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Comment by fluoridation | Hacker News Reader

That's not an appeal to authority. An appeal to authority is "P is a statement in the topic T. A is an expert in T. A says P is true. Therefore P is true." If I draw a parallel between two topics and proceed to explain one of them in order to argue something about the other one, that's not an appeal to authority.

It could be that the reader fails to understand the explanation and instead treats the writer as a trustworthy authority. That would not make the argument an appeal to authority or even fallacious.

It could be that the analogy is poorly justified, which would make the argument incomplete, or it could even be that the writer failed to understand some subtle aspect of the second topic that makes the analogy inappropriate. Neither of these would be appeals to authority.

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In this case the author (A) is setting themselves up as an authority in (T). The statement (P) in this article has not been revealed, but because (and I suspected separated) is in the followup (which I have now read). The followup does refer back to the "now you know about poles" -- the appeal to authority.

Setting yourself up as an authority isn't a fallacy. It's a rhetorical device. (Though I am not sure what makes you say that anyway. The article didn't particularly strike me as the author setting themselves up as an authority, beyond what is inherent in writing an article that explains something.)

If they made the argument "I am an expert in control theory, therefore what I think about Canadian politics is correct", that would be an appeal to one's own authority. But I didn't see anything like that in the article.

>The followup does refer back to the "now you know about poles" -- the appeal to authority.

How is that an appeal to authority?

In the classic social media sense.

You saw my post on X, now believe what I say on Y.

Would you mind pointing out in the second post the sentence where that line of reasoning is implied?

These:

"Now that you know what right-half-plane zeros are, in this article I'm going to begin a deep-dive into a control-systems-based analysis of a certain feedback system that is drawing particular public attention today: inflation."

And all of the statements made in the walkback "a bit of a preamble" -- basically issuing caveats or disclaiming all of what was said before. A classic "I got you here", but I'm going to disclaim all of that, you are a fool to read anything that follows.

I read that as "now that you know some of the concepts and terminology used in systems theory, I can use them to make an argument in economics, and you can use that knowledge to judge for yourself whether the argument is valid or not". It's literally the opposite of a appeal to authority. As I see it, the only way it could be dishonest would be if the systems theory explanation is incorrect or purposely leaves inconvenient things out (which it might).

It would be an (incompetent) appeal to authority if it said "now that you've seen that I know my stuff when it comes to systems theory, you know that this thing I say about economics is true".

> As I see it, the only way it could be dishonest would be if the systems theory explanation is incorrect or purposely leaves inconvenient things out (which it might).

That should be the default assumption, no? Today’s Control Theory has never been shown to be predictive of the economy or politics, wouldn’t you agree? The article framed the discussion as if control theory is useful, purposely implied it’s utility, and did not state it’s known lack of scientific validity, which is indeed leaving some very inconvenient facts out, right? Saying that they left it open with a ‘judge for yourself’ is not a great counter to the critique of the argument style. There is an intentional framing here that fails to list the alternatives, tries to establish itself as ‘correct’ via implication, and pivots to a separate topic that is unproven to be relevant. Pretending to be unbiased while presenting a one-sided set of “information” is a pretty common type of appeal to authority.

I'm not particularly interested with whether the argument raised by the article is valid or not, which is why I left open several possible ways in which it could be fallacious. My point is solely that it's not an appeal to authority.

The person you're replying to already has answered this question in a post you've already replied to. But to be explicit, consider the first sentence of the follow up post [1]:

> Now that you know what right-half-plane zeros are, in this article I'm going to begin a deep-dive into a control-systems-based analysis of a certain feedback system that is drawing particular public attention today: inflation.

In my mind, this is explicitly drawing a connection between the author's engineering background, particularly in control theory, and the current topic, inflation. To be clear, it would be fine if the author wanted to make a _mathematical_ connection between control theory and inflation. However, since the author does not explain right-half-plane zeros with any meaningful technical detail, the rhetorical effect is an appeal: "just trust me on this." Then the author switches topics _and explicitly connects the two topics_. I cannot speak for the person you're replying to, but this rhetoric is what bothers me.

[1] https://jbconsulting.substack.com/p/on-shelter-futures-part-...

EDIT: Looks like VogonPoetry already replied while I was typing this up.

So if a school teacher taught you addition and then later used it as the basis for teaching multiplication you'd reject it because they were referencing their own work on addition?

This is complicated. It involves identity, credibility (accreditation), reputation and authority.

For me to be taught, my parents ceded authority to the school to appoint credible teachers. Those teachers will have an identity, qualifications and perhaps a reputation. There are consequences for failing or abusing this position.

This is the way a lot of traditional things work.

To directly answer your question, no. A teacher that taught addition would likely be excellent for teaching multiplication.

But, I don't think this is how the internet now works, especially in the social media space. There is infinite identity, which creates trust problems for reputation and credibility. Applying traditional models breaks down. At the moment the dominant factor appears to be who can win a popularity content.

Hacker News is interesting in that karma is currency to build credibility and reputation. This model has flaws too. In my opinion, rewarding the most popular is not a long term winning strategy for a society or community. The demand for change only comes from dissenters. Dissenters and different opinions are the engines of change for any society / community, otherwise, without change, it would stagnate and fall into decline.

But, in the face of infinite identity what is the collective actually trying to say?

I find it pretty funny that you're accepting one claim because it comes from what you think is an authority, while rejecting another because you think it relies on an appeal to authority.

An elementary school teacher doesn’t need to rely on appeal to authority to teach math. The student can quickly verify the method works themselves — they don’t have to take the teacher’s word for it alone.

In general, appeal to authority as a fallacy applies to subjects that are opinion-based or contentious.

No, but I wouldn't trust them if they referenced their math experience as a qualification to teach me SCUBA diving.

Actually, it seems more an effort to establish credibility. "I have a degree in such and such" or "I have worked in this field for over 20 years". That seems to be much different than appeal to authority.

It seems to only be an appeal to authority when it's a person or a position that one disagrees with. Otherwise it's "experience" or "consensus".

What makes appeal to authority fallacious is that one's supposed expertise has no bearing on the truth of the things one says. An appeal to authority is when someone argues something like, "I'm an expert, I think X and so should you" basing their opinion on X on their supposed expertise and not actual logic.

When someone gives reasons, their argument rests on those reasons, not on their supposed authority as an expert on the topic.

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