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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Denninger ran an ISP in Chicago in the mid-90s and is an infamous curmudgeon. He sold the ISP in the late '90s and, as I understand it, retired to Florida to curmudge professionally.

I have no idea why his thoughts on Bitcoin would be worth spreading on HN. He has no particular authority regarding economics (he's not a trained economist so far as I know) an the reasoning in this post seems to be of the typical working- backwards- from- foregone- conclusion attempted- first- principles stuff you can get on any HN thread arguing about Bitcoin.

I really dislike Bitcoin, but can think of much better devil's advocates than Denninger.

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How is this anything other than an ad hominem attack? You don't really make any effort to demonstrate any actual issues with his arguments in the linked post, or even provide examples of better-written alternatives or people who are more qualified and happen to disagree with him.

The article is formatted a bit strangely, and the author is strange, sure, but neither of those are legitimate reasons to discard the actual content without consideration. The article does go to quite significant lengths to try and establish a foundation for what he's arguing so that the reader can decide whether they agree with the logical steps he's taking to reach his conclusion, which I think is a good thing.

It's not ad hominem because it's not using the dislike of the author to disagree with the argument.

Thank you. Ad hominem has nothing to do with talking about the credibility of the author. Rather, the fallacy occurs when you rely on that information to challenge the position.

What is this if not challenging the arguments the author is making? tptacek claims this article shouldn't be on HN because the author is somehow unqualified to share his opinion and therefore it shouldn't be of interest to anyone.

'Well, I don't agree or disagree with what you're saying, I just think YOU shouldn't be able to say it' doesn't seem to be different from an ad hominem attack in practice in this case. It's refusing to engage with the actual content on quality or validity grounds and instead engaging with some unrelated point.

The original post is not arguing 'you should agree with what I'm saying because I'M saying it' and it's also not saying 'these are facts because I say they are'.

I did not "claim this article shouldn't be on HN".

It's a subtle difference, but one probably based on opinion. tptacek doesn't make any claims on the arguments themselves, but rather the placement on HN. So it's not ad hominem, but it is censorship. His claim is more along the lines that only "pre-approved" sources should be worthy of attention, not people with low credibility. But he's not challenging the arguments themselves. So, no logical fallacy, but maybe elitism or something.

I would further argue that the HN voting system can be relied on to determine what is interesting instead of credibility. Certainly, I believe just because 37Signals or Dustin Caldwell posts something doesn't make it interesting, but the voting seems to disagree with me. At any rate, we have an existing system to determine what should be relevant comment, so there's no need to invoke credibility here.

Expressing an opinion on the legitimacy of an article is not "censorship".

Ad hominem isn't that complex. You attack the arguer not the argument.

"Denninger ran an ISP in Chicago in the mid-90s and is an infamous curmudgeon. He sold the ISP in the late '90s and, as I understand it, retired to Florida to curmudge professionally." Author attack

"I have no idea why his thoughts on Bitcoin would be worth spreading on HN. He has no particular authority regarding economics" Author attack.

"I really dislike Bitcoin, but can think of much better devil's advocates than Denninger." Author attack

Notice the pattern? not a single rebuttal of the content provided in this article All comments directed at the author. That's an Ad hominem attack.

The point of my comment was the author.

This is another example of the ad hominem fallacy fallacy, wherein any assessment of a person making an argument is judged out-of-bounds because of the existence of the ad hominem fallacy. Here is an example of an actual ad hominem fallacy:

Arguer: "Bitcoin is doomed to fail because it lacks a central banking authority."

Opponent: "That's bullcrap because you're not a trained economist."

Here is an example of the ad hominem fallacy fallacy:

Arguer: "I looked up Karl Denninger and it says he's the founder of the Tea Party."

Opponent: "Also he's a professional curmudgeon who sold an ISP once and has no economics training."

Arguer: Ad hominem!

I am not too invested in this particular thread, but the ad hominem fallacy fallacy drives me up a wall a little bit.

It's not out of bounds tptacek. It just does nothing to advance the discussion around the points made. That's why Ad hominem arguments are not a valuable contribution. If the goal of the discussion is to support or rebut the merits of the argument being put forth. I'm really interested in whether or not these are valuable points. Whether the author is gay, outgoing and wears flamingo shirts or is a grumpy old man in a shack in the mountains isn't material.

