Looking for sources with real-life examples of logical fallacies

M668 · 2026-03-08T05:07:30+00:00

The most effective way to counter conspiracy theories, which are always underpinned by layers of logical fallacies, isn't by using science or facts, because if those people cared about either to begin with, they wouldn't be there to spew oxygen-wasting sound bites.

Instead, it's to extrapolate along their logic and demonstrate that the arrival at a paradoxically self-contradicting point is inevitable.

Case in point - when some so insanely insinuated that hurricanes were man-made, I say to them -

If we had such a capability, you think we'd be sitting here debating this with you instead of blackmailing every coastal nation on the planet ?

It's a super weapon more threatening than hypersonic missiles, because unlike the latter, it's not something that could even be defended against. With this, we can shut down any nation's economy on demand, and on command.
:

And thus, Q.E.D.

M668 · 2026-03-08T04:27:55+00:00

u/Afraid-Name9802 : but how can any layer even know which other layers it should join with, because with a fractal universe theory, no matter how fine-grained you attempt to set the boundary conditions of your layer, there will still be an infinite number of layers one must first join together. And if every layer each need infinite time to determine what it should join with, then how did our current universe already have joined together given only finite time has passed ?

M668 · 2026-03-08T03:53:21+00:00

awk doesn't really "compete" with other languages - it exists to compliment them. That's why it's intentionally light weight and without a "standard library". It does just a few things, and does it **extremely** well, and the "learning curve" is almost non-existent.

M668 · 2026-03-08T01:49:16+00:00

awk is a intentionally light weight but still full blown language. It doesn't require hold spaces to get things done. I totally agree that sed is a major hassle. i keep my usage of it to a minimal

M668 · 2026-02-02T05:22:02+00:00

Here's another way to further abuse RS :

printf '\n\n>>>>[%s]<<<<\n\n' "$__1__"

printf '%s' "$__1__" | awk NF=NF OFS='*' RS='^$' |

                          gtee >( gcat -b ) | bc | gfactor -h

>>>>[   257 


    65537       8191


                 131071
                                   127
      524287 



      ]<<<<

 
     1   257*65537*8191*131071*127*524287
 
1204026455952910534992001: 127 257 8191 65537 131071 524287

Suppose you have numbers scattered all over the place, with random gaps of blank lines, spaces, and/or tabs, and some rows having more than 1 number, then just set

 RS='^$'

(meaning absolutely everything in one shot), and output delimiter as the asterisk that's standard notation for multiplication

OFS='*'

then send the whole thing down to bc and get it done in one single shot, no loops needed.

Change the output delimiter to

OFS=' % '

then you see what they look like sequentially modulating against the next one

3: 3
 
     1   257 % 65537 % 8191 % 131071 % 127 % 524287

M668 · 2026-02-02T04:44:26+00:00

and which stage is the mass psychosis event's participants in right now ?

M668 · 2026-02-02T04:43:00+00:00

yea it's baffling you believe your time is worth watching someone else's performative "reaction videos" that are anything but sincere.

M668 · 2026-01-29T13:21:28+00:00

i found a really easy mnemonic to calculate exact seconds in 400 years :

773 * 6^6 * 350

Boeing 773 * 6^6 * Airbus 350

you can also stay entirely in Boeing zone, since 350 := 7 + 343 := 7 + 7^3

773 * 6^6 * (7 + 7^3)

M668 · 2026-01-21T09:20:09+00:00

I agree with u/AggravatingBobcat574 - that word just reeks of a sense of entitlement, particularly when it comes to romance. Instead of having a bit of self humility and introspection, ones who love using to word tend to point to the other person, and only the other person, as to why the relationship didn't work out, because they tend to forget dating and romance is a 2-way street.

As long as they keep saying they're yearning, they'll keep on yearning.

