Tracking a Cyber Bully’s Deceit and Propaganda through an IP Address

February 21, 2012

I find it difficult to believe that a disabled American vet calling himself Chicomaniac would be posting comments from a remote location in China’s poorest province. However, that’s where two comments from this second cyber-bully assault (in recent months) may have come from.

I deleted the two comments from the posts they were intended for and added them to the appropriate location on this Blog – where the first cyber-bully attack is posted.

In fact, if you compare Chicomaniac’s two comments with those from the first cyber-bully assault, you may recognize similarities in the writing style and use of language, which is why I have posted them as a comment on the same page under the heading of Another Cyber Bully. If you visit this page, you may scroll up to see the comments from the first assault. This second cyber bully may be a copy cat.

To discover a complete profile of the average cyber bully, I suggest visiting Bully Online.org – Stalking.

Bully Online says, “The stalker exhibits a familiar pattern of behaviour. Stalking often starts as a result of rejection; rejection rage and abandonment rage motivate the stalker to seek revenge through a predictable pattern of stalking behavior. The stalker, usually a loner and socially inept, becomes obsessed with their target and bombards them with messages, emails, gifts, or abuse. The stalking behaviour can last for years and the intensity of abuse increases over time. The abuse, initially consisting of psychological violence, often escalates and culminates in physical violence…

“The Vengeful stalker is the most dangerous type whose mission is to get even and/or take revenge. Mostly male, he has a grudge and he’s going to do something about it…”

Chicomaniac said, “As a disabled vet I would like to add that the wrong guys made it out of ‘Nam and I hope when your time comes those who believe in America and what We stand for are allowed to have a chat with you.”

In an attempt to identify this cyber bully, I conducted several IP searches and traced the location to where those comments may have originated, and it turned out to be an organization that calls itself Xin Xin Ling located in northwest China.

The coordinates for the IP address were at Latitude 35 and Longitude 105 located near Lanzhou between Dingxi and Tianshui in the Ningxi Hui Autonomous Region northwest of Xian in a desolate region.

“This sparsely settled mostly desert region lies in the vast plain of the Yellow River in the north, which has been irrigated for centuries. Over the years, an extensive system of canals was built. Extensive land reclamation and irrigation projects have made increased cultivation possible.” Source: Wiki-Ningxia

Chicomaniac’s IP address was 118.194.218.153. The host, Yin Yin Ling, also used the same IP address, and I used My IP Test.com to trace the location.

To learn more about the people that live in the region, I did a bit of research and learned that the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region covers an area of 51,800 square kilometers.

Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region is the unique provincial Hui autonomous region in China, and it had a population of 6.1265 million in 2007, among which, about 1.5 million were from the Hui, Muslim ethnic group — therefore, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region is often called the “Province of Islam” and “Province of Muslims” by foreign travelers.

I learned that among the Hui, local activists have not called for complete separatism or absolute independence, but generally express concern over environmental degradation, which may explain the motivation behind the comment that mentioned Bosshard.

In addition, I traced Bosshard’s IP address [207.204.249.151] to California at an address off Oscedia Lane, Whitfield Ct., and George Ct. near Adam Roger’s Park in San Francisco at Latitude 37.7312 and Longitude -122.2836.  Bosshard’s host is Reliable Hosting.com. Bosshard may be a conservative, evangelical Christian that spent some time in China.

This is what I discovered about Chicomaniac.  He or she may live in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in China and might be a Muslim. There may be a connection to one of the Islamic separatist movements in China and/or with a group that is concerned about environmental pollution.

I doubt if Chicomaniac is a disabled American veteran that fought in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.  However, maybe he or she is a disabled Chinese veteran that fought in Korea, Vietnam, India, Tibet or against Uyghur separatists in Xianjiang.

The reason I say this is that a disabled American veteran would have his or her medical care through the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as I do, which is only available in the US and its territories but not in China. The VA provides patient care and federal benefits to veterans and their dependents.

