• Lvxferre@mander.xyz
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    7 months ago

    Important detail, regarding argumentum ad hominem (AAH): a lot of people incorrectly conflate the fallacy with insults, even if both things are independent. For example, let’s say that someone said “the Moon is made of green cheese”. Here are four possible answers:

    Replies With insult Without insult
    With AAH You’re a bloody muppet, thus the Moon is made of rocks and dust. You’re no astronomer, thus the Moon is made of rocks and dust.
    Without AAH Yeah, because there’s totally cheese orbiting Earth for a bazillion years, right? Bloody muppet. Cheese wouldn’t be orbiting Earth for so long without spoiling.

    This conflation between ad hominem and insults interacts really funny with sealioning. Sometimes you get the sea lion claiming that you’re using AAH because you lost patience with its stupidity, but they’re also prone to use non-insulting AAH.