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A primer on logical fallacies

A primer on logical fallacies

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Logical fallacies are errors in reasoning that lead to invalid or unsound arguments. Beware. I'm going to start calling you out. Please stop doing the following things:

Ad Hominem: Attacking the character, motive, or trait of the person making an argument instead of addressing the actual argument.

Straw Man: Misrepresenting or exaggerating an argument to make it easier to condemn or refute.

Appeal to Ignorance: Claiming that a conclusion is true simply because it has not been proven false, or vice versa.

False Dilemma (False Dichotomy): Presenting a situation as having only two choices when actually more options exist.

Slippery Slope: Arguing that a small first step will lead to a chain of extreme, negative events without providing evidence for the chain.

Circular Reasoning (Begging the Question): Restating the conclusion as part of the proof, meaning the argument assumes what it is trying to prove.

Hasty Generalization: Making a broad, sweeping conclusion based on a very small or unrepresentative sample.

Red Herring: Introducing an irrelevant topic into a discussion to divert attention from the original issue.

Bandwagon Fallacy (Ad Populum): Claiming that something is true or good simply because a lot of people believe it or do it.

Appeal to Authority: Relying on the opinion of someone who is not an expert on the specific topic being discussed.

False Causality: Assuming that because event B happened after event A, event A must have caused event B.

Equivocation: Using an ambiguous term or phrase in different ways during an argument to mislead or confuse.

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@wildgrass

Composition fallacy; what is true of the parts is not necessarily true of the whole. One trivial example and one non-trivial example.

Every piece of the engine weighs not more than 1 kg, therefore the entire engine weighs less than 1 kg.

Every event in the universe has a cause, therefore the whole universe must have a cause; every process in the universe had a beginning, therefore the universe must have had a beginning. This is the fallacy in creationist first mover arguments.

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@wildgrass said
Logical fallacies are errors in reasoning that lead to invalid or unsound arguments. Beware. I'm going to start calling you out. Please stop doing the following things:

Ad Hominem: Attacking the character, motive, or trait of the person making an argument instead of addressing the actual argument.

Straw Man: Misrepresenting or exaggerating an argument to make it easie ...[text shortened]... ation: Using an ambiguous term or phrase in different ways during an argument to mislead or confuse.
Lets start calling out then ... You first. Here is a strawman you posted : We have enough. They're driving up the price of electricity and polluting all the clean water.

This in your words is an example of, Misrepresenting or exaggerating an argument to make it easier to condemn or refute.

According to Claude AI:
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Data centers mostly consume water (it evaporates through cooling towers), they don't typically pollute it. About 80-90% of direct water use comes from evaporative cooling, and roughly 80% of what's withdrawn evaporates rather than returning contaminated. This isn't like industrial dumping of chemicals into rivers; it's more like water being permanently removed from the local supply.

Although there are documented pollution/contamination complaints, though narrower than "all water." Some Georgia communities near data centers report contaminated or depleted local supplies, and there are real wastewater capacity concerns — this is real, but it's local and site-specific, not "data centers are poisoning the water supply" as a blanket claim.

The industry is actually responding, unevenly. Some newer facilities use air-cooling or closed-loop/reclaimed water systems approaching near-zero on-site water use (Microsoft's newer liquid-cooled campuses target under 0.1 liters per kWh using reclaimed water); older evaporative-cooling designs remain far thirstier. So "should be stopped" ignores that the water intensity varies drastically by design choice and regulation, which is the actual lever available.
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@wildgrass said
Logical fallacies are errors in reasoning that lead to invalid or unsound arguments. Beware. I'm going to start calling you out. Please stop doing the following things:

Ad Hominem: Attacking the character, motive, or trait of the person making an argument instead of addressing the actual argument.

Straw Man: Misrepresenting or exaggerating an argument to make it easie ...[text shortened]... ation: Using an ambiguous term or phrase in different ways during an argument to mislead or confuse.
When Hannah Poling was given money from the vaccine court for her autism they claimed the vaccine did not cause her autism and that her autism was just the result of the vaccine.

Unbiased people know that "result of the vaccine" is the same thing as "caused by the vaccine". Should democrats be called out on that logical fallacy? Can democrats acknowledge that is a logical fallacy?

How do you debate a person that will not admit something is a logical fallacy because of an extreme and illogical partisan bias?

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@Rajk999 said
Lets start calling out then ... You first. Here is a strawman you posted : We have enough. They're driving up the price of electricity and polluting all the clean water.

This in your words is an example of, Misrepresenting or exaggerating an argument to make it easier to condemn or refute.

According to Claude AI:
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Dat ...[text shortened]... gn choice and regulation, which is the actual lever available.
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Ok, fair point, Claude (is that who I am debating?). I exaggerated.