It's an appeal to authority, not an ad hominem.

> I have no idea why his thoughts on Bitcoin would be worth spreading on HN.

Ad hominem attacks are somehow better? One would hope the crowd on HN is mature enough not to be swayed by those...

It's popular because he made valid, well-supported points. If you disagree with his points, why not attack those instead of Denninger himself?

The ad hominem fallacy is the fallacious use of an argument concerning an opponent. The words "ad hominem" aren't a talisman exempting all people from judgements of credibility.

So far as I can tell, all the points Denninger has made here are supported only by Denninger's bare assertions. It reads like a message board post. Here's an article critical of Bitcoin that does better than recasting opinions as facts:

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2013/04/03/1425292/the-problem-wi...

The vast majority of his points are in terms of logic, concepts and arguments. It's not as if he's making all sorts of wild claims about individuals and organizations involved in Bitcoin and failing to provide evidence to support them.

If you think he's misusing a concept, then say so. He clearly names the concepts and describes what he believes them to mean, so you can plug those into Google and see if you agree.

If you think the logic he's using to support his arguments is faulty, then you can simply point out the logical flaws in his arguments. This again does not require any citations or particular outside authority.

Finally, the entire post is clearly presented as his opinion on Bitcoin and in response to people asking for his thoughts. Given this, what is wrong with him expressing his opinion based on logic and his understanding of concepts. Why does his opinion require citations?

First, if you look where we are on this thread, you'll find that we are on a branch that started by asking who Karl Denninger was.

Next, if you look carefully at the post, you'll find, I think, that it's a mix of two basic rhetorical approaches:

1. Recapitulating shopworn arguments about Bitcoin as if they were fresh points, sometimes using jargon that conceals their banality, such as the "privilege of Seigniorage" that boils down to Bitcoin having no central bank.

2. Idiosyncratic attempts at first-principles arguments, like the "entropy" (helpfully defined in the article) in comparison to gold coins lost off the side of a ship.

There's nothing wrong with writing a post like this. Denninger didn't ask for his post to be nailed to the top of HN. I just don't find the post particularly credible.

Well stated, thanks. I don't think I disagree.

> Here's an article critical of Bitcoin that does better than recasting opinions as facts: http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2013/04/03/1425292/the-problem-wi...

From that author's biography:

> Everything she knows about economics stems from a childhood fascination with ancient economies. . .

> She studied Ancient History at UCL, and has a masters in Journalism from what was then the London College of Printing.

I hope this is just an elaborate troll, since this was your criticism of Denninger:

> He has no particular authority regarding economics (he's not a trained economist so far as I know)

Did you read the post? It does not rely on the author's credibility.

(55 minutes pass)

I'll take that as a 'no'.

Of course. It was worth reading just for this gem:

> Bitcoin’s programming ensures there can never be more than 21m coins in existence. Part of the “bubble” effect, no doubt, is linked to a realisation that we are quickly approaching that limit. According to the latest data from Bitcoin charts, for example, there are currently 10,986,175 bitcoins in issuance. Yes, we still have some room to go, but given exponential dynamics, the fact that we’ve reached the “half-way point” in supply is no doubt meaningful.

>>>he's not a trained economist so far as I know

What? I'm astonished you said that. How many people who have created the companies of today were "trained" to do them. Show me Jeff Bezos' bookselling training. Steve Jobs' design training and programming degree. The Google team's former analog advertising agency and their degrees in those fields. Just stop.

Nobody trains to be a bookseller.

Seriously? Then you know nothing about the field.

Point taken, but I'll still take someone with some credentials or track record over some wacko muttering into his drink at the bar.

When the wacko founds a fortune 500 company, I'll pay attention.

Wacko? There is nothing he said there that was wacko. If you mean his Tea Party affiliation, I didn't even learn of that until after reading. I think you're letting something other than his argument color your reaction.

I was talking about the general case you were debating with Mr. Tacek, about complete amateurs vs those with a track record. Wasn't commenting on the author. I didn't finish the article because of the ALTERNATING bold FONTS, so I can't really comment on the substance.

Well, you missed out on a good argument. When I'm annoyed by formatting, I just copy the text into WordPad and read it.

Well stated, he has zero authority on the subject of finance.

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