4-25 “The War on Stupid People,” and we will read The Conversation essay “It’s been hot before” and see Netflix documentary on global warming creating world-wide drought. Homework #12: Read Jason Brennan’s “Can epistocracy, or knowledge-based voting, fix democracy?” and write a 3-paragraph essay that identifies possible objections to Brennan’s thesis.
4-30 We will examine fallacies in Brennan’s epistocracy argument. To complement Brennan’s argument, we will study Jeffrey Rosen’s Atlantic essay “America Is Living James Madison’s Nightmare.” Homework #13: Read Yuval Noah Harari’s essay “Why Technology Favors Tyranny” and explain in 3 paragraphs how A.I. could compromise human freedom and democracy.
5-2 5-7 We will study “Why Technology Favors Tyranny” and complement the essay with video “Artificial Intelligence: It Will Kill Us All.”
5-9 Peer Edit for Essay 4
5-14 Essay #4 Due.
Essay 4 Due 5-14-18
Option A
In the context of Alexandra Sifferlin's "The Weight Loss Trap" and Harriet Brown's "The Weight of the Evidence," develop a thesis that addresses the claim that going on a diet is too futile and harmful and that we should give up on the idea of dieting altogether.
Option B
In the context of the Netflix documentary The Magic Pill, write an argumentative thesis about the alleged benefits of the ketogenic diet.
Option C
Take an issue not yet covered by Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act and develop an argumentative essay.
Option D
In the context of David Freedman’s “The War on Stupid People,” support, refute, or complicate Freedman’s contention that we marginalize average people at our own peril, socially, pragmatically, morally, and otherwise.
Option E
Read the online essay "It's been hot before" and write an argumentative essay about the role logical fallacies in the dangerous denial of global warming and global drought. For another source, you can use Netflix Explained, "The World's Water Crisis." For another source, you may consult Ibram X. Keni's essay "What the Believers Are Denying."
Option F
In the context of Jason Brennan’s “Can epistocracy, or knowledge-based voting, fix democracy?”, support, defend, or complicate the claim that an epistocracy is superior to democracy as we currently know it.
Option G
Read Yuval Noah Harari’s essay “Why Technology Favors Tyranny” and see Ted Talk video “Artificial Intelligence: It Will Kill Us All” and develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the warnings of A.I.
"The War on Stupid People" by David H. Freedman
Ubiquity of Intelligence Tests:
Intelligence Tests Are Biased, But They're Not Going Away
IQ tests are biased on many levels.
IQ tests cater to the educated and the privileged.
But regardless of their faults, IQ tests and similar tests will become more and more pervasive as the technology advances to the point that DNA testing will be used. Some say we won't even need to put pen to paper to test our intelligence. A $50 hereditary IQ test may soon be available.
People perform better on IQ tests when they are moved from stressful, economically-challenged background to more privileged background; when they are given monetary reward for doing better on the test; when they are allowed to take the test during a smarter period of their lives; and other factors.
Regardless of the imperfections of tests, there is still an Intelligence Distribution with a small percentage on top, a large percentage in the middle, and a small percentage at the bottom.
Society is obsessed with identifying the small group at the top. Success is largely built on proving that one is part of that elite group. Privileged parents will use all the resources at their disposal to give their children a fighting chance of being labeled as being part of the Super Group.
We can object to the Fight to be on Top and the unfair advantages bestowed on the privileged, but the system, as rigged as it is, is not going away.
We can object to the "ruthless Darwinian instincts" that drive us to create a brutal social and economic hierarchy, but that is the state of affairs, the status quo.
David Freedman, the author of "The War on Stupid People," makes the claim that our favoritism toward the smart and our bias against the less smart may not only be unfair but dangerous to everyone in society.
Our society is increasingly unequal. For example, 20% of Americans hold 90% of all the wealth, according to the Washington Post. 1% of Americans hold 40% of all the wealth. It's almost as if we wallow in intelligence tests to justify this inequality when there's no logical bearing or connection because wealth is a function of your parents' assets, not intelligence.
