#logical fallacies

[fallacies-examples]

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.)

[unsolicited-opinions]

Feelings Don’t Care About Your Facts

Have you noticed that a lot of people on social media don't ever feel compelled to explain themselves?

You've seen this, right?

The folks who proclaim a strong moral view on a controversial topic...then use any excuse to avoid supporting it when they get any polite pushback or questions? The way personal feelings are elevated above objective facts or reasoning? The way they avoid or shut down any meaningful discussion?

I think this is caused by a set of related ideas and biases which are in ascendence and I think younger generations are more vulnerable to being manipulated by bad actors who capitalize on them.

Before we get into that, let's look at some of the ways this phenomenon manifests on social media...and the sorts of biases/concepts at play.

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"I’m just speaking my truth."

Translation: "Challenging the conclusions I draw from my emotional experience is immoral."

This converts subjective perception into absolute truth, which not only discourages fact-checking, counterpoints, or curiosity, but labels them as oppressive.

Bias/Concept: Emotional Reasoning, Subjective Validation

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"I don't have the emotional labor for this."

Translation: "I don't want be feel challenged, only validated."

This frames disengagement as a righteous act of self-care, rather than avoidance of intellectual discomfort.

Bias/Concept: Therapeutic Culture

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"I feel attacked."

Translation: "You’ve introduced an idea that unsettles me."

This reframes an intellectual disagreement as personal harm, making the speaker immune to critique.

Bias/Concept: Emotional Reasoning

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"That’s problematic"

Too often, this means "This topic made me feel bad, conflicted, or uncertain - and I don’t want to examine why."

It shuts down discussion without defining terms or explaining logic. It implies moral failure without needing to explain the moral reasoning.

Bias/Concept: Concept Creep, Virtue Signaling

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"Centering [X] is violence."

Translation: "I disagree with your priorities and framing that as harm makes me morally right."

This uses inflated, exaggerated, hyperbolic language to shut down any competing narratives or uncomfortable truths.

Bias/Concept: Concept Creep, Emotional Reasoning

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"It's not my job to educate you."

Translation: "I don’t want to explain, defend, or support my belief. That would risk them being challenged on their merits. I just want my feelings validated and for my community to affirm I have expressed the correct views."

This avoids meaningful dialogue by asserting moral high ground and demanding deference...without reciprocity.

Bias/Concept: Virtue Signaling, Social Identity Theory

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"As a [victim identity], I shouldn’t have to…"

Translation: "My group affiliation makes my views untouchable, questioning them makes you a bigot."

This uses identity to shield ideas from scrutiny. Lived experience becomes a veto power over disagreement.

Bias/Concept: Social Identity Theory, Motte and Bailey

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"This is trauma-informed."

Translation: "You can’t question this without being insensitive"

This weaponizes therapeutic language to preempt dissent. (My therapist HATES this one.)

Bias/Concept: Concept Creep, Therapeutic Culture

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"That’s giving [insert negative vibe or label]"

Translation: "Your argument feels like something I’ve been told to distrust"

This uses emotional associations instead of logic to delegitimize a person or point.

Bias/Concept: Emotional Reasoning, Subjective Validation

___

Do you see it?

Facts which conflict with feelings aren’t debated - they’re deemed hostile, even violent.

What all of these have in common is the primacy of emotion over reason.

Emotion isn’t the start of a thought for the people who make a habit of these behaviors - it's a substitute for thinking.

I don’t believe this shift is driven by malice or conscious dishonesty. Most people haven’t stopped caring about truth - they’ve simply come to discern what truth is through emotional resonance instead of through evidence or reasoning.

"Truth" now arrives on screens dressed in vibes and aesthetic cues tailored for their existing biases, bypassing critical thought and offering the dopamine-releasing comfort of certainty without the messy, time-consuming burden of understanding.

When Emotion Becomes Authority

Here's a recent example which is getting some deserved mockery in the last day or so:

I know, I know. listening to Theo Von talk about war is like listening a possum try to to sell you on cryptocurrency.

Scratch that - Theo Von is what we'd expect to see if a pair of Truck Nutz were to gain sentience in a laboratory accident.

Theo couldn't speak for his generation any more than a broken Roomba could speak for Artificial General Intelligence, but he's doing something here which is alarmingly and increasingly common for his generation of media personalities. He's using his feelings as a replacement for thinking.

...it feels to me...it just feels to me like it's a genocide that's happening...

Theo doesn’t check facts, definitions, sources, or context because he doesn’t have to. He just invokes a vibe, a moral mood. "It feels like genocide." That’s enough.

