The Rules of the Game
 

Given the healthy ration of hack philosophy flying around the net these days, I thought it might be a good idea to review the rules of the game.

We may not agree on the outcome, but the level of debate would rise dramatically if people would spend at least a moment reviewing how to avoid bad arguments, and how to support good ones.

-sm

Party pooper. ;)

see, now I can call that an ad hominem attack and everyone will know the actual meaning of the phrase! how helpful is that!

-sm

i don't understand. isn't ad hominem a word that means the same thing as another word?

That's homonym.

Ad hominem

oops - didn't see your wink.

an ad homonym attack would rather amusing indeed.

Most of this stuff is just basic logic, that said, it'd still be worth some people reading ;)

My usual arguing technique is reductio ad absurdum. I seem to recall getting accused of putting words into people's mouths more than once with that one ;P

i'm not sure if i should be insulted or not that you, even for an instant, thought i was that stupid...

and i think it is really a synonym.

homonym is when they sound the same, synonym is when they mean the same.

yep, uh-huh, what he said. it is so hard sometimes to read a post and decide whether it was typed with sarcasm or not.

also, everyone should probably read this as a contrary example.

-sm

sorry, couldn't help it.

Which is why god invented smilies. :3eye:

are we back to referring to UT as god, again? why didn't anyone send me the *$@*ing memo?!?!?!