One. Up to the 1950s, the zeitgeist accommodated friendly mediocrity as long as people were decent, had a hard-working, honest character and groomed themselves, they'd be okay.
Two. Then the connection of science and intelligence tests become popular and an ubiquitous part of American values. As a nation, we became obsessed with IQ. We became obsessed with separating out the dumb from the smart. As a result, our default setting was to scorn and denigrate "S people."
Three. Disdain for the Stupid permeated entertainment, which freely mocked the dumb. In a world of political correctness, the dumb remained a free and easy punching bag. There is a popular YouTube Channel that features a dumb neighbor. People gawk at this dumb neighbor all day long. In the entertainment world, Dumb = Funny.
Four. Yet, being sub par in intelligence is no laughing matter. The Below Average are America's majority. Worse, 80 million Americans have IQ scores of 90 or below.
Five. Having a low IQ is associated with a myriad of ailments: early death, mental illness, violence, to name a few.
Six. Currently, our culture pushes high IQ. For example, the job website Monster emphasizes jobs with lots of intelligence testing. The more tests the better.
Seven. A culture that fetishizes intelligence or commits unbridled idolatry of intelligence over morality and ethics inches toward the Cult of the Selfish Individual championed by Ayn Rand, who many say perverted the idea of Nietzsch's Ubermensch (Superman) to justify the idea that the smart creative and productive people of society should let the "dead weight" of society, the poor and the dumb, die off as a natural part of Darwinian selection.
The Individual Genius, according to Ayn Rand, must forsake the poor and the "lesser minds" of the human race in order that human affairs ascend without being chained to the mediocrity of "lesser people."
This philosophy is at odds with Christian mercy, which has people of faith going into hopeless places all over the world to bring care, aid, and compassion.
For Ayn Rand and her ilk, such compassion is a perversion and will only increase the population of the herd.
The Ayn Rand Cult, known as Objectivism, is described by a former cult member.
Eight. Being smart doesn't equal an ideal worker. Super smart employees can be lousy, difficult, narcissistic, resistant to criticism, lacking in self-awareness, lacking in interpersonal skills, and so on.
Nine. Blind veneration of intelligence has killed many non-college work, creating a deep unemployment crisis.
Ten. "Fetishization of IQ" makes smarts a premium for romance, dating, love, marriage.
Eleven. The Cult of the Intellect creates more and more Have-Nots.
Twelve. Poverty lowers IQ significantly. See Princeton study.
Thirteen. "We must stop glorifying intelligence and treating our society as a playground for the smart minority."
Fourteen. We need to address the needs of the majority.
Fifteen. Currently, the status quo is a silent, implicit nod to Ayn Rand's Cult of the Superior Individual and a rejection of compassion for all based on the faith of the world's major religions.
Option Six. In the context of “The War on Stupid People” by David H. Freedman, support, refute, or complicate the notion that society places misplaced admiration for intelligent people.
Is War on "S People" Justified?
Freedman posits the question: Should our society do more to accommodate average and sub-average intelligent people who comprise the majority of Americans? Or should we say, in concert with today's status quo: "Tough luck, Average and "S" People. Darwinian evolution compels us to leave you behind because the human race is stronger when we prioritize resources and privileges for the Smartest and let the Less Smart die on the vine."
Loving and making provisions for the less fortunate is usually considered a Christian ideal and a value held by most mainstream religions. But most industrial societies have veered away from that ideal. There is a school of thought, often associated with the German philosopher Nietzsche and American self-promoter Ayn Rand, both considered anti-religious, who argue that the human race becomes better when it abandons the less fortunate--the Less Smart in this case--in order to let the Super Smart "spread their wings and fly."
