Fail Quotes

[Travis Retriever]

On this vid of mine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM9xqTONr5g&lc=-qN3HweZps3dBPVjQXT-8XnY4qI3WJkwk0oOi2vZreM&feature=inbox
swu880 had this very strange thing to say.

"Lordthawkeye empiricism is not really all that great. It is self contradictory for a number of reasons namely because of its very premises.

Real knowledge can only be derived from Logic & Reasoning.

See

watch?v=MWaGF4GZvTg

Hans hoppe does a critique on empiricism and "fact/study grubbers""


....what?  [yt]G2y8Sx4B2Sk[/yt]


My response
"

Yeah, who needs facts and studies right? ...right?

yeah...

Logic is neccessary but not sufficient. Observe

"I had steak for breakfast this morning."

This statement IS logical and consistent.  It's also wrong."


I have to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's just mistaken about what empericism means but it's still a fail quote.

I just checked your video's comment sections.  Christ, this guy STILL keeps blowing his load of stupid all over your comment section.
I stopped reading after he got all smug and told you to "prove that wearing green shirts doesn't cause fires"
*facepalms*  Shifting the burden of proof.   He might has well ask an atheist to prove "God doesn't exist!"  He *is* aware that you can't prove a negative (at least not that kind of negative) right?  Again, some 10 seconds of research would have told him.
You'd think someone so big on "logic" or whatever word he uses for the shit he pulls wouldn't make such a basic, elementary error.

[Lord T Hawkeye]

(On an unrelated note this makes me wonder just how many anti-furry internet trolls are also closet furries.)

A lot are just furries who like to piss off other furries from what I hear.

I'm working on Blamethe1st.  He doesn't shun me for being an anarchist so I figure I can make him see the light.  His religiousity honestly doesn't bother me as I consider religion inane.  I'm with Raymond Dundas when he said "I would live in a free society full of fundamentalist christians over a secular society with a welfare state ANY day of the week."

[Travis Retriever]

A lot are just furries who like to piss off other furries from what I hear.

Figures.

I'm working on Blamethe1st.  He doesn't shun me for being an anarchist so I figure I can make him see the light.  His religiosity honestly doesn't bother me as I consider religion inane.  I'm with Raymond Dundas when he said "I would live in a free society full of fundamentalist Christians over a secular society with a welfare state ANY day of the week."

It's not his religiosity per se that bothers me; so much as his use of religion to justify laws, however implicitly--see Embryonic Stem Cell Research.
To be fair, if I misread what he said, I'll retract it, but otherwise, that's my primary concern here.

And as I said to you in AIM, don't get me wrong, despite all the less than positive things I have posted about him here, I do generally think he is a cool dude.  I wouldn't have posted the positive things (see the image about Europe's so called "Austerity cuts" in fav quotes) from him if I thought otherwise.  Same for the fail video from franks2732 hypocritically belittling both BlameThe1st and Anarcho Capitalism.

[Travis Retriever]

I don't know how but it seems liberals have a bad habit of taking a lot of things in life for granted.  That's why they take on this absurd "bash capitalism while reaping the benefits of it and try to stop any progress you can just as long as you can still get lattes" stance.

Worse yet is when you get examples like the quote above of "We care...as long as you believe as we do."

While at the same time having the nerve to post stupid bullshit about how *we're* the hypocrites for accepting government services...that we didn't have much choice of because all the other options were taxed, regulated, and/or legislated away.

[AnCap Dave]

I've seen this before on a screencap from 4chan (of all places) before, but someone posted it on Facebook.

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy.
I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. Then, I brushed my teeth with that water, filtered to standards set by the EPA and my state.
After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.
At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank and printed by the Federal Bureau of Engraving and Printing. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.
I park my car on the street, paved and maintained by the Department of Transportation, and put quarters issued by the United States Mint into the parking meter.
Then, after spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, I drive back to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and the fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.
I then log onto the Internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM is BAD because the government can't do anything right. Keep government out of business!

