• elscallr@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    And why would anyone care about Albert Einstein’s view on Lenin? An obvious fallacious appeal to authority, and not even a very smart one.

    That’s if this is even true.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      An obvious fallacious appeal to authority

      Applying logic and reason to a post about a President’s silly haircuts.

    • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Einstein is a jewish that lived through the Russian revolution and lived in Germany during the rise of Hitler before his escape to the US. As far as period accounts he’s as good as you’re gonna get, and I don’t know about you but I don’t think we’re going to find a more intelligent person alive during that period but if you want to give examples that aren’t nazis or people that said nice things about nazis I’m certainly open to them.

      And he was an extremely active leftist politically during the period. You should read his essay, Why Socialism? It’s a good introductory piece for people.

      Also something of a smart man.

      Page 14 of the 260 page FBI file on him states the following:

      Not even Stalin himself is affiliated with so many anarcho-communist international groups to promote this “preliminary condition” of world revolution and ultimate anarchy, as Albert Einstein.

      Those files are a fun read, do recommend them. Available on the FBI vault here.

      • Dark_Blade@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        So…yeah, a naked appeal to authority. Einstein was nigh-unmatchable in his field, but that doesn’t mean his intelligence was applicable to every other field. In fact, one of the worst things you can do is consider an expert in one field an automatic ‘authority’ in others.

        • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The same people shitting on Einstein right now are also the same people that treat media as a political authority. I can’t take it seriously at all.

          Name a better authority that was alive in the period who I won’t be able to show worshipped the nazis at some point.

          • Dark_Blade@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I’m not ‘shitting on Einstein’, I’m simply saying he’s not some sort of political or economic expert. If he were, he’d be famous for those as well as for being a pre-eminent physicist.

            Giving weight to someone’s opinion on one topic just because they’re an expert on a different topic is highly inadvisable.

            • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Once again not really answering my question. Who do you consider a better authority that was living in the period?

              If you have no better authority to offer this just amounts to an ideologically motivated dismissal.

              • Dark_Blade@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Dude, you’re the one trying to paint Einstein as some sort of authority on the subject. He’s the same guy who urged the US to begin work on the Nuclear Bomb, which we both know the results of.

                He was a smart man and a great scientist, but a great judge of moral character he was not.

                • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  You’re avoiding giving any other examples. Either because you don’t know any, or because you know you can’t offer one that wasn’t a fascist.

                  • Dark_Blade@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    The reason I’m not giving examples is because I’m simply here to say that your example was garbage.

      • mashbooq@infosec.pub
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        1 year ago

        Imagine when someone points out you’re being illogical by using an appeal to authority and you respond by… doubling down on an appeal to authority. That’s some Marx-tier dialectical thinking there, comrade

        • Caoldence222@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          TIL appeal to authority is when you cite someone with relevant experience as maybe having thoughts worth listening to on the subject. It’s not merely because he’s a smart physicist, but also because he had a wide variety of political life experience and makes good arguments.

          You present no counter argument and just yell “fallacy”. Neither you nor the original reply even bothered to check the veracity of the quote or cite any reasons for or against einstein’s opinion, merely dismissing it out of hand and implying it is ridiculous.

          • mashbooq@infosec.pub
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            1 year ago

            It doesn’t matter what Einstein thought about Lenin; if he had a good argument for Lenin being a good guy, that argument would stand on its own, and the content (that’s “material conditions” in redfash-speak) of that argument should be discussed. Additionally, it’s not necessary for me to offer a counter-narrative to point out a logical fallacy; that’s shifting the burden of proof, another fallacy.

        • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          “Being illogical is when you consider one of history’s most important users of logic a person that should probably be listened to.”

      • 新星 [he/him/CPC bot]@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        Comrade, I appreciate your willingness to engage, but we’re materialists, not followers of the Great Man theory.

        While there are many commendable actions Einstein took as a political activist, I imagine you’re not going to defend this xenophobia.

        It’s fine if you included the Einstein quote in there as a note to end on, but it shouldn’t be your argument, since honestly, Einstein’s political views shouldn’t mean more solely on the basis of breakthroughs in physics (despite what Einstein claims). I would instead have frame challenged their comment to point out that the US claims to be such a “democratic utopia” but is definitely an “authoritarian dictatorship” itself. Maybe follow up with a quote about how any of the countries that didn’t do something succumbed to the US’ anticommunist efforts

        • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I imagine you’re not going to defend this xenophobia.

          I don’t see what relevance any of that has. You guys from lemmygrad need to learn from hexbear and learn when not to be self-wreckers when dealing with libs, all this does is function as support for the libs in this thread, of course nobody supports the sinophobic shit, find me a comrade that wasn’t fucking weird about asians at the time - good luck. That doesn’t stop us using them wherever valid.

          It’s fine if you included the Einstein quote in there as a note to end on, but it shouldn’t be your argument, since honestly, Einstein’s political views shouldn’t mean more solely on the basis of breakthroughs in physics (despite what Einstein claims).

          “Shouldn’t mean more” than what? The shmucks here commenting with their vast amount of knowledge about socialism gained from reddit comment sections? Yes it absolutely should mean more.

          • 新星 [he/him/CPC bot]@lemmygrad.ml
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            1 year ago

            all this does is function as support for the libs in this thread

            I’m just trying to point out that you’re left defending a weak argument, and the libs already have taken advantage of that, comrade.

            “Shouldn’t mean more” than what? The shmucks here commenting with their vast amount of knowledge about socialism gained from reddit comment sections? Yes it absolutely should mean more.

            Of course, I was referring to those who actually do have experience in the field.

            I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. Feel free to disregard my replies if you don’t appreciate them.

            • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Nobody has actually given an example of “those who actually do have experience in the field”. Nobody is making that argument in good faith. Anyone “with experience in the field” of political matters is part of one or another ideological camp too, and thus either gets entirely dismissed for their bias, or worshipped for it, depending entirely upon which camp is reading the content. Unexpected outsiders to politics(which Einstein certainly was not, it’s just not historically well known to the libs) that are venerated in their fields are fundamentally more persuasive to bystanders who aren’t acting in bad-faith than the people with obvious bias.

              • 新星 [he/him/CPC bot]@lemmygrad.ml
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                1 year ago

                Fair enough, I guess I was thinking of someone like Lenin himself.

                I just don’t understand why you appeal to an outsider at all instead of the idea itself, but you’re probably right that we don’t need to keep debating this.