I stopped arguing on the internet last year and since then I've become much fitter, happier, got a girlfriend, a job and I stopped losing my hair.

Me: Gives my mom a well thought-out argument with plenty of evidence to tell her why she is in the wrong in this instance and am very respectful throughout the delivery of my monologue My mom: No Me: why? My mom: Because I said so

Thank you very much for this video, it helped me realized I frequently use some of the fallacies you described in fear of losing an argument. I hope that knowing them will improve my conversations and help me build stronger arguments. Also I believe it's important to remind people (myself included) the goal of arguing, a better understanding of each other, which is often sadly forgotten. Good job!

I would love to have more fallacies! I'm working on my masters thesis, and these are helping me identifying fallacies in my own work and the conversations I'm having with other MA students.

What about the "fallacy fallacy". When people point out that someone is using a fallacy and use that to discredit the argument entirely.

As a supporter of gamer gate I do not approve of threats. But I do not understand the idea that threats are unacceptable to the point where you have to invalidate the entire movements based on a few. Because let's face it, the *vast* majority of what has been aimed towards people by the gamer gate movement has been legit criticism, which these people in an attempt to play victims have tried to call harassment. Invalidating gamer gate because of a few alleged threats just seems like a ploy to avoid facing the very real criticism.

It would be wonderful to have a few more of these fallacy videos pop up over time, I think this one was super helpful both for me keeping track of my own previously not noticed bad argument habits and helping to explain them to others who might have them.

MORE!!! (throws coffee mug on the floor)

I'm sure there is a bigger discussion to be had here, but I need to be clear on one thing... The Watergate scandal had Nothing to do with Water. At all. It's the name of a hotel. We seriously need to stop using the -gate suffix for these kinds of things. It's obnoxious.

Good for you Mike for joining those of us standing against Gamergate because of their horrendous tactics. The level of hypocrisy in so many of it's supporters is downright baffling. It's the same reason I will not stand beside the legion of SJW in places like Tumblr even though some mean well. I may be a member of the LGBT community, but I'm more often embarassed by the community at large's actions than proud of them.

I loved this and I think you are doing the internet a great service by making available these concise, accessible descriptions on types of fallacies and argument etiquette. I don't comment very often but I'm going to exercise my potential power as a viewer to influence the channel in this case. Please make more!

The mark of a truly great debater is the ability to infuse many fallacies into his argument without getting caught.

The problem with fallacies is that they don't matter if there is no mediator judging the discussion. If the person who committed the fallacy frankly, does not give a damn, and no one else does either then its almost as if the fallacy not only doesn't exist, but just made their argument even more airtight. How often have you seen a comment that said "You're argument is wrong because you just used Ad Hominem" (which I see quite a lot in comment sections) and the other guy going "O damn, you're right, man you sure got me, I messed up."

I don't really care about gamergate but I found it interesting that the reasons Mike's against it is due to the vocal minorities actions as opposed to the majority. By that reasoning we should judge religions by the extremist committing acts of terror instead of what the majority feel its for.

YES! Please make more tiny videos on fallacies in this style that we can send to other people! They're superb.

Thank you. It helped with a series I am creating on fallacies in risk. Thanks for the knowledge and ideas!

I find that gamergate has split into two,we 1) gamergate vs journalists and ethics in journalism, the actual debate where it should be talked out. 2) Internet trolls vs feminists radicals on both sides have twisted the original arguments, as bad as each other one self entitled grandiosity that is using the controversy to become well known and the idiots who just want to cause a fight and have a problem with other people with no interest in the original arguments

If you do decide to make a gamergate episode, can you please explain what it is EXACTLY? I'm still unsure as to what it is, what its for, who it targets, what its goal is and why I should even care. It doesn't help that there are people saying it represents or means multiple different things. For example some people say its about corrupt games journalism, others say its about gamers being sexist and misogynistic towards women (no idea how that's possible when tonnes of women like myself ARE gamers but okay) and others say that its about what defines a gamer and anyone that doesn't follow that exact definition isn't a gamer. Honestly, I'd just like some clarity on the whole thing in an unbiased and intelligent way.

PLEEEASE MAKE MORE OF THE FALLACY VIDEOS! I love being able to look back on these and point out that people aren't actually focusing on the point of the discussion.

