best of cc.com Muir on Saturday

[AlpineK]

I don't think I want to get involved wtih any male/female of junior high age.

[Sparky]

No, really, I learned how to spell "With" in 6th grade. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But, if you're a pussy about getting high outside, I figure you're a pussy. If some (other) cocksucker was smoking a Marlboro inside, he'd get the same shit. Although I love the contact high...

[Sparky]

And since I'm only posting here 'cuz my 21 Y/O G.F. is tired, and you've had the extraordinary spare time to irritate others and illuminate your apparently dim-bulb insights for others 556, yes, 556 times, I give you congrats. You are the weakest....uh....soon to be....most probably bleeding rectally, asshole since LB.

[AlpineK]

So Captain C (I mean Sparky) how's it going? I thought you were taking time off or was it going to that anger management class?

Hey I've got the 666th post in Muir on S.

[ 03-07-2002: Message edited by: AlpineK ]

[mr._happy]

quote:

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Originally posted by moron:

I can't take it anymore - I'm a moron and I figured it out - 25 POSTS PER PAGE!!!!

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oh.

[mr._happy]

moron took all the fun out of my game.

[Szyjakowski]

quote:

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Originally posted by Charlie:

Nice I just set it as my wallpaper! FFFFFFFFFFFFIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAALLLLLLLSSSSSSSSSS SSSSSSUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK!.....HERE'S ONE FOR YA

A LITTLE ELLENSBURG HUMOR?

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charles-isn't your girlfriend gonna be pissedwhen she sees ya in the photo

Nice mask your wearing snoop

[Dru]

quote:

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Originally posted by chucK:

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Largo must think he's Michael Jackson, look at that glove!

----------------------------

"creep, little thread - creep for your life!"

[Charlie]

Ch15 Multiple deposit creation and the money supply processExcess reserves-any additional reserves (above that required by the fed) the bank chooses to hold (deposits at the fed and vault cash)Float- cash items in the process of collection –minus- differed availability cash itemsHigh-powered money- the name given to the monetary base because an increase in it will lead to a multiple increase in the money supplyMonetary base- treasury currency in circulationMultiple deposit creation- when the fed supplies the banking system with $1 of addl reserves, deposits increase by a multiple of this amount

Open market operations- the feds purchase or sales of govt securities in the open market- control over the monetary baseOpen market purchase- a purchase of bonds by the fedOpen market sale- a sale ^ ^ ^Required reserve - required by the fed- for every $ of deposits at a depositary institution, a certain fraction must be held as reservesRequired reserve ratio- this fraction- say 10%Reserves- all banks have an acct at the fed in which they hold deposits- deposits at the fed + currency that is physically held by banks- assets for the bank but liabilities for the fed- banks can demand payment on them (fed reserve notes)Simple deposit multiplier- the multiple increase in deposits generated from an increase in the banking systems reservesSources of the base- factors that determine the baseUses of the base- how the base is used

Ch14 Structure of Central banks and the fed

Board of governors of the fed-

Here, this'll fill in some space!!!!

[Dru]

Ad Hominem (Argument To The Man): attacking the person instead of attacking his argument. For example, "Von Daniken's books about ancient astronauts are worthless because he is a convicted forger and embezzler." (Which is true, but that's not why they're worthless.) Another example is this syllogism:

Turing thinks machines think. Turing lies with men. Therefore, machines don't think. A common form is an attack on sincerity. For example, "How can you argue for vegetarianism when you wear leather shoes?" The two wrongs make a right fallacy is related. A variation (related to Argument By Generalization) is to attack a whole class of people. For example, "Evolutionary biology is a sinister tool of the materialistic, atheistic religion of Secular Humanism." Similarly, one notorious net.kook waved away a whole category of evidence by announcing "All the scientists were drunk."

Another variation is attack by innuendo: "Why don't scientists tell us what they really know; are they afraid of public panic?"

Sometimes the attack is on intelligence. For example, "If you weren't so stupid you would have no problem seeing my point of view." Or, dismissing a comment with "Well, you're just smarter than the rest of us." (In Britain, that might be put as "too clever by half".) This is related to Not Invented Here, but perhaps it is more connected to Dismissal By Differentness and Changing The Subject.

Ad Hominem is not fallacious if the attack goes to the credibility of the argument. For instance, the argument may depend on a claim of expertise. Trial judges allow this category of attacks.

Straw Man (Fallacy Of Extension): attacking an exaggerated or caricatured version of your opponent's position. For example, the claim that "evolution means a dog giving birth to a cat."

Another example: "Senator Jones says that we should not fund the attack submarine program. I disagree entirely. I can't understand why he wants to leave us defenseless like that."

On the Internet, it is common to exaggerate the opponent's position so that a comparison can be made between the opponent and Hitler.

