Breaking Down Common Thinking Fallacies

Hi everyone, welcome to Cold-Knowledge Blind Box. In the last few episodes we talked about the early startup story of NVIDIA. This time, let's switch topics and take a break, and talk about how to recognize and break down the logical fallacies we run into in everyday life.

I. Why does learning to tell logical fallacies apart matter so much for us? It's because many logical fallacies are very well hidden,

and often hard to notice.

As the old saying goes:

"You get sold out and still help them count the money!"

But, if we learn to recognize them,

the benefits are huge!

• When shopping, you can avoid merchants' tricks,

which effectively saves you a lot of unnecessary money.

• At work, your judgment improves,

and you can pin down the core of a problem more precisely,

which means getting promoted faster.

• When making decisions, you avoid detours,

which means seeing through appearances to the essence of things.

• Even when arguing online,

you can quickly spot the logical holes in the other side's argument,

achieve a dimensionality-reduction strike, and take the moral high ground.

• And even in daily life, staying clear-headed and rational,

makes every judgment and every decision more reliable!

II. The Straw Man Fallacy

Because logical fallacies are so hidden and hard to spot,

once you fail to recognize them, the harm can be considerable.

Let's start with the first one:

—the straw man fallacy.

What is the straw man fallacy?

What harm does it cause?

And how does it affect us?

【Definition】

The straw man fallacy is: fabricating a "false position" that closely resembles the original view, and then refuting it.

Like this: you can't beat a real person, so you make up a straw man and beat it to a pulp!

So it works by:

• distorting the original meaning

• exaggerating, or even inventing out of thin air, the other side's view

to attack the other side.

It is a typical thinking fallacy.

【Is it common?】

It's everywhere in life and online!

【Example 1】

• A: We should reduce carbon emissions.

• B: So you mean we should stop all industrial activity and go back to the Stone Age?

【Example 2】

• Parent: Play less games, and spend more time studying.

• Child: So you want me to study nonstop and work me to death?

【Example 3】

• Colleague A: Let's add a bit more free discussion time during meetings, so everyone can communicate fully.

• Colleague B: So you want us to sit in meetings all day and not do anything else?

【Example 4】

• Someone says we should build high-speed rail,

and someone replies: You want to waste all our money on the bureaucrats?

• Someone says we should build schools and hospitals,

and someone replies: Education is already so involuted, why not reform that first?

• Praising the Apple phone's looks gets you labeled "worshipping foreign things";

praising the Huawei phone's looks gets you labeled "ignorant chives" (a dupe).

【Harm】

The straw man fallacy quickly turns communication into mutual attack and cursing.

• You talk facts, they talk position;

• You talk reasoning, they talk emotion;

• You talk general trends, they talk individual cases.

The goal of such people was never to reason properly.

It's to distort and exaggerate, to inflame your view,

to deliberately shift the focus and build a "straw man,"

and then "defeat" it,

so that they feel they have "won."

Next time you meet this kind of person,

just throw this episode at them!

III. The Red Herring Fallacy

Next, the second one:

—the red herring fallacy.

What is a red herring?

How is it different from the straw man fallacy?

【Story】

A "red herring" is a kind of red smoked fish with a strong smell.

In police dog training, officers would drag a strong-smelling trail of it,

to make the police dog veer off its original tracking route.

【Definition】

The red herring fallacy is:

using a topic that "seems related but is actually irrelevant"

to divert attention.

【Example】

• A: I adopted a stray dog yesterday.

• B: Then why don't you go take care of the elderly at a welfare home?

【Difference from the straw man fallacy】

Common ground: both avoid the real issue.

Difference:

• Straw man: distort the other side's meaning, then attack it;

• Red herring: bring in a new topic, to cover up the focus.

【More examples】

• Parent: Why did your grades drop?

Child: But some classmates don't play with their phones at all, and their grades dropped too!

• Netizen: The country should invest more money in developing education.

Reply: You're unpatriotic! You want to cut national defense spending, so we get invaded by foreigners?

In politics, this is also used often:

A politician throws out a "red herring," and the public's attention instantly swings away,

the argument escalates,

and the original topic is forgotten.

IV. The Attribution Fallacy

The third one:

the attribution fallacy.

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