[Travis Retriever]

The second sentence is fail, too. First of all, there is no such thing as a "greenhouse gas." The carbon gases (like carbon dioxide and methane) increase the heat index of the atmosphere, which is why increased concentration raise global temperatures. Water vapor doesn't work like that. When it's in the form of humidity, it allows the atmosphere to hold in more radiation, which warms it, but when it's in the form of clouds, it increases the albedo, reflecting away more radiation, having the opposite effect. Also, water vapor is very good at staying at equilibrium--the water cycle removes new water in the atmosphere quickly, while carbon gases can stay in the atmosphere for upwards of a thousand years. Increased concentrations of those results in a new, higher equilibrium; not so with water vapor.

I've been looking for this comment of yours for ages.  I KNEW you said somewhere that the heat index of the atmosphere had a role in Climate Change. 

[Travis Retriever]

Oh, you know this is going to be a fail: http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-4-most-meaningless-arguments-against-gun-control/

[MrBogosity]

Oh, you know this is going to be a fail: http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-4-most-meaningless-arguments-against-gun-control/

I'll sum up the fail for you:

Guns DO kill (along with people)
Guns are made to kill, that's what they're meant for, so that's their only purpose
Guns can never, ever, ever, ever be used defensively (wherein he strawmans the argument, gives only a nodding (and misleading) representation of Kleck's study, and for disputation links to a paper that relies on TIM FUCKING LAMBERT of all people)
Constitutions can change whenever we want them to and are invalid if they're too old

[Ibrahim90]

I'll sum up the fail for you:

Guns DO kill (along with people)
Guns are made to kill, that's what they're meant for, so that's their only purpose
Guns can never, ever, ever, ever be used defensively (wherein he strawmans the argument, gives only a nodding (and misleading) representation of Kleck's study, and for disputation links to a paper that relies on TIM FUCKING LAMBERT of all people)
Constitutions can change whenever we want them to and are invalid if they're too old

it's official: the guy who wrote this is a dumbass.

[Travis Retriever]

I'll sum up the fail for you:

Guns DO kill (along with people)
Guns are made to kill, that's what they're meant for, so that's their only purpose
Guns can never, ever, ever, ever be used defensively (wherein he strawmans the argument, gives only a nodding (and misleading) representation of Kleck's study, and for disputation links to a paper that relies on TIM FUCKING LAMBERT of all people)
Constitutions can change whenever we want them to and are invalid if they're too old

Tim Lambert?  Is there something I should know about him?

[MrBogosity]

Tim Lambert?  Is there something I should know about him?

I think he's a climatologist, but however good he may be in his field he's a woo when he talks about gun control. His big thing that supposedly makes Kleck's data meaningless is the number of people wounded by a gun owner defending himself or others.

Here are the numbers as I remember them: of 4,997 people surveyed, 222 reported using a gun defensively in the past year, and 17 claimed to have wounded their attacker. So Lambert says that if you extract that to the full population, it translates to about 200,000 would-be criminals wounded by a gun-toting defender.

Some basic statistics: Surveys aren't considered scientific until you get more than 400 or so respondents. There's a formula for minimum margin of error, which is ±1/√n, where n is the sample size. So for a sample size of 4,997, the minimum margin of error is ±1/4997=1.4% (the actual MoE is bigger due to various effects Kleck mentions, but that isn't relevant here). So we can extrapolate from those 222 cases with a good degree of accuracy.

What you CAN'T do is then divide that 222 down into subgroups, because it's below the 400 needed for good sampling. Kleck himself acknowledges this, and cautions against ANY such division (as would anyone who's taken basic statistics). Kleck would have had to survey something like 10,000 people to get the 400+ DGUs he needed to do this.

This has been explained to Tim Lambert, by MANY people, including myself on three occasions, once on the JREF forum, once on MySpace, and again on Facebook a couple of years ago. He REFUSES to listen to reason.

Even if he is right in looking at subcategories, it still doesn't help him. Remember that this figure is from just 17 sample cases! That translates to only 0.3% of the population! Using the formula above, the minimum uncertainty is ±1.4%, meaning that these 17 sample cases are NOT STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT! NO conclusion can be drawn from them as the number is considered to be so inaccurate it's meaningless!