Inflation Of Conflict: arguing that scholars debate a certain point. Therefore, they must know nothing, and their entire field of knowledge is "in crisis" or does not properly exist at all. For example, two historians debated whether Hitler killed five million Jews or six million Jews. A Holocaust denier argued that this disagreement made his claim credible, even though his death count is three to ten times smaller than the known minimum.

Similarly, in "The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods" (John Woodmorappe, 1999) we find on page 42 that two scientists "cannot agree" about which one of two geological dates is "real" and which one is "spurious". Woodmorappe fails to mention that the two dates differ by less than one percent.

Argument From Adverse Consequences: saying an opponent must be wrong, because if he is right, then bad things would ensue. For example: God must exist, because a godless society would be lawless and dangerous. Or: the defendant in a murder trial must be found guilty, because otherwise husbands will be encouraged to murder their wives. Wishful thinking falls in this category. "My home in Florida is six inches above sea level. Therefore I am certain that global warming will not make the oceans rise by one foot."

Special Pleading (Stacking The Deck): using the arguments that support your position, but ignoring or even denying the arguments against.

Excluded Middle (False Dichotomy, Faulty Dilemma, Bifurcation): assuming there are only two alternatives when in fact there are more. For example, assuming Atheism is the only alternative to Fundamentalism, or being a traitor is the only alternative to being a loud patriot. Short Term Versus Long Term: this is a particular case of the Excluded Middle. For example, "We must deal with crime on the streets before improving the schools." (But why can't we do some of both?) Similarly, "We should take the scientific research budget and use it to feed starving children." Burden Of Proof: the claim that whatever has not yet been proved false must be true (or vice versa). Essentially the arguer claims that he should win by default if his opponent can't make a strong enough case. There may be two problems here. First, the arguer claims priority - but why is it him who wins by default? And second, he is impatient with ambiguity, and wants a final answer right away. A counter-argument is the phrase "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

Argument By Question: asking your opponent a question which does not have a snappy answer. (Or anyway, no snappy answer that the audience has the background to understand.) Your opponent has a choice: he can look weak or he can look long-winded. For example, "How can scientists expect us to believe that anything as complex as a single living cell could have arisen as a result of random natural processes?"

Actually, pretty well any question has this effect to some extent. It usually takes longer to answer a question than ask it.

Variants are the rhetorical question, and the loaded question, such as "Have you stopped beating your wife?"

Argument by Rhetorical Question: asking a question in a way that leads to a particular answer. For example, "When are we going to give the old folks of this country the pension they deserve?" The speaker is leading the audience to the answer "Right now." Alternatively, he could have said "When will we be able to afford a major increase in old age pensions?" In that case, the answer he is aiming at is almost certainly not "Right now." Fallacy Of The General Rule: assuming that something true in general is true in every possible case. For example, "All chairs have four legs." Except that rocking chairs don't have any legs, and what is a one-legged "shooting stick" if it isn't a chair?

Similarly, there are times when certain laws should be broken. For example, ambulances are allowed to break speed laws.

Reductive Fallacy (Oversimplification): over-simplifying. As Einstein said, everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Political slogans such as "Taxation is theft" fall in this category. Genetic Fallacy (Fallacy of Origins, Fallacy of Virtue): if an argument or arguer has some particular origin, the argument must be right (or wrong). The idea is that things from that origin, or that social class, have virtue or lack virtue. (Being poor or being rich may be held out as being virtuous.) Therefore, the actual details of the argument can be overlooked, since correctness can be decided without any need to listen or think. Psychogenetic Fallacy: if you learn the psychological reason why your opponent likes an argument, then he's biased, so his argument must be wrong. Argument Of The Beard: assuming that two ends of a spectrum are the same, since one can travel along the spectrum in very small steps. The name comes from the idea that being clean-shaven must be the same as having a big beard, since in-between beards exist.

However, the existence of pink should not undermine the distinction between white and red.

Argument From Age (Wisdom of the Ancients): snobbery that very old (or very young) arguments are superior. This is a variation of the Genetic Fallacy, but has the psychological appeal of seniority and tradition (or innovation). Products labelled "New! Improved!" are appealing to a belief that innovation is of value for such products. It's sometimes true.

Not Invented Here: ideas from elsewhere are made unwelcome. "This Is The Way We've Always Done It."

This fallacy is a variant of the Argument From Age. It gets a psychological boost from feelings that local ways are superior, or that local identity is worth any cost, or that innovations will upset matters. People who use the Not Invented Here argument are often accused of being stick-in-the-mud's.

Conversely, foreign and "imported" things may be held out as superior.

Argument To The Future: arguing that evidence will someday be discovered which will (then) support your point. Poisoning The Wells: discrediting the sources used by your opponent. This is a variation of Ad Hominem. Argument By Emotive Language (Appeal To The People): using emotionally loaded words to sway the audience's sentiments instead of their minds. Many emotions can be useful: anger, spite, condescension, and so on. For example, argument by condescension: "Support the ERA? Sure, when the women start paying for the drinks! Hah! Hah!"

