Ad hominem attacks are actually underrated. Like, why listen to bad people wanting you no good. It is a good shortcut.

The failure is when it is used in bad faith. But that would apply to all techniques. LLMs are masters of bad faith discussions hiding misconceptions in optimal regression maths.

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chungusamongus 2 hours ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

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rightbyte 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Ad hominem attacks attacks is often missused as a way to slander stating conflict of interests.

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chungusamongus 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Then just state the conflict of interest instead of resorting to insults. The problem with your way of thinking is, sometimes your opponent is detestable, but that doesn't make them wrong. Kneejerk dismissal of an argument on the basis of character can be self defeating. You do not want to reflexively dismiss a point that is potentially salient just because the person making it is potentially "bad."

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rightbyte 33 minutes ago | parent [-]

Sure from a philosophical standpoint I agree with you. But in practice you need to weight in trust. Bad faith retorics is just too expensive to engage.

The main problem with ad hominem is when ot is used as "Mr Y agree with you. Mr Y is bad. You are wrong". Like, 2nd order ad hominem attacks?

	▲	cindyllm 22 minutes ago \| parent [-]
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