Had the following exchange (possibly still in progress) with zaphod2016 over in the August Stundies Finals starting
here
Nice little demonstration of this person's knowledge of the ad hom fallacy b/w taking people to task for using it!
1. Yes, I understand, it was an ad hominem
2. I still don't think it was funny enough to qualify as a "joke"
3. In hopes of improving the lulz factor, I made a self-depreciating joke myself. Clearly, I failed at that too.
If you insist on nominating me for a stundie, I suggest you check my blog. I've written all sorts of outlandish things there, usually at 3am during the height of the Ron Paul campaign. In retrospect, many of these posts are chock-full of woo, and to be frank, rather embarrassing.
And, while we are on the subject of stundies, I hereby nominate Parky76:
Lets be honest. The NWO is not going anywhere..and will be victorious.
Why? Because, the New World Order means several actual things:
-worldwide expansion of free-market capitalism
-worldwide expansion of tarrif-free trade zones
-worldwide expansion of communication networks
along with the disalusion of regional borders, the growth of international institutions, and the reliance on international councils and mediations, the world is become more of a one-world system.
this..is what the people of the Earth want. the world is tired of petty disputes between nationalities and city-states. 3,000 years of history has shown that hundreds of nations, all with their own currencies, languages, laws, borders, international policies, colonies, etc...just leads to endless war, suffering, and outright havoc. there must be another way.
do you want to repeat the last 3,000 years of European and Asian history? I sure don't.
there is nothing un-democratic about a global government.
In my opinion, this statement commits the following logical fallacies:
Appeal to probability - because most modern governments are democratic, future global government must be democratic
fallacy of necessity - the world economy is globalized, and economies are regulated by governments, therefore, we need a world government
false dilemma - either we will have world government, or remain independent nation-states doomed to perpetual war and disaster. Multinational cooperation, i.e. the European Union, is not "good enough"
Like most of Parky's posts, this statement is also a perfect example of the
bare assertion fallacy, see also
this post
Finally, in the interest of fairness, I must point out that Parky's thesis of world government is not necessarily false. To do so would present an
argument from fallacy.
In conclusion:
ad hominem
Zaphod is a pedantic twit, and therefore, everything he says is false.
