Surely if Rand Rover’s points are so obviously and clearly wrong, you could refute them without resorting to that logical fallacy.
What if you’re not drunk?
Consunsus is a wonderful thing, but it doesn’t change reality.
Put it this way - gay marriage referenda of the last few elections lost by clear majorities. Would you agree that gay marriage proponents should simply accept that the majority ruling against them shows that they were wrong, and they should simply shut up and go away? Or do you agree with those who say that the rightness (or wrongness) of gay marriage needs to be established in some way other than “everybody said so, so shut up”.
I didn’t say Rand was wrong, I said that he can’t argue his points without acting like a posterior. In this case appealing to popular consensus is not so much of a logical fallacy. I cannot prove one way or another that Person X is acting like a derriere; it’s only an opinion. Pointing to the opinions of many other diverse people is about all I can do, really.
Only if you also agree that “because the Republicans lost the 2008 elections by a clear majority, they need to shut up and go away.” Somehow I don’t think I’ll be waiting for that any time soon.
I’m a smart person. A lot of us here are smart. And a lot of us share a common misperception - that intelligence is a virtue, rather than a characteristic. We think that, somehow, we deserve our intelligence, rather than think of it as something that derives from the genetic lottery. Might as well think you deserve a better life because you’re taller than average, or have green eyes. Or are white.
What, you’re not smart enough for this well-paying job? Well, too bad for you, dumb-ass, I’ve got mine!
And, goodness, whatever shall we do with all these useless people? They’re probably lazy. Yes, that must be it…
I would assume that every new voter who turns 18 is at least 75% likely to be okay with gay marriage, while ever voter over 80 who dies is at least 75% likely to oppose it, so the reasonable strategy is to keep up the fight until they can get a court decision that a changing (and gradually more accepting) population can live with.
Of course, this is pretty much what any effort at social change requires, be it women’s suffrage (in the U.S., figure the process ran from 1848-1920), integrated education (~1896-1954) and Man-Boy Love (1978 - ?).
But again, that also involves misinterpretation. In the thread quoted in the OP, I was getting on that guy for lamenting the fact that he had to “pound the pavement” to look for a job, as if that were beneath him. Other people are apparently taking that thread as just me bagging on an unemployed guy.
But you, in turn, had misinterpreted him. The guy was venting. It’s as if you started a Pit thread like “Damnit, I have to change the kid’s diaper.” Here, most of us would assume you were venting. It’d be a stretch to think “Rand must not like his kid” or “Rand thinks changing diapers is beneath him.” 99% of those of us who are parents would be thinking, “Yep, we’ve been there. Sucks, doesn’t it?”
Duke, you have the reasoning ability of day-old bread.
I didn’t say my views weren’t right. I just said that people misrepresent my posts because they disagree with my views, in contrast to your assertion that I said they misrepresent my posts because my views are right.
But that’s a ridiculous assertion. I don’t think most people even care at this point whether you’re Objectivist, Maoist, Anarchist, whatever. They do think you’re sounding like a rear end. Hell, even people who don’t “disagree with your views” are thinking that.
Look, I can understand the venting angle, and maybe I was wrong to junp on a guy for venting, but you have to read the whole thread and see it all in context. Also, that thread was right on the heels of a thread where Acid Lamp was being a total tool about his job situation, so maybe I carried some vitriol over. In any event, the Op’s later posts in that thread showed that he understood he was responsible for himself and would get to work, so my posts may have done some good.
Both involve value judgments. The first is that while he may be complaining about “having to pound the pavement” it is fair to infer from his statement that he is upset about having to look for a job he thought was safe. Having lost such a job myself i the past I can certainly empathize. It feels like getting kicked in the gut. A little self pity is not out of place so long as it doesn’t become a crutch.
The second is that while you may have had a valid concern and were attempting to aid him, you came off as a supercilious ass. It has nothing to do with your politics or your misguided philosophical meanderings. It has everything to do with your presentation and your actions. “I didn’t mean to” is a cop out. I don’t let my students get away with it. It is up to you to make your intent clear.
I think if you took more trouble to articulate your views so that others might understand them better, it would go a long way. You admit that you can’t even be bothered to edit your blackberry posts for spelling and capitalization. It is not a big stretch to assume that you don’t edit for comprehension, either
Reading for comprehension is only half the battle.
Worse than either of those–I’m an economist (also a CPA, but the economist is a bigger part of what I do). As you guessed earlier, I’m in transfer pricing.
An aside for those who are interested: Transfer pricing is an interdisciplinary specialty tax field which is generally considered a subset of international tax. My group is 50% economists, 50% attorneys, and 50% CPAs–which adds to more than 100% because we have the occasional JD/CPA or PhD/CPA or even the scary LLM/PhD/CPA. The international tax group of which my group is a subset is even more heavily weighted toward attorneys: call it 90% JD to 30% CPA. (I should mention that when I mentioned 15% layoffs, I was referring to the international tax group, not the firm as a whole–that’s where most of our attorneys are located, so the group that made the most sense to reference.)
So, although I’m an economist, I work with plenty of tax attorneys.
None of our clients are immune to the recession, not even our fund clients. Clients could always go to cheaper service providers, and, as I mentioned, planning projects can be put on hold or killed to save money in the short-term. The fund’s tax costs can’t just be pushed to investors, because investors could easily jump ship to cheaper funds, or could move to other investments. That means we’re being hurt by the recession.
I mentioned that we were considering hiring one of the layoffs–that was one person, with a good reputation–who was an internal referral–applying for a job with zero other applicants.
They didn’t get the job.
For the person who got laid-off, the fact that he was a high-performer in an industry that 1) has a limited number of qualified applicants, and 2) so far has been somewhat insulated from the downturn–those things didn’t help him.
I’m betting you’re fairly new to the industry. Ask some of the people who’ve been there longer what it was like in 2001. After you’ve seen enough people whose lives have been damaged through no fault of their own, then I’m betting you’ll temper your philosophy.
Is it just me, but does anyone else think that society would be better off if there wasn’t a need to have an army of PhDs, lawyers, CPAs and other assorted smart people deciphering taxes?
I’m not trying to argue with you or support an argument that my firld is recession-proof, I just want to clear up some misconceptions and other issues in this post.
First, you and I work in different industries (just like the guys at H and R Block work in yet a third industry that’s related to taxes).
Second, I was referring to private equity funds, not hedge funds or mutual funds. So, investors just cant abandon ship (because they have committed capital to a fund) and rthe fund can’t stop investing (but theey sure as hell can slow down for a bit, which has happened). Also, new funds have already been formed to take advantage of the recession, so it’s not all gloom and doom. Finally, funds at the end of their life cycles must sell, so they can’t just not do deals.
Third, as I’m sure you are aware, people are willing to pay for quality tax advice. People use my firm for a reason, so they won’t just go en masse to these fabled lower cost providers of which you speak.