Three worst arguments one can make

Three worst arguments one can make
In general logical fallacies tend to pop up in conversations or arguments you have with people. Ranging from naturalistic fallacies to false dichotomies, sometimes you occasionally have people arguing from standpoints that logically, are just obviously wrong. The one's I encounter the most frequently that people believe proves their point when it clearly doesn't that they feel support their arguments the strongest when in reality it is opposed to them tend to be more frustrating. I call these the three worst arguments one can make, there are no coincidences, everything is universal, and "it's like, my opinion man". Essentially, causation is not correlation, not everything can be treated in a universal way, and you should not take refuge in your ignorance about a topic and default towards your opinion. The facts are what they are regardless of what you know about them. Saying "we can never really know!" and then choosing to make up reality is absurd. It's best not to assume anything extreme on many topics, not just make up reality as you want. These three I encounter a lot and people think it supports their arguments, when it clearly does not. Outlining these more in detail below, you can see the issues with them. 


1. "There are no coincidences"- Correlation is not the same as cuasation
The basic premise is like this; someone say "this happened, and then this happened after the fact. Therefore, they must be connected." What this ignores though is that some times coincidences do actually exist. Not everything is connected in a way that suggests A necessarily lead to B, and sometimes random things do occur. The logical fallacy here is formally known as "correlation does not imply causation", implying that because the two random numbers or figures line up statistically, they don't necessarily have to be connected, let alone in the way presented. An example of such a fallacy would be for instance emergency personnel showing up to help after a hurricane, so a person accuses the emergency personnel of themselves being responsible for the hurricane since they always show up during and after hurricanes. Or soldiers show up after a war when hundreds of thousands of people die, so therefore it is now the soldier's faults or the military's even if they were not a direct cause of the conflict in the first place. "Coincidence? I think not!"

It's also often used to connect two random ideas together, such as Christians and Towels, for instance. Clearly, the increase of towels in the world happened irregardless of Christians, but with more towels has come with more Christians. Does this mean that if we made a billion new towels, we'd have a billion new Christians? Probably not. Yet the two things are connected statistically. Or that criminals are more likely to wear red when they commit crimes. Or that the economy has risen and fallen with the number of Nicolas Cage movies. What does this mean? In reality, it means nothing. It isn't that two things are connected all the time, or perhaps they are even connected in another way than is being presented. In other words, the fact there is a connection is not proof that the connection is what someone thinks it is. A criminal is likely to show up at the scene of a murder, but so is a police officer or a family member. A does not necessarily lead to B or mean B, as there are more potential causes, meaning that while a person could say you are a murderer, or a racist, or a thief etc. it also just as much could be an accident or a mistake rather than done on purpose. Assigning motive, purpose or a cause to a set of phenomena based solely on the fact that a connection of some unknown kind merely exists, is a logical fallacy. A simple correlation is not proof without first demonstrating causative factors. It should be assumed at first that there may not be a connection rather than jump to conclusions with clearly incomplete evidence. 



2. "Why didn't you donate to every charity, huh?"- Exclusionary fallacy.
While not as common, it is no less stupid than other three arguments, which is why it deserves to be placed as number 2. This argument essentially goes "Well, if you chose a cancer charity over an AID's charity, you must have done so out of personal preference". It's a way to make charitable people look selfish by suggesting that if you didn't solve all of the world's problems, through magical powers, you are somehow now inherently bad. Or, it's an exclusionary argument, suggesting that if something is not A, then it cannot be B, when A does not necessarily mean B. Another potential name for it is, "everything is universal", as in everything is the same and should cost the same amount of money, time and resources to invest in to, when in reality things are often more complex. Money often isn't the solution at all, but a better design. 

What this ignores however is three key things, that A- a person can't be expected to solve all of the world's problems given the physical limitations of doing so, B- that doing some good in the world is better than doing no good and C- that a person can have multiple motives at the same time. This is essentially a form of a false dichotomy, another logical fallacy in and of itself where it assumes that if you do something for good and moral reasons, you could not also have a personal reason as well. We all have our biases and place our trust in different areas, and to suggest that this means we are automatically acting out of selfishness is beyond ridiculous. Outside of moral issues, the exclusionary fallacy is often applied to prove a negative, suggesting that because of a lack of something, or a lack of a something being effected in it's entirety, this issue must not exist. This one ignores the fact there is often an exception to the rule or extenuating circumstances that might prevent something from occurring, such as gravity existing in space but being hard to observe, or situations where a seatbelt did not save lives, therefore indicating seatbelt must be bad because some of the time they failed to do their job. Another argument could be that if someone didn't go work today, that they don't normally go to work, or that they are not a hard worker because they missed a day, when ordinarily they could be hard workers and show up to work at higher rates than other employees, or work hard while at work even if they are often not at work. There is more than one way to be a hard worker, and in the same way there is more than one way to be a moral person, as a person or even government cannot reasonably be expected to do all things. Sometimes factors might block the person from performing a task, such as the threat of a nuclear war when trying to make peace with a country, or a lack of resources and being stretched thin.

Often applied to the war in Iraq or other wars in general, the basic premise is that because you didn't do everything that exists in the world, or solve all the world's problems, you are somehow bad or must have been out for profit or other nefarious reasons. Other than the incredulous nature of this by itself, when applied to any other form of thinking it quickly falls apart as a bad idea. The idea that doing nothing is some how more virtuous than doing something is quite frankly very bizarre, and an argument that doesn't hold up anywhere else in life.


3. "Well we can never really know, therefore I am right automatically and don't need pesky things like facts or logic to back up an incredibly important world-altering decision."- Default bias, taking refuge in ignorance

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, and people are attacked more and more for not agreeing to some kind of public consensus as if this is necessary or matters. We don't all have to be on the same page or agree on all things, people are entitled to their own opinions. To get on my soapbox, more and more these days people aren't okay with people having better opinions, and I find this to be a rather annoying trend in modern culture, what with people being cancelled or destroyed over tweets or other dumb social media posts. That being said, facts themselves do not change and neither does logic. You don't get to just default to whatever your opinion is if you refuse to accept the facts on something. Your opinion on an event does not actually change that event, so if your opinion is that someone is a murderer but all the evidence shows they weren't even in the same country at the time and another guy with bloody fingerprints at the scene confesses, then the facts still are what they are. It's not fair or moral to continue asserting something you know that is false because you take refuge in ignorance, you are still wrong. You still have a moral obligation to be right, to be factually correct, to the truth, not out of an abstract reason but for your fellow man. Your fellow man does not deserve persecution or harm that will come from your own stupidity. You should not double down on ridiculous bullshit, but instead should try to be empathetic and moral and try to be right. You cannot be morally correct without being factually correct. If you convict an innocents person, you did something wrong. The reason why the justice system places such a premium on DNA evidence, fingerprints, forensics etc. is to avoid convicting innocents people. The Truth is tied to morality, and if you deliberately choose the wrong thing you are a bad person no matter how you try to rationalize it to yourself. 

Don't CHOOSE to do the wrong thing, admit when you are wrong. You don't get to just make up reality. Lives depend upon us being correct, and you don't get to just  choose to hurt others out of stupidity. You might think to yourself, oh but I'm only doubling down on this idea, or that idea, it won't kill anyone! But if you are the type of person who does this sort of thing, and train yourself to do it, you will do it when it counts for you not to. Few people rise to the occasion and break a bad habit when they need to. You don't get to just "bend reality" on this one issue, or another issue, reality never bends, and you should never do this, no matter how small of an issue you think it is. Become a good person and admit when you are wrong and don't take refuge in your ignorance while others suffer. Lives depend upon us being correct.