Logical fallacies

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LogicExplorer
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Re: Logical fallacies

Post by LogicExplorer »

Although we can look at instances of breakdown of law or lack of enforcement and see the results in the real world: it's not good.
What do you mean? Every time we have deregulation, we have an explosion of wealth. Think of the 1920s in the US. The actual question is if it would last forever if there were no government interventions. But, as far as I am aware, no serious economists today holds to the notion that The Great Depression was caused by capitalism alone.
Your job is to find some evidence for a confounding variable that might explain the results, particularly one that exists in spite of government rather than because of it (I already talked about economics).
I mentioned a few. First, we don't have a religion requiring us to kill people, as many tribal societies do. Second, we have capitalism. When we have at least some money, it's usually much cheaper to buy something you need than to steal it. It's also much cheaper to hire a worker than to have a slave. And so on.
You just asserted that government caused all those good things, and you have not given an explanation of how it even could.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the Austrian School of economics is wrong in predicting that all the monopolies are caused by the government, that there are some natural monopolies, regardless of how they could possibly form. How does that prove we need a government? The government just creates more and more monopolies.
You seem to be unaware of the arguments used for the Austrian School of Economics. Its theories correctly predict that less strict laws lead to less inequality (that the economic freedom index is negatively correlated with the inequality index). The theories of most of the schools of economics, including the once-mainstream Keynesian School, predict that more strict laws lead to less inequality.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Logical fallacies

Post by brimstoneSalad »

LogicExplorer wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 3:22 am What do you mean? Every time we have deregulation, we have an explosion of wealth.
Incorrect; lack of regulation also causes unstable markets, crashes, and results in poverty when people lose everything they invested.
Government today has to step in to fix these things.
The sub-prime mortgage crash was warned about for years before it happened, and it was all due to insufficient regulation.

SOME industries benefit greatly from deregulation or limited regulation, others are vulnerable to irrational speculation and the formation of bubbles that have dire consequences when they pop.

Ultimately, deregulation increases poverty by increasing wealth disparity.

I think NonZeroSum is much better suited to argue with you about this kind of stuff, and provide you links to resources on good socialist policy.
NonZeroSum wrote:...
I'm not interested in economics, I'm just interested in vegans not making veganism look bad by running around claiming that murder should be legal and if we just took away all of the laws and regulation we'd have a utopia.
LogicExplorer wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 3:22 amI mentioned a few. First, we don't have a religion requiring us to kill people, as many tribal societies do.
We do, people just ignore those parts because we have stable secular governments.
But new religions can and do form, particularly under economic stress.

I won't say religion never causes behavior; religion out of place in a modern society can cause the ignorant and mentally ill to behave in odd ways, but that is not typical of the formation of religions: religions are primarily reactive and explanatory. They form as justifications for behavior and traditions that the tribe has already established.

Religion did not cause tribes to go to war anymore than their sea gods caused ocean-faring societies to build ships and fish; religions and gods are purpose made to fit what the society does, not the other way around. Unless you think some desert dwelling tribe got a sea god and suddenly decided to start building boats. :lol:

Causation is reversed here: cultures cause religion. Religion does cause conservative behavior and makes cultures more resistant to change, but that's after the fact of its formation.
LogicExplorer wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 3:22 amSecond, we have capitalism.
Which is terrible and harmful when it's not regulated by government to prevent monopolies.
I already talked about how capitalism would provide some stability because large companies would create private police forces, but that is just in effect a totalitarian government.
The way you prevent that is having a democratic government in place to prevent concentration of economic power and redistribute some wealth in the form of social programs, and ensuring that votes matter and power can not simply be bought and paid for.
LogicExplorer wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 3:22 amWhen we have at least some money, it's usually much cheaper to buy something you need than to steal it.
It depends on the value density of the item in question.

If it takes an hour to steal something, and that thing costs less than what you can earn in an hour, then it's easier to earn and buy. That's not true for most things we own (phones, etc.).

I already said that legalizing theft is plausible, because people can protect things with their own bodies as long as assault and murder are criminal. But even doing that has significant economic costs because it forces people to carry things around with them or leave somebody at home (who can not go to work) to protect valuables.
LogicExplorer wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 3:22 amIt's also much cheaper to hire a worker than to have a slave. And so on.
That's not correct. Slavery is still very popular today in various forms, from literal slaves to wage theft.
https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/modern-slavery/

There are a whole host of reasons slavery has become less popular over the centuries (it is now lower per capita than it has ever been), and most of them have to do with government intervention. Companies get in trouble for using slaves, and it's often (but not always) cheaper to pay people than fines and lawyers.
LogicExplorer wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 3:22 amYou just asserted that government caused all those good things, and you have not given an explanation of how it even could.
I don't need to explain it. YOU need to provide evidence of correlation of equal or greater quality than that I provided.
All you've done is make assertions.
LogicExplorer wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 3:22 amLet's say, for the sake of argument, that the Austrian School of economics is wrong in predicting that all the monopolies are caused by the government, that there are some natural monopolies, regardless of how they could possibly form. How does that prove we need a government? The government just creates more and more monopolies.
Let's say, for sake of argument, that the Catholic church is wrong and that Hell doesn't exist. How does that prove we need Sin? Humans just create hell on Earth because of sin.