Theo has 3.9 million subscribers on YouTube. Estimates suggest his total reach is about 16.2 million people.

The Era of Vibe-Governed Reality

In 2025, truth is not discerned though evidence or reasoning, but through emotional resonance.

Feelings are like the new science, but they're peer-reviewed only by your immediate social circle and validated by the count of reshares.

This is NOT a crotchety right-wing Fox News viewer shaking his fist at clouds and ranting about "kids these days."

This isn't even a critique of liberalism or leftism (because I'm a lifelong left-leaning liberal who grew up in a liberal/socialist family).

It's an examination of what has become a common strategy for mass manipulation which is alarmingly effective, especially with younger generations.

The Water We Swim In

Political operatives and influlence campaigns from every perspective are capitalizing on it, too. Influence campaigns from Russia, Iran, and Qatar; PACs; lobbyist firms...everybody - and we don't really notice these maipulations any longer. Why don't we notice them?

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water? -David Foster Wallace

We don't notice because we're swimming in them.

Every day, we see provocative social media posts which prioritize shock value and emotional impact, aiming to capture attention and convey political stances through intense feelings rather than through facts or reasoned arguments.

Appeals to emotion have been used to bypass logic and reasoning for millennia.

You're probably familiar with these:

Every time anyone ever said "think of the children," you're supposed to clutch your pearls in fear and horror.

US War propaganda in WWII used emotional appeals like "I WANT YOU" or addressed attrocities meant to hit Americans in their emotional center.

Joseph Goebbel's speaches and films used fear, disgust, and resentment to enflame existing negative German feelings against Jews and other minorities.

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe constructed scenes of immense emotional intensity to provoke outrage and sympathy, especially among white Northern readers in hopes of galvinizing anti-slavery sentiment.

So appeals to emotion aren't new and aren't always dishonest.

What's new is the increasing, overwhelming spread of this way of reaching conclusions in our public discourse replacing other modes of communication, other means of persuasion, and other ways of "knowing" anything.

What's new is that our post-truth, postmodern academic models validate this.

What's new is how this is being weaponized against us, especially younger generations.

How We Turned "I Feel" Into the New "I Know"

This shift didn’t happen overnight. It’s the product of decades of cultural, technological, and psychological changes converging to create a perfect storm where feelings have become a replacement for thinking.

First, there’s the growing cultural emphasis on authenticity and personal experience as the highest forms of truth. This began as a perfectly reasonable corrective to rigid institutional authority and exclusionary narratives but has morphed into a worldview where subjective emotion is treated as inherently more valid than objective evidence.

At the same time, therapeutic culture expanded its reach beyond therapy offices into everyday life, encouraging people to view disagreements as trauma, debates as emotional violence, and intellectual challenge as psychological harm. The result of this is a protective reflex to avoid uncomfortable facts or nuanced arguments that might trigger emotional distress.

If this sounds familiar, note that it's something I've touched on before. The people doing this habitually don't take their positions based on moral principles, facts, context, nuance or reasoning because what motivates them is emotional comfort.

(Experiment: Keep this idea in mind while you're scrolling online and see it that rings true when people will not or cannot support their assertions.)

Social media platforms are engineered to maximize engagement, right? The fastest way to do that is by appealing directly to emotion—especially outrage, fear, and identity affirmation. Algorithms reward the most emotionally charged content because it keeps users scrolling, sharing, and commenting. Nuance, complexity, or even honest uncertainty rarely go viral; they don’t light up dopamine circuits the same way.

That's bad enough for our mental health, our intellects, and our public discourse, but the greatest danger is in how these emotional shortcuts to baseless conclusions create fertile ground for bad actors who want to manipulate public opinion en masse.

Your Feels, Their Power: A Beginner’s Guide to Being Played

Whether it’s state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, political operatives, or interest groups, these manipulators know exactly how to weaponize the primacy of emotion.

Russian Interference in the 2024 U.S. Elections

In the lead-up to the 2024 U.S. elections, Russian state actors engaged in disinformation campaigns aimed at undermining Democratic candidates and bolstering Republican ones. These efforts included spreading false narratives about candidates Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, such as fabricated stories of personal misconduct. The campaigns utilized social media platforms to disseminate emotionally charged content that resonated with specific voter demographics.

Operation Overload Targeting USAID

A Russian disinformation campaign known as "Operation Overload" targeted the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) by producing AI-generated fake news videos. One such video falsely claimed that USAID paid Hollywood celebrities to promote Ukrainian President Zelensky. This content gained significant traction after being shared by high-profile individuals on social media, illustrating how emotional manipulation can amplify disinformation.

