I find myself questioning how many readers will actually do the unpacking you describe rather than just use the Worst Argument in the World as a club to beat their opponents over the head. Especially since title is such that it will probably attract many readers off LessWrong.
“Taboo murder.” works better than “Calling X murder is the worst argument in the world!”
I’ve heard anecdotes of philosophy professors dreading the lesson on logical fallacies because the students use them as a weapon. But even so, logical fallacies are pedagogically useful like the worst argument in the world. To know that you should taboo murder rather than continue presupposing “all murder = bad” requires a degree of sophistication, and learning logic and logical fallacies is exactly how you learn to unpack those presuppositions and actually argue rather than score political points.
I think the best practice is to taboo saying “X is Y bias or X is Y logical fallacy”, and rather require people to explain or question the exact flaw in reasoning and possibly why it’s important enough to bring up.
So, for example, if someone says “that’s murder, so it’s evil,” you should then reply with something like “why does something being murder necessitate it being evil?” (all the while internally thinking, “ah ha! I think that was the worst argument in the world.”)
I find myself questioning how many readers will actually do the unpacking you describe rather than just use the Worst Argument in the World as a club to beat their opponents over the head. Especially since title is such that it will probably attract many readers off LessWrong.
“Taboo murder.” works better than “Calling X murder is the worst argument in the world!”
I’ve heard anecdotes of philosophy professors dreading the lesson on logical fallacies because the students use them as a weapon. But even so, logical fallacies are pedagogically useful like the worst argument in the world. To know that you should taboo murder rather than continue presupposing “all murder = bad” requires a degree of sophistication, and learning logic and logical fallacies is exactly how you learn to unpack those presuppositions and actually argue rather than score political points.
I think the best practice is to taboo saying “X is Y bias or X is Y logical fallacy”, and rather require people to explain or question the exact flaw in reasoning and possibly why it’s important enough to bring up.
So, for example, if someone says “that’s murder, so it’s evil,” you should then reply with something like “why does something being murder necessitate it being evil?” (all the while internally thinking, “ah ha! I think that was the worst argument in the world.”)
Right, it’s a bad name (but not a bad idea, if you correctly unpack the name).