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Spread the word, a simple idea to make the world a better place!

 
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Some percentage of people in the world can spot a false dichotomy (or a false dilemma) when they see one.

Imagine how much better the world would be if EVERYONE could spot false dilemma arguments. For one example, you'd cut the legs out from under most politicians' arguments.

Now we can't get EVERYONE to learn this skill, but what if we got just a few percentage more people to learn it?

Here's one way: get a bumper sticker that says something like:

"You either understand false dilemmas or you don't"

or

"There are two kinds of people in the world, those who understand false dilemmas..."

Other ideas to spread the word?
 
lowercase baba
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Can i point out the false dichotomy in your sig?
 
Bert Bates
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and is yours a dilemma or a tri-lemma?
 
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Bert, I am all for "making the world better place", but I think I am unable to understand your first post. Can you give few more examples to identify false dilemma?
 
Bert Bates
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Here are a few examples:

Maybe a politician says: "If you don't agree with my new proposal for a new sewer system in town, then you don't care about your children's health." This leaves out everyone in the middle.

Maybe a preacher says: "If you don't believe in the Bible, you will go to Hell". Again, how about if you believe in the Torah?
 
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Bert Bates wrote:Again, how about if you believe in the Torah?


Or if you sidestep the issue by not believing in either Bible or Hell :-)

Question of belief are maybe not such good examples, as they're largely outside of the realm of rational argumentation.
 
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I like the politics example. It's easy to craft a false dichotomy and make it a position statement. Workplace examples exist as well although one could argue they are workplace politics.

I don't have a car so bumper stickers are out . I view the bigger problem as how to bring it up without seeming like an ass.
 
Bert Bates
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One idea would be the "false dilemma drinking game" - Everyone at the bar is watching a debate on TV and whenever anyone shouts out a politician trotting out a false dilemma, everyone takes a shot.
 
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Good grief, we'd all be drunk within 5 minutes.
 
Bert Bates
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yes, but at least the only asses would be the ones on TV
 
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Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:I view the bigger problem as how to bring it up without seeming like an ass.



This attitude is why it's an uphill battle. (Not your attitude, Jeanne, the attitude you allude to.)

Yes, I agree that it's a problem. Why should people look at us that way for pointing out political shenanigans but not for pointing out Justin Bieber's lack of talent?

I think it would be nice if reporters did this kind of work instead of just echoing what politicians said. Wouldn't it be nice to see a reporter say something like "But just because people don't want the government to have free access to their e-mail accounts, that doesn't make those people accomplices of the child pornography industry. That's a false dichotomy." (Actual example of what a Canadian cabinet minister said. Not an actual example of what any reporter said.)
 
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Maybe the answer is to return to the tradition of teaching people about logic and rhetoric so they can recognise fallacies of all kinds?

Here in the UK, our parliament has very few scientists and engineers but is full of people with degrees in law, history and the classics, whose education has included a lot of training in the art of persuasive argument. We lack enough "poachers turned gamekeepers" to keep these people honest, and we need to encourage the development of critical thinking as a key skill for active citizenship generally, although our education system seems to be heading in the opposite direction if anything. My admittedly incomplete impression from this side of the Atlantic is that the situation in the USA may be even worse - some of those debates on climate change or teaching evolution seem downright medieval from a European perspective!

Mind you, I don't know if those of us in the IT industry - which often seems to be dominated by hype, ideology and rapid cycles of changing fashions - are necessarily able to provide a shining example of how to do things better. Anybody else remember entity beans....?
 
Bert Bates
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Chris,

I think your strategy is too optimistic (perhaps mine is as well).

Implied in my idea is the idea to start as simply as possible, isolate a single skill, and attempt to spread that skill around. It would be great if everyone could spot fallacies more generally - agreed - but that's a MUCH bigger battle.
 
Jeanne Boyarsky
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Starting with a simpler concept might be easier. For example, there was an article in this week's Economist how politicians use words like "collateral damage" to mean "accidentally killing people". Using the correct vocabulary isn't a special skill per se, just something to do.

I actually do this at work when asked about working overtime. Turns out management would prefer we not call that what it is . I felt bad the day my manager was told to "suggest" I reschedule a vacation that I had scheduled/requested/gotten permission for 11 months earlier. I knew it wasn't her who had this idea. I think my response was appropriate though. Her boss made sure I knew later they would never "ask" me to cancel my vacation. And it turned out the meeting could in fact be moved to after my vacation.

The point being with vocabulary, it is an issue of having the guts to bring it up rather than the skill to recognize what is going on.
 
Bert Bates
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One characteristic of people who develop expertise in a domain is that they isolate and separate very fine grained skills within those domains and they practice those fine grained skills in very focused ways.

Jeanne, it would be great for everyone to have better vocabularies, but I'd have to disagree that that would be easier than learning the very specific skill of noticing a false dilemma argument. For instance the word "either" is very frequently near the beginning of such an argument.
 
Jeanne Boyarsky
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Bert Bates wrote:Jeanne, it would be great for everyone to have better vocabularies, but I'd have to disagree that that would be easier than learning the very specific skill of noticing a false dilemma argument. For instance the word "either" is very frequently near the beginning of such an argument.


I meant euphemisms, not vocabulary. Which I suppose proves your point that it isn't easy .

I don't think either is particularly easy to learn. I used either - does that make the sentence bad? Or is that either is a clue to pay attention in case what follows is bad?
 
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