Chicomaniac also said, “ps Archie Bunker inc. just like they told you on the chinadaily forums, shorten your prolonged missives they do nothing but put us to sleep.”

I recall that the only person that said this was the first cyber bully , and he wrote it on this Blog.

I’ve never left a comment on the China Daily Forums. In fact, I cannot recall leaving any comments on any Blog forums in China.  In addition, Archie Bunker was a character in a TV sitcom that went on the air in 1971 and went off the air in 1983.

Archie was a complex character. Along with his overt bigotry and ignorance – he had a paranoid fear of Black Power; Communists, and the Mafia. He was also portrayed as hardworking, a loving father and husband — basically decent and, rather than being motivated by genuine malice (as cyber bullies are), was merely a product of the era and working-class environment in which he had been raised.

Most Americans at least 35 or older should have known these facts.

I suspect that Chicomaniac was born after Archie Bunker went off the air and/or may never have seen the show. He may also be disappointed that Bosshard’s comment appeared in the previous series of posts several times, which focused on global environmental soil and water pollution instead of specifically on China.

If you decide to compare the two cyber bullies, you may find them at Another Cyber Bully.

I wonder what members of Al-Qaeda say about the United States on Internet forums. I doubt that there is much of a difference between them and this Chicomaniac. After all, Al-Qaeda’s goals are to destroy anyone that does not agree with them using any means possible.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Party Women

February 9, 2012

Starting with the I Ching, The Book of Changes, almost five thousand years ago, the central focus of Chinese philosophy was how to live an ideal life and how best to organize society.

When the Chinese Communist Party gained power in 1949, previous schools of Chinese philosophy, except Legalism, were denounced as backward and purged during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

However, the influence of China’s five-thousand year old culture did not vanish as China’s Central Committee continues to plan and modernize while leading China into the future.

Most Chinese believe that true advancement and growth should only happen slowly, at a steady, measured pace, which means to grow but grow slow like a tree while following a well thought out plan to bring about changes.

Even the United States doesn’t change quickly.

In fact, it took almost ninety years to free the slaves, and women first sought the right to vote in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights Convention.

Then seventy-two years later in 1920, American women finally earned the right to vote when the Nineteenth Amendment was adopted by Congress and was ratified by the states becoming a national law.

The last time women had relative freedom in China was in the seventh century during the Tang Dynasty when Emperor Wu Zetian, a woman, ruled the country.

Since 1982, when China ratified its Constitution, women in China have gained more freedom, power and rights than at any time in China’s history including the Tang Dynasty.

Critics in the West might point out that under the Communists, no woman has ruled China, but we could say the same of the United States and many other countries.

Today, Liu Yandong, a senior Party official, serves on China’s Politburo [a group of 24 people that oversees the CCP]. She is from Nantong in Jiangsu Province and graduated from Tsinghua University in 1970 with a degree in chemistry.

In fact, Chinese women today account for 40% of government officials. At least 21.3% of National People’s Congress delegates in 2008 were women (about 636 — the latest available data, according to the All China Women’s Federation).

Another example is Li Bin, acting governor of Anhui Province. In addition, 87.1% of China’s provincial regions have female vice governors. Women are also represented in the leadership of 89.4% of the country’s municipal governments. Source: Global Times

For comparison, in the United States, 79 women (of 435 representatives or 18%) serve in the House and 17 [of 100 or 17%] in the Senate. In addition, six women serve as governors [that's 12% of the total].

Then, ipu.org’s “Women in national parliaments” ranks China 52 [tied with Italy] of 188 countries. The United States is ranked 71, Thailand 75, South Korea 81, Japan 96 and India 99.

“Chinese women leaders have much in common. They generally all have a good education background, being mainly science majors, and solid experience in government. They are of a caliber equal to that of their male counterparts,” an All-China Women’s Federation expert said.