This was really cool, educational and fun. Plus I learned something. I definitely would love more of these!

Gamergate is a great example of many of these fallacies. The anti camp has been arguing about how gamergate are a bunch of misogynistic exclusionary jerks, while the gamergate camp is trying to argue about corruption in gaming blogs, a clear example of the straw man fallacy. There's been plenty of ad hominem attacks on both sides, I mean we've all seen the vitriole coming from both sides, attacking the characters of the side, as opposed to actually arguing about corruption in gaming blogs. There's some "no true scotsman" mixed in there, with both sides attempting to quell the worst of their worst. Really, the fallacy that killed gamergate was the black-and-white fallacy, wherein people on both sides started claiming that if you sided with the other, you must hate women or support corruption in gaming blogs, when really there are plenty of people who both have a great deal of respect women and do want gaming blogs to stop being so horribly corrupt. I can't really think of any appeals to authority, although when your authority figures are gaming bloggers or reddit users, there's not really much that an appeal to authority can do, especially when both sides hate each other so much. There's got to be a certain level of respect between people for an appeal to authority to work. Really though, at the end of the day, I think that Gamergate has taught us two things: maybe don't expect bloggers to not be corrupt when companies have a lot of money on the line, and maybe don't trust the internet to not be a butthole...basically ever, really.

I took a debate class a few semesters ago and this is basically what we learned. This was way more fun to learn watching this.

This is both fun, educational, and incredibly useful. Thank you!

I just stumbled into your channel; I've spent the past few days catching up with the videos cause they are awesome :D

Am I the only one only hearing about gamergate via all their favorite people on the internet condemning it?

Didn't you use an ad hominem attack at the end of the video on gamergate supporters? I mean I love the video and your channel in general but why focus on the idiotic actions of a few when there are serious concerns, as you clearly understand, in gaming journalism and development? Or how about the ridiculous reactions on countless sites since all of this broke (ie shadowbans on reddit or the infamous GameJournoPros story)?

Please please please do more of these. I am currently teaching logical fallacies to my students (I teach senior level English), and these are so helpful. You already covered three of the ten I mentioned in class too! I will definitely show these to my students

I really enjoy the idea of having tiny videos to send to people. Plus, the way you guys have done it, it is very polite and informative. If I were to receive one of those, it would be really hard to be mad about it.

He clearly doesn't understand the actual reasoning behind the creation of Gamergate. The only reason it is what it is today, is because of the bullshit excuses made by the journalists initially to protect themselves. Those statements ignored the actual issue entirely, completely attempting to shift the focus from their own corruption to the "harassment" that was and always has taken place on the internet. Certain groups attached to that to forward their own cause, shifting the focus further, and a vocal minitoriy attacked them, sometimes taking it too far, thus continuing the circle. The GamerGate issue is ethics/transparency/honesty in Journalism, THAT'S IT. There are two extremist groups of people bashing each other over the head, completely distracting from the original statement. Women in the industry and harassment are two separate issues in their own right and should be discussed, but they are both completely unrelated to the original intent of gamergate. To these extremist groups you are either for corruption and feminism, or you are anti-corruption and for misogyny, and that just makes no fucking sense. Being Pro-Gamergate doesn't excuse harassment, but it also says absolutely nothing about women in the industry or anything that seems to have attached itself to the cause. Gamergate is about gamers vs game journalists/developers/judges/etc, NOTHING ELSE. Anyone that truly thinks otherwise is simply trying to distract from that discussion, or push their own cause by artificially attaching it to gamergate.

I don't know if there's a named fallacy for this, but I believe the root of all these is that *the person committing the fallacy isn't willing to concede.* I had to learn to concede an argument awhile ago, and once I did, I started learning a lot more!

This video was great! Added to favourites. Please do make more, I really enjoyed it and will definitely link people the mini-videos on the internet.

I love this video. Everything's so well explained. Someone really needed to point all these things out!

