The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (SPECIAL ACCESS) KGB Political Debate Central Deligitimization of Obama

I don't understand why you insisting on this? Find, deductive logic is not your thing. I got it.

I am disappointed I couldn't get through to you, perhaps I wasn't explaining on the level you could understand, but honestly I couldn't think of a way to simplify this any further.

I think fundamental problem is that you just decided to ignore everything I said in this thread.

Too bad. I used to hold you in high regard.

This is very last attempt before I give up on you.

Argument with "rain was required for seeds to sprout" would look like following:

Given that/If it rains tomorrow, then there is a possibility the seed might sprout.

One more time:

(P)I have a lottery ticket (that might win)
(P)My lottery ticket has winning number
------
(C)I won the lottery

Above is OK argument.


(P) I have a lottery ticket (that might win)
-----
(C) I won the lottery

I hope you would agree that above is not OK argument.

{P} I have a lottery ticket (that might win)
------
(C) I might win the lottery

Above is not OK argument. It is not valid. I could have non-winning lottery ticket (so premise is true) and not win the lottery (so conclusion is false).

Generally speaking, arguments with non-definitive conclusion are invalid. What invalid means in this circumstances? It means that you can add might to almost any conclusion and have it non-wrong.

Examples:

{P) My neighbor wears pink hat
---
(C) She might be a Hitler

(P) I heard strange noise in the basement
----
(C) It might be second coming of Christ

Ok first off since English is not something you are particularly skilled out lets start with the definition of "might"

Might: —used in auxiliary function to express permission, liberty, probability, possibility in the past <the president might do nothing without the board's consent> (Webster)

Now, lets get the definitions of probability for this context

Probability: : a logical relation between statements such that evidence confirming one confirms the other to some degree (Webster)
Also: Probability is a measure of the expectation that an event will occur or a statement is true. Probabilities are given a value between 0 (will not occur) and 1 (will occur). (Wiki entry - math related)


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Now then.


{P} I have a lottery ticket (that might win)
------
(C) I might win the lottery

Is technically valid, not invalid. You might win the lottery with that ticket. Your odds of doing so, are actually pretty easily calculable. In fact (might) in this case, if we are talking about winning the grand prize of Ohio Powerball is 1 in 175,223,510


That you suddenly started using (abusing, but will get to that later) reductio ad absurdum (saying it is absurd so say you might win at those odds) argument in the context of this thread is just an example of a moving goalpost. You are attacking my usage of the word "might" - which I initially and continue to find silly. That you have the temerity and amount of intellectual dishonesty required to do this, then insult the other party because they point out its absurdity is somewhat impressive though.

Also - if this is not valid... then show an example where you might win the lottery. The idea that there is a winner amongst people who have tickets and only those who have tickets, however having a ticket does not give you a chance to win is itself an absurd fallacy if we accept the premise that the odds given to us by the lottery commission are valid.

Your definition of absurdity for "might" is arbitrary, and semantics based here. You move the goalpost by changing the implied format of the language. Like I said before, you do not get to do this arbitrarily. If I felt like it, I could attack your semantics as well easily enough - I generally have enough respect for people, even during a trolling, to refrain from doing so because I consider it lowbrow.



Now, you say "Generally speaking, arguments with non-definitive conclusion are invalid. What invalid means in this circumstances? It means that you can add might to almost any conclusion and have it non-wrong."

Then you go on to make an example" (P) I heard strange noise in the basement
----
(C) It might be second coming of Christ"


So you are saying that since the probability is extremely low that it is the second coming of Christ, the argument is invalid. In this case you would be correct. So what you are asserting in the context of this argument is that the probability of election tampering altering the outcome was so low, that despite evidence that it is possible - and lack of ability to prove that it was not, holding that belief would still make you delusional.

What you do not seem to comprehend, is that *I get that* - despite all your absurd insults that assert the contrary.

What you seem to lack here, is understanding of how, once again, like every other time you get that very unjustified high-and-mighty attitude - you are wrong, misusing and abusing concepts.

So... lets get to it - the list of the fallacies you have invoked by trying to inject your lottery analogy into this thread.