Sample Thesis Statements
David Freedman makes a compelling case that we have made a fetish of intelligence to our own detriment evidenced by __________, ______________, and _____________.
Freedman makes the compelling case that our unbridled veneration of high intelligence has blinded us to many societal dangers, which include _______________, ________________, ________________, and __________________.
To accommodate the Super Smart in the name of promoting radical individualism as championed by Nietzsche and Ayn Rand is to go down a dangerous road of heartless Darwinism, which will disrupt civilization as we know it.
While there are some societal dangers from failing to accommodate Average and "S" People, it would even be more dangerous to violate our current status quo, which prioritizes privileges for the Super Smart because ______________, __________________, ________________, and ____________________.
Even if a growing number of people can increase their smarts and play catch-up with the Haves, the specialized tech moguls who gobble all the money and power are going to continue to render the rest of us, even the smartest of us, into a state of irrelevance as unemployment soars to possibly 75% in the Robot Economy according to leading futurists. Therefore, Freedman's essay, while making many strong points, is already in many ways outdated. Smarts isn't the issue. Tech smarts is.
Freedman's essay has a lot of good points, but it is already an irrelevant point. There is no war on stupid people, per se; rather, there is a war on all common people as liberal democracy, human freedom, free will, and relevance are being replaced by algorithms and Big Data, which are giving all power to a smaller group and hacking billions of brains.
My Favorite Thesis
While I agree with Freedman that we put too much emphasis on an IQ test that can give us an oversimplification of one's intelligence, Freedman's essay is both unconvincing and misleading for several reasons. First, there is no "war on stupid people," per se. Throughout history, the bottom 10% have a difficult time with life, including employment. No one, including fair-minded people, are going to hire the bottom 10%. That would be a violation of due diligence and diminish gains in one's business, causing acrimony among the employees one has hired. Freedman is using the term "stupid people," but most of us do not. If one of my students became a business owner, would she hire a Bottom 10% employee? No. Would she be waging a "war against stupid people"? No. Would any employer want to avoid the bottom 10% of people who are more likely to engage in the Kruger Effect? No. Freedman's essay title is a canard. Secondly, Freedman, who is so concerned about the bottom 10% not having employment, fails to see the bigger picture: There is in the realm of job relevance a war on Everyday People who by all accounts may face over 50% unemployment over the next 30 years. Why? Because Everyday People are being replaced by algorithms, robots, and Big Data. For Freedman to whine about "stupid" people is to be blind to the real issue that everyday people face.
Recognizing Logical Fallacies
Begging the Question
Begging the question assumes that a statement is self-evident when it actually requires proof.
Major Premise: Fulfilling all my major desires is the only way I can be happy.
Minor Premise: I can’t afford when of my greatest desires in life, a Lexus GS350.
Conclusion: Therefore, I can never be happy.
Circular Reasoning
Circular reasoning occurs when we support a statement by restating it in different terms.
Stealing is wrong because it is illegal.
Admitting women into the men’s club is wrong because it’s an invalid policy.
Your essay is woeful because of its egregious construction.
Your boyfriend is hideous because of his heinous characteristics.
I have to sell my car because I’m ready to sell it.
I can’t spend time with my kids because it’s too time-consuming.
I need to spend more money on my presents than my family’s presents because I need bigger and better presents.
I’m a great father because I’m the best father my children have ever had.
Weak Analogy or Faulty Comparison
Analogies are never perfect but they can be powerful. The question is do they have a degree of validity to make them worth the effort.
A toxic relationship is like cancer that gets worse and worse (fine).
Sugar is high-octane fuel to use before your workout (weak because there is nothing high-octane about a substance that causes you to crash and converts into fat and creates other problems)
Free education is a great flame and the masses are moths flying into the flames of destruction. (horribly false analogy)
Ad Hominem Fallacy (Personal Attack)
“Who are you to be a marriage counselor? You’ve been divorced six times?”
