Whataboutism
When I first heard from @dwinblood about the concept of Logical Fallacies, I thought it was a little strange since the only real fallacy you can actually commit in logic is a circular prove. Generally 99% of all arguments in the real world should not be classified as logic arguments. A logic argument is defined rather simple: if your preconditions are true, your conclusion has to be true based on the structure of your argument.
An appeal to authority however can be logical. If you take a statement by a biology professor as a fprecondition in the context of an argument about logic, that is perfectly fine. Hell, in the realm of logic you could even have the precondition: "Everything that Person X says is true". As long as everybody involved in the argument can agree on this precondition, the logic of the argumentation is not harmed. To be fair many people dislike precondtions that determine the truth of a statement depending on a source, but it is quite common especially in science.
Appeal to emotion is OK, because emotions are more important to facts.
Whataboutism is what actually made me look deeper into the topic of logical fallacies. Someone on youtube mentioned that my logic was flawed, because I was talking about the hypocrisis of the left. Ofc the word on its own signaled that it is a rather new american concept. No actual modern pilosopher would ever create a erm as childish as this.
If someone is criticing you and your counter argument is "you are doing the same", then that is perfectly fine. In fact I think logic is a great tool to detect hypocrisy and to call the act of pointing out hypocrisy "whataboutism" is beyond stupid. It is propaganda developed during the cold war to not face the legitimate claims of the Sovjet Union about the hypocrisy of American Politics.
To people wo think logic is directly connected or even defined by this bs about logical fallacies: study logic or math, and then try again. If you don't want to invest that amount of money and time then feel free to ask me about logic in the comments. I tutored the subject for a year at college.
Edit: Changed the title to something more snappy, this word really triggers me :3
Very interesting to read but gets boring very fast if there are no pics or something like that! :)
thank you for the feedback. I was sitting in the train writing this, so I did not really have the equipment to add pictures... welp I guess I could have at least just linked some. I like original content, but I have to admit I rarely read posts without pictures myself ;)
I agree that one picture is a must. :c)
And since the post was not particularly long, it can get away with just the one (though a second one near the end is helpful).
I found the premise interesting, incidentally. One comment to an earlier point is that I am not a big fan of unquestioning reference of others as precondition. It is a shortcut, to be sure, but when it is coupled with an aura of unassailability, it can stifle or taint progress.
I actually try to keep my content short. I don't like to read too dragged out articles. Ofc the more credit to those long pieces that I actually read like yours about BTC ;). Did not have the time to really comment though.
"unquestioning reference of others as precondition" Me neither. But society loves to do it and I think to a certain degree even you have to:
Did you prove yourself that e=mc² or do you just believe that the narrative is convincing. At some point you have to say " Ok there are people who have provided a plausible theory."
Science usually observes a phenomenon and then tries to find an explanation.
Logic on the other sets preconditions and looks at the logical consequences of said preconditions. If the preconditions are true your conclusion has to be true "under all circumstances".
Without "common values"/preconditions we will never find a common truth. I also think it is good that people around the world have different values. I don't want to equalize them, I want them to make the rules/laws more local so communities can live to their values instead of global values.
I forgot two more actual logical fallacies: Describing similar objects as the same object, and going the causation arrow "-->" backwards.
As an example for the second: A violent person will play violent games and watch violent movies, but watching violent movies or playing the games does not make you a violent person.