Thankfully I have never missed a flight, but one time for a moment I thought I had.
When I purchase tickets and get an email from the airline, gmail will summarize the flight details at the top of the mail. So it adds a blurb on top that isn't part of the actual mail. It usually works but one time it set the departure date as the date I received my email, not the departure date in the contents of the email.
For a moment I thought I had messed up when ordering the tickets, but reading the contents calmed me down.
My brother returned from his train trip on Friday, he had looked up bus for yesterday but decided for 20 hour train ride.
This bus collide with another yesterday, 80 people injured 2 died. We joke all the time trains are late but for this to happen on rails multiple things has to go horribly wrong.
Empathy and kindness all over, no countries,borders or nations exist, just humans. People and corps no longer powered by greed as much as these days, and general thinking of how to keep growing and do better as a species.
Note that a fallacy is a reasoning flaw; sometimes the goal might be to trick you, indeed. But sometimes it’s just a brainfart… or you might be dealing with something worse, like sheer irrationality. That said:
look for the conclusion. What is the point that the writer is delivering? (Note: you might find multiple conclusions. That’s OK.)
look at what’s being used to support that conclusion. What is the core argument?
look for the arguments used to feed premises into the core argument. Which are they?
Then try to formalise the arguments that you found into “premise 1, premise 2, conclusion” in your head or in a text editor. Are the premises solid? Do you actually agree with them? And do they actually lead into the conclusion? If something smells fishy, you probably got a fallacy.
Get used to at least a few “big” types of fallacies. There are lists across the internet, do read a few of them; you don’t need to memorise names, just to understand what is wrong with that fallacious reasoning. This pic has a few of them, I think that it’s good reference material, specially at the start:
In special I’ve noticed that a few types of fallacy are really common on the internet:
genetic fallacy - claiming that an argument is true or false because of its origin. Includes ad hominem, appeal to nature, appeal to authority, ad populum, etc.
red herring - bringing irrelevant shit up as if it supported the conclusion, when it doesn’t matter. In special, I see appeal to emotion (claiming that something is false/true because it makes you feel really bad/good) all the time.
oversimplification - disregarding key details that either stain the premises or show that they don’t necessarily lead to conclusion. False dichotomy (“if X is true, Y is false” in situations where both can be true or false) is a specially common type of oversimplification.
strawman - distortion of an opposing argument into a way that is easier to beat. Again, notice that “intention” doesn’t matter; only that the opposing argument isn’t being addressed.
moving goalposts - when you counter an argument, the person plops another in its place, without acknowledging that it’s a new argument. Often relies heavily on ad hoc (making stuff up on the spot to shield an argument)
four terms - exploiting multiple meanings associated with the same word to create an argument like “A is B¹, B² is C, thus A is C”.
There are also some “markers” that smell fallacy for me from a distance. You should not trust them (as they might be present where there’s no fallacy, or they might be absent even when the associated fallacy pops up); however, if you find those you should look for the associated fallacy:
“As a” at the start of a text - genetic fallacy, specially appeal to authority
"Trust me" - red herring, specially appeal to emotion (once you contradict the argument there’s a good chance that the other will create drama because you didn’t blindly trust them, so the whole thing boils down to “accept this as true otherwise you’ll hear my meltdown”).
“I don’t understand” followed by a counter-argument - strawman. Specially common in Reddit.
“Actually” - red herring through trivia that is completely irrelevant in the context.
The very first step is to know the fallacies. Find a list.
The second step is to familiarise yourself with them. Learn the fallacies. It can also be called sophism in some languages. Familiarising yourself with them will allow you to recognise them.
Third is to be vigilant during a conversation to detect them. Sometimes you will be the one to use them.
The easiest, and amont the most common, are fallacies tied to reputation: when you consider something right or wrong because of who made the statement. It’s sketchy because it can be used as a shortcut in conversation, but by itself the truth or wrongness of the argument doesn’t depend on who said it, never. But some people have demonstrated expertise or they habit of lying or manipulating. Other fallacies usually involve the language or the logic, so it’s harder to detect, but it’s a great mental exercise.
My go-to is always ice cream flavors. Simple enough for people to quickly make decisions, but also highly subjective.
Most other comments so far are misleading. You shouldn’t do “favorite” or “best” in forced ranking. It needs to be something that’s on a continuum and is subjective. Typically, you say “rank features in order of importance,” not “most important feature,” or “rank from most delicious to least delicious” rather than “favorite ice cream flavor.”
“Favorite” is a single data point, not a continuum. And it’s not subjective, since others don’t get an opinion on what someone else’s favorite is.
I didn’t exactly end my relationship, either, but it ended because of me. I’m mentally processing it. In my mind, I focus on all the reasons it didn’t work until my mind comes to terms with it being for the best.
It also helps to get involved in some new hobby, service/volunteer experience, or creative effort.
It really is just a matter of scale. I've known some evil little fuckers, but they lack the resources to commit full scale atrocities. They're not employing children in hazardous conditions or selling tainted blood, but that's only because they don't have access to a steady supply of either.
The ethics is actually very simple. Taking those two examples:
Kids love to work if you just give them the chance. What kid wouldn't want to go and show how they can do grownup things and at the same time make money to help their family survive? It happens all the time with family businesses. Just because I'm a wage slave means my kids can't contribute? What kind of elitist bullshit is that?
The rest is just regulations meant to strangle the small businessman. You've got some pencil neck in an office somewhere who wants to stop LIFE SAVING MEDICATION from getting to people who need it. Bitter little fuck cares more about swinging his dick around and writing "laws" than actually helping people. Most of that blood is perfectly fine but the paperwork got fucked up and sure - maybe some isn't fine - but if you ask the guy bleeding out from a stab wound if he wants some, he'll say "YES!" In any case, malaria will probably get the poor fucker before the AIDS does. And he probably already has the HIV anyway.
/s for those last two paragraphs because it's not an argument that I'd make, but it very much is a parallel to arguments that I've seen being made in real life by seemingly normal people.
And then of course people tend to operate on a spectrum of
*literally does not care
*only cares if it's happening to me
*only cares if someone else finds out (because then I'll have to pretend I never noticed)
*cares, but not enough to lose my livelihood over it
*cares, but is really good about not thinking too hard and/or focusing on all the nice things instead of the things that probably aren't even all that bad
*will think about quitting, but realizes that they other guys are just as bad (or worse)
*will quit and go live in a cave
Not me but my uncle had a meeting scheduled at the WTC on 9/11. Only reason he wasn't there was because somebody moved the venue across town the night before.
Same for my aunt, but she was early and decided to get off a few subway stops early and walk in the fresh air the rest of the way because it was a nice day. She had got to the sidewalk right as the first plane hit.
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