You're pulling things out of your ass again.
AGAIN, you need to provide some actual evidence for these claims.
LogicExplorer wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 3:22 amYou seem to be unaware of the arguments used for the Austrian School of Economics.
You seem to be unaware of the arguments used by obscure Catholic apologists to prove the existence of hell.

I don't give two shits about your ad hoc hypothesis. How can you not get this through your skull?
Am I unaware of actual EVIDENCE? If so, SHARE IT.
LogicExplorer wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 3:22 amIts theories correctly predict that less strict laws lead to less inequality
That's not a prediction, that's ad hoc speculation, and it's being applied very selectively.
I already talked about totalitarianism.
LogicExplorer wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 3:22 am(that the economic freedom index is negatively correlated with the inequality index).
:lol:
You're a complete idiot.
Do you even know what the Economic Freedom Index means?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom#Method
It's not an index of anarchism, quite the contrary.

The FIRST consideration listed is rule of law:
Rule of Law
Property Rights: Degree of a country's legal protection of private property rights, degree of enforcement of those laws, independence of and corruption within the judiciary, and likelihood of expropriation.
Such indexes look for STRONG property rights, and a government that defends those rights and enforces the law.
Companies look for that to invest in countries as well; political instability is a serious risk factor.

And if you look at the index listing, more socialist countries like Canada actually rank higher than countries like the U.S. indicating the way these things are weighted is not remotely how you imagine them to be. Wealthy countries also tend to have more progressive laws, which is a huge confounding variable.

Either way, Index of Economic Freedom is not an "Murder Legality Index".

If you would just take a few minutes to seriously and critically examine these ridiculous claims you make before you make them you'd save yourself a lot of embarrassment, and me a lot of time.

I don't care enough about this issue to continue devoting time to your ridiculous beliefs on legalizing murder and abolishing all laws to create your utopia.

I'm hoping NonZeroSum can take over and school you with the resources he has on hand (it would take him minutes what would take me hours). He advocates a more sensible form of "Anarchism" (which doesn't seem like Anarchism to me, but whatever you call it) which doesn't suggest legalizing murder and abolishing all government.
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Re: Logical fallacies

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Incorrect; lack of regulation also causes unstable markets, crashes, and results in poverty.
But regulation sometimes also leads to insecurity. A good example would be the minimum wage. Imagine that you live in some country where the minimum wage rises every now and then, and that you think about starting a new buisness. If the minimum wage rises every now and then, you have no way of knowing what the cost of hiring a new worker may be. So it can easily happen that you hire a new worker and soon have to fire him not to get bankrupt or not hire a new worker (or even start a buisness) when that would be the right thing to do.
We do, people just ignore those parts because we have stable secular governments.
The government can't even stop the Islamic terrorists, yet it's able to transform the entire society of religious lunatics into peaceful people. Are you sure you are getting enough vitamin B12?
There are a whole host of reasons slavery has become less popular over the centuries (it is now lower per capita than it has ever been), and most of them have to do with government intervention.
How is government responsible for ending the slavery?! The government was one who made the slavery possible by putting the liberators into prisons.
You're pulling things out of your ass again.
AGAIN, you need to provide some actual evidence for these claims.
The governments have created monopolies on the roads, on the electric infrastructure, on the telephone infrastructure... You name it.
That's not a prediction, that's ad hoc speculation, and it's being applied very selectively.
No, economics is more or less like geometry. It starts with a few axioms and then deduces theorems from them. The axiomatic set of the Austrian School is called praxeology.
Such indexes look for STRONG property rights, and a government that defends those rights and enforces the law.
A lack of property rights doesn't mean capitalism, in fact, it means socialism. There being no property rights means that, if you happen to be slightly wealthier than others, the government can just come there and take your wealth to use it for what they think is good for the society (which it usually isn't). That's how things worked for most of the human history. We just think that socialism is something new, it isn't. It has existed ever since. Capitalism is something new, and it's the reason we have so many good things today (like the Internet and the cars).
I'm just interested in vegans not making veganism look bad by running around claiming that murder should be legal.
I am not a vegan. I am a vegetarian. And I don't care too much about animals. What's much more sad to me is that the government has inserted propaganda into schools and preschools that makes people believe that eating food that's bad both for your health and for the environment and for which sentient animals need to be killed is somehow necessary.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Logical fallacies

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LogicExplorer wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:04 am But regulation sometimes also leads to insecurity. A good example would be the minimum wage.
As I said, there are cases where deregulation is useful. There are a number of discussions on this forum about the problems with minimum wage.
Like most things, regulation isn't always good or always bad; context matters. :roll:
Only children and idiots subscribe to that kind of black and white thinking.
LogicExplorer wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:04 amThe government can't even stop the Islamic terrorists, yet it's able to transform the entire society of religious lunatics into peaceful people.
Yes, over hundreds of years. Look at the history of interpersonal conflict in Europe and the Americas which turned around during the enlightenment (although it took time).
Duels used to be acceptable, and gradually the rule of law took their place in society, allowing for recourse through dialogue and libel suit in the courts while stronger police forces were able to attenuate street violence.

