[onlooker]

18403173_10211737802894296_527246564800927612_n.jpg

I think this is useful for all of us to keep in mind as we debate each other

[MD]

Yes!

In my younger days I studied and practiced debate with a passion. It's a lost art, especially in social media which is rampant with fallacy.

I've mostly given up trying.

[Cog]

Proposition: The current price of oil reflects an overabundance in supply.

ETP Argument: "You stupid cornie. You are the same fools who believe the oil supply is infinite. Its all going to come crashing down and we are doomed".

[onlooker]

MD, yes people tend to use one or more of these fallacies when their argument is not inherently sound or when they are losing a debate.

Cog, I believe the example you illustrated would comprise both strawman and ad hominem, oh and we are doomed haha.

Squil, is similar to correlation is not causation
Ex. All insects are ugly therefore everything that is ugly are insects

[Tanada]

MD, yes people tend to use one or more of these fallacies when their argument is not inherently sound or when they are losing a debate.

Cog, I believe the example you illustrated would comprise both strawman and ad hominem, oh and we are doomed haha.

Squil, is similar to correlation is not causation
Ex. All insects are ugly therefore everything that is ugly are insects

Actually the most common example of post hoc I see around here is,
"The housing bubble popped right after oil hit $147/bbl, therefore $147/bbl oil is what caused the economic crash of 2008."

The problem with this fallacy is housing bubble effects were caused by bad Federal Reserve banking policy and Congressional promotion of the 'house for everyone even if they can't afford it' theory to buy votes. Those two policies directly lead to millions of people who could not afford the associated costs of home ownership to be actively encouraged to take out zero rate mortgages with very little down payment, all in contradiction to generations of knowledge gained after the crash of 1929 about who should be extended a mortgage loan. Just because crude oil prices happened to climb to record levels that summer had nothing at all to do with the fact that a bubble had formed and can only loosely be correlated with the timing at which the bubble burst. Every politician in America was hoping and maybe praying that things would hold together until about November 14, so they would get re-elected before the pop took place.

[onlooker]

I think though, T, you would have to admit that the skyrocketing Oil price not only accelerated the popping but made its aftermath worse. Did I just commit a fallacy hehe

[Cog]

I think though, T, you would have to admit that the skyrocketing Oil price not only accelerated the popping but made its aftermath worse. Did I just commit a fallacy hehe

Pretty much everything you post has a logical fallacy of some sort.

[onlooker]

I think though, T, you would have to admit that the skyrocketing Oil price not only accelerated the popping but made its aftermath worse. Did I just commit a fallacy hehe

Pretty much everything you post has a logical fallacy of some sort.

There you go an AD HOMINEM

[Tanada]

I think though, T, you would have to admit that the skyrocketing Oil price not only accelerated the popping but made its aftermath worse. Did I just commit a fallacy hehe

Yes you committed a fallacy, first if you read what I wrote I specified that the timing of the housing bubble popping was possibly influenced by the spike in oil prices. However the bubble would have still popped even if the price of oil had been a rock steady $30/bbl for the entire decade of the Aughties.

Secondly, in the aftermath of the bubble pop the oil price crashed to level about like those of 2005 in 2009 and were moderate even into early 2010, which should have been more than adequate time for a normal market crashing event to have substantially recovered. In fact the government officials on most levels were sure it would have cleared up by then and spent all of 2010 insisting the skies were clear again and we would all be experiencing smooth sailing from those days onward. By the time prices for crude had risen high enough to have a significant economic impact again it was pretty clear the economy was not recovering because the strategy of bailing out the big financial institutions did nothing to restore consumer buying power or confidence.

[onlooker]

because the strategy of bailing out the big financial institutions did nothing to restore consumer buying power or confidence.--- under that logic, wouldn't oil price perturbations also dampen investment enthusiasm and consumer confidence?

[Tanada]

because the strategy of bailing out the big financial institutions did nothing to restore consumer buying power or confidence.--- under that logic, wouldn't oil price perturbations also dampen investment enthusiasm and consumer confidence?