Cliche Thinking and Argument By Slogan are useful adjuncts, particularly if you can get the audience to chant the slogan. People who rely on this argument may seed the audience with supporters or "shills", who laugh, applaud or chant at proper moments. This is the live-audience equivalent of adding a laugh track or music track. Now that many venues have video equipment, some speakers give part of their speech by playing a prepared video. These videos are an opportunity to show a supportive audience, use emotional music, show emotionally charged images, and the like. The idea is old: there used to be professional cheering sections. (Monsieur Zig-Zag, pictured on the cigarette rolling papers, acquired his fame by applauding for money at the Paris Opera.)

If the emotion in question isn't harsh, Argument By Poetic Language helps the effect. Flattering the audience doesn't hurt either.

Argument By Personal Charm: getting the audience to cut you slack. Example: Ronald Reagan. It helps if you have an opponent with much less personal charm. Charm may create trust, or the desire to "join the winning team", or the desire to please the speaker. This last is greatest if the audience feels sex appeal.

Appeal To Pity (Appeal to Sympathy, The Galileo Argument): "I did not murder my mother and father with an axe! Please don't find me guilty; I'm suffering enough through being an orphan." Some authors want you to know they're suffering for their beliefs. For example, "Scientists scoffed at Copernicus and Galileo; they laughed at Edison, Tesla and Marconi; they won't give my ideas a fair hearing either. But time will be the judge. I can wait; I am patient; sooner or later science will be forced to admit that all matter is built, not of atoms, but of tiny capsules of TIME."

There is a strange variant which shows up on Usenet. Somebody refuses to answer questions about their claims, on the grounds that the asker is mean and has hurt their feelings. Or, that the question is personal.

Appeal To Force: threats, or even violence. On the Net, the usual threat is of a lawsuit. The traditional religious threat is that one will burn in Hell. However, history is full of instances where expressing an unpopular idea could you get you beaten up on the spot, or worse.

more filling

[CAMAZONIA]

Charles

Dude did you type all that shit? Are you trying to increase your WPM.

Just trying to get to leading this top ropeing shit sucks!!!

[Charlie]

Awe, sounds familiar- COMM345- last quarter- another page?

[Dru]

26!!!! a new world record?

[Dru]

Least Plausible Hypothesis: ignoring all of the most reasonable explanations. This makes the desired explanation into the only one. For example: "I left a saucer of milk outside overnight. In the morning, the milk was gone. Clearly, my yard was visited by fairies."

There is an old rule for deciding which explanation is the most plausible. It is most often called "Occam's Razor", and it basically says that the simplest is the best. The current phrase among scientists is that an explanation should be "the most parsimonious", meaning that it should not introduce new concepts (like fairies) when old concepts (like neighborhood cats) will do.

Argument By Scenario: telling a story which ties together unrelated material, and then using the story as proof they are related. Affirming The Consequent: logic reversal. A correct statement of the form "if P then Q" gets turned into "Q therefore P". For example, "All people whose surname begins with Mac are of Scottish ancestry. Dougal is of Scottish ancestry. Therefore his surname begins with Mac." But actually his name is Campbell.

Another example: "If the earth orbits the sun, then the nearer stars will show an apparent annual shift in position relative to more distant stars (stellar parallax). Observations show conclusively that this parallax shift does occur. This proves that the earth orbits the sun." In reality, it proves that Q [the parallax] is consistent with P [orbiting the sun]. But it might also be consistent with some other theory. (Other theories did exist. They are now dead, because although they were consistent with a few facts, they were not consistent with all the facts.)

Another example: "If space creatures were kidnapping people and examining them, the space creatures would probably hypnotically erase the memories of the people they examined. These people would thus suffer from amnesia. But in fact many people do suffer from amnesia. This tends to prove they were kidnapped and examined by space creatures." This is also a Least Plausible Hypothesis explanation.

Moving The Goalposts (Raising The Bar, Argument By Demanding Impossible Perfection): if your opponent successfully addresses some point, then say he must also address some further point. If you can make these points more and more difficult (or diverse) then eventually your opponent must fail. If nothing else, you will eventually find a subject that your opponent isn't up on. This is related to Argument By Question. Asking questions is easy: it's answering them that's hard.

Appeal To Complexity: if the arguer doesn't understand the topic, he concludes that nobody understands it. So, his opinions are as good as anybody's. Common Sense: unfortunately, there simply isn't a common-sense answer for many questions. In politics, for example, there are a lot of issues where people disagree. Each side thinks that their answer is common sense. Clearly, some of these people are wrong. The reason they are wrong is because common sense depends on the context, knowledge and experience of the observer. That is why instruction manuals will often have paragraphs like these:

When boating, use common sense. Have one life preserver for each person in the boat. When towing a water skier, use common sense. Have one person watching the skier at all times.