Far-Right Exploitation of Social Media Platforms

Far-right groups have effectively used platforms like Instagram and TikTok to disseminate emotionally charged content targeting young audiences. By leveraging visually engaging media and exploiting platform algorithms, these groups spread divisive messages that often go unchecked due to inadequate content moderation.

Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior in Anti-Vaccine Campaign

During the COVID-19 pandemic, coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB) networks spread anti-vaccine misinformation across social media platforms. These networks used fake and duplicate accounts to amplify emotionally charged narratives, undermining public health efforts and exploiting fears related to the pandemic.

Bad actors craft messages designed not to inform or persuade through reason but to resonate emotionally - often through fear, anger, or identity-based grievance.

These messages bypass critical thinking by activating deeply held feelings or tribal loyalties.

Younger generations, raised in a world flooded with emotional messaging and taught to prioritize feelings as a moral compass, are especially vulnerable.

Social media doesn’t just deliver content, it delivers community validation. Likes, shares, and emojis, no shit, reinforce emotional responses as truths.

This isn’t just an accidental byproduct. It’s a deliberate strategy and it's been developed to an art form.

Polarization: By amplifying outrage and framing complex issues as zero-sum battles of good vs. evil, manipulators ensure people become entrenched in their “side” and reject any nuance.

Echo Chambers: Algorithms funnel users into filter bubbles where their emotional beliefs are constantly reinforced and opposing views are demonized or erased.

Identity Weaponization: Bad actors exploit identity politics to turn social groups into ideological fortresses where dissent is branded as betrayal or bigotry, shutting down dialogue and scrutiny.

Emotional Hijacking: They flood social feeds with rapid-fire emotional content, making thoughtful reflection impossible and replacing reasoned debate with knee-jerk reactions.

The result is a feedback loop. Emotional responses breed more emotional content, which breeds more disengagement from facts, nuance, or evidence...and the cycle repeats.

If you wonder why almost every attempt to have honest conversations about politics, culture, or identity have become so fraught and fractious, this is why.

So what can we do about it?

We’re definitely not going to get the platofrms to change their algorithms.

We’re not going to manage to out-meme every bit of authoritarian / antisemitic / bigoted propaganda.

We can't stop people from replacing thinking with feeling.

Maybe, though, we can push back in meaningful ways by starting with how we think, speak, and engage.

Feelings Are Real - But They’re Not Facts

Start with yourself. Recognize that emotions matter, but they don’t get the final word. Treat your emotional reactions as data, not conclusions.

Ask: Why am I reacting this way? Is there more to the story? Your habitual curiosity can interrupt the feedback loop.

Seek Discomfort (The Good Kind)

If everything you read confirms what you already believe, you’re not learning, you’re marinating. Deliberately engage with credible voices you disagree with. Not to convert, but to understand. Intellectual discomfort isn't harm, it’s a way to grow.

Don’t Outsource Your Thinking

If your arguments are mostly reshares and TikTok duets, you might be mistaking social validation for understanding. Read full articles. Watch entire interviews. When an assertion really appeals to you, ask yourself: "What evidence is this based on?" Then fact-check the evidence.

Value Nuance - Even When It’s Boring

Nuance doesn’t trend. It’s slow, hard, and less emotionally satisfying than hot takes.

It's’s also where truth lives. Learn to sit with complexity. Practice saying things like "It’s complicated," "I’m not sure yet," or "Both things can be true.

Stop Feeding the Rage Machine

Every time you rage-share a headline without reading it, or dunk on someone for clout, you are feeding the same system you claim to hate. Don’t give your attention to people or platforms that reward outrage over insight. (I need to work on this.)

Reward Substance Over Vibes

Like, comment on, and share posts that show integrity, humility, and reasoned thinking - even if they’re not flashy. That’s how we might tilt the algorithm. Influence is a numbers game. Elevate voices that model real thought.

Normalize Saying "I Don’t Know"

Admitting uncertainty isn't weakness, it’s maturity. It’s how real conversations happen. When someone asks for your take, it’s okay to say, "I’m still figuring it out" or "I want to learn more first." You're not required to have a take on everything.

Ask Better Questions

When someone makes an emotional claim, don’t attack - ask. Not "How could you believe that?" but "What led you to that view?"

Good faith questions can defuse bad faith conversations.

Protect Conversations Like They Matter (Because They Do)

Modeling intellectual honesty and emotional maturity in your own circles has a ripple effect. Be the one who brings it back to evidence, back to reason, back to shared humanity. Conversations are culture-shaping.

Remember That Culture Is a Team Sport

We got into this mess together, and we’ll get out the same way. Culture is just the cumulative effect of individual choices repeated at scale. Choose better. Think better. Talk better.