Why do so many of China’s critics expect China to change faster than the US did?

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Note: This updated and revised post first appeared November 11, 2010

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Women’s Rights in China

February 8, 2012

Dramatic changes in women’s rights have been achieved in a culture where for millennia women were stereotyped as inferior to men, had no rights and served as slaves, concubines and prostitutes. Marriages were arranged—sometimes at infancy.

In 1949, foot binding was abolished; the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF) was formed and supported by China’s Communist Party (CCP). Change in China, as in the United States, has been a painful evolutionary process. However, the struggle for women to gain equality appears to have moved faster in China since the CCP came to power.

After the CCP was established in 1949, it took less than a year to liberate women and pass laws to speed this process along.

For a comparison, after the United States was established in 1776, it took one hundred and forty-four years until August 26, 1920 when the Congress voted in the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution giving women the right to vote.

At the 10th National Women’s Congress in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, in 2008, Deputy-Chairwoman HuangQingyi said, “Sex discrimination in employment should be eradicated and the income gap between men and women should be further narrowed.”

It was also been reported that domestic violence is a severe threat to women. Chinese authorities reported 50,000 complaints annually, according to figures released by the ACWF. The domestic violence fact sheet shows this is also a problem in the United States.


Role of Women in China Then and Now

Sexual discrimination was supposed to have been abolished in China back in 1949, when Chairman Mao Zedong famously announced, “women hold up half the sky”, but it wasn’t. It has only been a few years since China outlawed sexual harassment. Laws may be written to bring about change but change comes slowly.

Today, statistics show China has about 27,000 women and children’s rights protection agencies. However, China’s critics and enemies will only point out what they believe is wrong without giving credit to what has changed for the good of women in China.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Note: This revised and edited post first appeared on March 21, 2010

4 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, politics, Chinese women, Chinese history, Confucianism, cultural differences, Communism | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 10/10

February 4, 2012

On January 1, 2012 at 21:01, in Part One of the China-India Comparison with Lots of Facts, Sid said in a comment, “How can one engage in an ad hominem attack by asking questions? I’m simply trying to get the root of your ideology. What, besides being delusional, would cause someone to come to such conclusions? There had to be an event. If it’s not Vietnam or something to do with teaching (i.e. a lack of respect), it’s got to be something. Something regarding racism, perhaps?“

These are loaded questions that achieve a similar goal that ad hominem does but more subtly, and as we’ve learned, they are often used rhetorically, which is a question asked merely for effect with no answer expected, serving the questioner’s agenda.

In fact, rhetorical questions rarely appear in academic discourse because they are logical fallacies.

In these loaded questions, Sid infers that because I do not agree with his opinions of China, there has to be something wrong with me, but as we have learned from Professor deLaplante, this is not the case.

Then the next day on January 2, 2012 at 22:03, Sid launched a series of ad hominem attacks against my character. He said, “You’re a mythomaniac, a propagandist, and endorser of one of the most repressive regimes in the world. And your website is a series of disconnected nonsense decorated by retarded videos. You can’t construct an argument to save your life, and the sycophants who show up here saying, ‘Yes, Lloyd, I agree with you,’ belong in Sgt. McGillicuty’s Travelling Nutbar Show.

“Your ideas are an advertisement for how whacky you are, and you’re so whacky, you don’t even realize it. Ever wonder why no one except other crazies post comments here? I’ll tell you: those thousands of viewers read your posts and think, ‘Good god!’

“Not all the bold font on Earth can make you make sense Lloyd. This China business is a lost cause. I suggest you give it up and get some help.”

After having been slandered once again by Sid, I was curious about his character, since he was so fixated on mine.

I then spent a few days thinking about what makes Sid tick and did some research. I went over his comments and use of logical fallacies, examined how he often diverted the topic when he couldn’t hold up his end of the argument, and on January 14, 2012 at 13:00 in a comment in Part 2 of The Economic Health of BRICS, I suggested that Sid may suffer from “Obsessive-compulsive Personality Disorder” and provided one of those “retarded videos” that explained what this disorder was in addition to information from the U.S. National Library of Medicine – The World’s Largest Medical Library.

