L1’s BDB Keeping It Classy

Ball Diamond Ball:That’s pretty weak sauce. Try Iambic pentameter. That helps mask all sorts of errors.Refute the logic. Don’t go ad hominem. And this is exactly the sort of response that we see too often at Ricochet, and this is what the editors should be looking at.In case either this commenter or the editors have some inability to parse what is at error here, let me spell it out.

1. Calling an argument “weak sauce” is not a serious refutation. It does not point to any hole in the logic, it dismisses it out of hand. Calling an argument “weak sauce” is, itself, “weak sauce,” since it is a mere assertion unbacked by facts or example. I am not even sure if this can truly be called forensics.
2. My being a formalist poet has no bearing on the discussion. I pursue more than a dozen remunerative occupations. All involve adherence to rules, including formal logic, law, and programming logic.
3. Iambic pentameter is a meter and does nothing to mask flaws in logic. Perhaps a mind easily numbed by rhythm might think so, like a man in a drum circle trying to forget how emasculated he is and trying to reclaim that masculinity through grunting and beating on things. But for the quality minds we expect on Ricochet, such confusion by the presence of a rhythm should be unacceptable. If that is what …

Fair enough.  When you make an argument, I’ll refute it.

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