You don’t have to be louder than the noise.

You just have to be saner.

[incognitopolls]

Brief definitions:

Ad Hominem: Trying to undermine the opponent's arguments by using personal attacks rather than logical argument

False Dilemma: Presenting two alternative states as the only possibilities when more possibilities may exist

Bandwagon: Presuming that a proposition must be true because many believe it to be true/everyone else is doing or saying it

Incomplete Comparison: Comparing two things that aren't really related, in order to make something more appealing than it would be otherwise

Strawman: Misrepresenting an argument so that it becomes easier to attack

False Cause: Citing sequential events as evidence that the first event caused the second

Slippery Slope: Claiming that a single event will lead to a series of events that would lead to one major event, or that event A will lead to event B which must lead to event C and so on until event Z

False Analogy: Assuming that if two things or events have similarities in one or more respects, they are similar in other properties too

Guilt by Association: Connecting an opponent to a demonized group of people or to a bad person in order to discredit their argument

Hasty Generalization: Making a claim based on evidence that is too small to prove the claim

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[whatbigotspost]

I’m gonna start coining tumblr specific cognitive biases and logical fallacy terms…here’s the first ones I’ve theorized so far. (I’m using “actor” here meaning “the person, acting out the fallacy or bias for us all to see.”)

1. The unique contribution fallacy—reading a post of over 10k notes and the actor thinks of something they surmise is very clever to add. The actor imagines themselves to be the first special unique soul to contribute this add, when OP has actually received this “clever” comment 5000 times of those 10,000 notes driving OP up the wall.

2. The whataboutism bias— reading a post on any given particular topic, and believing that OP should say every single thing that you could possibly say about that topic under said single post. The actor doesn’t know they have a personal agenda on the topic and expects OP would have that same bias to talk about the side of the given topic that correlates to the actor’s personal bias, instead of allowing OP to be somebody who just writes what they wanted to write. This often works in tandem with… 

3. The TLDR bias— seeing a post that is actually extremely long and thoroughly well written, often times with sources, numerous added threads of detail etc. but the actor doesn’t actually read the content of the FULL post. Then, in reblogging it or commenting on it, “adding” something that OP definitely originally said, and revealing oneself as somebody who doesn’t even read the detailed things that they re-blog or add on comments about.

3. The literal URL fallacy— not understanding the total chaos that is the Tumblr URL, in this fallacy the actor thinks that someone’s username is ALWAYS telling you exactly what the content of their blog might be. I’ll illustrate this one in like a totally random example way… Let’s say that you hypothetically made a blog that was all about calling out bigots back in the days of yore, the early twenty teens. And yet somehow, despite the fact that every other user around you seems to not be taken literally by their URLs, the actor decides that everything that you post is therefore bigotry…….even if what you’re posting is your own original content that you’re writing, calling out bigots. Too bad, so sad! Because in this fallacy, the actor is going to see you as what your URL says, literally, always.

4. The missed URL fallacy— this of course is the exact opposite of number three. It is where a blog has a very particular theme and format to it, that is the most important thing you can notice to understand the context of a post. So, again, just a random example here… But let’s just say that the intent of a blog is to always post submitted weird ass dreams people had, but the actor doesn’t realize this in their relogging and thinks that somebody is reporting a real life situation that was definitely, very specifically a wild fever dream.

5. The throw the baby out with the bathwater bias— a fan favorite among left leaning and social justice corners of the site, this bias is when the actor reads a post where somebody doesn’t use the most optimal, virtue signaling language for them personally, so the actor ignores the whole entire point of the post. It could be something as serious as and attention demanding as genocide, but somebody uses a word like “crazy” or “stupid” or “bitch” in it and so the actor’s worldview and general proclaimed values are casually tossed aside because the language that was used to deliver it was not “perfect.”

6. The choose your own reality bias—The actor reads a post and reblogs it, adding commentary that is responding to things that are definitely not said in the original post and definitely not anything in the realm of what OP was talking about. Close cousin to…

7. The this is definitely about me/self-own fallacy— this one is actually one of my favorites to spot out in the wild because it is SUCH a tell. It is like a slightly more specific version of the “choose your own reality bias” but this is when the actor reads a post and blogs it, adding commentary that is responding to things that are definitely not said in the original post as if OP is talking about them personally, and therefore revealing themselves as potentially shady or suspect in someway because why did they make it about them, if it’s not about them, you know?

8. The zombie post fallacy—in this one, the actor most likely does not have time stamps enabled on their dash because that isn’t something that happens here by default, and this site has a higher presence of zombie posts (by the way its designed and how it functions) than any other social media site I know. So when a zombie post from 2011 shambles across their dash in 2024, they react to that content as if it is completely new and relevant information or news or a situation to be dealt with in the modern era.