A lot of people give great advice and present sound arguments even if they don’t apply their principles to their lives, so we should focus on the argument, not a personal attack.
“So you believe in universal health care, do you? I suppose you’re a communist and you hate America as well.”
Making someone you disagree with an American-hating communist is invalid and doesn’t address the actual argument.
“What do you mean you don’t believe in marriage? What are you, a crazed nihilist, an unrepentant anarchist, an immoral misanthrope, a craven miscreant?”
Straw Man Fallacy
You twist and misconstrue your opponent’s argument to make it look weaker than it is when you refute it. Instead of attacking the real issue, you aim for a weaker issue based on your deliberate misinterpretation of your opponent’s argument.
“Those who are against universal health care are heartless. They obviously don’t care if innocent children die.”
Hasty Generalization (Jumping to a Conclusion)
“I’ve had three English instructors who are middle-aged bald men. Therefore, all English instructors are middle-aged bald men.”
“I’ve met three Americans with false British accents and they were all annoying. Therefore, all Americans, such as Madonna, who contrive British accents are annoying.” Perhaps some Americans do so ironically and as a result are more funny than annoying.
Either/Or Fallacy
There are only two choices to an issue is an over simplification and an either/or fallacy.
“Either you be my girlfriend or you don’t like real men.”
“Either you be my boyfriend or you’re not a real American.”
“Either you play football for me or you’re not a real man.”
“Either you’re for us or against us.” (The enemy of our enemy is our friend is everyday foreign policy.)
“Either you agree with me about increasing the minimum wage, or you’re okay with letting children starve to death.”
“Either you get a 4.0 and get admitted into USC, or you’re only half a man.”
Equivocation
Equivocation occurs when you deliberately twist the meaning of something in order to justify your position.
“You told me the used car you just sold me was in ‘good working condition.’”
“I said ‘good,’ not perfect.”
The seller is equivocating.
“I told you to be in bed by ten.”
“I thought you meant to be home by ten.”
“You told me you were going to pay me the money you owe me on Friday.”
“I didn’t know you meant the whole sum.”
“You told me you were going to take me out on my birthday.”
“Technically speaking, the picnic I made for us in the backyard was a form of ‘going out.’”
Red Herring Fallacy
This fallacy is to throw a distraction in your opponent’s face because you know a distraction may help you win the argument.
“Barack Obama wants us to support him but his father was a Muslim. How can we trust the President on the war against terrorism when he has terrorist ties?”
“You said you were going to pay me my thousand dollars today. Where is it?”
“Dear friend, I’ve been diagnosed with a very serious medical condition. Can we talk about our money issue some other time?”
Slippery Slope Fallacy
We go down a rabbit hole of exaggerated consequences to make our point sound convincing.
“If we allow gay marriage, we’ll have to allow people to marry gorillas.”
“If we allow gay marriage, my marriage to my wife will be disrespected and dishonored.”
Appeal to Authority
Using a celebrity to promote an energy drink doesn’t make this drink effective in increasing performance.
Listening to an actor play a doctor on TV doesn’t make the pharmaceutical he’s promoting safe or effective.
Tradition Fallacy
“We’ve never allowed women into our country club. Why should we start now?”
“Women have always served men. That’s the way it’s been and that’s the way it always should be.”
Misuse of Statistics
Using stats to show causality when it’s a condition of correlation or omitting other facts.
“Ninety-nine percent of people who take this remedy see their cold go away in ten days.” (Colds go away on their own).
“Violent crime from home intruders goes down twenty percent in a home equipped with guns.” (more people in those homes die of accidental shootings or suicides)
Post Hoc, Confusing Causality with Correlation
Taking cold medicine makes your cold go away. Really?
The rooster crows and makes the sun go up. Really?
You drink on a Thursday night and on Friday morning you get an A on your calculus exam. Really?
You stop drinking milk and you feel stronger. Really? (or is it a placebo effect?)
