Problemas de argumentación

Resulta que el señor Matthew Inman, alias The Oatmeal, hizo una tira cómica llamada Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived donde, además de mencionar logros no conocidos del muy ninguneado Tesla, hace pomada a Edison al señalar lo sobrevalorado que está y lo desagradable que era como persona (Edison, no Tesla).

Casi de inmediato, hubo una reacción desde Forbes. Así es: la revista donde cada año se enlista la crema y nata de los magnates. Un tal Alex Knapp escribió Nikola Tesla wasn't God and Thomas Edison wasn't the devil, lo cual generó una respuesta del Oatmeal: I wrote a response to the Forbes article about my Tesla comic. Debo admitir que ni cuenta me di del asunto de Forbes sino hasta que entré a ver las novedades en la página del Oatmeal.

La curiosidad me hizo leer los comentarios al artículo de don Alex y un fueguito comenzó a prenderse en mi interior, pues tantas respuestas de apoyo a una opinión tan mal argumentada como la del señor Knapp me parecieron abominables. Así pues, en el marco de la Guerra de Intolerancia contra la Sandez y la Irracionalidad (GISI), me propuse dar una respuesta de mi propia inspiración (si quieren verla en la página de Forbes, está en la segunda página de comentarios, casi hasta abajo; mi segunda respuesta sí está hasta el final de esa misma página).

Hela aquí:

(NOTA: El primer párrafo responde a un tal Don Kenner que dice "Edison was referring to military weapons; the electric chair was a device of domestic law enforcement. You can dislike it, but that changes nothing about Edison or Tesla. You simply haven’t challenged ANY of the facts in this article.")

"So, essentially, if it’s government sanctioned and intended for use in law enforcement, it’s not a “weapon”? Guns and maces carried by cops are not weapons? Could this “tools” not kill or bludgeon (to death even) someone? I’m sensing a cheaty use of Semantics here.

That said, I would like to point out argumentative issues on the article (not the comic). I don’t mean the facts quoted (those are undisputable), I mean the axiological fulcrum on which this whole speech is based.

Here are some of the argumentative errors found in the article:

1.-You can’t provide facts to make an argument on how the Oatmeal’s attacks on Edison are factually wrong, and then disregard factual data on Edison. This is the biggest argumentative problem with the article.

2.-Saying (again, against all evidence) “He wasn’t bad. He was just willful”, or “He didn’t know at the time”, or “More people were doing it”, or “He was bold!”, or “Doesen’t matter, the results of his actions gave us a huge headstart on progress” equals reducing History and personal responsibility to mere individual perception. Is it all just means to an end? The answer will always be “NO”. Not paying your employees, electrocuting animals, chasing profit over anything else, and the like is universally wrong. Thinking otherwise is very close to regarding Wirths and Heim as awesome researchers because they discovered very useful medical information (on twins, for example).

3.-Saying that someone didn’t invent or envision some concept just because it wasn’t (or was already) named in a specific manner is fallacious even to the point of sophism. So ancient Greeks didn’t devise science just because the ancient Egyptians already had a systematical method of gathering knowledge? Did Marx not devise socialism just because ancient tribes and Sumerians already did it before? As the Oatmeal points out (and the author of the article weilds around when it suits him), Tesla made AC practical, just as Edison made the light bulb marketable, which, when discussing technological merit, Tesla will always be the undisputed winner. When someone discusses business merit, the ball will be in Edison’s court.

4.-Saying that someone was not historically “indispensable” to achieve anything is plain laughable. Excuse my impoliteness on this, but this pretended argument (which falls blatantly on almost metaphysical speculation), besides being subjective perception, devoids EVERY historical actor of merit. Leonidas I wasn’t indispensable to later win the Battle of Platea. Napoleon wasn’t indispensable to keep France up and running. Edison wasn’t indispensable in any way and thus, has no merits. This is the logical equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot.