It's the Black & White Fallacy that made me give up on American politics. The two party system creates an arbitrary, polarized dichotomy, and that prevents actual political discussion from occurring. A person who would otherwise hold a moderate opinion is forced to choose either one extreme or another. The parties lambast and demonize each other, so their party members see the other side as the enemy, refusing to listen to anything they say or take them seriously. And since they refuse to consider the other side, they only listen to their own party's press and arguments, creating an echo chamber effect, and pushing them to further and further extremes. This extremism prevents them further from considering even a more moderate version of their opponent's positions, setting the whole process moving again in a vicious cycle. This fallacy is the most insidious, because it is often the only point the two sides agree on, and politics as a whole suffers for it.

If Gone Home is a video game, then a movie where you have to press the play button every 5 seconds is a video game.

Thank you very much for this informative video. I think it will really help me catch myself in my own arguments and recognize the patterns of others.

Please do more of these! I really enjoyed this!

It's ironic how a video explaining fallacies makes a blatant fallacy at the end by saying that #GamerGate is represented by sexism and harassment. It's a -non sequitur- association fallacy: 1. Person A is sexist. 2. Person A is part of GamerGate. 3. Therefore, GamerGate is sexist. (It's kind of a reverse no true Scotsman.) Just because a minority of people in the GamerGate movement are sexist, that doesn't mean the whole movement is sexist. It would also count as an ad hominem: 1. Person A is part of GamerGate. 2. Person A is sexist. 3. Therefore, GamerGate shouldn't be taken seriously. Just because a minority of people in the GamerGate movement are sexist, that doesn't mean that their main goal of wanting to stop corruption in the video game news media and development should be undermined. UPDATE: It was also pointed to me that Mike's fallacy is closer to an association fallacy, and I would have to agree.

Saying that GamerGate is defined by the harassment of women is exactly the same as saying that Islam is defined by terrorism... #ButThatsNoneOfMyBusiness

Ad hominem attack and ad hominem fallacy are not the same thing. An 'ad hominem' attack is simply adding insults. It doesn`t affect the argument. In an 'ad hominem' fallacy, the insult IS your argument.

Thank you for starting to teach the world about fallacies, that is awesome and you should do more of it. These are subjects that are not commonly taught at the high school level, but would be great if included in those curriculum. There are many fallacies seen in almost each printing of every newspaper i have read and many airings of news reports. If the public could more easily catch those fallacies they would be far more likely to question the opinions that seep into the news and other media presented as facts.

Only problem is, the people I confront are too stubborn to admit to their fallacies and brush it off as "don't try and act all smart on me!"

I would actually like to see an idea channel episode on GamerGate as I have seen numerous stories on it but still can't grasp exactly what it is all about. One talks about questionable journalist-developer relations, theres some misogyny in there, something about death threats, the whole Zoe Quinn fiasco... it just sounds like one big clusterfuck to me. It would be good to have some clarity on the subject.

This rocks. Thank you for helping me pass my logic final!

do more, yes! a lot i can learn to summarize from these videos to correct my style of arguing and my friends.

Jesus Christ! Since when was this a Gamergate video? That's all the comments are focusing on! I don't know why people are so hung up on it - I mean, the whole "corruption" was just the baseless accusations of an angry ex-boyfriend. It was just a breaking-up squabble and it's reached the point where the poor woman doesn't even feel safe in her own house. Her family members don't even feel safe in their own houses. It's not a corruption thing, guys. It's far far darker than that.

One point I was hoping you would make with this series is that when someone uses a logical fallacy, that doesn't mean they have lost the argument in its entirety. As Cracked pointed out in its article on dismissive argument tactics, some people on the internet like to point out that the other party has made a logical fallacy and therefore they are no longer worth arguing with. Even if they have not made a point for their side of the argument, the person who made the fallacy "loses" by default. If you could make it clear that a fallacy is not an automatic loss to an argument you could save the internet from a new wave of people using Idea Channels videos to "win" arguments on completely unrelated topics.

please do more episodes like this was so nice to see falsies laid out outside of a college classroom.

Love this!! Thanks for putting this together!