What needs added?

[pandemic-info]

A Review of Filtration Performance of Protective Masks - PMC

With H5N1 reported in at least two* humans in the past month, we need to talk about airborne transmission and how masks work. Again.

(*edit: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/oregon-reports-first-h5-case-farm-worker-california-reports-5-more)

Is flu airborne?

Generally yes. Even if it is not the most efficient mode of transmission for every virus.

Citations:

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/testing-transmission-infection-h5n1-cows

https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2023/12/clearing-air

"...recently measured how often virus is exhaled by people with the flu. He found that about 80% exhaled some influenza, the virus that causes flu. Most of the virus was found in the tiny airborne aerosols. People didn’t have to cough or sneeze to expel these viruses into the air. The flu virus was detectable in the air after normal breathing and talking."

Do N95 masks protect against viruses smaller than 300 nm (.3 microns)?

Also yes, because masks do NOT work like a sieve:

N95s employ electrostatic filtering to keep viruses stuck to the mask rather than passing through.

Brownian motion (particles moving through fluids / air randomly) also helps them get stuck to the surface.

And this is why you don't want to be touching the front of your mask, nor storing it improperly. For example, if you take it off and put it in your pocket, and then your hand later goes in that same pocket, then wipes your nose...

See also:

For the time being it should be relatively easy to avoid other modes of transmission since we have protective measures for public health — like pasteurization. But certain individuals who entertain "alternative facts" directly state that they want to dismantle such protections in favor of Appeal to Nature fallacy (e.g. "raw milk is best"), and they are currently being picked to lead government agencies.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Logical Fallacies

A logical fallacy occurs when an argument is not adequately supported.

This can be the result of errors in reasoning, a lack of evidence, the author’s use of irrelevant points, or other reasoning moves that do not logically support the argument.

Advertisers, salespeople, politicians, and others might use logical fallacies to manipulate you.

Argument to the People (Appealing to Stirring Symbols)

Involves using a visual symbol (the American flag, pictures of babies, “Support the Troops” bumper sticker, etc.) of something that much of the public finds hard to reject but that has little relevance to the argument.

Example: Political candidates often use the American flag and other patriotic symbols in TV ads to appeal to and persuade citizens to vote for them.

Appeal to Pity (Ad misericordiam)

A verbal version of Argument to the People.

Example: A political candidate may tell stories about their life that are not connected to their platforms.

Like Arguments to the People, Appeals to Pity are fallacious if they are irrelevant to the argument in question; pity for the candidate should not be a reason why citizens vote for them.

In some cases—for example, when soliciting money for people whose incomes are below the federal poverty threshold or for the Humane Society—appeals to pity may be legitimately used.

Erroneous Appeal to Authority

Example: Years ago, a commercial for Bufferin Aspirin used Erroneous Appeal to Authority by featuring people on the street lining up to ask Angela Lansbury, a popular actress at the time with no medical authority whatsoever, questions about the pain reliever.

Ad Hominem (“to the person”)

Involves a personal attack on the character of the opponent rather than on the argument itself.

Example: Criticizing a restaurant because the chef is “too skinny,” rather than focusing on the merits of the restaurant’s food, service, atmosphere, or other relevant aspect is an ad hominem attack.

However, an ad hominem argument that is relevant to the issue (“Rinalda Gooch will not make a good President because she faints every time she tries to make a speech”) is not a logical fallacy.

Shifting the Issue (Red Herring)

Refers to the arguer’s changing the subject to avoid dealing with an unpleasant aspect of the argument.

Example: When a reporter questioned candidate Stone about her past marijuana use, she responded, “Why haven’t you asked my opponent about his drinking?”

Hasty Generalization

Means to argue on the assumption that an entire group shares the same traits as one or two examples of that group.

Example: “Women should not be considered for high political office because they’re too emotional to make thoughtful decisions.”

Appeal to Popularity (Bandwagon)

An argument based on the premise that an idea or product has merit just because it is popular.

Example: “All the cool kids are wearing Stinko sneakers this season,” the saleswoman told the boy. “You don’t want to be left out, do you?”

Begging the Question

Involves “supporting” an argument by stating the argument in different words.

Example: “We need to bomb evildoers because they are guilty of horrendous acts,” basically restates the claim (evildoers are people who do evil) instead of stating a reason why bombing the “evildoers” is a good thing to do.

Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc

An argument that uses Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc (“after this, therefore because of this”) illogically suggests that because one event followed another, the first event caused the second to occur.

