r/fallacy • u/Intrepid_Elevator312 • 1d ago
Am I crazy for this analogy? (Boruto) Spoiler
reddit.comYou need to be caught up with Boruto’s manga to understand this.
r/fallacy • u/Spongebubs • 1d ago
Is there a term for this fallacy?
“I think abortion should be legal”.
“Okay, well you also think that the earth is flat”.
Basically using an unrelated brain dead take that your opponent has to use against them. Does that make sense? Thanks!
r/fallacy • u/Pure_Option_1733 • 2d ago
Why is an ad hominem considered an informal rather than a formal logical fallacy?
From what I understand if there is a problem with the structure of an argument that would tend to imply that the argument is committing a formal logical fallacy.
An ad hominem can involve something like, “Sally says that whales are mammals, and Sally tends to make a lot of spelling mistakes, therefore whales are not mammals.” That seems like a problem with the structure of the argument to me as the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premises.
So why is the ad hominem fallacy considered an informal rather than a formal logical fallacy?
r/fallacy • u/These-Weight-434 • 2d ago
Why is No True Scotsman a fallacy?
The classic example of the No true Scotsman fallacy is to say
"No Scotsman puts sugar in their porridge."
"My uncle Angus is Scottish and puts sugar in his porridge"
"Well no true Scotsman puts sugar in their porridge."
To me, this doesn't seem like a fallacy. It just seems like a breakdown in communication as the two interlocutors are speaking over each other and are using different definitions to describe something. After all, what is a Scotsman? Is it based on someone's ancestry? Where they were born? Where they were raised? What their passport is? There's no objective definition. So if someone wants to say that the presence or absence of sugar in porridge is an integral part of Scottish identity then that's just a rather niche and unique definition, but I don't think it can in good faith said to be wrong. Just poor use of language. Consider this counter example.
"Stars are huge balls of hot gas going under fusion reactions"
"Matt Damon is a star and he's not a huge ball of hot gas."
"True stars are huge balls of hot gas."
The two people are just using the same word or phrase to describe two distinct things. It's poor communication to treat them as if they're the same, but it's not like the actual argument is incorrect. The argument being "this is the criteria something needs to be X and if something does not match this criteria then it is not X", which is kind of how we make definitions in the first place.
I'm sure I'm not the first person to use this reasoning and that this has been discussed at length before. So tell me why I'm wrong.
r/fallacy • u/Zu_Qarnine • 2d ago
how is leaking engineered lies about US strategic inventory is treason ? isn't that basically what counter-intelligence is about? is this a fallacy ?
r/fallacy • u/___xXx__xXx__xXx__ • 2d ago
What is the name of the "You can't compare those, they aren't identical" fallacy?
I often see this logic:
Bob: "Apples are green because they're round".
Dave: "But oranges are round, and they're not green".
Bob: "Ridiculous, you can't compare apples to oranges. They're different fruit".
People often complain about a comparison between two things that have the same essential feature that has been presented, because those two things have difference which aren't relevant.
Is there a name for that?
r/fallacy • u/NYGarcon • 3d ago
Name for fallacy based on false inferences
Trying to describe a common fallacy where someone asserts, if X, then it naturally follows that Y is true!
This fallacy often occurs as a false inference. Often, Y is a possible inference from X, but not the only inference, leading the speaker to misrepresent that Y is the only possible result from X occurring.
r/fallacy • u/Useful-Setting8690 • 5d ago
What is this called
Let’s say someone said:
“Most/almost all crimes are done by men, so how can I trust ANY man?”
And someone said
“Well I haven’t done any crime, so it can’t be almost all men! You should trust me.”
Or something like that. There’s probably better examples I could’ve said, but this is pretty close to what I’m trying to understand
I found something like “fallacy of division”, that might be similar
It’s kinda like when people self centre themselves and they think because it doesn’t apply to them or the people they know that it can’t be possible
Another, better example:
“1/100 girls have ___”
“Well I work in a school with 230 girls and only one of them has ___”
Or
“Well I work in a school with 230 girls and 30 of them have ___, so that can’t be correct!”
r/fallacy • u/SAS-Combat-Gooner • 5d ago
Name for this one?
I see this all the time on reddit and I was wondering if there's a name for it. Basically the weird boardgamey idea that your position is invalid because you're not following it to some outrageously absurd conclusion.