1) Arguing from personal incredulity: You do not hold the subjective probability of election tampering as being very high, so therefore it must not be very high (this is really the basis for your whole assertion, hence why I laughed when you brought it up and laugh harder now that you insult me for not buying into your subjective view of tampering probability)

2) False continuum : Since election skeptics and delusional people both hold views you subjective view as having a very low probability - there is no difference between election skeptics and delusional people

3) False analogy(1): You make a comparison between election tampering and lottery odds, with no evidence that they are similar. All you have in regards to election odds is your own sense of personal incredulity. Therefore just because the lottery example might fall into reductio ad absurdum under formal rules , you have no ability to demonstrate this applies to the election.

4) False dichotomy: you have all your premises and conclusions in your arguments and examples as being either 1 or 0 (that is, either true or false) This is a false dichotomy because probabilities can also be any figure between 0 and 1.

5) Genetic fallacy: Assuming the premise that previous elections were unadulterated, therefore the likelihood that current elections are also unadulterated just because they are "elections". When in reality the way the elections are conducted has changed drastically - since what we are really questioning is the validity of a presidential election run with a high volume of electronic voting machines, the number is much smaller and several results have been questioned. This is only tangentially related to your Lottery assertion - but still I establish this fallacy to reinforce your arguing from personal incredulity - denying you the ability to implicitly obtain a Base Rate for tampered elections.

6) Straw man: Taking my rejection of your Lottery argument, and holding it up as if I was arguing against the rules of formality you were ad hoc applying - instead of objecting to its applicability to the election argument. your "You can't prove that it might happen based on simple possibility of it happening, because it might happen or it might not happen." only holds to certain specific circumstances based on accepted format rules, and the vernaculur thereof. In that context the rule is, as you said in later posts , in place to prevent people from adding "might" to an absurd proposition. The argument in that case (where might was inappropriately used) would still fall to reductio ad absurdum (properly applied)- so its presence as a rule serves mainly as a preventative measure against obvious time-wasting.

That we were not having a discussion under, and that I was not using the term "might" in that context was axiomatic. As I said right before you fell into that path, and as Brutal also mentioned in his post, albeit indirectly - we are not going to agree on the subjective probability of tampered election.

Optimization is impossible in this context, and I seriously doubt we could ever agree on a particular heuristic approach. This is the reason I did not feel the need to travel this path. You try to say that I "do not understand even though you put it oh so simply".... what you do not get, is that I... and Brutal for that matter if I inferred his post correctly both saw this exact scenario unfolding a long long time ago now.



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I told you before when you started down this path that if you really wanted to assert your Lottery argument (in regards to the election argument, which is how anyone but a fucktard who was over eager to find excuses to insult people would have taken it - not as a quibble over the rules of some schools of formal logic/debate ) that I could think think of 5 fallacies off the cuff that doing so would invoke.

So are you finally going to admit that all you were doing by introducing your Lottery argument was re-stating your original, failed premise that people who hold a different subjective view of the election are delusional?

Or are you going to continue with yet more insults and word games?

I glossed over this beauty the first time around, the longer post you made quickly caught my attention. Again, pretty amusing.

For what its worth, I give you credit for trying. To me, this thread has felt like someone several ranks below me trying to play Mirror Go in hopes of causing confusion. The problem with a Mirror strategy, is it actually just leaves you a step behind and completely reactive. Its not a 1:1 comparison by any means, but there are plenty of parallels.

Anyhow, where you were going with the lottery concept was apparent to everyone for a long time now. Brutal touched on it when he said "The overriding point here is not that you are wrong, but that you can't be right in this argument. You will (reasonable assumption here) never be able to prove that the election was stolen or not stolen. We can go on like this forever, because this argument is pointless and not winnable." and I said it again when I said "You are never going to objectively quantify the probability , so why bother trying. " (antecedent for quantifying probability was probability of election tampering, just in case you were getting inclined to ignore context and run off on another wild tangent)

While we can determine the minimum threshold for what amount of tampering would be required to alter an election - what we cannot objectively determine is the probability of said tampering occurring.

We can establish a reasonable premise based on a collection of studies, audits, and analysis by activists and security pros on the left and right that it is possible to tamper with an election. We can establish by looking at the money involved, and the demonstrable lack of character of a great body of those who stand to gain or lose in an election that there is sufficient motive.

But still, going forward with it still would incur a degree of risk and possible consequences should one ever get caught red handed. Reading analysis and studies about the issue is also not first hand knowledge, and often we are not in a position to ensure that all of our information is accurate and thorough.