Sid’s last response arrived at 20:19 on the same date. “You’re an imbecile Lloyd, a soft headed moron,” which caused me to reconsider that Sid might suffer from “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” instead of “Obsessive-compulsive Personality Disorder” or possibly a combination of both.

“People with narcissistic personality disorder are typically described as arrogant, conceited, self-centered and haughty… Despite this exaggerated self-image, they are reliant on constant praise and attention to reinforce their self-esteem. As a result, those with narcissistic personality disorder are usually very sensitive to criticism, which is often viewed as a personal attack.” Source: Narcissistic Personality Disorder – Psychology.about.com

Professor deLaplante was right when he said in one of his videos that it was a waste of time debating people such as Sid, which, as you know, isn’t his real name. In fact, SID is an acronym for “Studying Intellectual Dishonesty”.

For more information on Professor deLaplante and logical fallacies, I suggest reading the two-part interview of him on Psych Central’s World of Psychology.

Return to Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 9 or start with Part 1

 

Meet the real Sid and learn about him from his own words and the opinions of others

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 9/10

February 3, 2012

In Part Eight, Associate Professor of Philosophy Kevin deLaplante explains in his YouTube video how a good argumentative essay should be written with a logical structure.

An intellectually honest debate/argument follows a similar process avoiding logical fallacies such as Ad Hominem, Red Herrings, Straw Figures, Cognitive Biases, Cultural Bias, Confirmation Bias, Weasel Words, Begging the Question, Appeal to Authority, and Appeal to Ridicule, etc.

Then there is the Fallacy of Many Questions (complex question, fallacy of presupposition, loaded question, plurium interrogationum) – someone asks a question that presupposes something that has not been proven or accepted by all the people involved.

The loaded question fallacy is often used rhetorically, so that the question limits direct replies to those that serve the questioner’s agenda.

In the twenty-three comments that followed the first question of the debate, which was comparing the cultural practice of piety in Taiwan with China, Sid diverted the topic using Red Herrings and Loaded Questions a number of times. This would be a tactic that Sid would use again.

Instead of spending hours showing you, I invite you to enter the debate with the first question.  If you have read this far in the Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty series and have watched Professor deLaplanet’s videos, you should have few problems recognizing Sid’s use of logical fallacies to divert attention away from topics he could not present an argument against.

Professor deLaplante says, “What if you don’t know HOW to respond to the best objections? Answer: Maybe you should reconsider your position, or at least suspend judgment on it.”

When faced with this choice, Sid often resorted to the  use of logical fallacies (especially red herrings, ad hominem and loaded questions).

In fact, Sid didn’t follow his own advice. In an Amazon reader review, he wrote of “Red Capitalism” he says, “There are too many interrogatives; sometimes they come in bunches, and it’s not always easy, or at least for a layperson like me, to know if they’re rhetorical or not… ‘Never form an argument from questions,’ and ‘Avoid asking the reader questions,’ are fundamentals a professor would tell a first-year student.”

An example of Sid ignoring his own advice may be found in a comment he left for The Ignorance Factor of Bias. In addition, in Part 5 of this series, there was a short video that touched on the topic of loaded questions.

Continued on February 4, 2012 in Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 10 or return to Part 8

 

Meet the real Sid and learn about him from his own words and the opinions of others

 

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 8/10

February 2, 2012

That “Dirty Secret” that Associate Professor of Philosophy Kevin deLaplante talked about in the Part 6 video was one of the five Essential Components of Critical Thinking, which are:

1. Logic

2. Argumentation

3. Rhetoric

4. Background Knowledge

5. Attitudes and Values

Professor deLaplante says, “While logic and argumentation are essential components of critical thinking, they are not sufficient—not by a long shot. What’s missing is the importance of background knowledge.

