Mr. Cliff, B.Sc. 🇨🇦🇱🇧 on Nostr: 17) just going to crosspost from my facebook post today: As I did last week, it's ...

17)

just going to crosspost from my facebook post today:

As I did last week, it's worth pointing out that there's another systematic way that people, including experts, including the experts who have the power to and responsibility to act in response to Trump/Krasnov's tariffs will tend to systematically come up with the wrong kind of response: the Politician's Fallacy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism

The Politician's fallacy is a logical fallacy that looks like this:

P1. We must do something
P2. X is something
C1. therefor we must do X

"We must do something" is kind of a freebie claim in politics -- especially when emotions run high and people get excited ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjTEBvZbIs8&pp=ygUSdXJlZ2luYTEyMCBlbW90aW9u ) , or we are threatened from without ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeOkjDEgWy4&t=5s&pp=ygUSdXJlZ2luYTEyMCBiYWN1bHVt ) we are tempted to want to respond (and since "no response" is technically a response, it's always something we can do)

"X is something" ( or even "X is something we can do" ) is similarly a trivial point -- whether it be "add tariffs to our biggest trading partner" or "shoot ourselves in the foot" or something else, it is something we *could* do.

The failure here is in the conclusion -- "we must do X" can be true *or* it can be false. And since it can be false the above argument is not a valid syllogism (reminder: for an argument to be valid if the premises are true the conclusion *must* also be true). In the case of tariffs I would say it is an unsound syllogism since C1 *is* false (reminder: for an argument to be sound, it must be valid *and* its premises must be both true)

One of the reasons that this is happening is because of the "is-ought" nature of both premises and conclusions ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-44Xnj93Lag&pp=ygUNdXJlZ2luYTEyMCBpcw%3D%3D ) in particular there's a switch between "is" and the "ought" that is not accounted for explicitly. I actually disagree with some philosophers (ie Hume) who claim that there is no way to bridge the is-ought gap but merely ignoring the problem certainly doesn't do it. And there is a problem here -- "we must do X" is an "ought" everything else in this argument is an "is" and the explanations offered as far as why the "ought" ought to be done can be investigated but so far have mostly been this syllogism.

It's called the "politicians syllogism" or fallacy because it is one that is a favourite of politicians of all stripes -- looking like you're busy solving a problem for people is something that helps politicians look good. Regardless of whether their solution is actually helping or hurting both specifically the cause they are trying to do something about or the nation in general *is* something they *can* do.

We should always be watching for the politicians fallacy actually being used in practice. When you hear someone saying "we have to do something!" you can know they are in danger of stepping into committing it.

Of course when questioned, the next question someone who is committing this fallacy will inevitably respond with will be something like "well what should we do instead?" which is one step towards Good Thinking ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6279011320 ) . And leads directly into the problem discussed last week complete with its solutions.

https://shitposter.world/notice/ArHdF6Sj6O9ds3lC6a