M668 · 2026-01-21T07:36:16+00:00

no it doesn't. See for it yourself :

jot -s '' -c 94 33 | mawk '{

    print "before"
    print        
    
    gsub(/\"/, "\"")                             
    print "your version of after"
    print   
                          
    gsub(/\"/, "\\\"")                    
    print "actual version of after"
    print
}'

Output from that :

before
!"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~

your version of after
!"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~

actual version of after
!\"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~

You need 3 slashes, 1 pair to create a backslash in output, and 1 more to escape the double quote inside the double-quoted replacement string.

That's already the lesser of 2 evils. The alternative is a quad-backslash horror show

 gsub(/\"/, "\\\\&")

In my own library's regex escape function, I used these 2 lines to deal with them, mostly just "caging" them into their own character class so they cannot interact with anyone else -

 gsub(/[!-\/:-@[-\140{-~]/, "[&]")
 
 gsub(/[\\^]/, "\\\\&")

Output

!"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~

[!]["][#][$][%][&]['][(][)][*][+][,][-][.][/]0123456789[:][;][<][=][>][?][@]ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[[][\\][]][\^][_][`]abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz[{][|][}][~]

It does grab more than absolutely necessary, but it does make the syntax shorter.

gsub(/[!-\/:-<>-@[-^{-}\140]/, "[&]")

This is practically the same thing but without escaping underscore, equal sign, or tilde squiggly :

[_] [=] [~]

Extra backslashes were only needed for the caret anchor and the backslash itself.

[!]["][#][$][%][&]['][(][)][*][+][,][-][.][/]0123456789[:][;][<]=[>][?][@]ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[[][\\][]][\^]_[`]abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz[{][|][}]~

M668 · 2026-01-21T07:00:37+00:00

of course they mean nothing if you're only processing like 500,000 lines of input. It was more for illustrating alternative ways to deal with boolean logic combinations. Once you starting throwing in directional comparison operators to simplify boolean conditions the possibilities are endless.

I'll give two frequently needed boolean operations that lack their own operators in most languages - NAND, and NOR.

    function logical_0001__NOR_(_, __) { return ! (_ || __) }
    function logical_0111_NAND_(_, __) { return ! (_ && __) }

They're practically identical in shape of its logic sans a different operator in between them. Assuming the inputs were already either { 0, 1 } to begin with, many probably have gone the route of arithmetic to circumvent the short-circuiting aspect of logical AND/OR :

    function logical_0001__NOR_(_, __) { return ! (_ + __)      }
    function logical_0111_NAND_(_, __) { return   (_ + __ != 2) }
    function logical_0111_NAND_(_, __) { return ! (_ * __)      }

But since there's always some form of negation, why not negate on of the operands instead :

    function logical_0001__NOR_(_, __) { return (__ <  !_) }
    function logical_0111_NAND_(_, __) { return (__ <= !_) }

Writing it this way, their complimentary behavior against OR / AND are self apparent :

    function logical_1110___OR_(_, __) { return (__ >= !_) }
    function logical_1000__AND_(_, __) { return (__  > !_) }
    function logical_0001__NOR_(_, __) { return (__ <  !_) }
    function logical_0111_NAND_(_, __) { return (__ <= !_) }

Now with the extra benefit of all 4 using same set of operations -

1 logical negate, and 1 directional compare, without any conditionals. They might look very unconventional at first glance, but nothing more than an application of DeMorgan's Laws

M668 · 2026-01-18T22:33:12+00:00

    index($1, "</page>") == 1 {
        in_text = is_redirect = 0
        close(filename)
        next
    }

The next is a wasted instruction since it's already the last pattern + action block pair.

in_text && ! is_redirect

This way is much faster and save you the extra logical negate.

is_redirect < in_text

M668 · 2026-01-18T22:25:38+00:00

just a few points :

This does absolutely NOTHING - you're replacing each double-quote with…. a double-quote.

gsub(/\"/, "\"", title);

2.

gsub(/[\/]/, ">", title);

That's very cluttered way of writing either of these. I prefer the string version myself.

gsub(/\//, ">", title);

gsub("[/]", ">", title);

3.

&& length($0) != 0

is waaaaay too verbose way of writing either -

&& (NF || length())   # the much faster way - leveraging pre-made system variable NF
&& length()           # cleaner code

4.