Non Sequitur (It Does Not Follow)
The conclusion in an argument is not relevant to the premises.
Megan drives a BMW, so she must be rich.
McMahon understands the difference between a phrase and a dependent clause; therefore, he must be a genius.
Whenever I eat chocolate cake, I feel good. Therefore, chocolate cake must be good for me.
Bandwagon Fallacy
Because everyone believes something, it must be right.
“You can steal a little at work. Everyone else does.”
“In Paris, ninety-nine percent of all husbands have a secret mistress. Therefore adultery is not immoral.”
Tribalism for Political Group or Pot Cult or Anything Leads to Critical Thinking Fallacies
Excerpt from Annie Lowrey's "America's Invisible Pot Addicts" (headings my own):
Daily Use from 9-40%
Public-health experts worry about the increasingly potent options available, and the striking number of constant users. “Cannabis is potentially a real public-health problem,” said Mark A. R. Kleiman, a professor of public policy at New York University. “It wasn’t obvious to me 25 years ago, when 9 percent of self-reported cannabis users over the last month reported daily or near-daily use. I always was prepared to say, ‘No, it’s not a very abusable drug. Nine percent of anybody will do something stupid.’ But that number is now [something like] 40 percent.” They argue that state and local governments are setting up legal regimes without sufficient public-health protection, with some even warning that the country is replacing one form of reefer madness with another, careening from treating cannabis as if it were as dangerous as heroin to treating it as if it were as benign as kombucha.
3 Causes of Pot Rising to Addiction Levels
But cannabis is not benign, even if it is relatively benign, compared with alcohol, opiates, and cigarettes, among other substances. Thousands of Americans are finding their own use problematic in a climate where pot products are getting more potent, more socially acceptable to use, and yet easier to come by, not that it was particularly hard before.
For Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, the most compelling evidence of the deleterious effects comes from users themselves. “In large national surveys, about one in 10 people who smoke it say they have a lot of problems. They say things like, ‘I have trouble quitting. I think a lot about quitting and I can’t do it. I smoked more than I intended to. I neglect responsibilities.’ There are plenty of people who have problems with it, in terms of things like concentration, short-term memory, and motivation,” he said. “People will say, ‘Oh, that’s just you fuddy-duddy doctors.’ Actually, no. It’s millions of people who use the drug who say that it causes problems.”
Users or former users I spoke with described lost jobs, lost marriages, lost houses, lost money, lost time. Foreclosures and divorces. Weight gain and mental-health problems. And one other thing: the problem of convincing other people that what they were experiencing was real. A few mentioned jokes about Doritos, and comments implying that the real issue was that they were lazy stoners. Others mentioned the common belief that you can be “psychologically” addicted to pot, but not “physically” or “really” addicted. The condition remains misunderstood, discounted, and strangely invisible, even as legalization and white-marketization pitches ahead.
Central Debate
The country is in the midst of a volte-face on marijuana. The federal government still classifies cannabis as a Schedule I drug, with no accepted medical use. (Meth and PCP, among other drugs, are Schedule II.) Politicians still argue it is a gateway to the use of things like heroin and cocaine. The country still spends billions of dollars fighting it in a bloody and futile drug war, and still arrests more people for offenses related to cannabis than it does for all violent crimes combined.
Yet dozens of states have pushed ahead with legalization for medical or recreational purposes, given that for decades physicians have argued that marijuana’s health risks have been overstated and its medical uses overlooked; activists have stressed prohibition’s tremendous fiscal cost and far worse human cost; and researchers have convincingly argued that cannabis is far less dangerous than alcohol. A solid majority of Americans support legalization nowadays.
