tuco wrote:Please .. you argue here whether its un/fair that 16 women surfers do not get the same as 36 men surfers despite having proportionally same prize pool. Yet some people work 8 hours and make 1000 times less than other people working the same 8 hours. But that is fine, that is free market. Or maybe its not fine but we want to debate this. Sure

Are you addressing this to me?

Boyle wrote:Do you know what an ad hominem is?

It's latin for "to the man" isn't it? Which is exactly what DD did, she addressed her comments "to the man".

Of all the things TMB has wrong here, this seems like the one thing that he is fairly clearly right about.

As usual, to whom it may concern. I am not trying to prove you or anyone else in particular wrong. I am just pointing out the obvious. To me this is storm in tea spoon. If there are issues with inequality to address, I do not see them primarily here. Do you?

tuco wrote:As usual, to whom it may concern. I am not trying to prove you or anyone else in particular wrong. I am just pointing out the obvious. To me this is storm in tea spoon. If there are issues with inequality to address, I do not see them primarily here. Do you?

No, which is why I was puzzled that you seemed to be suggesting I'd argued about whether it's fair or unfair that the pay in surfing is divided as it is - because I haven't done so. If your comments are not directed at me, then there really isn't any problem, but it appeared that they were, hence me asking.

I think maybe last year or something I said that I think women should probably play 5 set matches in tennis slam events, or something of the sort, but that's pretty remote from this thread.

PS: I love "storm in a tea spoon"! Reminds me of a family favourite (from days gone by) of "warm as a toaster".

Thommo wrote:

Boyle wrote:Do you know what an ad hominem is?

It's latin for "to the man" isn't it? Which is exactly what DD did, she addressed her comments "to the man".

Of all the things TMB has wrong here, this seems like the one thing that he is fairly clearly right about.

To the man in place of an argument, yes. Simply addressing the poster isn't enough for it to fall within ad hominem range. A difference would be if someone said "TMB you're sexist so your argument is trash." That would be to the man, not to the argument, and would be an ad hominem. Insults can be intertwined with argument (like calling someone a dumbass for a particularly malformed argument), but arguments shouldn't (morally speaking) be solely based on insults.

Ignoring the argument isn't typically an ad hominem because, well, the argument isn't even being addressed, and calling insults ad homs ignores why they are fallacious in the first place. Fallacies aren't fallacies just for kicks, but because they are used to invalidate an opponent without using a valid argument of their own. It's a bit like calling any step-by-step sort of argument a slippery slope, despite the slope not being slippery. The presence of an insult probably is correlated with ad hominem arguments, but insults alone are not sufficient to qualify as an ad hominem.

A better thing, possibly, would be to call insults out as poisoning the well, because while I may insult him and ignore his arguments, others may come along and read those insults and have their biases set against the sexist/racist/bourgeoisie/communist/etc and be less inclined to read or entertain the arguments in the first place, which is just bad hosting.

I think you're probably suggesting that you're familiar with "ad hominem fallacy" and not with "ad hominem" in a broader sense. That other sense certainly exists, for instance googling "ad hominem definition" produces:

(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.
"an ad hominem response"

TMB is in no way wrong to use the term in this way. Given how many dubious things he's saying, it really seems an odd thing to oppose him on, to me.

I guess in general I subscribe to, and advocate a tolerant approach to language policing - if a term can be used in some particular way, it seems rather unproductive to attempt to censor someone's having used it in that way. What DD said (and insults directed at a person in general) definitely does come under the broad category of "ad hominem" and with all the best will in the world (I rather share her frustrations at this particular dead horse being flogged yet again) doesn't add much to the conversation. It was such a mild example it seems best to let it go, but if people argue with TMB on this point where he's right it seems like it will just stretch out the number of times the dubious claims surrounding it get repeated and dilute the effectiveness of any criticism of those claims.

Thommo wrote:I think you're probably suggesting that you're familiar with "ad hominem fallacy" and not with "ad hominem" in a broader sense. That other sense certainly exists, for instance googling "ad hominem definition" produces:

(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.
"an ad hominem response"

TMB is in no way wrong to use the term in this way. Given how many dubious things he's saying, it really seems an odd thing to oppose him on, to me.

I guess in general I subscribe to, and advocate a tolerant approach to language policing - if a term can be used in some particular way, it seems rather unproductive to attempt to censor someone's having used it in that way. What DD said (and insults directed at a person in general) definitely does come under the broad category of "ad hominem" and with all the best will in the world (I rather share her frustrations at this particular dead horse being flogged yet again) doesn't add much to the conversation. It was such a mild example it seems best to let it go, but if people argue with TMB on this point where he's right it seems like it will just stretch out the number of times the dubious claims surrounding it get repeated and dilute the effectiveness of any criticism of those claims.

