RE: Vocal Fry (Against Method)

For context, this all started on a YouTube video about vocal fry. Over the course of a year, YouTube has introduced a whole range of language model (AI) driven censorship checks which tend to throw out any comment that is even slightly negative in its tone, and this has made it needlessly difficult to reply to comments. I usually don’t care, mainly because the comments rarely have anything to do with my original comment, but this happens to be something which I actually do care about:

1 year ago, OP said: And that is why people hate the sound… not all this attempt to paint everybody as sexists like the creator is so eager to do.

1 year ago, an individual replied: what are you basing this statement off of? Have you studied this? Do you have extensive training in linguistics? Because the guy in the video does, and he cites a paper in a peer reviewed journal to make his point. If all you have to back up what you’re saying is your own experience and some knee jerk reaction to anyone saying that sexism exists, excuse me for putting a little more stock in Dr. Lindsay’s evaluation. Don’t worry though, you’ve adequately displayed your teams colors. I have to imagine this was the real purpose behind this comment because it certainly doesn’t have any other value.

1 year ago, I replied: This comment is essentially one big appeal to authority. Having extensive training in linguistics does not give credence to an opinion about how particular social groups are perceived [according to] their tone of voice, because that has much less to do with linguistics [as opposed to cognitive psychology, like speech perception]. (The only part of this argument which relates to linguistics is the phenomenon that is vocal fry in the English language and not how it is an example of sexism.) It seems that people who are inadequate to explain their reasoning will point at an authority or “peer revealed journal” as if that is supposed to prove the other person wrong, but method adherents fail to recognize that peer-reviewed studies are nothing more than a source of information, none of which can go without bias, from which an individual may draw their conclusion.

1 hour ago, another individual replied (and deleted): okay then I guess we should never cite sources for any of our arguments. since if we use sources or peer reviewed studies to strengthen an argument thats “appeal to authority.” appeal to authority would be saying because ANY claim has a study backing it up it’s valid. peer reviewed studies are generally considered better sources, due to them being idk PEER REVIEWED it limits bias in said study. Y’all will call anything a fallacy, it’s so annoying as someone who studies this stuff. If you have a claim, then you must provide evidence. this included providing multiple sources and studies to support your claim, that is not “appeal to authority” it’s citing a source! it’s basic practice when you debate or have an argument! you must provide EVIDENCE for a claim. You can look over the source, analyze it, you can make an argument for why a source is invalid but again you must provide EVIDENCE for why you believe a source is invalid. simply putting your hands in the air saying “oh well we can’t use studies during debates because they all have bias” YEAH NO DUH. But can you determine where bias in the study? can you measure the bias? can you actually quantify it and give a REASON backed by EVIDENCE why you think a source is biased? you saying “a source can be biased therefore ur using appeal to authority fallacy therefore argument invalid” is not a valid argument. you’re going to have to actually go through the source provided, and provide evidence for your claim that their source is biased in a way that delegitimizes their claim.

1 hour ago, that individual again replied: then your opinion matters twice as less considering your position is just an opinion. at least your opponent provided evidence for their claim. you provided nothing but handwaving away their argument by falsely applying an appeal to authority fallacy. your argument is a non-argument because you don’t actually disprove their arguments NOR the findings in the study they provided. I doubt you even glanced at the abstract much less read the damn paper. y’all faux philosophers and debaters crack me up baddd it would be funny if you weren’t so disappointing that people are actually this ignorant.

Your first comment (before you deleted it) was right on the money. Citing sources, especially “peer-reviewed studies,” should not lend any particular credence to an argument. The substance of an argument should derive principally from critical reasoning, or the critical faculties of logic and rationale, instead of that which has simply been passed down from an authority. The substance of the reasoning itself is always more important than the authority from which it was penned, and so, in the course of critical thinking, it is most beneficial, if not expedient, to disregard the authority itself. You probably believe in the importance of the “scientific method” in all the same light, even though Method is what hampers the very nature of discovery; these are the logical steps that must be taken in order to arrive at an independent conclusion, standing on its own, apart from the authority which supports it.

More often than not, the support of an authority should, in fact, serve as a basis for critiquing the substance of the reasoning, and give reasonable suspicion in order to dissect it. Blind trust in an authority is simply not feasable in this day and age where anybody can be their own authority. The availability of college opportunities, while beneficial for their class of partipants, has the direct result of diluting the credibility of that Institution. For example, there used to be a time when, to be admitted to an “Ivy league” institution, it was expected of the student applicant to submit written compositions in Greek and Latin, demonstrating their understanding of these languages. This does not hold true anymore, and so you cannot guarantee that academic philological sources on the subjects of these languages do indeed originate from an individual who knows the language. Most importantly, the authority is never going to promote information which runs contrast to the academic consensus about an accepted moral standard; it will instead fashion the information around the established standard. For proof of this, I beg of you to examine the academic consensus on the relationship between sex and gender; from this perspective, the relationship is so unwaveringly different from that between race and culture that you cannot help but experience cognitive dissonance as you realize how this worldview disregards actual scientific truths.

It must then be understood that an argument which is rooted in critical reasoning must depend upon itself, and so any “evidence” holds no greater weight than as if it were coming from your own mouth. The notion that it is impossible to properly analyze an argument and reason that it is fundamentally invalid without resorting to the reasoning of an authority, well, defeats the entire purpose of analysis and is obviously rooted in a way of thinking that fails to be independent. In a time when the distinction between the knowledgable and unknowledgable becomes ever so murky, and the particular knowledge that is had by the “knowledgable” amounts to less and less, instead becoming part of the common knowledge, it is most important to separate the substance of the text from its authority. Reasoning is not backed by evidence; reasoning is evidence.

Certain online circles are extremely sympathetic to methodologies and in turn promote a worldview that is almost entirely dependent on established “facts,” devoid of any independent thinking. In fact, they discourage any degree of independent thinking. Reddit, and now YouTube, place a greater priority on extending the margins of their censorship algorithms so as to include more works that are potentially offensive, at the expense of the freedom of expression, rather than potentially exclude some works that are offensive in order to protect expression. The right thing to do is disregard any notions of excluding works that are offensive, instead embracing that it is necessary for humans to offend others in order to actually confront their problems, rather than live a (dreadful) life that fails to do so.

The ignorant cloaks himself behind the guise of the authorities, and that is what you are doing now. Your accusation that my argument is a “non-argument” is, in and of itself, a non-argument. I would rather at least engage with a faux philosopher, the likes of which you describe in your response, as opposed to someone who interests himself more in authority than the substance of the philosophy behind what constitutes said authority. After all, a “faux” philosopher has a greater chance of philosophizing than an individual who self-admittedly downplays the subject altogether. What your comment is, in fact, is an example of sophistry. In trying to persuade me, rather than disprove what I am saying, you are chipping away at your own moral integrity.

I am still in the process of completing my post about XP x64, which I have since decided to make into its own page. As it turns out, there is much more to write about the matter than I had anticipated.