This is a little early to include in Greatest Hits, but I thought we captured the principles behind Charity Refutation, and I would like to capture some search engine action.

I took the pithiest one-liners from the All-stars (from MSK to Daunce to Ghs) and made poetry. For 'research' only.

Posted 23 January 2013 - 11:11 PM

When we are all in the midst of understanding one 'cognitive error/bias' at near the same time, it is like dawn, it comes on slowly, but the bells do ring in and the birds begin furious chatter and the Idea becomes suddenly sharper, brighter and clear.

The epigrams below are roughly equally correct -- yours, MSK. . . yours to Wooster sharpness, Nth, Robert's stiffly whipped danger:fool icing so smooth so deadly, Reidy's clarity pointer on the mechanics of the fraud, Brant's awry aside on fecklessness, and then congress, coalition, hi-beams. a brief glimpse to a heart of things.

Said he poetic-ishly

I'd venture it's these "Little things" like snide charity refutations that reveal the blemishes of the ARian junta: AND what fun when such zingers as these come to the surface with such fizz and sparkle ...

[to think that That Man considers this a swamp and that Meine Dame Doktora slinks about here anonymously. Philosophy Inaction, Magic Perfect Caveman, and gurglings as that man goes slowly farther down the drain.]

• What does "Charity Refutation" mean, especially in ARI-speak? Is it anything related to the principle of charity?
  
• I had wondered where Dr Mrs Doctor Diana ("did I mention I have a doctorate?") Hsieh came up with that term Charity Refutation. She uses it like a small cudgel
  
• As with so many of her contacts since she converted to ARIanism, her direct source has not been named.
  
• Charity Refutation means doing somebody the favor of talking him out of fallacious beliefs that don't really deserve the explainer's attentions
  
• A Charity Refutation is a refutation that is not necessary in any way, but a refutation that 'gives' back to the refuter something for the 'sacrifice' of refuting.
  
• Facebook fed her an ad from Prince Institute Stenography School, a profession which Comrade Sonia says is outside of her range of interests
  
• Hsieh only has herself to blame. The unfolding of the "Dear Abby of philosophy" schtick counts as information to Facebook.
  
• Charity Refutation means that a view is so plainly false it doesn’t even rise to the level of being worthy of discussion. In fact, oftentimes, one sanctions evul by debating it. Think religion, libertarianism, Kant, or TheBrandens™.
  
• From Peikoff's point of view, one simultaneously can't refute an arbitrary assertion, needn't refute an arbitrary assertion, and mustn't refute an arbitrary assertion.
  
• A Charity Refutation is an unnecessary, unwarranted, and unmerited refutation of an arbitrary assertion. Not of a false assertion—"the arbitrary" is neither true nor false.
  
• Offering a good faith noob some level of explanation: this is [also] a Charity Refutation.
  
• A Charity Refutation is something one needn't do.
  
• But one also can't do it, and mustn't do it.
  
• The utility of the idea is unclear
  

May you all have further gnosis on this and other sulfurous mysteries of ARiana.

Edited by william.scherk, 24 January 2013 - 12:12 AM.