5.-The part were it’s stated that it could be possible that Edison didn’t believe AC should be used because it was dangerous is another example of groundless speculation. We can’t know for sure if Edison was ideologically against AC, but we know his actions, and electrocuting living beings as a political statement (because doing this to allegedly save humanity from a dangerous thing would be a political matter) is just barbaric. Using that sort of argument (I mean speculation on motives) is also dangerous, because frees social actors of any responsibility of their ACTIONS by weighing only INTENTIONS. Again, Hitler, Pol-Pot, Rafael Trujillo, Milosevic, etc., may have had the purest intentions (and they certainly had the delusion of making the world a favor) and only tired to defend their people from “the enemy”.

6.-The philosophical discussion on the nature of technology, whether it creates from nothingness or only improves on things already invented is purely academic. Here the problem would be the use of an argument when it suits the author and dismissing it when it doesn’t. The Oatmeal already adressed this on his reply (the “practicality issue”: Tesla isn’t special for making AC practical, but Edison is special for making the light bulb practical).

7.-There is also bias when reporting a SINGLE case of guilt (the X-Ray incident) to argument Edison’s alleged general moral-sensitivity. This is conspicuously suspicious when there’s so much evidence that Edison didn’t care much for Ethics and was moved solely by profit.

8.-Again, you can’t criticize someone for their errors and then excuse someone else for theirs. There must be consistency. If not, we again fall in the dumps of relativity and solipsism, which make any conclusions, knowledge and coexistence impossible.

There is no criticism whithout rationale and logical consistency. Pointing one thing out harshly in one case and then excuse it in the other is cheating just to be right. If you find yourself pondering the same standards in different contexts, the problem is not the complexity of the particular cases, but the consistency of the principles on which the standards are founded.

All in all, this article is a good effort on pointing bias from the Oatmeal (the one thing he never denied anyway: the very title of the comic flat out states it), but nothing more.

Again, it’s not enough to cite facts to make a strong argument. And “politely” pretend to adress pros and cons when you’re trying to bring down a whole speech is simply suspicious.

Sorry for writing too much, thanks for your time and for having this open forum to exchange ideas."

Cosa rara, mi comentario fue called-out e inclusive recibió una respuesta de don Alex:

"Thanks for your comments – a few thoughts on them.

1. Which facts did I disregard?

2. I take your point, and certainly didn’t mean to go to the ‘ends justify the means point.’ Taken simply, I don’t know if Edison cheated Tesla – the evidence is sketchy. If Edison did, that was wrong. But I don’t know that he did. I only know that Tesla said he did, at a time after he started working for Westinghouse when Westinghouse and Tesla were involved in a pretty brutal business war of words (and more).

As for electrocuting animals, I don’t think that Edison was right to do it. But I think it’s worth considering that IF he thought that AC was truly dangerous (and I think he did!) then from his perspective, he was being the humanitarian. That doesn’t mean he WAS, but judgement requires empathy, and empathy requires us to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes.

3. Tesla helped make AC practical. But don’t discount Edison – he was heavily involved in invention, including his refinements to the light bulb, phonograph, etc. But honestly, Tesla wasn’t that far ahead of his contemporaries on AC. Where Tesla’s real, fundamental and brilliant work was done was in the field of radiation, not electricity. (Not that he was a slouch with electricity, mind you!)

4. I don’t think that Tesla was indispensable to making AC practical, no. In the field of scientific progress, there are few (if any) indispensable men. What’s important to the progress of science are brilliant PEOPLE – groups working together in collaboration and competition. In other fields, such as politics, things are different.

5. See my notes above.

6. If you look at the history of alternating current, especially Ferranti, Ferraris, Stanley, and others, you’ll see that polyphase alternating current was going to happen whether Tesla came up with it or not. Too many people were working on it.

By contrast, it took dozens of people working for Edison working for months to make a practical light bulb. Nobody was putting in the kind of time, manpower or resources that Edison was putting into a practical incandescent bulb. It was a brute force problem, and nobody else was working on it.

