Talk:Appeal to ridicule/Archives/2016

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Informal fallacy?

This is a matter opinion whether appeal to ridicule is quite the fallacy that all others in the list may be.

In truth, appeal to ridicule may be childish and dishonourable but unlike others, this is not a fallacy that can be mistaken as it cannot be covered up. With many fallacies, the person arguing may not even realise he is stumbling into a trap, and when it is brought to his attention, he may even rethink his position. With appeal to ridicule, the representative knows his motive. By that token, he (the speaker that is) may just argue that it is not he as speaker that makes his opponent look ridiculous but the opponent does this himself by taking the position he does; the speaker would say that he is merely highlighting the flaws.

So with this, there is no fallacy. Choicerpex (talk) 21:04, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

I agree, this is a prominent part of a lot of political humor like that on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, John Oliver's show (whatever it's called), etc. I think the line between this 'fallacy' and a reductio ad absurdum argument is pretty thin. 76.78.203.193 (talk) 01:40, 24 October 2016 (UTC)