If the ideas are so obvious, then why the second sentence? Why do they have to spell it out? The answer is that "use common sense" actually meant "pay attention, I am about to tell you something that inexperienced people often get wrong." Science has discovered a lot of situations which are far more unfamiliar than water skiing. Not surprisingly, beginners find that much of it violates their common sense. For example, many people can't imagine how a mountain range would form. But in fact anyone can take good GPS equipment to the Himalayas, and measure for themselves that those mountains are rising today.

Argument By Laziness (Argument By Uninformed Opinion): the arguer hasn't bothered to learn anything about the topic. He nevertheless has an opinion, and will be insulted if his opinion is not treated with respect. For example, someone looked at a picture on one of my web pages, and made a complaint which showed that he hadn't even skimmed through the words on the page. When I pointed this out, he replied that I shouldn't have had such a confusing picture. Disproof By Fallacy: if a conclusion can be reached in an obviously fallacious way, then the conclusion is incorrectly declared wrong. For example, "Take the division 64/16. Now, canceling a 6 on top and a six on the bottom, we get that 64/16 = 4/1 = 4." "Wait a second! You can't just cancel the six!" "Oh, so you're telling us 64/16 is not equal to 4, are you?" Note that this is different from Reductio Ad Absurdum, where your opponent's argument can lead to an absurd conclusion. In this case, an absurd argument leads to a normal conclusion.

Reductio Ad Absurdum: showing that your opponent's argument leads to some absurd conclusion. This is in general a reasonable and non-fallacious way to argue. If the issues are razor-sharp, it is a good way to completely destroy his argument. However, if the waters are a bit muddy, perhaps you will only succeed in showing that your opponent's argument does not apply in all cases, That is, using Reductio Ad Absurdum is sometimes using the Fallacy Of The General Rule. However, if you are faced with an argument that is poorly worded, or only lightly sketched, Reductio Ad Absurdum may be a good way of pointing out the holes. An example of why absurd conclusions are bad things:

Bertrand Russell, in a lecture on logic, mentioned that in the sense of material implication, a false proposition implies any proposition. A student raised his hand and said "In that case, given that 1 = 0, prove that you are the Pope". Russell immediately replied, "Add 1 to both sides of the equation: then we have 2 = 1. The set containing just me and the Pope has 2 members. But 2 = 1, so it has only 1 member; therefore, I am the Pope." False Compromise: if one does not understand a debate, it must be "fair" to split the difference, and agree on a compromise between the opinions. (But one side is very possibly wrong, and in any case one could simply suspend judgment.) Journalists often invoke this fallacy in the name of "balanced" coverage.

Television reporters like balanced coverage so much that they may give half of their report to a view held by a small minority of the people in question. There are many possible reasons for this, some of them good. However, viewers need to be aware of this tendency.

Two Wrongs Make A Right (Tu Quoque, You Too): a charge of wrongdoing is answered by a rationalization that others have sinned, or might have sinned. For example, Bill borrows Jane's expensive pen, and later finds he hasn't returned it. He tells himself that it is okay to keep it, since she would have taken his.

War atrocities and terrorism are often defended in this way.

This is related to Ad Hominem (Argument To The Man).

cmon 26, this is good content here!

:{ :[ ;} 8-O 8----D ~~~~ *

[Dru]

26, 26, i will beat trask to 26, what does ol' "flick" have to say about this?

[Dru]

26 or bust baby! love it or leave it!

[vegetablebelay]

26

[Dru]

26 is never gonna show. i give up. trask can do it. or veggie or chucK. i dont care

[vegetablebelay]

26?!?!?!?!

Hellllllll Yeah!!!!

[ 03-07-2002: Message edited by: vegetablebelay ]

[Dan_Larson]

quote:

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Originally posted by Sparky:

And since I'm only posting here 'cuz my 21 Y/O G.F. is tired.

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I am the reason she is so tired.

[mr._happy]

quote:

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Originally posted by Dan Larson:

I am the reason she is so tired.

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niiice.

[allthumbs]

quote:

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Originally posted by MysticNacho:

[QB]I have two orders of business regarding Mr. Dru.QB]

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I tried to read your long, boring, not funny post about Dru. You are an idiot. Way to many drugs. Way out there. Are you sure you and Moron aren't related?

[AlpineK]

quote:

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Originally posted by trask:

I tried to read your long, boring, not funny post about Dru. You are an idiot. Way to many drugs. Way out there. Are you sure you and Moron aren't related?

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I think Moron is smarter cause he figured out the 25 post/page rule; while MN bores us with crap trying to get to the next page.

[moron]

I don't have anything better to do....

[vegetablebelay]