You're just demonstrating your historical illiteracy, read something for once before mouthing off:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duel#Enlightenment-era_opposition

The problem in Islamic societies has much less to do with Islam, you disgusting bigot, as to do with their cultural infancy; they're still in a place, as Europeans were hundreds of years ago, where honor killings and the like are acceptable.

Violent Muslims in these countries think like this: "Of course you would murder somebody who insulted your brother, and we regard Muhammad higher than a brother, so obviously we're going to murder somebody who insults him"

They don't understand that, no, we don't murder people for insulting our brothers, our mothers, or even our faiths. Not anymore. And we have rule of law to thank for civilizing us in that respect.

Free society has cultivated, and enforced, certain values of civil peace; like when somebody says something you disagree with (or draws a picture you don't like) you don't kill them. Again, this is thanks to generations of cultural evolution and well enforced laws against that nonsense. It didn't magically happen overnight, but it also didn't magically happen without providing alternative recourse and prohibition against violence that resulted in immediate consequences for those who engaged in feuds and honor killings in the streets.

This is SUCH basic history, it's even one of the few things recorded accurately into the narratives we inherited from the era, and the fact that you aren't aware of this or can't comprehend its relevance speaks volumes about your delusions.

And FYI, the government does interfere and prevent terrorist attacks which you would know if you spent an iota of effort to look into it instead of regurgitating bullshit from your masturbatory echo chamber:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_thwarted_Islamist_terrorist_attacks
LogicExplorer wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:04 amHow is government responsible for ending the slavery?!
It was prohibited in developed countries. Even before all slavery was banned (like allowing slaves sold into bondage or captured in war), kidnapping people into slavery has been outlawed since the dawn of law in civilized societies; it's in the Old Testament, for instance.

Government has been whittling away at slavery for thousands of years, and it's still only most prominent where enforcement is poor.
LogicExplorer wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:04 amThe government was one who made the slavery possible by putting the liberators into prisons.
Where LEGAL, government has protected private property rights.
These were purchased slaves, or those owned from birth.

Once made illegal, slavery was mostly ended.
LogicExplorer wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:04 amThe governments have created monopolies on the roads, on the electric infrastructure, on the telephone infrastructure... You name it.
These aren't monopolies, these are civil services to create necessary infrastructure. Where government builds infrastructure, they contract it out to bidders, where there's cooperation with private companies there's a degree of cost control. Sometimes corruption means favoritism, but when it works correctly it works well.
LogicExplorer wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:04 amNo, economics is more or less like geometry. It starts with a few axioms and then deduces theorems from them. The axiomatic set of the Austrian School is called praxeology.
This stuff isn't real economics; it's not based on evidence, it's based on ideology. It's a religion.
LogicExplorer wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:04 amA lack of property rights doesn't mean capitalism, in fact, it means socialism.
Socialist systems protect property rights too, but engage in more redistribution of wealth through taxes.
That's accounted for.

You really spend no time trying to understand these arguments.
LogicExplorer wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:04 amThere being no property rights means that, if you happen to be slightly wealthier than others, the government can just come there and take your wealth to use it for what they think is good for the society (which it usually isn't). That's how things worked for most of the human history.
No, for most of human history there have been property rights, but just disrespected to varying degrees. Rule of law has been improving for centuries, and property rights have continually improved.
LogicExplorer wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:04 amWe just think that socialism is something new, it isn't.
Social welfare is pretty new; government has converted more or less from the evil sheriff of Nottingham to Robin Hood.
No welfare system is perfect, but modern systems are being increasingly based on evidence.
We are entering an age of more scientific governing, and it's improving things a lot.
LogicExplorer wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:04 amI am not a vegan. I am a vegetarian. And I don't care too much about animals.
Evidently not.
LogicExplorer wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:04 amWhat's much more sad to me is that the government has inserted propaganda into schools and preschools that makes people believe that eating food that's bad both for your health and for the environment and for which sentient animals need to be killed is somehow necessary.
USDA mandates in the U.S. to promote consumption of agricultural products is a serious issue and conflict of interest with their mandate to create nutritional guidelines.
There IS some corruption in government, but the fact of the matter is that despite that government is important and does more good than harm, and it's improving and reducing in corruption.

Trump is a blip in time, and under investigation; and that kind of oversight is something we never would have seen in antiquity.
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Jebus
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Re: Logical fallacies

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LogicExplorer wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:04 am I am not a vegan. I am a vegetarian. And I don't care too much about animals. What's much more sad to me is that the government has inserted propaganda into schools and preschools that makes people believe that eating food that's bad both for your health and for the environment and for which sentient animals need to be killed is somehow necessary.
Which vegetarian, non-vegan food, fulfills the following criteria?:
Good for your health
Good for the environment
Has never been inserted by government into schools to make people believe that it is a necessary food
How to become vegan in 4.5 hours:
1.Watch Forks over Knives (Health)
2.Watch Cowspiracy (Environment)
3. Watch Earthlings (Ethics)
Congratulations, unless you are a complete idiot you are now a vegan.
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