Marketing a Lie
Academics and public-health officials, though, have raised the concern that cannabis’s real risks have been overlooked or underplayed—perhaps as part of a counter-reaction to federal prohibition, and perhaps because millions and millions of cannabis users have no problems controlling their use. “Part of how legalization was sold was with this assumption that there was no harm, in reaction to the message that everyone has smoked marijuana was going to ruin their whole life,” Humphreys told me. It was a point Kleiman agreed with. “I do think that not legalization, but the legalization movement, does have a lot on its conscience now,” he said. “The mantra about how this is a harmless, natural, and non-addictive substance—it’s now known by everybody. And it’s a lie.”
Thousands of businesses, as well as local governments earning tax money off of sales, are now literally invested in that lie. “The liquor companies are salivating,” Matt Karnes of GreenWave Advisors told me. “They can’t wait to come in full force.” He added that Big Pharma was targeting the medical market, with Wall Street, Silicon Valley, food businesses, and tobacco companies aiming at the recreational market.
Sellers are targeting broad swaths of the consumer market—soccer moms, recent retirees, folks looking to replace their nightly glass of chardonnay with a precisely dosed, low-calorie, and hangover-free mint. Many have consciously played up cannabis as a lifestyle product, a gift to give yourself, like a nice crystal or an antioxidant face cream. “This is not about marijuana,” one executive at the California retailer MedMen recently argued. “This is about the people who use cannabis for all the reasons people have used cannabis for hundreds of years. Yes, for recreation, just like alcohol, but also for wellness.”
Pot Replaces Motivation
Evan started off smoking with his friends when they were playing sports or video games, lighting up to chill out after his nine-to-five as a paralegal at a law office. But that soon became couch-lock, and he lost interest in working out, going out, doing anything with his roommates. Then came a lack of motivation and the slow erosion of ambition, and law school moving further out of reach. He started smoking before work and after work. Eventually, he realized it was impossible to get through the day without it. “I was smoking anytime I had to do anything boring, and it took a long time before I realized that I wasn’t doing anything without getting stoned,” he said.
His first attempts to reduce his use went miserably, as the consequences on his health and his life piled up. He gained nearly 40 pounds, he said, when he stopped working out and cooking his own food at home. He recognized that he was just barely getting by at work, and was continually worried about getting fired. Worse, his friends were unsympathetic to the idea that he was struggling and needed help. “[You have to] try to convince someone that something that is hurting you is hurting you,” he said.
Weaponizing Marijuana Potency as a Consumer Product Is Big Money with Big Health Consequences
Lax regulatory standards and aggressive commercialization in some states have compounded some existing public-health risks, raised new ones, and failed to tamp down on others, experts argue. In terms of compounding risks, many cite the availability of hyper-potent marijuana products. “We’re seeing these increases in the strength of cannabis, as we are also seeing an emergence of new types of products,” such as edibles, tinctures, vape pens, sublingual sprays, and concentrates, Ziva Cooper, an associate professor of clinical neurobiology in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center, told me. “A lot of these concentrates can have up to 90 percent THC,” she said, whereas the kind of flower you could get 30 years ago was far, far weaker. Scientists are not sure how such high-octane products affect people’s bodies, she said, but worry that they might have more potential for raising tolerance, introducing brain damage, and inculcating dependence.
As for new risks: In many stores, budtenders are providing medical advice with no licensing or training whatsoever. “I’m most scared of the advice to smoke marijuana during pregnancy for cramps,” said Humphreys, arguing that sellers were providing recommendations with no scientific backing, good or bad, at all.
In terms of long-standing risks, the lack of federal involvement in legalization has meant that marijuana products are not being safety-tested like pharmaceuticals; measured and dosed like food products; subjected to agricultural-safety and pesticide standards like crops; and held to labeling standards like alcohol. (Different states have different rules and testing regimes, complicating things further.)
Health experts also cited an uncomfortable truth about allowing a vice product to be widely available, loosely regulated, and fully commercialized: Heavy users will make up a huge share of sales, with businesses wanting them to buy more and spend more and use more, despite any health consequences.