Example: “The fact that students cut their hair over the weekend and their test scores were higher on Monday shows that shorter hair leads to good grades.”

False Dilemma or Dichotomy (Either/Or)

This argument attempts to sway opinion by making it seem as if the only alternative to a proposed argument is one that is obviously unacceptable.

Example: “We must fight the enemy in their land so they don’t follow us to ours” suggests -- but does not attempt to show -- that one country’s aggression is the only way to decrease another country’s aggression.

The Slippery Slope

This argument attempts to dissuade people from taking or allowing a specific action because it might cause a particular condition to spiral out of control – no matter how far-fetched.

Example: “Legalizing same-sex marriage could lead to legalizing marriage between people and their pets!”

If these notes are helpful in your writing, do tag me, or send me a link to your work. I would love to read it!

Writing Notes & References

[creature-wizard]

Critical Thinking in Witchcraft and Spirituality: Some Logical Fallacies You Might Find

Ad Hominem: Asserting that something is true or false depending on its source. If someone claimed that gravity obviously isn't real because it came from Isaac Newton, an occultist, that would be an Ad Hominem attack.

Appeal to Anecdotal Evidence: It's not that anecdotes can't contain meaningful information, per se. It's that anecdotes don't always tell the whole story, and they aren't inherently trustworthy - consider all of the people who said they were beaten as kids and grew up just fine. Likewise, if someone tells you that they recovered from cancer after filling their room with crystals and meditating regularly, it doesn't inherently suggest that crystals and meditation cured their cancer. This person might have experienced spontaneous remission.

Appeal to Common Belief: When someone claims that a thing must be true (or is especially likely to be true) because many people believe in it. For example, "many people believe Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials in ancient times, there must be something to it." In reality, the reason many people believe this is because there is a proliferation of media that claims it happened.

Appeal to Emotion: When someone argues that the way a thing makes you feel is essentially evidence for or against it. An example of this are spiritual leaders/guides who tell you that you can discern truth by asking yourself whether it makes you feel good and uplifted, or whether it makes you feel fearful or angry. In reality, cult leaders often engage in practices that manipulate people's emotions, effectively conditioning them to associate certain feelings with whatever they want. This isn't to say that your feelings are unimportant and you should never listen to them, but you should always apply critical thinking before making any big decisions or deciding what you should believe.

Another form of this fallacy is assuming that if someone is passionate, then they must be right. "He was really passionate about what he said, he spoke with a lot of conviction, therefore there must be truth in what he said" - again, this is how a lot of cult leaders getcha.

It can include thinking that feeling bad must mean you're on the right track. "When the pastor talked about sin, I felt so guilty and knew I needed God's divine grace" - lots of people can make you feel guilty, it doesn't mean they're right.

This fallacy can include the absence of feelings, too. "He spoke so calmly, I knew he had to be completely rational." That's how a lot of pseudointellectuals getcha.

Appeal to Irrelevant Authority: When someone claims that a thing must be true because a famous and respected person believed in it. For example, "Isaac Newton believed in God, therefore God must exist." Rather than examining Newton's particular reasons for believing in God, the person making this argument just expects you to assume that Newton's (allegedly) superior intellect made him incapable of error, and that you should just outsource your own thinking to him.

Appeal to Nature: When someone claims something must be good because it's (at least supposedly) natural. For example, "herbal remedies are superior because they're all natural." While it's true that herbal remedies can be useful, it doesn't follow that they're inherently better - much less safer. Kava, which has been used to treat anxiety and depression, has caused severe liver damage in some cases. Lead and UV rays are also 100% natural.

Appeal to Tradition: Asserting that something must be correct or better because it's traditional. For example, "the ancients believed the earth was flat, so it must have been true." Also, "people have believed in Hell for thousands of years, so it must exist."

Genetic Fallacy: Asserting that something must be good/bad or true/false depending on where it came from. While it's true that claims that come from known bad faith actors should be given extra scrutiny, it doesn't follow that everything they say must be wrong. The world doesn't spontaneously turn flat just because the worst person you know said it was round. A visualization exercise isn't inherently bad for you just because a New Ager came up with it.

Misleading Vividness: Constant exposure to certain types of information or certain types of people can create a false impression about the world at large. An well-known example of this is when people on Tumblr assume that the average person out there in the world has an opinion on (insert topic of Tumblr discourse here).

Here's another example: when you go through Law of Assumption success stories and see numerous people claiming they manifested all of this amazing stuff, it's easy to think that this practice must be working really well for everyone. But if you're on a blog or tag where success stories are curated, there's going to be a huge selection bias here. And with how many people are shamed and bullied into silence when they come forward and say that the LOA didn't work for them, and with Living in the End providing an incentive for people to claim success they might not actually have, it's difficult to be sure what the actual success to failure ratio actually is.

