patrick.net

Dan8267 says

If a person honestly misunderstands another's argument, that's easy to fix. But people who deliberately misrepresents other people's arguments deserve no respect. I would submit the use of a Straw Man is a form of trolling.

How dare you call people who use strawman arguments stupid!

balls and honesty

Gee, strawman is an awful lot of trouble and requires some sneaky thought and treachery.

Why not just lie, like everybody else?

Dan8267 says

balls and honesty

Whooosh!...

Ceffer says

Gee, strawman is an awful lot of trouble and requires some sneaky thought and treachery.

I assure you there's not any thought behind all the Straw Man arguments made on this site.

Rush Limbaugh is a master of this.

Its Bush's fault.

What we need instead is equality of results in every aspect of out lives. Equal test results in schools, equal results in all sporting events, equal results in income, equal results in housing, equal results in intelligence, equal results in strength. Its only fair!

End the Bush Era, vote obama OUT.

Problem is, much of the middle class is wannabe aristocrats. Hence, the endless push from Dems and their supporters to prop up underwater homeowners without regard to the effects on people who support themselves with paychecks alone.

The language of the so-called left in support of QE3 is chilling in its disregard for people who live modestly with minimal debt and none of the assets backed by debt (read: real estate.)

"We need to force people to spend their money, and rising assets costs will make them stop hoarding cash. They will also reduce the value if debt and help struggling homeowners."
There is something of a strawman hidden in that comment. Every hoarder is presumed to be someone who can afford to spend down savings, or more likely, someone sitting on a pile of borrowed cash. Likewise, every underwater homeowner is not struggling and everyone who opposes bailouts for homeowners is not a right-winger. Some of us simply believe that the emphasis on homeownership smacks of cruel elitism, because it burdens the working class with the ownership society's problems.

Isn't the Flying Spaghetti Monster / Russell's Teapot argument a kind of Straw Man argument?

freak80 says

Isn't the Flying Spaghetti Monster / Russell's Teapot argument a kind of Straw Man argument?

No, they are not misrepresentations of an argument per-say. They are designed to illustrate the point that there is no evidence supporting the existence of god(s).

Evidence in support of any god(s) = zero
Evidence in support of pastafarianism = zero
Evidence in support of Russell's Teapot = zero

freak80 says

Isn't the Flying Spaghetti Monster / Russell's Teapot argument a kind of Straw Man argument?

I think that's Reductio ad Absurdum, which is a perfectly valid form of argument. You are arguing that the same "reasoning" which supposedly proves the existence of God also proves the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, an absurdity. Therefore, the reasoning that supposedly proves God's existence must not be valid.

leo707 says

No, they are not misrepresentations of an argument per-say. They are designed to illustrate the point that there is no evidence supporting the existence of god(s)

The Flying Spaghetti Monster illustrates that all the "reasoning" for a god is false because such reasoning apply equally well to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. If you cannot accept all logical conclusions of a premise, then you must reject the premise.

As such, any argument that demonstrates a logical conclusion of a premise submitted by a protagonist that the protagonist rejects is not a Straw Man argument but rather a valid argument that demonstrates the hypocrisy of the protagonist's position.

For example, if a protagonist submits that all things must have a creator, then it's perfectly valid for an antagonist to point out that any god must also have a creator then. Or if a protagonist states that the universe is so complex and orderly, it must be intelligently designed by a god, an antagonist can point out that by that logic, there's just as likely many gods working together to create the universe, ergo the protagonist must accept polytheism as equally valid as monotheism or he is in contradiction.

leo707 says

Evidence in support of any god(s) = zero
Evidence in support of pastafarianism = zero
Evidence in support of Russell's Teapot = zero

Evidence in support of everything said in Paul Ryan's RNC speech = zero

Dan8267 says

The entire problem with our economy is that it revolves around letting old people fuck over young people.

In the big scheme of things, the old folks are the ones fucked for they are so much closer to the grave. No financial engineering will reverse this fact.

Growing old is not sustainable

Squatting in East CoCo says

You'll get your chance when you're old.

I don't want that chance when I'm old.

The universe and everything in it can be argued as evidence of some superior being...as the existance of such also cannot be factually explained, only theorized, like god(s).

leo707 says

Evidence in support of any god(s) = zero

SoftShell says

The universe and everything in it can be argued as evidence of some superior being...as the existance of such also cannot be factually explained, only theorized, like god(s).

Then who created the Superior Being? Such a complex Being must have had a Creator.

It's all unknown, all of it, and at this point without any supporting facts.
For all we know we are just gnats on a rhino's hairy ass..

thunderlips11 says

SoftShell says

The universe and everything in it can be argued as evidence of some superior being...as the existance of such also cannot be factually explained, only theorized, like god(s).

Then who created the Superior Being? Such a complex Being must have had a Creator.

Homo Economicus. A Legendary Creature, like Bigfoot, claimed to exist by Pseudoscientists.

And don't bring up the 'purple unicorn' argument....
on some far off planet the little muthafuckas could exist, y'know....

SoftShell says

It's all unknown, all of it, and at this point without any supporting facts.
For all we know we are just gnats on a rhino's hairy ass..

I don't think it's as simple as old people vs. young. Old people often are parents with vested interest in the affairs of their younger family members. If the situation is bad for their children in the place where Mom and Pop live, the children will move away and they'll rarely see their grand kids. As people get closer to the grave, they place more and more importance on legacy rather than current power.
This is nowhere more evident than here in SoCal. We've known so many older people whose kids moved away to other states with better opportunities. After a while, the older folks often follow, the better to keep their families together. So I argue that high housing prices also negatively affect the older generation as a whole. They become stuck in the wrong state, estranged from the ones they love, and forced to make a Sophie's choice: will I abandon my family or the friends I've known for a lifetime?

high housing prices affect most everyone negatively all the time. A very select few parasitical entities benefit from housing,,,,governments, used house salesmen, banks, specutvesting/rent-seeking slumlords etc.

higher house prices make us collectively poorer

errc says

high housing prices affect most everyone negatively all the time. A very select few parasitical entities benefit from housing,,,,governments, used house salesmen, banks, specutvesting/rent-seeking slumlords etc.

higher house prices make us collectively poorer

But we can also argue that high housing prices are set by high rents. If the rents were lower without documented history of consistent or sudden/crushing rent increases, then house prices could not increase astronomically because renting would be a significantly better deal over a person's lifetime.

And rents are a function of government intervention in housing. Where rents are high you see a couple of things: 1) tight controls on what housing can be built and zoning for housing. This creates a situation where it is next to impossible to create new housing without massive punishing playoffs to politicians and lawyers. Thus new housing is not available or in very small supply.
2) government programs for the poor have created zones of poverty and crime where it would be unsafe to live or raise a family. Poor schools in the area contribute to this blight and nearly mandate decent families to move elsewhere.
3) enclaves of middle class to upper class housing then emerge, based on price point to deter undesirables. Since price is the barrier, it won't drop much without compromising the integrity of the community.
Hence, an ordered society of vast swathes of urban poor zones with enclaves of more prosperous folks living cheek by jowl in cramped quarters of
"safety," all the while paying through the nose for the privilege.
A good example of this is NYC's West Village, where the neighborhood is trendy and safe and the apartments are tiny.

Vanity, vanity! All is vanity!