Sure, but as I pointed out prices didn't get back up into the painful level for about 18 months after the peak in August 2008, first they dove deep and then over a period of months clawed their way back up. During that price respite in crude oil/fuel the consumer economy did not recover. Too many people were wiped out by the housing bubble and the government bailouts all went to the banks without passing through the consumers on the way. If as I have been saying for nearly a decade the government had specified that the bailout money would be credited to the mortgage balances of the consumers it would have still been in the bank accounts of the big investment banks, but it would have also rest the burden on the consumers like myself who found themselves holding mortgages for homes that were now worth less than half of the purchase price from just a few years earlier. I and many of my neighbors found ourselves in the classic 'underwater mortgage', I owed nearly 90,000 on my house and the best offer I could get for it was 35,000. True by mid 2012 the value had climbed back up to 69,000 but it was still substantially underwater.

Now picture this scenario, the Government instead of bailing out the banks directly deposits 20,000 into every mortgage account as a principal payment. That would have dropped my debt from 90,000 to 70,000 and in the process have cut my monthly interest payment by about 200. After that my monthly payments would have been paying down the principal much more quickly. As a result by 2012 when the house value had recovered to 69,000 I would have built up a bit of principal balance by having paid the house down to 50,000 over those four years. Then when I lost my job in 2012 I could have sold the house and still had a chunk of principal to use to survive while looking for other work instead of ending up having my house foreclosed upon and losing the entire 20 percent down payment plus all of the principal payments I had made in the eight years I owned that house. Also having that chunk of principal would have enabled me to buy a less decrepit used car and take other actions that would have stimulated the consumer economy.

[onlooker]

Great informative post Tanada. Thanks

[Tanada]

@Tanada: I guess the issue is that the politicians aren't working for the general population. They work for the people that give them money and the people that form the major swing voter blocks. People going out and mindlessly voting for the same party for 40 years are next to irrelevant, and the people that don't vote are actually irrelevant. Probably if you look at the issues the 'swing voters' and major donors want to support you could find a very strong correlation with what the politicians actually do. It would have probably been a very smart move to give everyone a payment on their mortgage instead, but it would have negatively affected the wealthiest/oldest proportion of the population -- I.E. those that would actually vote and act to vote them out of office.
P.S. I'm sorry you lost your house.

Thanx, though it wasn't anyone specifics fault, just the way the numbers turned out, what burns me up is I put about two years net pay into the house as down payment, improvements and payments for the eight years I owned it and because of the bubble pop I lost that investment which was about ten years of eating bag lunches made from the cheapest food I could find so I could scrape up the investment. Then around 2009 the company I worked for got a major management change and they started eliminating staff who had been hired by the previous manager. I was the last holdout to get the boot, but even when you see it coming having people lie and fabricate reasons to remove you stings. 15 years on the job and eliminated without remorse, replaced by a guy who was a real charmer brown nose (and in drug rehab for addiction to painkillers).

[MD]

Ten years ago I proposed a formal debate forum, which never gained traction. That was before the social media explosion, and before I lost hope that rational discourse was possible on the interwebs.

I would still support such an initiative today, if there were enough members interested in such an endeavor.

It would work something like this:

A formal debate forum is created. A topic suggestion thread, or "challenge thread" would be created. Once a challenge is met by another member, a thread would be created for the formal debate. A moderator would be assigned to the thread, in which only the participants and the moderator would be allowed to post.

A comment thread would be created with the same title, where the "audience" can cast their votes via a poll, shout insults, make their own counter arguments, point out fallacies, etc.

Each formal debate would last perhaps a week, or maybe ten days.

It would be easy to set up. All it would take is enough interest from our members.

By the way: I would make it fully open to the public. That might make the formal threads harder to manage. I will review the phpbb tools we have available to see if there is a way to manage that effectively. That is assuming there is interest in the exercise overall.

[DesuMaiden]

You can find good books on Amazon and other bookstores (or in the library for that matter, but regardless of where you can find them, they exist) on how to persuasively convey your ideas to other people, so that they are more likely to listen and believe in what you are telling them. Here's an example:

https://www.amazon.ca/Thank-You-Arguing ... 0307341445