“Background knowledge informs critical thinking at multiple levels… but you cannot learn this in a critical thinking class or from a textbook. One of the most important elements of critical thinking cannot be taught—at least not in the way you can teach formal logic and fallacies.

“Background knowledge comes from living in the world and paying attention to what is going on.

“Mastering this component of critical thinking requires a dedication to life-long learning, a genuine openness to different points of view and a certain humility in the face of all that we don’t know.  This isn’t a set of skills you can master with worksheets and work examples. This is a philosophy, a lifestyle choice. Textbooks don’t talk about this or at last as much as they should.”


How to Write a Good Argumentative Essay: Logical Structure – Source: The Critical Thinking Academy

“The ability to evaluate the premise of an argument cannot be taught in a critical thinking class,” Professor deLaplante says. “The reason is obvious. This is a question of background knowledge. Lack of background knowledge causes one to believe in a hoax. All the logic in the world won’t make up for ignorance.… The easy way is to set out looking for weaknesses in an argument. The danger here is the desire to refute another position than to understand it. This is the wrong motive, which is a desire to win an argument.”

In fact, Sid was only interested in winning the argument or making it appear that he had won, and he took advantage of my ignorance of logical fallacies in his attempt to achieve this goal.

Sid did not consider that lifelong learning was more important than my ignorance of logical fallacies.  Lifelong learning never ends unless you shut your mind to it. Even now, I may not know as much about logical fallacies as Sid, since he appears so skilled at using them, but I know more now than when I started the debate.”

Continued on February 3, 2012 in Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 9 or return to Part 7

 

Meet the real Sid and learn about him from his own words and the opinions of others

 

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 7/10

February 1, 2012

In Part One of this series, I said, “Before this series concludes, you will discover that Sid knew about logical fallacies and may have taken advantage of my ignorance.”

In part four of the debate, Sid said, “In addition to directing the reader toward a particular conclusion, begging-the-question language assumes a premise has already been established.”

According to The Writing Center at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Begging the Question is a complicated fallacy; it comes in several forms and can be harder to detect than many of the other fallacies we’ve discussed…”

However, “Sometimes people use the phrase ‘beg the question’ as a sort of general criticism of arguments, to mean that an arguer hasn’t given very good reasons for a conclusion…”

If Sid was aware of the complicated logical fallacy known as ‘begging the question’, we may conclude that he knew what he was doing throughout the entire debate, which may explain why he didn’t answer my question of how many books he had read on logical fallacies and why he avoided answering questions other’s asked.

Then there is this pull quote from a comment of Sid’s I deleted on January 11, 2012 at 12:22. “There is no red herring argument here. A red herring occurs when you divert from the main issue to a side issue. But if a side issue has been introduced (i.e. the boiling of water), you introduced it.”


Critical Thinking’s Dirty Secret – Source: The Critical Thinking Academy

However, Sid was wrong. I was not the one that introduced the Red Herring that changed the topic. Sid did that when he said how contaminated China’s rivers were, which had nothing to do with the topic of that post. The topic of the post was which country was doing a better job supplying water to its people—India, a democracy, or China with its one party republic. The only mistake I made was to swallow the bait of Sid’s Red Herring. After all, the goal of a Red Herring is to divert attention away from a topic that is difficult or impossible to prove wrong.

The Writing Center at UNC says of a Red Herring that “Partway through an argument, the arguer goes off on a tangent, raising a side issue that distracts the audience from what’s really at stake. Often, the arguer never returns to the original issue.”

At 14:17, Sid said, “You can quote or copy-and-paste all the fallacy definitions you wish, but you’ll never be able to employ them in argument or rebuttal. You lack the wherewithal.“

However, why would I want to employ logical fallacies in an argument or rebuttal when such tricks are intellectually dishonest?  It would appear that Sid meant I could not match his skills using logical fallacies to decieve people. At least, that seems to be what he implies.