Prohibition Is Not the Answer: Regulation Is
This is not to say that prohibition is a more attractive policy, or that legalization has proven to be a public-health disaster. “The big-picture view is that the vast majority of people who use cannabis are not going to be problematic users,” said Jolene Forman, an attorney at the Drug Policy Alliance. “They’re not going to have a cannabis-use disorder. They’re going to have a healthy relationship with it. And criminalization actually increases the harms related to cannabis, and so having a strictly regulated market where there can be limits on advertising, where only adults can purchase cannabis, and where you’re going to get a wide variety of products makes sense.”
Still, strictly regulated might mean more strictly regulated than today, at least in some places, drug-policy experts argue. “Here, what we’ve done is we’ve copied the alcohol industry fully formed, and then on steroids with very minimal regulation,” Humphreys said. “The oversight boards of a number of states are the industry themselves. We’ve learned enough about capitalism to know that’s very dangerous.”
A number of policy reforms might tamp down on problem use and protect consumers, without quashing the legal market or pivoting back to prohibition and all its harms. One extreme option would be to require markets to be noncommercial: The District of Columbia, for instance, does not allow recreational sales, but does allow home cultivation and the gifting of marijuana products among adults. “If I got to pick a policy, that would probably be it,” Kleiman told me. “That would be a fine place to be if we were starting from prohibition, but we are starting from patchwork legalization. As the Vermont farmer says, I don’t think you can get there from here. I fear its time has passed. It’s generally true that the drug warriors have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
Then, there are THC taxes, designed to hit heavy users the hardest. Some drug-policy experts argue that such levies would just push people from marijuana to alcohol, with dangerous health consequences. “It would be like saying, ‘Let’s let the beef and pork industries market and do whatever they wish, but let’s have much tougher restrictions on tofu and seitan,’” said Mason Tvert of the Marijuana Policy Project. “In light of the current system, where alcohol is so prevalent and is a more harmful substance, it is bad policy to steer people toward that.” Yet reducing the commercial appeal of all vice products—cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana—is an option, if not necessarily a popular one.
Counterargument and Rebuttal Section of Your Essay
Where can we seek counterarguments? Websites that champion cannabis consumption, of course. So let's look at a cannabis blog.
https://cannabis.net/blog/opinion/shutting-up-the-invisible-pot-addicts-idea
Counterargument #1: Daily Wine Vs. Daily Pot, Faulty Comparison?
Perhaps most important might be reintroducing some reasonable skepticism about cannabis, especially until scientists have a better sense of the health effects of high-potency products, used frequently. Until then, listening to and believing the hundreds of thousands of users who argue marijuana is not always benign might be a good start.
There’s no shortage of other reasonable proposals, many already in place or under consideration in some states. The government could run marijuana stores, as in Canada. States could require budtenders to have some training or to refrain from making medical claims. They could ask users to set a monthly THC purchase cap and remain under it. They could cap the amount of THC in products, and bar producers from making edibles that are attractive to kids, like candies. A ban or limits on marijuana advertising are also options, as is requiring cannabis dispensaries to post public-health information.
According to organizations such as NIDA, these daily wine drinkers are “alcoholics” or “heavy drinkers”. Within their realm of rationalization, consuming anything daily means automatically you’re an addict.
Counterargument #2: People rely on daily substances all the time: Two Wrongs Make a Right Fallacy
However, it is important to make the distinction between daily use and addiction. For instance, if someone smokes up every single night after a long day of work to unwind…how does that make them an addict. Just because of the substance in question?
If you’re having trouble sleeping and go to a doctor, they will either prescribe you a regimen of exercises or some Zoloft to get you sleeping. Within this scenario, if you take Zoloft every night to go to sleep…are you addicted or just ‘medicating’?
And this is where Cannabis is also very different from every other type of recreational drug on the market. Due to the cannabinoid activity within the plant and the plethora of medical benefits these terpenes and cannabis provides to the endocannabinoid system; many people substitute cannabis for medicines like Zoloft.
