 second news clip of a guy going "they dont want us to see the titanic wreck!" and im like...what the fuck does he think is down there? marine werewolves? and i googled him and. of course. "they" = the jews, who blew up the titanic with explosives (????) like can we have 1 outlandish conspiracy theory that's not antisemitic please 😭 yall are one trick ponies please take a creative writing class and grow