At 19:21, Sid said, “I don’t give a shit what those dictionaries say. It’s not called weasal words. It’s called begging the question language, or begging the question reasoning… You might want to learn what those newfound logical fallacies mean before you copy and paste Lloyd.“

In the four previous examples, Sid revealed that he knew exactly what he was doing, and Professor deLaplante, in Part One‘s video, was right when he said, “A fallacy is a bad argument. What makes it bad is certain GENERAL FEATURES that characterize arguments of this TYPE, and arguments of this type can often be MISTAKEN for GOOD argument,” which is what Sid was counting on.

Continued on February 2, 2012 in Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 8 or return to Part 6

 

Meet the real Sid and learn about him from his own words and the opinions of others

 

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 6/10

January 31, 2012

In Part 5 of Associate Professor of Philosophy Kevin deLaplante‘s video series of logical fallacies, he explains the Straw Figure fallacy.

Professor deLaplante says, “The Straw Figure Fallacy involved criticizing a distorted, exaggerated or otherwise misrepresented version of an argument and claiming to have refuted the original argument.  It often involves knowing or willful deception and a refusal to ‘play by the rules’.”

“When someone is willing to knowingly misrepresent an argument,” Professor deLaplante says, “they are no longer playing by the rules. They are more concerned with the appearance of winning than with argumentation itself. When you see this going on, you should correct the misrepresentation and get the discussion back on track. If it is an honest mistake and the arguer is willing to correct their misunderstanding, that is great. But if you catch them doing this again and again, then there is probably no point in engaging argumentatively with this person, because they have shown you that they are unwilling to play by the rules.”


Cognitive Biases: What They Are, Why They’re Important – Source: The Critical Thinking Academy

Another example of Sid’sintellectual dishonesty was an argument over Water – the Democracy versus the Authoritarian Republic.

This post compared India and China and what each country was doing to supply water to its people. I asked this question, “Is freedom of expression and of religion more important than water?”

Logically, the answer would be ‘water’ was more important than freedom of expression and of religious choice, because we die within a few days without water but can live a full life without the two abstract freedoms of expression and choice of religion. The post provided evidence that China was doing more than India to supply water to its people, and closed with, “What happens to life when there is no water?”

The logical answer was that we will die quickly without water, but will not die due to limits on freedom of political expression or from a limited choice of religions.

However, the first comment from Sid introduced another Red Herring into the conversation and changed the topic. Sid’s first sentence said, “An estimated 75 percent of China’s river water is not safe for drinking or fishing, according to Rob Gifford, author of China Road.”

Sid says, “Hmmm. Interesting stuff. Hundreds of millions of Chinese people without access to safe water or santitation; a dire warning from the world bank…”

Again, this was not the topic of the post and was misleading. In fact, this was when Sid introduced the Straw Figure Fallacy distorting the argument, as Professor deLaplante says, “with willful deception and a refusal to play by the rules.”

In my reply, I attempted bringing the topic back to the original premise by pointing out that unsafe water was not the issue, because the Chinese boiled their water before drinking it, which common sense says to do with contaminated water.

Sid then claimed that was not the reason why Chinese people drank warm water and then introduced several more topics in rapid succession without evidence to support them, which had nothing to do with which country was doing a better job planning ahead to provide water for its people—contaminated or not.

My next reply said Sid’s comment was a logical fallacy, a Red Herring. Sid then changed the topic again with another Red Herring leading to a series of Straw Figure Fallacies and ended by asking if I had ever read any books on argumentative logic, which had nothing to do with which country was doing a better job of bringing water to its people.

I replied by asking Sid to answer the same question on how many books he had read on argumentative logic, which he ignored in all of his subsequent comments, which I then deleted (a total of eighteen between January 11 – 14). Some quotes from a few of those comments have been used as examples of logical fallacies in this series of posts.