But if there's no water because it evaporated then it's not polluted or unpolluted. It's gone. The remaining 20% of the water that's left is... polluted. So I think Claude in this response is ignoring the fact that AI data centers do pollute the fresh water systems near where they are built.

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@Metal-Brain said
When Hannah Poling was given money from the vaccine court for her autism they claimed the vaccine did not cause her autism and that her autism was just the result of the vaccine.

Unbiased people know that "result of the vaccine" is the same thing as "caused by the vaccine". Should democrats be called out on that logical fallacy? Can democrats acknowledge that is a log ...[text shortened]... hat will not admit something is a logical fallacy because of an extreme and illogical partisan bias?
This is the anecdotal generalization fallacy. One persons experience does not necessarily validate a connection like that.

There are millions of vaccinated people and millions of unvaccinated people. Studies have shown that there is no difference in the rate of autism between these two groups. That seems like very strong evidence to me that vaccines don't cause autism.

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@wildgrass said
Ok, fair point, Claude (is that who I am debating?). I exaggerated.

But if there's no water because it evaporated then it's not polluted or unpolluted. It's gone. The remaining 20% of the water that's left is... polluted. So I think Claude in this response is ignoring the fact that AI data centers do pollute the fresh water systems near where they are built.
And yet another one of your logical fallacies on display:
False Dilemma (False Dichotomy): Presenting a situation as having only two choices when actually more options exist.

For you, data centers have to go and there is no solution because they need water for cooling and they pollute. Its as if that situation never occurred in the history of mankind. I mean how many brain cells you need to figure out that facilities that need lots of water can be located near a river, lake or the sea, and the pollution can be dealt with by cleaning and filtration etc.

Noooo ... put an end to all of them. Yeah, you are not guilty of logical fallacies.

All your buddies carry on with the most ad hominem and personal insults on this forum and they all talk rubbish. So when you calling out, do the honorable thing and call them out.

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@wildgrass said
This is the anecdotal generalization fallacy. One persons experience does not necessarily validate a connection like that.

There are millions of vaccinated people and millions of unvaccinated people. Studies have shown that there is no difference in the rate of autism between these two groups. That seems like very strong evidence to me that vaccines don't cause autism.
No. You are overlooking the fact the vaccine court paid out for that autism.
You don't get to ignore this inconvenient fact. Vaccines caused Hannah Poling's autism. If it didn't the vaccine court never would have paid for it. And their statement is a logical fallacy. So let's examine that statement logically.

Do you think there is a difference between "vaccine caused autism" and "autism resulted from the vaccine"? Yes or no?

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@Rajk999 said
And yet another one of your logical fallacies on display:
False Dilemma (False Dichotomy): Presenting a situation as having only two choices when actually more options exist.

For you, data centers have to go and there is no solution because they need water for cooling and they pollute. Its as if that situation never occurred in the history of mankind. I mean how ...[text shortened]... forum and they all talk rubbish. So when you calling out, do the honorable thing and call them out.
No that was never my point. If companies building data centers can do it in way that does not remove and/or pollute the water in the nearby area (other companies are already held to this standard), and if they can also either use less power or generate their own, then its fine.

But currently they cannot do that. So they should not be built. It's like they're building nuclear reactors without safeguards in case of meltdown.

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@Metal-Brain said
No. You are overlooking the fact the vaccine court paid out for that autism.
You don't get to ignore this inconvenient fact. Vaccines caused Hannah Poling's autism. If it didn't the vaccine court never would have paid for it. And their statement is a logical fallacy. So let's examine that statement logically.

Do you think there is a difference between "vaccine caused autism" and "autism resulted from the vaccine"? Yes or no?
Well that's false causality, you've used that one before. A court paying a settlement does not mean the vaccine caused the autism.

The data I pointed is millions of data points, not an anecdote. Millions of people get a vaccine, millions of other people don't get a vaccine. The rate of autism between these two groups of people is exactly the same. Therefore, vaccines do not cause autism.

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@wildgrass said
No that was never my point. If companies building data centers can do it in way that does not remove and/or pollute the water in the nearby area (other companies are already held to this standard), and if they can also either use less power or generate their own, then its fine.

But currently they cannot do that. So they should not be built. It's like they're building nuclear reactors without safeguards in case of meltdown.
You are wrong and you are not using the information available to educate yourself. Furthermore when people correct you, you double down into your condemnation of AI and data centres. Changes are being made but the process takes time. Here is Claude again .. try to educate yourself.

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Q : Is it possible, and are there instances of companies building data centers in a way that does not remove and/or pollute the water in the nearby area and use less power or generate their own?

A : Yes — this is actually one of the more active fronts in the industry right now, and there are real, concrete examples on both the water and power side.