Had Edison not done what he did, the light bulb as we know it was probably a decade or two off. Had Tesla not done what he did for alternating current, history wouldn’t have changed much.

THAT SAID, again, Tesla’s work with radiation was brilliant, foundational stuff, and that’s where his REAL innovation was. Tesla is probably to wireless what Edison was to a practical light bulb.

7. What ethics, particularly, do you think Edison didn’t care for? Additionally, don’t make the mistake that Tesla wasn’t concerned about profits. He was also in business.

Don’t worry about “writing too much” – it’s a vice of mine, as well."

Como los huecos seguían, no me pude aguantar las ganas de decírselo...

"Some replies on the toughts on my comments.

1. For example, the fact that Tesla did BIG work on the field of electricity. You state that he wasn’t such a big deal, but then you say that Edison did BIG work on making the light bulb practical. Maybe I used the wrong word (this I admit), perhaps you didn’t “disregard” Tesla’s work on the field, you just “dismissed” it as unimpressive or (almost?) contingent. In all fairness, Edison’s contributions were not on the field of technology, but in the field of business. Also (see below), claiming that it’s uncertain that Edison cheated when there’s factual evidence of him not paying his employees, claiming their work as his, and using FEAR as a market technique (see below), among others, actually looks like disregarding facts.

2. That’s just groundless, subjective speculation. You say that you don’t know if Edison cheated (though not paying an employee for the work you’re using to profit from and then try to commercially block him certainly is fair grounds for an “Edison cheated” conclusion), but then say “What IF he did it for our own good?” Well then, what IF he just used unethical rhetoric (in the form of rhetorical devices addressing pathos, “fear” in this case) to get better sales? This opposition (your speculative statement and mine, the one I just wrote, both are equally useless as arguments) makes no sense at all. Evidence reveals a quite “douchey” (to quote The Oatmeal) Edison, and the fact remains that he TORTURED animals for the sake of MARKETING hails harsh questioning on a philantropy claim for his actions. And I said “marketing” because (as the Oatmeal pointed out in his reply), Edison wouldn’t invent [sic] “anything that won’t sell”. His ACTIONS support this notion: whatever he did, he did out of love for profit.

Empathy sure means putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes, but this doesn’t mean we exonerate them for their wrongdoings. “Understanding” doesn’t mean “forgiving”. I go back to my guilty-of-genocide-people example. You can understand why they did it (out of madness, out of misguided patriotism, out of stupidity, out of actual self-sacrifice), but you’ll never excuse them for their barbaric behaviours. I’m just advocating for the use of the same parameters and standards in both cases. You can think as highly of Edison as you want, but that’ll be just an opinion, and you can’t counter a fact-based claim (the comic) with just opinions. Point is, this “if” statement is out of place in a rational criticism.

3. Again, we’re not placing them both in the same scales. Edison just made, among others, the light bulb, the phonograph, and the little machine for watching movies with headphones whose name eludes me, marketable. That’s a HUGE contribution to the industry in the sense of “business”, but not to technology itself. The fact that Tesla made AC practical (the one thing that takes electrical power everywhere, regardless of the fact that conversion to DC is necessary to power particular electronic devices) is a HUGE contribution to the field of TECHNOLOGY (maybe not for electricity as a science per se, but for technology -the PRACTICAL implementation of scientific knowledge- sure it is; in this you are absolutely right). The problem with Edison is the fact that he’s credited as a technologist, when in all honesty we was more of a businessman. That’s a quintessential pivot on The Oatmeal’s rant and, once more, you can’t dismiss Tesla’s work (factual evidence) on the field of electricity just because “he wasn’t so far ahead”, “he wasn’t indispensable”, etc., and then proclaim Edison as a great figure because he successfully marketed what other people made practical. Again, it’s a simple matter of fields: one thing is researching for knowledge, another is applying knowledge, and another one is distributing and selling the results of applying knowledge.

