The KrugMan Speaks

A Song For Adam --Jackson Browne

If You Could Read My Mind --Gordon Lightfoot

Today's Quote

Logical Fallacy #10 - Loaded Question

A loaded question or complex question fallacy is a question which contains a controversial or unjustified assumption (e.g., a presumption of guilt).[1]

Aside from being an informal fallacy depending on usage, such questions may be used as a rhetorical tool: the question attempts to limit direct replies to be those that serve the questioner's agenda.[2] The traditional example is the question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" Whether the respondent answers yes or no, he will admit to having a wife and having beaten her at some time in the past. Thus, these facts are presupposed by the question, and in this case an entrapment, because it narrows the respondent to a single answer, and the fallacy of many questions has been committed.[2] The fallacy relies upon context for its effect: the fact that a question presupposes something does not in itself make the question fallacious. Only when some of these presuppositions are not necessarily agreed to by the person who is asked the question does the argument containing them become fallacious.[2] Hence the same question may be loaded in one context, but not in the other. For example the previous question would not be loaded if it was asked during a trial in which the defendant has already admitted to beating his wife.[2]

This fallacy should be distinguished from that of begging the question,[3] which offers a premise whose plausibility depends on the truth of the proposition asked about, and which is often an implicit restatement of the proposition.[4]

The term "loaded question" is sometimes used to refer to loaded language that is phrased as a question. This type of question does not necessarily contain a fallacious presupposition, but rather this usage refers to the question having an unspoken and often emotive implication. For example, "Are you a murderer?" would be such a loaded question, as "murder" has a very negative connotation. Such a question may be asked merely to harass or upset the respondent with no intention of listening to their reply, or asked with the full expectation that the respondent will predictably deny it.

Cartoon Hero --Lydian Collective

The trick is playing it the same way twice in a row, but I'll take this one all day long.

That Sinking Feeling

Sometimes the metaphors walk up and smack ya right in the face.

Here's a picture of Lee Jun-seok, captain of the ferry that sank off the coast of South Korea recently:

Captain Lee has been arrested because he left the ship before doing everything he was supposed to do to ensure the safety of his passengers.  Weirdly (to me anyway) the conduct of a ship's captain is generally prescribed in terms of "should" instead of "must",  but according to S Korea's laws, this guy split early and now he's in deep shit.

What if I look at this from a different perspective though?  Am I not supposed to try to see things from the point of view of people with whom I disagree?  Shouldn't I be willing to consider others' opinions and philosophies?  What if I never stop asking rhetorical questions?

Maybe I should wait until I have a chance to ask somebody directly, but I don't see it as a big stretch to imagine the reaction of Paul Ryan (eg) to Lee's behavior.  I should hope Mr Ryan would react with the same disgust and horror as the rest of us, but in one way (one that feels pretty important to me) Lee did exactly what I think Ryan and his fellows are always saying we should all do.  Lee found himself in dire circumstances, and simply turned his back on the people who were looking to him for help and guidance.

The Straw Man risk notwithstanding, it can't be all that hard for any of us to believe there's a tiny inkling of thought on the part of our current batch of "conservatives" that sounds like this: "those dead passengers should've had the gumption to save themselves - but they didn't - they had grown complacently dependent on the superior capabilities and sheer awesomeness of Capt Lee and his crew, and they were obviously just waiting around expecting a handout.  See what happens to stupid moochers!?!"

Wanna go full Romney with it?  "...do whatever it takes - borrow some money from your parents if you have to - so you can buy your own rescue boat..."

In the end - look at that picture again - having tended to his own interests to the exclusion of everything else, Capt Lee loses everything worth saving in the first place.

Just sayin' - the Slippery Slope can be a real thing.

Ludlow Day

Today's the 100th anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre (April 20, 1914).

The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Some two dozen people, including women and children, were killed. The chief owner of the mine, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was widely criticized for the incident.
The massacre, the culmination of a bloody widespread strike against Colorado coal mines, resulted in the violent deaths of between 19 and 26 people; reported death tolls vary but include two women and eleven children, asphyxiated and burned to death under a single tent.[1] The deaths occurred after a daylong fight between militia and camp guards against striking workers. Ludlow was the deadliest single incident in the southern Colorado Coal Strike, lasting from September 1913 through December 1914. The strike was organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) against coal mining companies in Colorado. The three largest companies involved were the Rockefeller family-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company (CF&I), the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company (RMF), and the Victor-American Fuel Company (VAF).
In retaliation for Ludlow, the miners armed themselves and attacked dozens of mines over the next ten days, destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard along a 40-mile front from Trinidad to Walsenburg.[2] The entire strike would cost between 69 and 199 lives. Thomas G. Andrews described it as the "deadliest strike in the history of the United States".[3]
The Ludlow Massacre was a watershed moment in American labor relations. Historian Howard Zinn described the Ludlow Massacre as "the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history".[4]Congress responded to public outcry by directing the House Committee on Mines and Mining to investigate the incident.[5] Its report, published in 1915, was influential in promoting child labor laws and an eight-hour work day.
The Ludlow site, 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Trinidad, Colorado, is now a ghost town. The massacre site is owned by the UMWA, which erected a granite monument in memory of the miners and their families who died that day.[6] The Ludlow Tent Colony Site was designated a National Historic Landmark on January 16, 2009, and dedicated on June 28, 2009.[6] Modern archeological investigation largely supports the strikers' reports of the event.[7]

And A Happy Easter To You Too

It's All In Your Head

Here's a podcast about neuroscience(?) stuff, relating humans and chimps and how we develop etc - and right about the 7 minute mark, the woman says something about how the hippocampus helps convert short-term memory to long-term memory, and that kinda popped a flashbulb in my brain.

It's a close variation on the Orwell thing about if you control the past you control the future.

(paraphrasing) "If you can't remember the past, you can't imagine a future".

I flashed on how propaganda is supposed to work - and it occurs to me that maybe we're seeing that concept playing out.  So, if I can disconnect you from your own history; if I can make you believe the history you were taught is all wrong; and knowing that you'd then be unable to come up with a coherent vision of your future for yourself, it would be pretty easy for me just to hand you a tidy little package of everything I want you to do and to think and to be.  Sometimes I hate my brain.

Anyway, it's an interesting discussion about other things as well.



hat tip = FB friend DR