Finally tossing the old sig, as have had no ID whackjobs to torment with it for a while.

Argumentum ad Ignorantiam:
Fallacy of taking a statement not provably false and implying that it is therefore true

Examples:

Theists Argument for the Existence of God
There is no evidence against p.
Therefore, p.

Atheists Argument for the Non-Existence of God
There is no evidence for p.
Therefore, not-p.

The whole goal of the culture of science is to use evidence and induction to find the right answer, not to use scientifically useless deductive logic to get into "Nuh-uh!" style pissing contests with people who already "know" the answer.

ad Ignorantiam is one of the more appalling fallacies you see thrown around in the world, because it is assertion based on zero evidence. It's almost always an emotional appeal made to play to the prejudices of the listeners.

So don't fall into the trap; conclusions made with no evidence are worthless.

I use it as a heads up.

You're readin along, and the guy starts spouting stupid junk, and you look up and see he's on yer foe list, and think to yourself, "Oh yea, he's a jackass" and move on.

Otherwise you're left wondering if this jackass seems familiar or not...Precious time could be lost while you try and figure out which of you is crazy. If you've FOE'd him, then you're reminding yourself you've already been through this process, and the conclusion was: It's him.

Kinda like the opposite of the Friends list, which is used to mark people who are less crazy than you, or at least crazy in a more constructive way.

Then there is the fan list, which is scary because these are people who don't think YOU'RE crazy, which could be bad if THEY'RE crazy, because then you have to wonder if you ARE crazy.

Then there is the Freak list...if the people on your freak list aren't jackasses and trolls, then the bad news is: It's you.

Myself I describe an extremist as someone who holds both a radical agenda and a complete unwillingness to compromise. This includes both the left wingers and the right wingers, as well as anyone who is overzealous about any particular cause or ideology. I'm including hippies, jesus freaks, radical feminists, and die hard racists in this. If you belong to one of these groups, you're a fuckup.

Nothing personal, of course, its just the way it is. You're a fuckup. An irrational obstructionist whose mind is so narrow that they cannot stand the slightest disagreement or the tinyest compromise.

I can handle the fact that you fuckers exist. What really gets me is that you're so goddamn certain you're right. You've got to be pretty damn arrogant to take a position shared by a tiny minority and declaim that as an absolute truth.

Take the hippies, for example. These people are living in a seriously disconnected world; we're not talking drugs here, we're talking about social priorities so out of whack with the world the rest of us live in, that they tend to congregate in scary little enclaves where they agree with each other all the time, and throw these wild ass protests any time anything remotely corporate moves in. They're against all industry, and all corporations, and they love assigning stereotypes to people who think differently to them, while decrying stereotypes in general.

Radical feminists, specifically Dworkin and her crowd, push their anti-male agenda with the same fervor and some of the same solutions that the racists use to push their anti-race agendas. Equally stupid and shallow. Equally "We're superior and you're fucking us over". Both groups make me ill.

And then there are the religious whackos. I think they're my all time least favorite. I'd say the hippies, but the hippies have at least SOME compassion for their fellow men. I am incapable of understanding how groups that supposedly follow a compassionate and forgiving god are capable of neither forgiveness nor empathy.

I say we get them all together and ask them really nicely to allow that there might be other view points. And when they spit on our shoes, I say we lock them all in a room together, and let them fight it out.

Theoretically, we could let the winners OUT of that room, but really, I think thats a bad idea.

Yo, what the hell is up with the anti-environment conservatives? Fiscal conservative, fine I get that. Moral conservative? I think they're morons, but I get it.

But how the hell can you be anti-environment? Even the goddamn NRA isn't anti-environment---without the environment there aren't any fuzzy things for them to shoot. I mean, we all live here. Do you LIKE cyanide in your water? Do you like acid rain ruining your paint job? Do you want asthma? Or cancer? Yea, sure, I know, anything can give you cancer and if you live long enough, you're going to get it, but there is a hell of a difference between getting it at 90 and getting it at 30.

So take the goddamn SUV you bought so you could pretend you're not driving around in a glorified mini-van or station wagon, park it in your garage if it will fucking fit, close the door and start her up, because the least you can do for the rest of us is fucking die already.