Continued on February 1, 2012 in Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 7 or return to Part 5

 

Meet the real Sid and learn about him from his own words and the opinions of others

 

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 5/10

January 30, 2012

In Part Four’s video, Associate Professor of Philosophy Kevin deLaplante talked about the Red Herring fallacy. He says it is easily confused with the Straw Figure fallacy.

The Red Herring is anything that distracts you from following the trail (topic) of the original argument and is distracting enough to make the audience want to follow the new trail (topic), which is an irrelevant distraction away from the original argument and main issue.

For example, when Sid, in our debate, introduced something that changed the subject, which raised a new issue that wasn’t relevant to the previous line of discussion, the fallacy occurred when Sid concluded something from this different issue or presumed that some conclusion has been established.


The “Straw Figure” Fallacy. Source: The Critical Thinking Academy

“In this respect,” Professor deLaplante says, “the fallacy is very much like a Straw Figure fallacy in that you are mistakenly or misleadingly say you won the argument or refuted the argument”, which was when Sid avoided engaging with the original argument.

However, the Red Herring is different from the Straw Figure fallacy in that a Straw Figure involves distorting or misrepresenting some original argument and then knocking down the distorted argument.

Straw Figure: Arguer misrepresents an opponent’s position.

Red Herring: Arguer tries to distract the attention of the audience by raising an irrelevant issue.

There are many examples of Sid introducing Red Herrings into the argument where he ignored the original argument and changed the subject. In Part 2 of the debate, I asked, “How would you describe the differences you observed between how piety is practiced in mainland China and Taiwan?”

Sid immediately introduced a Red Herring with “First, as the term pertains to Taiwan, there is no such thing as mainland China. There is China, and there is Taiwan. The word ‘mainland’ denotes a connection, but there isn’t one and never really has been.”

Sid’s response had nothing to do with piety, and if I had not been ignorant of logical fallacies, I would have been aware of what he was doing and challenged it.

Then Sid asked his first of many loaded questions when he said, “Approximately 90 percent of Taiwanese want nothing to do with China, and why would they?”

What does this have to do with piety? In fact, there was no evidence with a link to support the claim that 90 percent of Taiwanese want nothing to do with China, which was often the case with Sid’s Red Herrings throughout the debate. Unfortunately, my response was to spend hours researching and writing replies.

The recent results in Taiwan’s presidential election indicate that a majority of Taiwanese may favor reunification with China or at least closer ties. On January 14, 2012, Fox News.com reported, Taiwan’s China-friendly president wins re-election with 51.6 percent of the total against 45.6 percent for Tsai Ingwen of the main opposition Democratic Progressive Party.

Fox News said, “Ma’s Nationalist Party also retained control of the 113-seat legislature, though with a reduced majority. Speaking before thousands of jubilant supporters in downtown Taipei, Ma said his China policies had resonated with voters. ‘They gave us support for our policy to put aside differences with the mainland. To search for peace and turn it into business opportunities.’”

In addition, Sid introduced so many Red Herrings, that I couldn’t respond to all of them, which is why I decided to write comments and new posts and spend more time with these new topics.  When I did respond to some of Sid’s Red Herrings, he often ignored what I wrote while posting more Red Herrings that I often scrambled to respond to, which was my mistake.

Sid’s alleged contempt for me appeared to increase as evidenced by his numerous ad hominem attacks after I started to ban his logical fallacies. In addition, his use of Judgmental language – insulting or pejorative language, may have been intended to influence my judgment. Examples: “You’re an imbecile Lloyd, a soft headed moron,” and “You lack the intelligence to argue, so you ban.”

Continued on January 31, 2012 in Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 6 or return to Part 4

 

Meet the real Sid and learn about him from his own words and the opinions of others

 

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 4/10

January 29, 2012

In Part Three’s video, Associate Professor of Philosophy Kevin deLaplante talked about the abusive Ad Hominem fallacy. This is the fallacy of rejecting a claim or an argument given by someone because we don’t like something about the person, and we mistake criticism of a person for criticism of his or her claim or argument.