Post Hoc: When someone claims that if X happened after Y then X caused Y without providing any supporting evidence, that's the Post Hoc fallacy. For example, "I knew a girl who cast a money spell, and one week later her grandpa died! This is proof that magic calls on evil forces and always comes with a price!" is this fallacy.

Critical questions to avoid falling for these fallacies:

Is this the whole picture, or is something being left out?

Has this been repeatedly tested to see if the same results happen each time?

Is this really how things always work, or are there counterexamples?

Where is the research? Where is the actual data?

[brainvomit]

I made a minizine about logical fallacies (some info is directly from my notes/some activities I use for my high school class). Feel free to print it out for free and leave it around if you want. It's meant to be cut in half and folded to a 1/4 page size: the pages above are ordered already for collating (back cover/front cover, pg 1/pg 6, pg 5/pg 2, pg 3/pg 4)

[little-frizzle]

Logical Fallacies with The Owl House

Appeal to False Authority (Eda: "According to these human workouts, you just gotta scream a lot until you force your inner beast out.")

[hyperlexichypatia]

So many ableist and queerphobic (and probably other kinds of bigoted, but I know more about those two) arguments, under examination, just boil down to a teleological fallacy. And we've got to start deconstructing that fallacy at the root if we're going to keep those same arguments from crawling back out of the ooze.

There is no physical attribute or biological process, in humans or any other species, that is "supposed to" or "intended to" or "meant to" be a certain way. That is not a meaningful concept.

"People are supposed to be able to walk a mile without assistance."

No. Perhaps most people can walk a mile without assistance, but many people cannot. There is no "supposed to."

"People with ovaries are intended to be able to get pregnant."

No. Many people with ovaries are able to get pregnant, and some are not. There is no "intended to."

"People are designed to have XX or XY chromosomes."

No. Most people have XX or XY chromosomes, but many do not. There is no "designed to."

"Your child should be sitting up and responding to words when they're 6 months old."

No. Many children are sitting up and responding to words when they're 6 months old, but some are not. "Should" has no place here.

Too often, well-meaning people try to rebut these arguments with some kind of "accepting" teleological argument for "why" disabled/queer people might exist.

"Maybe autistic people exist to be lone shepherds watching the flock. Maybe gay people exist to be adoptive parents for orphans. Maybe people with Down syndrome exist to be peacekeepers and mediators. Maybe ADHD people exist to be creative problem-solvers"

No. These may be social roles that may be well-suited to some people's strengths, but they're not the reason that anyone exists, because people don't exist for a reason. Autistic people exist. Gay people exist. People with Down syndrome exist. ADHD people exist.

This also opens the door to people arguing "What about the BAD disabilities, that don't have a function? What about cancer? What about Tay-Sachs disease? What about cystic fibrosis? What about major depressive disorder? Surely THOSE disabilities aren't supposed to exist!"

And yet they do. People with cancer exist. People with Tay-Sachs disease exist. People with cystic fibrosis exist. People with major depressive disorder exist. They deserve rights and dignity and equality because they are people who exist.

Some people will try to get around this by using "evolved to." "People evolved to practice heterosexual reproduction. People evolved to have two legs and be able to run."

But evolution isn't goal-oriented. It just happens. Having two legs and running and reproducing heterosexually are predominant human traits, but clearly, they are not necessary ones, because you can look around and see people who don't have two legs, people who can't run, people who don't practice heterosexual reproduction.

To be clear, I'm coming from the starting premise that there is no specific "intent" or "purpose" to the biological diversity of life, but I'm not saying that if you do believe in something like creationism or intelligent design, that also isn't a good justification for ableism or queerphobia, because the full range of life's diversity still very much exists. "God didn't make Adam and Steve!" Well, and yet, there, standing before you, are two men, Adam and Steve, partnered to each other, so either you think they weren't created by God (sounds heretical, but what do I know?) or you must accept that Xe did, in fact, create Adam and Steve.