Water: several real approaches, not just theoretical
Closed-loop / zero-water-evaporation cooling — the biggest shift. Microsoft is deploying a zero-water-evaporation design piloted at its Phoenix, Arizona and Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin facilities in 2026, using chip-level liquid cooling that continuously recirculates the same water in a sealed loop rather than evaporating it — once filled at construction, it needs no ongoing freshwater supply, targeting near-zero water usage effectiveness. Nvidia's upcoming Rubin chip generation is built to run hot enough (up to 113°F) that data centers can use dry air coolers instead of evaporative towers, reaching near-zero water consumption even in warm climates.

Using non-potable/reclaimed water instead of freshwater — Google already uses non-potable water at a quarter of its sites and has pledged to replenish 120% of the freshwater it consumes; Amazon is retrofitting dozens of facilities to use reclaimed wastewater by 2030, and AWS's closed-loop in-row heat exchanger design already uses 9% less water than fully air-cooled sites while improving water-use efficiency 40% since 2021, cutting cooling water needs by 946 million liters in North America in 2024 alone.

Fully air-cooled sites — these consume virtually zero on-site water at all, aside from staff restroom/landscaping use — viable in cooler climates, though generally less energy-efficient than liquid cooling at high chip densities.
This is increasingly being forced by regulation, not just voluntary. South Carolina has proposed requiring data centers to hit zero net water withdrawal and zero net wastewater discharge, banning groundwater/municipal water for cooling entirely; Kansas has proposed restricting open-loop systems that expose water vapor to the atmosphere. So the "does it need to pollute/deplete water" question is becoming a hard legal requirement in some water-stressed states, not just a PR choice.

Power: on-site generation is becoming a major trend too
The current framing in the industry is a "golden triangle" of on-site nuclear (Small Modular Reactors) for firm baseload power, liquid cooling, and water efficiency, largely because water-stressed regions like Arizona, Spain, and Singapore are now denying operating permits based on water use, not just power draw. Concretely:
• Microsoft signed a deal with Constellation Energy to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant specifically to power its data centers with dedicated, 24/7 carbon-free electricity rather than drawing from the strained public grid.
• Several tech giants are now contracting directly with SMR developers to build dedicated on-site or co-located reactors, bypassing grid constraints entirely rather than just buying renewable credits.
• China is building over 20 new reactors partly for this purpose, and Russia already operates the world's first commercial floating SMR.

The honest caveat
None of this is universal yet — it's the leading edge, not the norm. Most existing data centers still use evaporative cooling towers (the older, thirstier method) and draw from the regular grid; these zero-water/on-site-power designs are concentrated in new-build facilities from 2026 onward, and it'll take years for the installed base to catch up. So the fair answer is: yes, it's demonstrably possible, real deployments exist right now, and regulation in some states is starting to require it — but "most data centers today" still don't operate this way, and it's very much still a transition in progress rather than an industry standard.
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@Rajk999 said
You are wrong and you are not using the information available to educate yourself. Furthermore when people correct you, you double down into your condemnation of AI and data centres. Changes are being made but the process takes time. Here is Claude again .. try to educate yourself.

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Q : Is it possible, and are there instances of companies ...[text shortened]... a transition in progress rather than an industry standard.
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Jeez did you even read this? The chat bot is making all the same points that I was making and you were disagreeing with.

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@wildgrass said
Jeez did you even read this? The chat bot is making all the same points that I was making and you were disagreeing with.
Shameless liar ... Now you are going way past logical fallacies and resorting to outright lies.

You said
If companies building data centers can do it in way that does not remove and/or pollute the water in the nearby area (other companies are already held to this standard), and if they can also either use less power or generate their own, then its fine. ...But currently they cannot do that. So they should not be built.

Claude said, that tech companies are in fact doing these things.

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@Rajk999 said
Shameless liar ... Now you are going way past logical fallacies and resorting to outright lies.

You said
If companies building data centers can do it in way that does not remove and/or pollute the water in the nearby area (other companies are already held to this standard), and if they can also either use less power or generate their own, then its fine. ...But c ...[text shortened]... y should not be built.

Claude said, that tech companies are in fact doing these things.
Calling me a liar is an example of the Ad hominem fallacy. The regulations are lagging behind and most data centers are abusing the environment, eating all the clean water, and driving up utility costs for residents. That's what Claude wrote.

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@Rajk999 said
You are wrong and you are not using the information available to educate yourself. Furthermore when people correct you, you double down into your condemnation of AI and data centres. Changes are being made but the process takes time. Here is Claude again .. try to educate yourself.

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Q : Is it possible, and are there instances of companies ...[text shortened]... a transition in progress rather than an industry standard.
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Google Gemini said that data centers either consume through evaporation or pollute 500 million gallons of water every day. Some might be getting better. Claude said most existing data centers using old method are consuming/polluting and taxing the electrical grid. Would you support shutting down the ones that are polluting, and if they can show they are not polluting then they can continue operation?