"Every previous president would have ended it by now."
"Biden literally couldn't do worse."
this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
270 points (80.7% liked)
Political Memes
6252 readers
4439 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Tautologies are statements that are necessarily true by virtue of their construction. In order to show that something is tautological, you must reduce it to an open statement and be able to show that it's true independent of the variables. Tautologies include "Not Q or Q" and the equivalent "If Q then Q". Furthermore, stating that something is a tautology implies that you believe it's true. The last time I encountered someone claiming that something didn't have predictive value "because it's a tautology" was a creationist saying the same of evolution, and I realized they had essentially granted their opponent's conclusion.
in a show of good faith, i'm about to break from my usual rhetorical style. i hope you find this explanation helpful
Duverger’s Law is a tautology because, from a critical rationalist perspective, a tautological statement is one that cannot be empirically tested or falsified—it’s true by definition. Duverger’s Law states that a plurality-rule election system tends to favor a two-party system. However, if this law is framed in such a way that any outcome can be rationalized within its parameters, then it becomes unfalsifiable.
For example, if a country with a plurality-rule system has more than two parties, one might argue that the system still “tends to” favor two parties, and the current state is an exception or transition phase. This kind of reasoning makes the law immune to counterexamples, and thus, it operates more as a tautological statement than an empirical hypothesis. The critical rationalist critique of marginalist economics, which relies on ceteris paribus (all else being equal) conditions, suggests any similarly structured law should be viewed with skepticism. For Duverger’s Law to be more than a tautology, it would need to be stated in a way that allows for clear empirical testing and potential falsification, without the possibility of explaining away any contradictory evidence. This would make it a substantive theory that can contribute to our understanding of political systems rather than a mere tautology.
Thank you, that was easy to understand and well-stated. You've given me something to ponder.
a tautology is also an appropriate term for any post hoc explanation of material facts that gives no insight into how the future will happen.
duverger's "law" is storytelling, it's not science.
i believe anyone may claim that the price of a good can be described as the point at which temporal demand met temporal supply, but that doesn't make it a useful observation. it's not even disprovable, as there is no way to test it. so there is no reason to believe it's actually true.
I'm not getting in another argument with you; you're dishonest and annoying. I replied to educate, because despite your claims otherwise you're clearly ignorant.
saying it doesn't make it so.
i don't want to argue with you, either. but i do think anyone reading this should know that you are poisoning the well, here.
i don't know the exact context you're referencing, but i do know that trying to pigeonhole me with creationists is underhanded.