[unsolicited-opinions]

Correlation ≠ Causation

[Signal > Noise: Think critically and habitually]

[incognitopolls]

Brief definitions:

Ad Hominem: Trying to undermine the opponent's arguments by using personal attacks rather than logical argument

False Dilemma: Presenting two alternative states as the only possibilities when more possibilities may exist

Bandwagon: Presuming that a proposition must be true because many believe it to be true/everyone else is doing or saying it

Incomplete Comparison: Comparing two things that aren't really related, in order to make something more appealing than it would be otherwise

Strawman: Misrepresenting an argument so that it becomes easier to attack

False Cause: Citing sequential events as evidence that the first event caused the second

Slippery Slope: Claiming that a single event will lead to a series of events that would lead to one major event, or that event A will lead to event B which must lead to event C and so on until event Z

False Analogy: Assuming that if two things or events have similarities in one or more respects, they are similar in other properties too

Guilt by Association: Connecting an opponent to a demonized group of people or to a bad person in order to discredit their argument

Hasty Generalization: Making a claim based on evidence that is too small to prove the claim

–

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[renegade-hierophant]

Humans see correlation where there is none because of nomenclature.

For example.

On a forum/sub/discord etc. dedicated to studying Latin, nobody is going to post a question whether learning Latin will help them understand French.

But on a forum dedicated to studying Ancient Greek, you'll get a question at least once a week about whether learning Ancient Greek will help them understand Modern Greek.

Why?

Because both "Ancient Greek" and "Modern Greek" have the word "Greek" in them, while "Latin" and "French" don't share a common word. On top of that French is classified as a "Romance" language, which also doesn't sound like the word "Latin".

[pandemic-info]

Reposting via a redditor; re:

Is there a sound argument for why people aren’t taking this seriously?

Why do they think that way? https://essaysyoudidntwanttoread.home.blog/2022/10/09/why-do-they-think-that/? 7 psychological defense mechanisms used to downplay covid https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1737582325779624059.html? How to hide a pandemic https://howtohideapandemic.substack.com/p/how-to-hide-a-pandemic Cognitive Dissonance & Ableism https://www.tiktok.com/@fka.monstersincooperated/video/7360285749574421802 Anti-social punishment https://www.tiktok.com/@creative.neurospice/video/7269910082769653038 NYT: Why People Fail to Notice Horrors Around Them (helplessness & habituation) https://archive.is/wVL85 [article about the ongoing right to avoid infection. ... how people just can't really face reality due to death anxiety] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/side-effects/202309/how-to-socialize-during-a-pandemic Increased risk-taking behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: psychological underpinnings and implications https://www.scielo.br/j/rbp/a/TPpQKTwfqTH5Q8qKghRkWpf/?format=pdf&lang=en Cognitive Biases https://www.instagram.com/p/C8TdduJMtKH/ We’ve Hit Peak Denial. Here’s Why We Can’t Turn Away From Reality https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weve-hit-peak-denial-heres-why-we-cant-turn-away-from-reality/ Difficulties in Understanding Population Risk versus Individual Risk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2X_HRfJpio&list=LLkcwJR5kj80dAQNAT83d1NQ&t=2522s

See also:

Normalcy bias

Semmelweis reflex

Just-world fallacy

Survivorship bias

Compassion fatigue

Sunk cost fallacy

Learned helplessness

Informational social influence

Ableism

Nihilism

[tobeabatman]

Two common logical fallacies (fat) activists constantly hear

Fatphobes LOVE red herring fallacies and strawman arguments. So let’s learn what they are together.

A red herring fallacy is a logical fallacy where a person responds saying something that might at first glance seem related to the actual topic at hand, but you’ll soon realize it’s not actually related and is just meant to take attention away from the actual topic and switch the topic at hand.

An example:

”Ozempic is not meant to be a weight loss drug and using it might cause many side effects that might mess with someone’s health, such as constant back pain. People need to consider whether possible weight loss is worth the side effects, and also the possible long-term effects from ozempic misuse that we’ve yet to discover”

Red herring: ”Well, dying at age 40 at 300 lb will also ’mess with your health’”

A strawman argument on the other hand is when one person asserts something that attempts to misrepresent the original message

An example:

”I love my fat body!”

A strawman argument: ”Oh, so you hate thin people then?”

I know most people are familiar with strawman arguments but I hope you guys also familiarize yourselves with red herring fallacy as it is super commonly used as a response to fat activists. It is also used in a lot of arguments, I’d say it’s probably the most common logical fallacy used in all types of online arguments, (for some reason especially by men. It’s very prominent in men’s arguments against feminists), so it’s very important to learn to recognize it by name.

[magnetothemagnificent]

One type of misinformation and logical fallacy I really hate is an appeal to authority but it's an appeal to an authority in one field that absolutely doesn't translate to authority in another and yet no one seems to know that or care.

Like you know that joke about someone asking if there's a doctor on the plane and someone with a PhD or something raises their hand? Like that but if like. A PhD in History or whatever decided to perform a medical procedure and no one stopped them and in fact cheered them on because they didn't know the difference between an MD and a PhD.