False Dilemma – FT#4

16 Jul False Dilemma – FT#4

Show Notes

The False Dilemma fallacy is depressingly common, and quite easy to spot. It occurs when someone suggests or implies there are only two possible choices or outcomes, and if you don’t choose one then the other is inevitable.

This is not a fallacy if there are in fact only two choices – whether the limiting factor is created artificially (e.g. “you can either have steak or vegetarian lasagna”) or by nature/logic (e.g. “this lasagna either has meat in it or it doesn’t”)

However, in real life, there are often multiple options or outcomes and it is a fallacy to suggest that only two exist when in fact there are others.

Trump

We started out with these two clips of Trump talking about immigration:

Mark’s British Politics Corner

Mark talked about this clip of Tony Blair on Brexit:

Then we looked at these two clips of Labour MP Chuka Amuna, also on Brexit:

Fallacy in the Wild (Sting: kind of a David Attenborough impression but with Tarzan in the background for some reason)

In the Fallacy in the Wild we looked at this clip from Die Hard:

Then we talked about this clip from According to Jim:

Fake News

Here are the statements from this week’s Fake News game:

1. I had an idea recently: when they send illegals into our country, we charge Mexico $100,000 for every illegal that crosses that border, because it’s trouble.
2. I feel like a supermodel except like times 10. OK? It’s true, I’m a supermodel. I’m on the cover of these magazines. I’m on the cover of the biggest magazines I don’t even know about it, I can’t even read the stories, because if I did I wouldn’t get any work done.
3. I asked Kim if he knew the song, because you know I called him Rocket Man, so I asked if he knew the song. Tremendous song, Elton John is a great friend of mine, I’ve known Elton a long time. So I asked him if he knew the song and he didn’t so I had Mike take him a CD.

Click below for the answer

Mark got it wrong again this week, and is still on 0%

Corruption is not a logical fallacy

We talked about Scott Pruitt’s resignation.

The stories we really didn’t have time to talk about:

• Trump is currently visiting London and will be met with huge protests including an officially sanctioned 20 foot inflatable Trump baby which will fly over parliament square – people described the huge orange bloated thing as “juvenile” and “disrespectful” – but they thought the blimp was great!
• After a strip show in Columbus Ohio, Stormy Daniels was arrested for touching an undercover police officer in a strip club, in a ‘specified anatomical area’. A rarely cited Ohio law known as the Community Defense Act prohibits anyone touching a nude or semi-nude dancer, unless they are related.  I really hope that means married.
• Mike Pompeo was sent on a trip to North Korea, He didn’t get to meet with Kim Jong Un, but left saying his meetings had been productive.  The North Koreans called the event disappointing and said they had no plans to disarm which just goes to show how difficult it is when dealing with one of the world’s craziest, most unpredictable regimes, which shifts from threats to warm words and back again at speed.  And also North Korea.
• Ecuador proposed a resolution to encourage breast-feeding at the World Health Organisations Assembly, but backed down after the US apparently threatened them with trade sanctions. Russia ultimately stepped in to introduce the measure — and weirdly the Americans did not threaten them.
• And yet Donald Trump pressed Nato allies to double their target for defence spending to 4 percent of gross domestic product as he accused Germany of being a “captive of Russia”.
• Members of President Donald Trump’s exclusive Florida clubs appear to have been invited to an Air Force One tour a spokesperson for the White House said “It is common for friends/family of the President to receive tours of Air Force One.” so all it takes to be considered Trumps friends and family is a $200,000 membership to Mar A Lago.  Think I’ll leave it, thanks.
• And Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to fill Anthony Kennedy’s supreme court seat. Kavanaugh has written that sitting presidents should be immune from prosecution and shouldn’t even be made to answer questions in a criminal investigation.  It’s a complete mystery why Trump chose Kavanaugh.

If you wanted to buy a T-shirt featuring this fallacy, you could click here. No pressure

And if you have some money left over after that, Jim’s book, 2000 Mules and One Big Lie: A Stubborn Conspiracy Theory is available now.