election time in singapore means fallacies galore!
come lets have a short exercise to practice identifying fallacies! lets check out SDP's election speech by CSJ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVcXYYcWjtI
hoho! i'll admit that i can't understand hokkien but this is just epic (with the english subtitles)
Argument 1.
GST will go up after the elections
After the 2001 GE, GST was increased from 3% to 4% and then to 5%
After the 2006 GE, GST was increased from 5% to 7%
What will it be after this elections? 9%, 11%?
Fallacy of False Cause!
Argument 2.
Things in Singapore are now very expensive.
(various reasons that show that things are expensive)
But one thing has not increased - our wages.
Does the government care?
Its ministers earn $10,000 a day.
They are all millionaires.
How do they know the difficulty of the ordinary people?
Fallacy of Red Herring!
awesome! hopefully you all got it correct. now let me share with you all a note on facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/notes/frank-sze-ling-foo/talking-to-my-8-years-old-daughter-about-voting/10150159521369117
what do you all think?
shame on you, frank, who uses fallacious arguments to manipulate your own daughter's thinking!
1 comments:
Argument 1
Fallacy: False Cause
GST hikes and general elections may or may not be correlated in some way, but the arguer did not provide any evidence of causality between the two. It is therefore wrong to presume that voting for PAP will lead to another rise in GST.
Argument 2
Fallacy: Against the person (circumstantial)
The arguer implies that by earning $10,000 a day, ministers cannot possibly understand the hardships of the poor. That is a conclusion that cannot be derived deductively. And even if it may be possibly true, it does not lead to the incepted idea that ministers cannot implement good policies to help the poor.
Thoughts on Facebook note
1. The author fails at grammar.
2. The author is exerting undue influence via a Class 2A relationship.
3. Not upgrading lifts and taking away existing lifts are two very different issues.
4. Fallacy of appeal to pity was used very effectively. Emotional words such as 'punished' and 'bad family' succeeded in pulling heartstrings.
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