David R. MacIver's Blog

Arguments I am unlikely to listen to

• If you behave this way in these circumstances you must also behave this way in these other superficially similar circumstances
• If you allow this thing you must also allow this other thing
• The thing you are claiming is bad is actually good, it’s just that you’ve only ever seen it being done badly
• The reason this thing has harmful effects is that you are not doing enough of it
• The only alternative to the thing you are saying is bad is this other thing that is also bad
• You are making a point that doesn’t matter
• The things you are telling me are important are not actually important
• If you ignore the details you are telling me are important then you don’t have a good argument

Most of these are not fallacies per se, but my experience is that with most arguments that look like this the resulting discussion will be unproductive and very frustrating and it’s best to avoid them.

I will add more items as I think of them.

Comments

Veky on 2013-06-21 23:38:59:

It would be much more useful if you told us what arguments you _are_ likely to listen to. ;-P

david on 2013-06-22 08:24:55:

oh, that’s easy. Good ones. ;-)

Veky on 2013-06-26 06:16:05:

You know it when you see it (but not before), right? :-D

david on 2013-06-26 09:27:41:

Well if I already knew it and hadn’t changed my mind, clearly I must not have found the argument persuasive, right? :-)

Joseph Ottinger on 2013-06-24 13:04:21:

See also http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/index.html#index ...