Actually on the topic of Gone Home, completing the game is a Win-state and failing to find the next clue or whatever is implicitly a lose-state. The key is that there is a degree of challenge inherent in playing it. Otherwise it's not a 'game'. Note this a) doesn't prevent such 'interactive experiences' from being enjoyable or having value them in any way and b) is an important distinction to make for people buying a game. Many people playing games enjoy overcoming adversity. Be it finding hidden objects, solving a puzzle or just bashing people who get in your way over the head. I think the more important question to ask when discussing this sort of thing is 'Would a game like The Walking Dead or The Wolf Among Us be more or less enjoyable if you were unable to lose in anyway?' As well as 'Are 'genres' actually informing purchasing decisions enough these days?'

i think the biggest problem with #gamergate is that they don't see what they're doing as either 1) harassment or 2) misogynistic. i literally saw a post on a gamergate forum earlier saying, "how dare felicia day criticize #gamergate as misogynistic? she's just a washed up booth babe looking for press." these people are so incredibly steeped in this sort of thing they don't realize what they're doing is incredibly problematic. they think condemning outright threats somehow makes the other things they're doing okay. but the surrounding milieu of #gamergate creates and enables that direct abuse by creating an incredibly vitriolic, toxic environment. often via lies, slander and misrepresentation.

Awesome to get fallacy awareness out there. More people need to be logical and informed during argument.

Also, I extreamly respect your stance on having and forming your own oppinion and standing with it no matter the differing oppinions, while remaning open for differing facts and data.

And yet Sarkisian still isn't a gamer...

I love Newsroom. Here's why: a platform for media is faulted and criticized because all of a sudden its host decides to up and have an opinion -- and televise it. He becomes clear when he discusses his opinion and is also fair when he encounters an argument or is presenting something that is happening. That's what this channel is to me. It's why I'll keep watching. It's why I'll watch even if it were to say something as absurd as, "People are bad. They are never good. They are always bad.". Why? Because as long as the argument is presented well, argued and criticized, I and quite a few others have the unfortunate burden of being at least mildly intellectual. Enough so to be able to chime in and say or present things that run in the contrary. This argument is, if well presented, called attention to rather than buried. And that's why I, personally, watch this channel. I do not watch it because I need my perspective reinforced and my ego stroked, I watch it because it's a good encapsulation of an argument that I can pose and contend and regardless of whether or not I agree, it gives very good opportunities to invoking a dialectic method. Because even if I disagree, the arguments proposed is presented in such a way that enriches my understanding of my own opinion. Which if I must explicitly say so -- is (to me) a good thing. I find that more knowledge, more opinions and more healthy debate helps break people (such as myself) out of academic and intellectual insecurity. Thank you, Idea Channel.

This is a really good video, I am currently studying fallacies and this increase my understanding. I was just distracted by the little videos and pictures so my concentration was a little bit divided.

After all these years, I still enjoy seeing the video is 13:37 long :D.

So Mike brings up an interesting point about Gamer Gate (disclaimer: I'm very pro-Gamer Gate, and if you're not up to speed, I highly recommend you go to the Gamer Gate section of 8chan to see our point of view, and probably seek out some resources to see the other point of view as well). I think a lot of us can agree that corruption in Games Journalism is a problem and that it should be fixed. The problem is, the reason Gamer Gate has been portrayed as very anti-women/minorities/whatever is because Gamer Gate is a movement by the people, the consumers, against the corrupt goings on of games journalists and developers. We've made it clear in posts on 8chan that we do not condone the threatening of anybody in our name, we are not out for blood, and we are not against more diversity in games (personally, I'd love to see more women - especially queer women - represented in video games). We boycott organizations and argue and send emails in order to get the change we desire (which, as has been stated before, is to get corruption out of games journalism), and it may not have worked 100% yet, but it is working. The Escapist, which we've railed against before on grounds of corruption, has recently implemented a new standard of ethics and has been very public about it. Intel recently pulled their advertising from Gamasutra, which we've also criticized on grounds of corruption (prior to that, most of us boycotted Intel, and now that they've done that, we're not boycotting them anymore). Meanwhile, our opposition (primarily from the journalists and game developers we're calling out) has done little to address our arguments, instead preferring to just focus on how we're all hateful, full of -isms, and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, Zoe Quinn started the whole shitstorm with TFYC (she tweeted something along the lines of "Oops, did I doxx someone?" around the time that was happening, which while not an outright confirmation, does make her extremely fishy), the editor in Chief of Kotaku once said a while back that people should recuse themselves in conflicts of interest and then went on to defend the journalist who was alleged to have had a relationship with Zoe Quinn prior to reporting on Depression Quest (if I recall correctly - and I don't remember 100% so take it with a grain of salt - he basically just said something along the lines of "What he did wasn't wrong, so back off"). The big problem, I think, is how Gamer Gate started. It started as a movement by anonymous people on 4chan (many of whom decided to leave for good when moot decided to censor us - gee, that sure was nice of the "Champion of Unfiltered Free Speech"), and a ton of us have decided to stay anonymous. Because there aren't any big figure heads, it's easy for us to be misrepresented as a bunch of woman/black/latino/queer hating fuckwads. The New York Times and The Guardian have both misrepresented us, showing a clear lack of respect and journalistic integrity, which makes me think that maybe we should expand out to all areas of journalism. Maybe turn Gamer Gate into a general journalistic watch dog movement. tl;dr - We're being misrepresented by the people we're opposing, threats in the name of Gamer Gate do happen and it's shit and we hate it, and my comment is a winding fuckwad of text and I apologize for all this.