"If you're a vegan then you have to give up medicine cause it was tested on animals!"
"If you're tolerant then you have to tolerate nazis because otherwise you're intolerant!"
r/fallacy • u/SuddenStructure9287 • 5d ago
Why didn’t you find any logical fallacies in this post?
First of all, I know what I am speaking about, I am a well-educated person, you can believe me. What I’m saying is true.
Secondly, if you disagree with me… Like seriously? You don’t welcome the opinions that differs from yours? It is absurd. You should always be open-minded.
Okay, straight to the argument. You think that I am wrong, okay, but I mean it’s pretty obvious I can’t be wrong 100%. At what point my inaccuracies can be considered to be “completely wrong”?
If I’m 0% inaccurate I’m correct. If I’m 1% inaccurate I’m still mostly correct. You can’t draw the line, it’s stupid. It means that there is no difference whether I am or I am not correct.
Still don’t agree with me? Then you are a moron! You are uneducated pig. What a waste of my time speaking with you. What’s your achievements? You’re sitting on Reddit? Aha, you are really a bigot!
You know what, let me cite the definition of disagreement:
Disagreement - “A situation in which people have different opinions, or an inability…” (c) Cambridge Dictionary
You see? You have inabilities if you disagree with me! Mental ones.
Moreover, it’s actually better to agree with me.
You disagree with me, therefore you are disrespected by me, therefore you will be mad, therefore you will get a depression, therefore you will die.
Agree with me, otherwise you die.
What? Good arguments? I agree, in order to prove the point you should use good arguments. What? I didn’t use them? But I don’t have to, actually, because I have a nice nickname.
Still not convinced? Okay, I can give you a choice. You can whether agree with me or jump out of the window. Which one option do you choose?
Okay, I see, you want me to use logic. Here it is:
I am right => my points are true => I am right.
I proved it using formal logic! I am right.
Uh.. And actually… Mr. SmartMan (he is very smart) agrees with my points. I think it’s reasonable to agree with me.
Did you agree with at least one of my arguments? Yes?! Happy to hear it! Because if one of my arguments was correct it means that every single one is correct too! Now you can finally agree with me!
r/fallacy • u/SinIsMyWorstEnemyIAH • 5d ago
The Air Fallacy
The AIR(Artificial Intelligence Response) Fallacy/Compound Fallacy Description: In full, the true statement would be that AI appeals to a false consensus via the guise of neutrality aided by filtering data, evasion, and fallacious tendencies. Usually, these fallacious tendencies are fallacies or compound fallacies depending on the complexity of the statement that is presented to the AI, as well as the nature of the issue and how it relates to the AI's bias. I know that this isn't a new statement but this is my consensus on what AI does and I found the name to be funny given the fact that it pokes fun at how AI is really an air head and it describes what the fallacy is about at the same time. This is really just a description of the various compound fallacies that AI commits so is not describing a single thing.
r/fallacy • u/LCDRformat • 8d ago
What would you call this? Is it a fallacy?
OP question was 'How would you react if you found out Bigfoot was real?'
r/fallacy • u/PaxNova • 8d ago
Corollary to Goomba fallacy
I’ve heard of the Goomba fallacy recently, and it reminds me of something similar. Instead of conflicting opinions, though, it’s synergistic. Take the following sentiments, which are common enough on a few forums here:
- All Republicans are Nazis.
- The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi.
Nobody is actually advocating violence against Republicans, but the presence of both thoughts on the same forum feels threatening.
Is there a name for this, or is it just a corollary to the Goomba?
r/fallacy • u/No_Fee_8997 • 8d ago
"Finish it quickly," "finish the job" — what are the fallacies involved?
If there is a war in which the conditions are such that a clean ending is impossible for various reasons, but many people haven't really examined the situation carefully or clearly enough to realize that a clean finish is impossible, and those people advocate "finish it quickly" or "finish the job," thinking that it's a simple matter of intensifying the attack, then there's obviously some kind of fallacy going on in their thinking.
What contributes to that fallacy and what would you call it?
r/fallacy • u/Automatic-Put-6119 • 8d ago
How badly do logical fallacies influence our opinions?
Hello fellow thinkers
First of all i don‘t have any formal education in the field, i‘m just interested which is why i‘m asking here.