Counterargument #3: Addicts are going to be addicts anyway; if it's not pot, it will be something else, so what the hell?
Of course, the psychological aspects of cannabis could play a role within the mental structure of an addict. However, for an addict…if it’s not one substance it’s another. If they aren’t addicted to cannabis, they would be addicted to food, sex or anything really.
Nonetheless, we can’t place heavy regulations on cannabis based on the reactions of a small minority of people.
Counterargument #4: Lots of things are dangerous, like cars. Should we illegalize cars?
Let me put it to you this way. Some people will inevitably crash their cars and kill other people. This is fact. Does this mean that we get rid of all cars, place limits on how fast cars can go?
We do have some regulation when it comes to cars though. We make sure they are road worthy, we have certain rules and guidelines within the public space…however we’re not placing limits on manufacturers. We’re not setting a National Top Speed of 60 MPH where every car manufacturer is forced to make cars that can only go 60 MPHs.
Similarly, placing restrictions on a budding industry, setting limitations on THC levels and so forth is irrational.
Counterargument #5: "You can't trust the government."
The only reason why “some people” are having issues with cannabis is because the government has been spreading misinformation about cannabis for decades. The “trust” in the government authority have diminished over time.
Rebuttal:
A lot of studies Lowrey refers to are independent academic studies, not government ones.
Counterargument #6: "Just be careful, bro."
Cannabis is a mind altering substance and you should always be careful when you’re playing with brain chemistry, however the problem doesn’t lie with the substance but rather education surrounding the substance.
Furthermore, addiction goes far beyond any particular substance. It has to do with identity, purpose, behavioral patterns, genetics and of course a sense of belonging.
Option E
Read the online essay "It's been hot before" and write an argumentative essay about the role logical fallacies in the dangerous denial of global warming and global drought. For another source, you can use Netflix Explained, "The World's Water Crisis." For another source, you may consult Ibram X. Kendi's essay "What the Believers Are Denying."
For another source, you can use Netflix Explained, "The World's Water Crisis."
Fallacy #1
"We've had heat waves before" is both a faulty comparison of previous heat waves to today's, which are five times worse and a non sequitur because they don't address the current cause of heat waves.
Fallacy #2
"People died of cancer before cigarettes were invented."
Backfire Effect
People double-down or engage in the backfire effect when facts don't conform to their reality bubble. Many people are too narcissistic to accept truths that prove to be "inconvenient" to their comfortable false reality.
Ethos, Logos, Pathos: The 3 Pillars of Argument
Adapted from Diana Hacker's Rules for Writers, Eighth Edition (99)
Ethos
Ethos is an ethical appeal based on writer's character, knowledge, authority, savvy, book smarts, and streets smarts. The latter is evidenced by author's savvy in using appropriate, not pretentious language to appeal to her readers.
Ethos is further achieved through confidence, humility, and command of language and subject.
Confidence without humility is not confidence; it is bluster, bombast, and braggadocio, elements that diminish logos.
Real confidence is mastery, detailed, granular, in-depth knowledge of the topic at hand and acknowledgment of possible limitations and errors in one's conclusions.
Ethos is further established by using credible sources that are peer-reviewed.
Logos
Logos is establishing a reasonable, logical argument, appealing to reader's sense of logic, relying on credible evidence, using inductive and deductive reasoning, and exposing logical fallacies.
Logos is further achieved by using sources that are timely, up to date, current, and relevant.
To strengthen logos, the writer considers opposing views, concedes where those opposing views might diminish the claim, and make appropriate rebuttals to counterarguments.
Pathos
Pathos is achieved by appealing to reader's emotions, moral sense, and moral beliefs.
Pathos gets away from the brain and toward the gut. It makes a visceral appeal.
Appropriate pathos uses emotion in a way that supports and reinforces the evidence. It does not manipulate and use smokescreens that depart from the evidence.
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