less_retarded_wiki

Idiot Fallacy

{ This may have an alternative, more politically correct name, but I think my name is more appropriate. ~drummyfish }

Idiot fallacy (named after idiots who commit it) is an argument fallacy related to shortcut thinking, by which an idiot implies B from A on the basis that A is associated with B in any way, without A necessarily implying B; e.g. "racial realism always means hate of other races". However do not confuse idiot fallacy with statistical observations (e.g. observing that women are usually bad at chess while acknowledging that on rare occasions it may not be so) -- idiot fallacy denotes a false belief in logical implication, i.e. that for example hatred of another group of people (e.g. racial) is an inevitable consequence of existence of such groups -- in a way this fallacy is a failure to separate two similar but essentially distinct things and making fatal simplifications such as "cars = driving", "guns = war", "gay = LGBT" and so on.

Some examples include:

• "He likes guns, therefore he also likes war, violence, hunting etc."
• "He likes to watch gore videos, therefore he is a violent man and supports violence in real life."
• "He hates smoking, so he must be against depictions of smoking in movies."
• "He studied X so he absolutely loves everything related to X.", e.g. "He studied theoretical computer science so he likes repairing broken smart phones, installing antiviruses for other people, doing IT support or being a CEO of a company that sells computers." In fact studying X mostly makes you furiously hate most things relates to it.
• "He isn't politically correct, therefore he is a rightist supporting Jew genocide."
• "He opposes bullying and executions of pedophiles, therefore he is a pedophile and his only life goal is to rape as many children as possible." -- This reasoning is guaranteed to be made by every single American as Americans cannot comprehend any other motive than self interest, to them it's physically impossible to try to benefit a group one is not part of.
• "He opposes bloat, therefore he supports the privacy and productivity hysteria and his hobby must be ricing tiling window managers."
• "He acknowledges the existence and significance of human races, therefore he is hostile to other races and supports their genocide."
• "He plays competitive games so he must think having society based on competition is a good idea."
• "He was born in country X so he likes and supports country X."
• "He dislikes/opposes a certain social group, therefore he wants to eliminate that group by any means necessary and he cannot love anyone in that group or anyone who supports that group."
• "He opposes capitalism, therefore he supports gay fascism, woman fascism and Marxism." (this is also an American false dichotomy)
• "He got an erection from seeing a 16 year old girl, therefore he is a psychopath who wants to rape toddlers and is thinking about nothing else 24/7 and the only goal of his life is to rape children."
• ...

See Also

• humorwashing
• cognitive dissonance

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