In weighing what I've been trying to do by defending fallacious (informal) reasoning (e.g. when is ad hominem not fallacious), this post makes me wonder whether I've simply been confused about [in]formality:
Social justice, rationalism, AI ethics, and libertarianism https://digifesto.com/2021/02/21/social-justice-rationalism-ai-ethics-and-libertarianism/ Therein, Benthall italicizes the phrase "ecological fallacy", which is a *formal* fallacy. Assuming I understand the difference, Benthall is misusing the term when applying it to the sloppy natural rhetoric in these non-academic discussions. I would label "assuming that the actions of a corporation will have the politics of its employees" an informal composition/division fallacy. That also seems to be the case in these 2 instances: Inside a Corporate Culture War Stoked by a Crypto C.E.O. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/technology/kraken-crypto-culture.html SpaceX employees fired after writing letter criticizing Elon Musk https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/17/spacex-employees-fired-after-writing-letter-criticizing-elon-musk But I can't quite muster up the confidence to accuse Benthall of being wrong; because in my hand-wringing about defending slippery slope arguments [⛧], perhaps what I'm actually trying to do is [semi]formalize the informal. I suppose to do this properly, I'd have to get a healthy sample of [in]formal fallacies and map them out, see which one's have credible counterparts and which ones don't. That'll allow me to wax full Lazy and never mention this stuff again. Any swats with the clue stick would be welcome. [⛧] While I appreciate Volokh's work <https://reason.com/volokh/2022/06/17/slippery-slope-arguments-in-history-some-arguments-from-the-left/>, I'd just like to point out that I've been defending the use of informal fallacies here on this list for years ... just sayin'. Sure, he may be smarter than me ... and have degrees and whatnot. Pffft. Whatever, dude. Don't break your arm. -- ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