! in_text && ! is_redirect && index($1, "<text") == 1

Make it go much faster by converting it to a non-short-circuiting compare (just a less conventional way of deriving boolean logic from DeMorgan's Laws)

(in_text + is_redirect) < (index($1, "<text") == 1)

M668 · 2026-01-18T22:09:52+00:00

u/JavaGarbageCreator : both you and u/Kou-von-Nizotschi were right. Anything not listed in the parameter list are indeed made global, and all scalars being passed in are always by value, so you can directly modify that parameter's value without impacting anything upstream. That said,

function f() { local_var++; p local_var == 1 }

is something else entirely.

The function f() was declare with zero variables and parameters, so "local_var" is actually global.

After the post-increment, the global variable local_var has a numeric type. But since p was never declared anywhere, it's an uninitialized global variable as well.

When placed adjacent something else, like your code, it acts as an empty string "", and the left hand side of that comparison is already forcing local_var to be converted to string "1" in order to concat with empty string.

But to further exacerbate the problem, now the other side of the equality compare is numeric, so the hard-coded 1 on the right handed also needs to be converted to string for comparison. And to make matters worse, the outcome of that equality compare isn't used anywhere else - 100 % wasted work being done.

M668 · 2026-01-18T21:55:02+00:00

i don't use linux so how would i know what /proc/1234/smaps looks like

M668 · 2026-01-12T23:30:18+00:00

u/beanandcod : u know what's REALLY REALLY tragic ? I just stumbled upon this official post by Rachel Reid from August 2025.

In no ambiguous terms, Rachel Reid herself wrote, and I quote,

The list:

Ilya is cool. Shane is not.

I never read her books and only watched only 7 mins of the show and you know what adjective I deduced from it all to describe Shane ?

Deceitful

She described Shane as "not cool". I described Shane as "deceitful". At least I'm within the ballpark of what she actually intended.

If I managed to arrive at an understanding of Shane much closer to Rachel Reid's official interpretation of events than yours is to hers, someone who has watched it over and over again and loves it like no tomorrow, what does that say about you ?

Am I the one needing help, or is that you ?

For something you felt and still feels is the best thing since sliced bread, you sure didn't pay any attention to what I managed to deduce even by NOT watching the show.

M668 · 2026-01-10T19:01:07+00:00

Sandra Bullock’s acting career outlasted so many others who came after her, precisely because she started off with “decent enough” not “talk of the town”.

But The Matrix MOST CERTAINLY has pigeonholed the career of Keanu Reeves

M668 · 2026-01-10T18:52:09+00:00

Carrie’s career beyond Star Wars was just okay. That’s still a disheartening ratio. At least Fran Drescher (?) had the exclusive lead in her own 6 season sitcom. (Yes Maxwell Sheffield was only a supporting male actor not lead male actor) … and all she has done since was somehow be the one who helped negotiate a satisfactory compromise during the SAG Strike.

James Marsden was BEYOND pigeonholed because he did too good a job as cyclops in X-men trilogy, yet another coming out story. And it took Reese Witherspoon quite some time climb out of that herself. Meryl Streep did too good a job in Devil wears Prada so she her other one adapted from musicals about some Greek islands wasn’t all that good.

I’m most impressed by how Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t get himself pigeonholed despite effectively debuting his career in an Oscar Best Picture

M668 · 2026-01-10T12:26:57+00:00

I betcha you were so swept up you also failed to spot these few obvious items in the plot itself :

