Hi folks! I’d hoped to get back onto a regular schedule of posting these, but life being what it is, that doesn’t seem like it’s going to be possible anytime soon, so instead I’m going to settle for shooting for posting 1 or 2 “Bootcamp” diaries weekly when I can.
With that bit of housekeeping, let’s take a look at the latest offering, an informal logical fallacy called The Alphabet Soup Fallacy.
In the Alphabet Soup Fallacy, the party using it deliberately uses acronyms and abbreviations to either make themselves appear more knowledgeable than they really are about a subject or in an effort to confuse their opposition. You can probably also throw in the use of buzzwords to this one as well (“We’ve got to leverage our synergy to make the paradigm really pop!”).
The key to this one really is deliberate intent. But this also brings me to making a point about clear communication in general. We’ve probably all been in the presence of an expert, either in a personal conversation or a presentation or something, and they drop into tossing around acronyms and professional jargon, leaving those they’re conversing with or presenting to scratching their heads and struggling to understand.
In such cases, it can be a simple misunderstanding of the speaker in knowing their audience and needing to adjust their vocabulary accordingly. So it’s a case of being tone deaf to their audience but not really a fallacy per se. My ultimate point being, if you’re the one doing the speaking, keep your audience in mind and remember that the language you use, for example, at work, or with fellow hobbyists, or some other group with their own in-group acronyms and jargon in common, might not be the language you want to use if you’re trying to describe things to relatives at a family reunion or to your dinner date.
But sometimes the intent isn’t quite so innocent, and the person making the argument instead weaponizes jargon and acronyms in an effort to either puff themselves up to appear more expert in the subject they’re talking about, or to deliberately try to confuse their opponent.
This one can be somewhat difficult to push back on, but really the best way to do it is to demand that the party responsible drop the use of acronyms and jargon and/or give definitions of them. The risk is that the response will be along the lines of “if you don’t know what means, you don’t know enough to argue with me about this.” But frankly, that’s a cop-out, and likely means your opponent really is not as expert as they claim to be, or that they are fishing for a way to get out of the argument.
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp:
The Strawman
The Slippery Slope
Begging the Question
Poisoning the Well
No True Scotsman!
Ad Hominem
False Dilemma
Non Sequitur
Red Herring
Gamblers Fallacy
Bandwagon Fallacy
Appeal to Fear
The Fallacy Fallacy
Appeal to Personal Incredulity
Appeal to Authority
Special Pleading
Texas Sharpshooter
Post Hoc
Appeal to Nature
Furtive Fallacy
Cognitive Bias Bootcamp:
Bystander Effect
Curse of Knowledge
Barnum Effect
Declinism
In-Group Bias
Hindsight Bias
Survivor Bias
Rhyme-as-Reason Effect