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Claims are constantly being made, many of which are confusing, ambiguous, too general to be of value, exaggerated, unfalsifiable, and suggest a dichotomy when no such dichotomy exists. Good critical thinking requires a thorough understanding of the claim before attempting to determine its veracity. Good communication requires the ability to make clear, precise, explicit claims, or “strong” claims. The rules of reason in this book provide the framework for obtaining this understanding and ability.
This book / online course is about the the eleven rules of reason for making and evaluating claims. Each covered in detail in the book.
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I think this is a classic strawman fallacy or at least a version of it. They are not addressing the argument (falling behind because of the union) but instead changing the argument to something like "unions are bad". |
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answered on Thursday, Apr 24, 2025 08:21:50 AM by Bo Bennett, PhD | ||||
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I think the righteousness fallacy fits pretty well here. Person 2 assumes that, since the union's stated purpose is to protect workers, that its solutions are always going to be the best ones. That said, how a union's actions affect a company's ability to be competitive is a lot more complicated and situational than either person in the argument seems to acknowledge. There have been situations where a unionized workforce has made it difficult for a company to compete with foreign competitors, but also ones where it's made the workforce more productive and ultimately been a net positive for the company. With regards to blocking the adoption of a new technology, the most likely reason a union would do that is because the technology has the potential to displace a lot of employees. Whether that's a worthwhile tradeoff requires some deeper analysis. One of the hot topics now is the widespread adoption of AI in the workplace. Critics of AI point out, not just that companies are using it to replace human workers, but that it's less creative, less versatile, and more prone to mistakes than a person, so companies that replace humans with AI may not even be giving themselves a competitive advantage by doing so. There's also the possibility that the union is just using the technology as a negotiating chip, and will offer to stop fighting it in exchange for some improvement to the contract. |
answered on Thursday, Apr 24, 2025 09:02:18 AM by Mr. Wednesday | |
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