What we are left with, is entirely subjective probabilities based on how we choose to weight and infer certain heuristics.

You choose to weight them in such a way, that doubting your conclusion that the subjective probability is almost 0 becomes a fallacy. Anyone who "cant see that" becomes an object of scorn in your eyes. To me this is facile and more a representation of extreme dogma and unbecoming and unjustified arrogance. You do not bother to consider what you do and dont actually know, or whether you truly even have enough accurate data to come to a strong conclusion.

You dont have an actual case - you just strongly believe, and lash out at those who do not share your belief.

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edit: ok I couldnt resist



Says the guy who attacked a straw man by making a false analogy with a comparison derived from abusing reductium ad absurdum that was created in the first place with an argument from personal incredulity.

Tee. Hee. Teehehehe. Ok, this one is probably going to leave me chuckling for a while.

My experiment with using formalized logic was a failure. You simply don't understand it, and points I was trying to make went over your head. At least after your last two posts I can see that you have read and considered what I said, so I was misunderstood, not ignored.

Lottery examples and last multiple posts were my attempts to explain concept of validity and soundness and what they mean in a formalized logic context, they were applicable to other debates only so much as to show that generalized rules, if agreed on, can be applied to all arguments of this kind. It is clear that I wasn't successful, so posting comprehensive write-up outside of any debate is now on my to-do list.

In plain language - my objections to your argument isn't that elections weren't, couldn't, probability next to zero of tampering, but that you could not draw conclusions you did with a mere possibility of tampering. If you said something like; "Given election tampering occurred and it was of sufficient magnitude, then elections were stolen" I would not have objected to it. Yes it is semantics, but it is important to get semantics right because of how easy it is to drop MIGHT for CERTAIN and go on pretending nothing changed. The very article I linked is a result of this kind of faulty generalizing. I have hard time believing that 49% of any group, even GOP voters, would believe something so off-the-wall like elections were CERTAINLY stolen, but this is how they responded to survey question.

Answer:




Well, at least he didn't make you wait in suspsense.




If he can't draw conclusions from a "mere possibility of tampering" then you can't draw conclusions from a possibility of non-tampering. See the problem? In this case though, you have drawn a conclusion: That the 49% of respondents in that article are demonstrably wrong and delusional.

Based on this paragraph it seems clear to me that you understand that this argument has become entirely semantic, so at this point you are simply arguing in the hope that you can catch your opponent in a word trap and turn his argument around again. Why even bother? Either admit your mistake and move on to better arguments, or stop responding at all. This is long past pointless, and I don't think I'll bother clicking on this thread anymore.

No I don't. The article clearly states 49% of GOP responded in a way that is understood they are CERTAIN elections were stolen, as such I am more then justified calling them delusional. Anyone who claims CERTAINTY in unsubstantiated conclusion is delusional.

Unlike Derid, that at a later time restated his position to mere probability, I don't have to guess what 49% meant - linked article is very clear about it and nobody so far questioned what it said.



I don't know, he is certainly not getting what I am saying. I suppose to avoid hypothetical "remember that thread where you were wrong" event at some point in the future.



Any admission would be 100% insincere because I strongly believe I am not in the wrong here. I read what you said, I have read what Derid said, and in light of it I still stick to my original position.

They are delusional. End of story.



I will give you hint. About the only valid way you can attack my position is by accusing me of status quo stonewalling. Anything else is skeptical regress of the worst kind, where you start to question established institutions of this country, accepted, GOP-endorsed and official election results, and definition of election fraud.

I'll trust electronic voting machines once they start printing out receipts detailing how someone voted. Hell, you can even take all the responses by said voter, assign a value to them, then hash the entire thing into a simple string of numbers as a receipt.

Voters (SSN+Value1+Value2+Value3+etc) -> Sha-512 hash and done.

To recreate the exact hash you would need the exact values the voter chose + their SSN. A single digit off will alter the entire output hash.

It's really that simple.

Without a hardcopy, it's just too simple to tweak a database one way or another with a script or a keystroke or two.

" where you start to question established institutions of this country "

Holy cow, I think you are onto something. At least if we are talking about competency and security protocols thereof.

"Any admission would be 100% insincere because I strongly believe I am not in the wrong here."

Well at least you have the intellectual honesty to admit that.

