X-Message-Number: 23711
From: Tim Freeman <>
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 07:00:48 -0700
Subject: Bogus choices (was Re: FDGD Plans)
References:  <>

I don't have a strong opinion about whether Kennita should go to FDGD,
but I'd like to point out some bad reasoning here:

"Fred C. Moulton" <> wrote:
>  Message control and message presentation are critical.

Kennita wrote:
>That may be true, but if so, I can't say that Alcor or any of
>the other cryonics organizations has done much to convince me
>that they have perfected said control or said presentation.

I think Kennita is saying that if the choice were for Alcor to have
perfect control of their PR or for Kennita to go to FDGD, then Kennita
must go to FDGD because Alcor doesn't have perfect control of PR.
However, that's not the choice.

Talking about alternatives that involve perfection or absolutes is
generally an instance of all-or-nothing thinking.  Bringing up such an
alternative just to reject it is a straw man argument.

>Not that this will help, but a friend to whom I explained some of
>this tonight said "Nothing you do could be any worse than the Ted
>Williams jokes on Jay Leno -- go for it!".  So much for message
>control :-) .

Once again, the comparison here pertains to a bogus choice.  The
choice isn't between Kennita going to FDGD or having more Ted Williams
jokes on Jay Leno.

The choice is that Kennita either goes to FDGD or not, and if she
goes, she has a choice about what she does there.

-- 
Tim Freeman                                                  
GPG public key fingerprint ECDF 46F8 3B80 BB9E 575D  7180 76DF FE00 34B1 5C78 

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