Thank you so much for your stance on Gamer Gate. I appreciate that you do not shy away from controversy in your videos, and that when you talk about them you do so with grace and in a succinct manner.

I keep rewatching this in hopes to grasp. It is getting better.

I've been subscribed for a long time and laughed when my Writing 101 teacher directed me to this video for one of our assignments.

Yes please make more of these! I love practical logic!

Maybe I heard the whole thing wrong, but you just used a Black and White Fallacy in a video talking about why the Black and White Fallacy is wrong. The gamergaters AREN'T defined by sexism and vitriolic behavior, or at least to my knowledge they aren't. They're defined by people who want games journalism to be more trustworthy. I could be employing a strawman fallacy here, but to me it really seems like you're saying that once you become a gamergater you're a sexist, which isn't true in the least.

Thank you for standing with Extra Credits (love those guys).

Thank you, Mike, for demonstrating examples of fallacies with your closing remarks.

In regards to gamergate I pretty much just watched a couple pro-gamergate youtube videos about it, and I don't remember it encouraging harassment of anyone of any kind. Can someone tell me what I missed? EDIT: From the videos I've watched, all I've seen are arguments talking about how corrupt gaming journalism is.

Mike at the end of your video, you can literally substitute gamergate with feminism and it will still be applicable, even though they are painted differently by the media. Don't get me wrong, I would like to see fair representation and equality in games and society in general, but I cannot associate myself with feminism as much as I can't associate myself with gamergate. I hate that people are being threatened and bullied, but for once I would like to see people like Anita Sarkeesian for example stand up to valid criticism. Even if gamergate people are separated into people who just harass and people who are actually concerned about ethics in media, the other party is not concerned with letting their arguments stand on it's own merits and will group any actual arguments as harassment.

I loved this it was so cute I didn't even need to know all of that info and I stayed till the end lol

My English Professor just assigned this video for our class to watch and take notes on and...... This is literally every single argument that happens in every online video game setting I learned my lesson with trying to defend myself against other people on the internet from getting my League of Legends account perma-banned 2 years ago... Embarrassing and i definitely deserved it. It is extremely harrowing and very humbling seeing these fallacies being elucidated because i can now how my "arguments" really came across to the other party, and vice versa. I hope people find it as helpful as i did. It definitely shapes the way how I'll interact with the random people i get paired with on my teams.

This is good stuff. I work at a university, where we teach critical thinking and it's always helpful to have videos like this, so people can watch it over and over if they want (so they don't have to sit and listen to us repeating it over and over... and over.). There's a lot of them out there, but a bit less formal and a little humor works better if you ask me. There's a few small mistakes/gaps, of which the clearest one is the ommission that the authority falacy is also applied when someone uses his/her authority to empower a flawed argument. (a.k.a. don't believe anyone just because they said so and their job is related ;-) ). But despite those: Thanks!

You are not quite correct on "Appeal to authority" though. This fallacy happens when one uses authority (of the speaker or quoting others) DESPITE the invalidity of the argument, simply because Authority Source says so. This is true even if the source is the authority on the subject matter. When you assume authority where one does not have, and assign credibility because of that. That is called "Appeal to non-authorities". E.g. your example of the mechanical engineer vs auto industry materials.