Ah, yeah, I was thinking in the fallacy sense. I picked up on it because it's used so frequently, not just him and not just here. I've been reading reddit too much.

TMB wrote: A movement that sought equality between the genders would be looking to address the disparity in suicide rates, longevity, incarceration, homelessness, all of which favour women.

Shame none of the MRA groups actually give a shit about these things, other than making ignorant as fuck arguments about them as an excuse to bash women. But, hey ho, this is why it is generally not worth engaging with arguments of this sort. They're coming from a place so far removed from reality or reason, there is nothing to be achieved beyond either banging ones head against the wall in frustration as the same retarded bollocks gets trotted out by unquestioning minds who have drunk too deeply from the MRA Kool-Aid.........or........having a giggle.

I choose.......

Thommo wrote:
The pedant in me wants to point out that x/2, (x/2)/2t and 2x/(t/2) are not equal too.

It works if you substitute power (x/t) for energy; and it is indeed, as tuco says, trivial.

The pedant in me wants to say "...not equal either".

Evolving wrote:

Thommo wrote:
The pedant in me wants to point out that x/2, (x/2)/2t and 2x/(t/2) are not equal too.

It works if you substitute power (x/t) for energy; and it is indeed, as tuco says, trivial.

Are you sure about that? When I substitute I get P, P/4 and 4P, respectively. What do you get?

Evolving wrote:The pedant in me wants to say "...not equal either".

I think you've a point here. Do I need a comma? I think I do. At the moment it looks like the "too" applies to the subclauses in the list (that is "x/2, (x/2)/2t and 2x/(t/2)") rather than wanting to point out a second thing as well, doesn't it?

PS: Please make good note of this post being entirely written in my "not at all serious" font.

tuco wrote:Three machines. One expending energy x over time t, second expending energy x/2 over time 2t and third expending 2x energy over time t/2.

I interpret it this way (and in fact you don't need to substitute power for energy):

x*t = (x/2)*2t = 2x*(t/2)

"Over" meaning "during the course of", not "divided by".

Hmm, it's almost as though I substituted power into the equations rather than substituting the word "power" for the word "energy" into the original sentence in order to deliberately reach the wrong conclusion.

(You do need to substitute though).

Lest I be misunderstood for taking a joke too far, I'm just messing about, his meaning is perfectly clear from the gecko (Dave Gorman joke!) and I'm just having fun using small fonts. Because it's fun. I never honestly thought tuco was making a serious point about the thread because we don't expect everyone who runs a marathon to be paid the same because they've done the "same work" regardless of whether they ran it in 2 hours or 12, hence I have replied as a joke relating to physics what I perceived to be a physics joke in the first place.

Now we've finished talking about physics, shall we get back to discussing Barbie mermaid films?

Hmm. Might I suggest a compromise and say we should discuss the physics of Barbie mermaid films?

For example - I'm worried that Barbie is far too buoyant to effectively swim underwater. However I do not possess a barbie for empirical testing. Can you shed any light on that?

It's a better thing to discuss than the biology of mermaids, mind you.

We gonna be friends now since we already chit-chat? :)

I like to refer to work as energy over time, to make a point. IMO important point in the equality debate. Equal pay, equal treatment, equal rights etc. Then I get reminded that, in physics, power is defined as such. Since power is rate of doing work, energy over time, I refer to rate of (doing) work as energy over time.

Lets have equal power then. Lets get to the bottom of this.

----

The article Doubtdispelled posted in #92 is more concerned with sexism than the OP article pretends to be.

Female pro surfers want industry to get on board regarding sexism concerns

Michael Atkin and Andy Burns and Australia's leading female surfers are trolling us here, for their own interest.

Thommo wrote:Hmm. Might I suggest a compromise and say we should discuss the physics of Barbie mermaid films?

For example - I'm worried that Barbie is far too buoyant to effectively swim underwater. However I do not possess a barbie for empirical testing. Can you shed any light on that?

*absents self briefly in bathroom with selection of Barbies*

Well, she evidently develops some sort of gland when she's a mermaid, in addition to the tail and the invisible gills.

My main physical difficulty with these apparently factual reports is that it is allegedly as light deep underwater as on the surface.

Thommo wrote:

Boyle wrote:Do you know what an ad hominem is?

It's latin for "to the man" isn't it? Which is exactly what DD did, she addressed her comments "to the man".

Of all the things TMB has wrong here, this seems like the one thing that he is fairly clearly right about.

Strictly speaking yes. If he meant an ad-hominem fallacy, Boyle's correct.

Evolving wrote:The bottom's fallen out of the G-string market.

No. It's still hanging on by a thread.