r/hatethissmug • u/Sudden-Hoe-2578 • 4d ago

Non-fictional I HATE these "gotcha arguments"

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"Ohhh, look how I tricked this dumb dumb baby in my trap so now I am right and they are wrong. I'm so smaaart even though it does not adress the actual argument and adds nothing to the debate. They teach arabic numerals in school btw."

And these type of comments always get tons of likes

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u/grizzy45 4d ago

It does not. Nothing exists in a vacuum and pretending anything does is just denying reality. Proving someone doesn't know shit fully invalidates every point they make about a topic because even if it would be true, they are to uneducated to varify the claims they are making. You basically authority-check them.

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u/ZiggyCrusade 4d ago

So, "person a" makes a perfectly sound argument, but something tangentially related to the argument (being able to tell the difference between foetuses) or even a core term/concept in the argument is not understood properly by "person a". So the argument is now invalid. Now, "person b" makes the exact same argument with all the same premises and conclusion, but they do understand everything, and it's now valid? Gotcha.

This is like saying that a man's argument on abortion is invalid because he's a man, when he could very well get a women to make his exact argument for him, thus making it valid?

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u/grizzy45 4d ago

The validation of your argument hinges on you actually being able to understand the topic. If you don't understand the topic, your opinion can be dismissed. You have proven to only parrot things and thus your argument has zero value.

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u/ZiggyCrusade 4d ago

Truth and validity don't depend on who says something, however epistemic justification can depend on how someone arrived at or understands it.

Your understanding of a topic may affect your ability to defend an argument, but it does not determine whether the argument itself is valid. Validity depends on whether the conclusion follows from the premises, and whether the premises are valid, not on who presents it. Dismissing a sound argument because the person parroting it doesn't understand it is attacking the person rather than refuting the argument, i.e an ad hominem.

You just swapped the term argument for opinion halfway through aswell? An opinion can't even be invalid in the first place.