Thanks for these. I'd love to see more!

Excellent presentation, thank you

For the love of god, yes! I want more fallacy videos! Yayyyy!!!!

This is amazing and thank you!! As an English teacher who loves to teach rhetoric, this is quite accessible and helpful for my students. Thanks! Keep making more! This is the kind of thing that can improve the level of discourse online. Cheers!

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Will definitely be using this. As a refresher for myself if nothing else lol

Please make more of these! I love these!

I don't really have anything to talk about with this subject... But please don't ever bring Straw Mike back.... He terrifies me..

Thank you for publicly standing against harassment, vitriol, and bad argumentation. I don't envy you for the calibre of comment you're likely to receive, but I'm glad that you stand up for what you believe in. For the very little that it's worth, a stranger on the internet supports you. I would love to hear you do a break down of what "Social Justice Warrior" means and what it says about views of gender on the internet. Is it merely disguised misogyny and sublimated racism, or are there more complex factors at work?

I have to rewatch this video just about every couple months

I'm glad you made this video, I've always enjoyed the idea of fallacies.

I really like what Mike said about gamer gate. He makes a good point that there are ethical concerns in games and games journalism, but he points out something important: gamergate has become synonymous with misogyny in the games community. The people who keep trying to defend gamergate as not just about hatred of women are really crippling their argument. I don't see why we don't just cut ties with gamergate all together as it is a lost cause. Arguing without the weight of a dumb, overused buzz word might actually allow us to have a legitimate conversation about ethics in games.

11:02 Who is in the picture? But I have a bad feeling about who it is...

Omg BLESS YOU for making the reference videos!! It will be so much easier to make my point and (attempt to) educate people when they use these fallacies now!

I love these, please make more

Please speak up about Gamergate. As a worker in media and entertainment, as well as a female gamer among many others friends, it's been very sad sight from my experience. I am not welcome to the gaming community.

Here's something that doesn't really belong in any of these categories: A couple of days ago I suggested to a youtuber that, regarding his international viewership, he use the metric system in his videos. This comment had the sole purpose to state that a considerable part of the audience might have problems to understand the content because it was presented in the imperial system that hardly anybody outside the U.S. uses. However, this started an ongoing discussion about which system is the better one. This is a problem in many comments or discussions: Somebody makes a valid, yet specific point, and everybody lifts this up to a large-scale level and starts to ramble endlessly.

Yes, please. I appreciate the information.

Very cool video! One fallacy that I see a lot is "correlation equals causation", in which one would argue that two events that happen simultaneously or in short succession of each other must be related. In other words, A and B happened around the same time, therefore A must have caused B.

But yeah, I spend some time every day filtering bad things out f my mind and adding positive traits.. I'd love more videos like this x

So, about the ad hominem fallacy, sometimes you will see people try to dismiss someone over a small spelling mistake rather than addressing that person's points. Is that an ad hominem? I've always treated it as one.

Great job, these are very helpful!

I really appreciate this video, and the comments down below. I intend to use this video and the comments for my classroom next semester.

Man, I can't wait for the flame war about GamerGate in the comments.

Hey, yall should check out Dan Kahan and cultural cognition as to why pointing out logical fallacies is a HORRIBLE way to effectively communicate. Our ethical core is the lens for which we interpret information. Without addressing that ethical core, you aren't going to have very effective communication, it doesn't matter about fallacies.

Love this! I'd love to see more fallacy videos!

More Fallacies! please and thank you.

I'm so tired of seeing the "Authority Fallacy" (or "Argument from Authority") yet again misrepresented. The key here is between the authority bolstering the validity of the argument or the soundness. Claiming that "Global Warming is true because of the scientific consensus" is an example of the Authority Fallacy (and the Bandwagon Fallacy). It isn't _necessarily_ true just because there's a scientific consensus, which is why it's fallacious. If a premise of your argument depends on proving Global Warming is true, the scientific consensus is good for bolstering the _soundness_ of the premise, but it doesn't help its _validity_.

Thx 4 the Straw Man Fallacy! I have a test coming up Tomorrow Morning so hopefully i'll get a Good Grade.

This was awsome! More, please.

Yes please do more!