No true Scotsman
8
MENTIONS
4
EPISODES
4
PODCASTS
Search complete. 8 mentions across 4 episodes found for "No true Scotsman".
Oct 6, 2026
Jonah PlattHOST
Mm-hmm.
Dara HornGUEST
And it was written by some, you know, logic or philosophy professor, and it's like lists all the bad, like all the things that people think are good arguments that are bad arguments, like appeal to authority, right? No true Scotsman.
Dara HornGUEST
That's when you say like, "Oh, no Scotsman would ever do X," and then you find a Scotsman doing X, and then you say, "Well, no true Scotsman-
Jonah PlattHOST
Mm
Dara HornGUEST
... would ever do X." You know, you move the goalpost of the argument, right? These are all logical fallacies, right? That's exactly what is done to be like, oh, suddenly, you know, this, you know, the Gaza war is a genocide.
Dara HornGUEST
Right, so that's like appeal to authority.
Jonah PlattHOST
Yeah.
Dara HornGUEST
Right? Or like, no true Scotsman.
Dara HornGUEST
But, but taught in a way that kids could understand.
Dara HornGUEST
You know, things like, uh, uh, you know, appeal to authority, false binary, um, no true Scotsman.
Dara HornGUEST
You know, when you move the goalposts.
Ben ChertoffHOST
Mm-hmm.
Dara HornGUEST
You know, you say, like, "No Scotsman would ever do that," and then a Scotsman is doing that, and so you say, "Well, no true Scotsman would ever do that."
Ben ChertoffHOST
Right.
Dara HornGUEST
Right? I mean, it's like every one of those false argu- the, the, the bad arguments, if you look at something like the lie that, you know, that the Gaza War is a genocide, it's every single one of those bad arguments.
Ben ChertoffHOST
Right.
Phil VischerHOST
the more I learn about how hard it is to define this movement other than to say it's all the people I like and none of the people I don't.
Phil VischerHOST
No true Scotsman.
Kaitlyn SchiessHOST
Your own personal evangelicalism.
Phil VischerHOST
Yes, right.
RollerGatorHOST
Alas, doomers are not in charge of the AI labs.
RollerGatorHOST
Doomers by by the no true Scotsman sort of standards may not be running the labs because he has some mental, you know, a mental construction of who this group is.
RollerGatorHOST
that he doesn't share the full list of so that we all know who we're talking about the best i have is all of these people are offshoots of rational majority of them are offshoot and important people in more important places are offshoots of rationalists and effective altruists this is how the effective altruists and rationalists have been communicating for a long period of time without some further differentiation him telling me that I should listen to the people in the company telling me that they're all going to die.
RollerGatorHOST
I should take them seriously when they don't take themselves seriously enough to do it, make a proper sandbox.