4. The problem with your argument is that there’s no limit or standards as to how to weigh indispensability and thus, the notion could be carried over to Politics and History, for example. Who’s indispensable in these matters? Aristotle? Newton? Einstein? Edison? Apparently, the discussion here is of a historical nature, and then, either every historical figure is essential in the resolution of the events of its time or they aren’t (I’m not trying to introduce a sense of “fate” here, mind you), which would mean neither Tesla nor Edison have any merit (for they just happened to be around when things happened and made the best out of it) for anything. Dadaists, with their consistently contradictory tendencies that used to disprove themselves more often than not, tried to prove exactly the opposite for art: that any John Doe could make art (and Duchamp still proves this thesis: everyone nowadays says “What the hell, man? I could do that too!” Yeah, man, but you didn’t do it and neither did anyone else). If you regard Edison as one of those few indispensable men in the field of scientific progress, do say so and then we can switch to a presentation of opinions on the matter. Maybe we can get some objective conclusions and contribute some interesting data.

5. See my notes above.

6. This is almost sophistic. Stating that history would (or wouldn’t) change at all is, again, metaphysical speculation. It is also contradictory (within itself and with your whole speech), for by your own logic, Edison wasn’t needed for the light bulb, just some corporate mind to organize the work of other people, or even just one supergenius who could have done it by herself. I can see a reply: “The time span”. The time span also makes this more suspicious. Was Tesla’s work on AC achieved over a few hours? Also, you stated that Edison was the father of the electrical era, whereas Tesla was the father of the electronic era. And you still think Tesla was almost irrelevant? By your own logic, the light bulb was as impending as AC (there were light bulbs at the time, but they were impractical, just as there was AC at the time, but it was impractical), because WE CANNOT KNOW how late would practical AC or light bulbs had come into scene were it not for Tesla or Edison. The advancement in the field at the time cannot be the only source of conclusions: a lot of phenomena and devices have been known and heavily researched for quite some time (gravity, alloys, printing presses, paper, gunpowder, etc.) and still a lot if them weren’t systematized (i.e., made practical) until after CENTURIES later. One must be careful when speculating on History, for “not even the wisest can see all ends.”

7. For one, employer ethics. Also, animal rights (and don’t give me “Those didn’t even exist at the time”, please). These have both been well established already. What hasn’t been said is the marketer’s ethics. He used FEAR (the “fried animals” debacle) as a rhetorical device. The sole use of only (and I’d like to emphasise “only”) emotion in rhetoric is unethical (just because all marketers today do this doesn’t make it right, mind you), but the use of fear is specially wrong. And then again, this lack of ethics just for the sake of profit (cfr. supra, the quote on how Edison wouldn’t even pay attention to unprofitable stuff) just piles upon everything.

That said, don’t you make the mistake of thinking that “being in business” equals behaving as Edison did. Tesla wasn’t TOO concerned with profit (he was as concerned with it as much as any employee is, and arguably even less), but Edison only cared about profit. Business ethics also must address boundaries on how you make profit and the things you pull in order to do so (stealing other people’s work, not paying them, frightening people into not wanting your competitor’s solution, etc.). All in all, Edison had an ethics problem, and that’s quite obvious.

In a few words, the argumentative issues persist. If the article was just an opinion, just say so and everyone will take it for what it is. An opinion.

I only worry about writing too much when I do it over and over again… Like in this case! I can’t seem to be able to condense my thoughts. Sorry again and thanks for this dialectical exercise."

Este segundo comentario ya no fue called-out ni respondido ni nada (todavía).

A la mejor ya fue mucho remachar al que ya estaba en el suelo, pero creo honestamente que la mejor forma de luchar contra la estupidez y la locura es, precisamente, confrontándola y manifestándola como lo que es.

Si llega a haber más sobre el asunto, acá lo pondré.

"Aliquandō rideō, iocor, ludō; home sum..."