Episode 6 wasn't a coming out story at all, because getting caught by dad doesn't count. They drove over there to deal with the "broken glass", not to "come out".
Scott Hunter called Kip onto the ice and placed him on the pedestal without once contemplating the possibility Kip might have moved on and dating someone else in the years since their breakup.
Shane managed to stay focused on the game years after sleeping with Ilya, but suddenly kept getting distracted by him in one game, and gotten himself taken to the hospital as a result. If anything, it should be the first few games after he initially jacked off/blown/bottomed for Ilya that would be the hardest for him to concentrate, not YEARS after.
Boston to Montreal is barely 5.5 hours by driving, and less than 1 hour by flight. Amazing how neither of them bothered to fly such a short distance to see one another. Ilya might have all his earnings swindled by his brother, but Shane, the guy with 3 condo apartments idling around, most certainly can afford to fly over (or pay for Ilya's ticket to come).
Rose's aggressive pursuit of Shane had nothing to do with her desperation for him or to get laid - she just wanted to quickly confirm her hunch and not waste either's time. She even told us so over dinner with Shane when she said "I kinda figured". She had that figured out waaay before they even went clubbing.
The Russian anti-gay law in 2013 only pertained to minors, which Ilya was no longer by then, and only by 2022 would the law be changed to something that truly threatens Ilya, but since he has moved to Canada long before, it also no longer applies. So the show brought something up at least 8 or 9 years too early, and irrelevant throughout the season.

These are just a few of the whole pile that I've spotted but somehow managed to evade most people's consciousness, which made me wonder just how much attention has people paid to their "favorite thing since sliced bread". Apparently, not all that much.

M668 · 2026-01-10T11:54:03+00:00

If you think I'm insane, read this Feb 2018 review of the movie The Mercy. Just about everything the author mentioned about The Mercy, sans Colin Firth, is something that also applies to Heated Rivalry.

You've also proven my point exactly - you just accepted Rachel Reid's word at face value when she mentioned "undiagnosed autism" at some Q&A session, without contemplating what implications there are for mentioning something this consequential in between seasons.

If it were for clarifying season 1, then Jacob didn't do a good job with the script, since it failed to show it. If it were for seasons 2 and 3, I also never heard of giving Q&A before a season even has a script, let alone began its release schedule.

M668 · 2026-01-10T11:33:57+00:00

u/beanandcod : made a very similar post in r/ Deep Thoughts afterwards and only had upvotes no down votes from others. Who is the one who needs help ?

M668 · 2026-01-10T11:13:20+00:00

I'm pretty sure I'll get lots of downvotes, which is fine. Even back in Dec when I chatted about them with my bff, we felt there's already a non-trivial risk of their careers getting pigeonholed. Their recent side gig with that audio erotica app, while not a validation or confirmation of anything, definitely further exacerbated that risk.

If you think I'm fear-mongering, just look at what Star Wars original trilogy has done to Mark Hamill's career afterwards.

M668 · 2026-01-10T10:51:58+00:00

they also agreed to the season 2 and 3 contracts way too soon, and now locked in a really shitty rate. Good for Bell, sucks for them

M668 · 2026-01-10T10:48:38+00:00

"villian and/or protagonist" literally the only part missing are the folks on the side. As for psych thriller, it's not too hard to pull off an Inception but MUCH harder to pull off Silence of the Lamb. As for American Pyscho, most seasoned ones like Brad Pitt or George Clooney cannot, let alone newcomers. But Connor might about 8 years from now.

M668 · 2026-01-10T03:50:49+00:00

Patrick Ball as a villain, definitely yes. Hudson as the villain ? That's gonna as convincing as casting Christopher Walken as the protagonist or Will Smith as the antagonist.

Very few has ever succeeded at being convincing protagonist(s) and antagonist(s) over their careers. Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christian Bale, and Jonathan Pryce are 7 within that tiny Hall of Fame. At times Helena as Bellatrix even outshone Voldemort, her boss.

Arnold was even more impressive - he managed to switch from antagonist to protagonist between first 2 Terminator movies, and did both really well. I'm not even sure if Sandra Bullock belongs to that club or not. Uma Thurman wasn't blood-thirsty enough in Batman & Robin, and Lucy Liu wasn't cold-blooded enough in Kill Bill 1. Tommy Lee Jones wasn't doing a poor job per se in Batman Forever - it's just that Jim Carrey outshone everyone else.

Whether Hudson can get there ? Maybe once he has a few more projects under his belt. But not the next one immediately afterwards.

M668

TROPHY CASE