Professor deLapante’s most blatant example was, “Your argument is bad because YOU SUCKI!” — The problem isn’t with criticism or praise, it is with confusing the judging of a person with the judging of an argument.

Several examples of Ad Hominem attacks that Sid used on this Blog are listed here. However, you may discover that Sid did not use the Ad Hominem fallacy during the debate, which ended on December 8, 2011. The reason may be because he was getting away with his intellectual dishonesty since no one was stopping him. Sid’s use of the Ad Hominem fallacy comes afterwards.

On January 2, 2012, Sid said, “You’re a mythomaniac, a propagandist, and endorser of one of the most repressive regimes in the world. And your website is a series of disconnected nonsense decorated by retarded videos. You can’t construct an argument to save your life, and the sycophants who show up here saying, ‘Yes, Lloyd, I agree with you,’ belong in Sgt. McGillicuty’s Travelling Nutbar Show.

“Your ideas are an advertisement for how whacky you are, and you’re so whacky, you don’t even realize it. Ever wonder why no one except other crazies post comments here? I’ll tell you: those thousands of viewers read your posts and think, ‘Good god!’“

Note – I should have started deleting Sid’s comments when his use of Ad Hominem occurred.
However, I started deleting them on January 11, 2012


The “Red Herring” Fallacy. Source: The Critical Thinking Academy

Here are a few examples of Sid’s ad hominem fallacies from the Deleted Comment File –

On January 11 at 14:17, Sid said, “There is no such thing as weasal [Note: proper spelling is weasel] words. Again, that’s teenagese [Note: no such word]. You could never use the term weasal words in academic discourse, just like you could never use dude, LMAO, bittersweet, etc. There are proper – adult – terms for such things. That you used the phrase weasal words underscores a dearth of knowledge, juvenility, or both.

“You can quote or copy-and-paste all the fallacy definitions you wish, but you’ll never be able to employ them in argument or rebuttal. You lack the wherewithal.”

On January 11 at 19:21, Sid said, “You lack the intelligence to argue, so you ban. What do all those books you’ve discovered say about that?” [Note: This was after he claimed there were no books on the topic, and I proved him wrong.]

On January 12 at 09:21, Sid said, “You delete the posts because you’re a propagandist and by extension a censor. You don’t have the intellectual wherewithall to debate, so you ban.”

On January 12 at 09:24, Sid said, “Banning my comments only makes you look like a bad sport. You can’t argue – you don’t know how – so you delete.”

On January 12 at 17:22, Sid said, “You just don’t know how to debate, so you cheat by deleting your opponents’ remarks.”

On January 14 at 20:19, Sid said, “You’re an imbecile Lloyd, a soft headed moron.”

In the Ad Hominem video in Part 3, Professor deLaplante says an argument is a collection of claims linked by relations of logical entailment or support. The plausibility or implausibility of those claims and their validity or invalidity of the argument given isn’t determined by facts about the moral character of the person asserting the argument… Facts about someone’s moral character by themselves don’t make it anymore less likely that their arguments are good or bad.

Ad hominem arguments rely on the following types of premises:

(Almost) any claim that P makes about X is (probably) false, because of some feature of P.
Meaning, (Almost) any claim Lloyd makes about China or the Chinese is (probably) false, because of some feature of Lloyd’s moral character as defined by Sid.

or

(Almost) any argument that P gives about X is (probably bad, because of some feature of P.
Meaning, (Almost) any argument that Lloyd gives about China and the Chinese is (probably) bad, because of some feature of Lloyd’s moral character as defined by Sid.

Continued on January 30, 2012 in Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 5 or return to Part 3

 

Meet the real Sid and learn about him from his own words and the opinions of others

 

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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1 Comment | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Communism, Confucianism, cultural differences, democracy, education | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
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