Defending Attacking Dave Sim

[lurkerwithout]

Click to read a "defense" of Dave Sim. Though by defense, I mean more of an attack on his critics. I don't feel like creating an account for whatever comics village is to leave a comment, so I'll just do so here.

1. I like the comic. In fact I'm mostly happy with the 13 phone books of collected Cerebus I own. Even as Sim's philosophies start

Comments

Dave Sim says, "Math is Hard!"

[anonymous]

The worst part of Dave Sim's freak out is that it was what AI researchers used to call a "near miss". His theory comes close to being useful, but unfortunately the process by which he arrived at it involved a few logical "cuts" that will prevent him from seeing the cases that invalidate it.

Pointing out that there are vast populations of people who have been trained to be social and emotional parasites is actually a pretty incisive critique of liberal Western society. I have heard and read many a feminist who has argued that traditional female gender roles turn women who could be strong and independent into dependents.

The problem is that a subset of women fits in to this subset of humanity. While the intersection (women who are emotional parasites) is non-empty, Sim ignores the potential existence of male parasites and independent females. The particular logical errors are a misapplication of the law of the excluded middle and a refusal to accept that a single counter-example can and does invalidate a generalization -- and yes, logical errors of this type are common symptoms of a number of neurological and psychological conditions.

Ironically, some feminists do make precisely the same errors. Logic is hard, and more effort should be made to teach people how to use it properly. In particular, it would be useful if more people knew that it is quite possible to create a consistent formal system with no logical truths that still permits valid inferences.