Essay:Appeal to ridicule

For your information: Some drive-by editor spammed us with this, and though we decided not to delete it, we don't really care much for it. The talk page is probably a lot more interesting than the actual essay.

Appeal to ridicule is a type of appeal to emotion, a logical fallacy which seeks to instill a particular emotion in the readers rather than address the intended issue. The appeal to ridicule, which is also called reductio ad ridiculum, or more strangely the Horse laugh. That name is ridiculous, as this fallacy has nothing in common with horses (who spend most of their time grazing in the pastures and don't give two shits about debating,) and any laugh one may get is a sort of fabricated Schadenfreude that has been engineered solely to make your target look like an idiot. The biggest difference from humor/satire is that humor is funny, and while appealing to ridicule is funny for those who oppose the targeted opinion/group, it makes those guilty look like dickholes. The formula goes like this:

• I don't agree with X.
• Therefore, X is stupid and deserves my mockery and ridicule
• Oh I know! I think I'll make an entire website that ridicules X and calls adherents of X a bunch of nasty names for everyone who agrees with me to laugh at to make themselves feel powerful! That's definitely the most rational thing to do.

This can be a difficult fallacy to avoid, as some people are clearly very uninformed, and pointing out their stupidity is a very tempting thing.

Who uses this?

Everyone. Because face it, it's fun to laugh at people you don't like. I'll show them I'm a smarter person than them with my blunt honesty and delightfully cruel wit! Anyone with half a brain will laugh, it'll be a very swell time!

Other useful notes

Rationality is, by definition, unbiased, giving only the facts

See also

• RationalWiki:SPOV
• Emotional appeal
• Asshole

External links

• [1]
• an appeal to ridicule fansite