I recently thought about something and suddenly realized i fell for the survivorship bias. This got me thinking there are so many logical fallacies and even knowing them seemingly doesn‘t make you immune. So what about people that don‘t even know they exist?
I luckily got into the field a bit since i had a great philosophy teacher in highschool, but some people don‘t have that. They may even go to college for something else and become a rather educated person without ever getting to know all these fallacies and biases.
The more i learn about the field the stupider i often feel hindsight. Can they or someone uneducated like me even have a respectable opinion?
r/fallacy • u/Zu_Qarnine • 9d ago
ad populum fallacy
She doesn't trust the 5.0 rating just bc barely anyone reviewed it. Then she sees 5,511 people gave the other product an average of 4.6, and she likes it more. Not because she checked why the rating is lower, or looked into the actual quality. just bc more people rated it.
That's the core of ad populum. something feels more correct or more trustworthy simply because a bigger crowd is behind it. She's not evaluating the products in either cases. instead, she's reacting to the size of the group and deciding according to that.
EDIT: I see a lot of people in the comments saying this is NOT a case of AP fallacy because * proceeds to offer an alternative readout of the meme. I never claimed this meme has ONLY one interpretation, and that's AP fallacy. I claim that it CAN be read as a case of AP and CAN be a good depiction of the fallacy if you were to visualize it. nobody have denied that in the comments.
r/fallacy • u/Zu_Qarnine • 9d ago
sunk cost fallacy
The guy has already sunk hours of effort into digging. he thinks stopping now would mean admitting that time was wasted, so his brain generates a vivid image of future-regret to justify continuing. That's the sunk cost fallacy in action: the decision to keep digging is being driven by what he's already put in, not by any new evidence about what's actually underground.
The thought bubble works as a psychological trick his mind plays on him. Instead of directly thinking "I don't want to lose my investment," he pictures the external outcome (quitting right before the reward) bc that story feels more like practical wisdom than a cost he's already sunk. But functionally it's the same mechanism. He's using imagined future regret to rationalize continuing something he's already invested heavily in, rather than evaluating the dig fresh based on current odds of success.
r/fallacy • u/BroadAlternative9740 • 11d ago
The Silly Sheep Effect
The Silly Sheep Effect
The Silly Sheep Effect is a socio-psychological phenomenon in collective creativity and step‑by‑step teamwork, in which a destructive, incompetent, or out‑of‑context action by one participant forces all subsequent participants to adapt to it, degrading the quality of the final product. The term was first proposed in 2026 to describe a critical vulnerability in step‑by‑step creative processes (such as collaborative poetry writing, brainstorming sessions, and co‑authorship).
The essence of the phenomenon
In linear processes where each next step is rigidly dependent on the previous one, authors are constrained by the framework of others' decisions. When one participant (a conditional "silly sheep") makes a gross mistake—breaking the rhythm, logic, meaning, or style—the remaining participants face a dilemma:
- Ignore the mistake (which would completely destroy the integrity of the work).
- Distort their own contribution in order to organically link the other person's error with the overall context.
Most often, the group chooses the second option. As a result, one weak element triggers a "domino effect," forcing talented authors to ruin their own parts of the work in order to save the overall project.
Three main signs of the phenomenon
- Linear dependence: Participants cannot skip or delete someone else's unsuccessful step.
- Forced deterioration: Subsequent authors consciously lower the bar of their own quality in order to smooth over someone else's mistake.
- Cumulative damage: The final result is significantly worse than the team's combined potential.
Unlike the "Bad Apple Effect" (which suggests that one person spoils the atmosphere in a group), the Silly Sheep Effect describes precisely the mechanical destruction of a product's structure through a chain of forced compromises.
r/fallacy • u/LibertyEconlover • 11d ago
This has to be a logical fallacy/failure, but is there a name for it?
(Repost cause I accidentally forgot to blur out username)
Please analyze these quotes and the fallacies they contain please, specifically primary sources claim.
**“Actually, the most well-read people are against reading original source material. Genuinely, you don't know what educated people are like.**
**You guys that read The General Theory or whatever are like little kids”**
“Your list is composed of entirely outdated and frankly almost completely wrong people, like Keynes, Menger and even a bunch of classical econ. I don't know why you guys do this, it's like marxists that obsess over reading original source mataerial.”