"I don't know, he is certainly not getting what I am saying."

Here, your intellectual dishonesty shows itself again. Like I said, I *get* what you are saying. You are simply wrong. Mr Ad Hoc Sinij

" The article clearly states 49% of GOP responded in a way that is understood they are CERTAIN elections were stolen, as such I am more then justified calling them delusional. Anyone who claims CERTAINTY in unsubstantiated conclusion is delusional.

Unlike Derid, that at a later time restated his position to mere probability, I don't have to guess what 49% meant - linked article is very clear about it and nobody so far questioned what it said."

I never restated my position. My position is and has always been that there is a possibility that the election was 100% legit and there is a possibility that the election was tampered, and noone who holds either opinion is delusional for holding that view. Remember, my objection was to your justification for throwing yet more bile at people. I never have taken a position stating that the election was in fact stolen, or even that the evidence suggests the chances of it being stolen are higher than the chances it was a legit outcome.



Moreover, I assert that you were wrong to call them delusional because what they believe when they believe the election was stolen via tampering - is simply that they weight the subjective probability of tampering as higher than you yourself do. They might be wrong to say it was stolen, but you also might be wrong to say it was not.

I was attacking your bile-spewing, not asserting that the election outcome was certainly altered. Your bile spewing stemmed from your own unprovable opinions regarding subjective probability. I was growing weary of seeing you fling dung everywhere based solely on your own strongly held but unjustifiable preconceptions.

"My experiment with using formalized logic was a failure. You simply don't understand it, and points I was trying to make went over your head. At least after your last two posts I can see that you have read and considered what I said, so I was misunderstood, not ignored. "

Here is the problem with this. I dont care about your formalized logic context, or vernacular thereof. Why? Because your use of semantics is too logically inconsistent. Like I said, you are shifting goalposts around and applying ad hoc interpretations to fit your own arguments.

This is key.

The argument did not begin in a formal context - and so you switched to a formal context ad hoc to attack my semantics using a new set of rules. So either I have to go back , and restate everything and go over all this crap again to fit your unilateral switching of context base - or I can just call you out on it and your ad hoc interpretations and moving goalposts. *and i said this previously, so how you possibly missed it and claim I do not "understand" is just more evidence you are acting like a fucktard*

I chose the latter, because I dont really care about the topic itself anymore - amusement from watching you squirm around in a tiny semantic box while claiming ownership of the formal logic world is pretty much the only reason I am still replying to your strings of fallacies and semantics twisting here.

I know what you are doing. I know what you are saying. Perhaps you do not know yourself, seeing the forest through the trees has never been your specialty. I suspect that its a psychological issue at this point - since switching to a new ruleset for interpretation and privately holding your own conclusions about the meaning of the article/poll wording suddenly makes you right, at least in your own head, at least as you choose to interpret the semantics... it probably logically follows to you internally that whichever way you are interpreting things is the *naturally correct* way to interpret things simply because it makes you right and your internal premise is that you are always right...

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Yes, and as I said previously - I understand this. What you do not seem to understand is that "Generally speaking, arguments with non-definitive conclusion are invalid. What invalid means in this circumstances? It means that you can add might to almost any conclusion and have it non-wrong." - adding "might" to make a fallacious argument "non-wrong" and the reductio ad absurdum are the same thing, or rather 2 different approaches to the same concept. That is - even if one side adds a "might" to technically be non-wrong, if the conclusion is absurd - they are still wrong.

You should be aware of this "mr formal logic"

And I addressed why your application of this was off.

You say I do not understand formal logic.... when the real case, is you do not seem to understand the difference between objective and subjective probabilities.

Either that or despite everything, you are still secretly trying to apply your initial assertion as to what my objection to your link/statement was and therefore accusing me basically of making an argument from ignorance. Which would be synonymous with an attempt to apply the non-definitive conclusion generality in this case. I gave you more credit than that though - and figured you were trying a more thorough restatement of your argument from personal incredulity.

Perhaps I overestimated you, you still believe I was stating that the election was stolen.... and given that I do not believe the election was stolen with a probability of or approaching "1" , and this has been demonstrated multiple times by two people... I did come to misunderstand what you were saying.

But that is not anything to do with my understanding of your formal logic... thats because I felt it impossible that you could still hold to the premise that I was saying the election was in fact stolen.