Again, this has been pointed out to him again and again, by myself and others. Even today, he steadfastly refuses to acknowledge his hideous blunder and insists that this figure shows Kleck's survey to be bogus. I don't know much about climatology, but I'd wager that statistics plays a huge role in it, so him not knowing this is inexcusable!

[Travis Retriever]

OK, thanks.
I have some thoughts on this.

Something that rose a red flag from the get go is his extrapolation of the entire population.  What?  So in his world, do infants, toddlers and people in comas use guns to wound would be attackers?

Also, even IF all the statistical issues WEREN'T present, that's less than 10% of people who used a gun defensibly wounding their attackers.  To me, that sounds like a 90% reduction in woundings over all just looking at those alone.  Not too bad if you ask me.

I fail to see how 200,000 wounded would be attackers is a BAD thing.  As stated above, that just comes to me as that many prevented crimes.  Unless he can prove that it wasn't done by necessity (He can't.), he has no justification for making that out as a bad thing.

Finally, remember your Bastiat:  consider both the seen and the unseen.  How many would be criminal encounters have never occurred because the would be perps were afraid of their would be victim having a gun to defend themselves with?  I recall Hawkeye pointing out that the best statistics show that, for every person murdered from a gun, 7-10 crimes are prevented by a gun (or something like that).

[MrBogosity]

Also, even IF all the statistical issues WEREN'T present, that's less than 10% of people who used a gun defensibly wounding their attackers.  To me, that sounds like a 90% reduction in woundings over all just looking at those alone.  Not too bad if you ask me.

Except that we have no way of knowing what would have happened absent the gun. If it had been a robbery, for example, the person may have just allowed the robber to take their stuff without being physically wounded.

I fail to see how 200,000 wounded would be attackers is a BAD thing.

His argument is that they should have shown up in hospitals with gun wounds to be treated, and the numbers don't support that amount.

How many would be criminal encounters have never occurred because the would be perps were afraid of their would be victim having a gun to defend themselves with?

Of course, Kleck didn't even TRY to count that--there's no way that he could.

I recall Hawkeye pointing out that the best statistics show that, for every person murdered from a gun, 7-10 crimes are prevented by a gun (or something like that).

I believe that's based on Kleck's data, although Hawkeye can speak for himself on that one.

[Travis Retriever]

Except that we have no way of knowing what would have happened absent the gun. If it had been a robbery, for example, the person may have just allowed the robber to take their stuff without being physically wounded.

That's true.  When I said "thoughts on this" I meant upon just reading it that moment.  Either way, it would still serve as a deterrent to future would-be criminals.
EDIT:  Something else important is that is also works both ways.  If the perp had decided to kill the victim to get rid of witnesses then it would have changed an initiation of force--murder to a defensive wounding.

His argument is that they should have shown up in hospitals with gun wounds to be treated, and the numbers don't support that amount.

And is a broken window fallacy.  If there were no guns in the hands of non-criminals, you'd like see either that many noncriminals in the hospital to have gun, knife, or whatever wounds treated.  Plus them having to take time off from their paying jobs that the criminals likely don't have to recover and/or get therapy.

Of course, Kleck didn't even TRY to count that--there's no way that he could.

This is true.  I'm speaking more generally than just the study itself.

I believe that's based on Kleck's data, although Hawkeye can speak for himself on that one.

Indeed.

[FSBlueApocalypse]

Wayne Allyn Root once again doing his best to embarrass Libertarians

"I'd call a party insane that believes in smaller government...but wants to let in ANYONE...almost all of whom want free handouts, free education, free healthcare, welfare, food stamps, housing allowances, and don't even want to feed their children for breakfast and lunch.
>
> Amazing.
>
> In case you don't know...Obama has teamed with Prez of Mexico to spread word among MEXICANS to tell their relatives who are illegally in U.S. they should apply for food stamps."