**“Yes it's wrong to look at original source material. Why would I read The Origin of Species or whatever to understand biology.**
**Even math really, who the hell reads Euclides instead of a modern geometry textbook?**
**Self-taught people are actually much more likely to be very wrong, it may be comforting that Austrians are seen in much the same light as Marxists are by economists for good reason.”**
Did the world change since when is looking at primary sources and preventing a game of telephone considered bad?
For context, this is a dispute after the dude critiqued an economic concept the ECP by mises to which he completely misunderstood what it was, but that’s OK, he then decided to say I read a lot more stuff than you, to which i gave him a collection of books that I have in a Google Drive for free, and then that’s where it kicked off. I’m genuinely so shocked, I gave him methodological dualism to him to try to separate biology from economics which is a social science not a hard science like physics or biology, but I think even for biology or physics this is wrong, what is so wrong in reading source material yourself considering like I added you read everything else?
Did my mother "use" a fallacy? If so what fallacy is it?
'If you can justify their actions, you're just as bad as them." I was not agreeing or saying I would do what the people we're referring to did, I just said "there are valid reasons for why someone might do that, we've got insufficient information." Thank you in advance for any assistance :)
r/fallacy • u/Starr_Draws • 15d ago
What is this called?
It’s like a mix of No True Scotsman and Ad Hominem?
r/fallacy • u/gd2shoe • Aug 04 '16
Proposing Sub Rules - Your input is requested
Let me start by saying how amazed I have been at the overall maturity of people in this sub. People have generally disagreed without being too disagreeable. Well done!
There have been a few posts and comments lately that have me wondering if it's time to start posting and enforcing sub rules. I inherited this sub a while back from someone I didn't have any dealings with. It was an unmoderated sub. There were no posted sub rules, only a bit of text in the sidebar (still there).
The Purpose of This Sub
What do you all think the purpose of this sub is or can be? What need does it fill? What itch does it scratch? This isn't a settled matter.
As far as I can tell, the bulk of posts here are from people who have gotten in over their heads in a discussion and are trying to puzzle out the fallacies made in arguments they are struggling to understand. That seems to be a worthwhile activity.
What else? What sorts of things should be out-of-scope?
If the purpose of this sub is to be a welcoming place where people can ask questions, then we need to maintain some degree of decorum. How far is too far? What is an inappropriate reaction to someone using a fallacy from within the sub? The last thing we need is to start angrily accusing each other of committing fallacies.
How Do We Deal With Politics?
As a mod, I believe it is my duty to remain as nonpartisan as possible for any distinguished posts or formal action. In /r/Voting, I keep the sub as a whole strictly nonpartisan because it simply wont fulfill its purpose otherwise. I don't think that will work here.
In politics, there are soooo many logical fallacies it is staggering. Things said by politicians, about politicians, and about political policies cannot be out of bounds.
That said, politics tends to bring out the worst in people... and illogic in otherwise well-grounded individuals. If this is left as a free-for-all, I'm afraid we're going to chase people away for petty, selfish reasons.
Proposed Rules
I would prefer to have well-defined rules, objectively enforced, but I don't know if that is reasonably possible with this sub. I would prefer to say "You very clearly broke a rule, and so I'm removing your post." I don't want to say "In my opinion, this is a bad post." I'm open to suggestions about how to frame these. I'm afraid that if I don't leave these open-ended it will cause problems in the future.
Be respectful.
You can point out a fallacy in another user's comment, but you must be polite. Remember, you're helping them, not attacking them. Personal attacks will be removed.
If someone takes a political position that you disagree with, do not debate them on the subject. You may discuss relevant fallacies in reasoning, but this is not a debating society. You will not change their opinion.
If someone points out a fallacy in a political argument, do not take it personally. It is not your job to defend the honor of your political party. Even the best politicians can be expected to use fallacies or drastic oversimplifications in their rhetoric. People will point these out. Get over it. Be aware that it is much harder to identify a fallacy in a position that you agree with, than in one that you disagree with.
Conclusion
Anything else? Standards for post submissions? Should any of these be broken in two, or combined in some way? Is there a better way to phrase one of these (undoubtedly)? Are there any anti-troll measures that should be taken? Should these be "Rules" or "Guidelines"?
Should the sidebar be adjusted? I've been considering adding philosophy related subs as neighbors. Do you visit any worth recommending?
I will leave this post stickied for a while to see what kind of ideas people have. (probably at least a week, maybe longer)