RANT: Presenting opinions as facts

Image via Wikipedia

When presenting information, it is VERY important not to present opinions as facts. It ruins the presenter's credibility otherwise. Yet you see people everything failing to separate facts from opinion, and tries to prove an opinion with more opinions. Here is one example:

"No. A [no]CD crack is not illegal. It's just a simpler way to play your games if the game requires you to have the CD in the drive every time you play. If the disk is scratched and isn't working properly, then it would be highly unfair to need to purchase the game all over again. [no]CD cracks just bypass a ridiculous, unneeded, annoying process.

CD cracks are available LEGALLY at gamecopyworld.com"
-- larry.riverside, on Yahoo!Answers, in response to "Are no-CD cracks illegal?"

The problem here is out of the five sentences, there are no less than FOUR opinions, or hypothesis, when there should be only one, the hypothesis that the subsequent facts are supposed to prove or support. You can't prove an opinion with more opinions.

• "CD cracks is not illegal" is the hypothesis and an opinion. That is what he's trying to prove.
• "CD cracks makes your life simpler, so you don't have to insert the media every time" is a fact. 
• "If you damage your CD media, you should not have to buy the media again" is an opinion. "Should" indicates an opinion.
• "CD Crack just bypass an annoying process [copy protection]" is an opinion. If he had written "CD crack bypasses copy protection", that would be a fact.
• "CD cracks are available legally at gamecopyworld.com" is an opinion. If he had written "CD cracks are available at gamecopyworld.com" that would be a fact.

The only fact presented, "CD crack makes your life simpler", does NOT support "CD cracks are not illegal". The two are not relevant. The fact does not prove the opinion. There is no "A, therefore B" causality.

In fact, if you rewrite the last two opinions as facts, by taking out the editorial adverbs, they do not support the hypothesis either.

"CD crack bypasses copy protection" does not prove "CD cracks are not illegal".

"CD cracks are available at gamecopyworld.com" does not prove "CD cracks are not illegal".

Thus, the entire argument is a big FAIL.

I have to make one thing clear: this is NOT about the morality of noCD cracks. This is about LEGALITY of noCD cracks. The fact are simple: noCD cracks are in fact illegal, as they violate the "anti-circumvention" provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. I think there are some circumstances where noCD cracks are justified, but that is an opinion, not a fact.

Are people really THIS STUPID?!?!?!

Image via CrunchBaseI participate in Yahoo! Answers, where members post questions to be answered by other members. And some of the questions are real "howlers". here's one:

Where Can i Download A free Legal Keygen or serial number?

For those who are not familiar with software, most software will NOT work unless you enter a serial number when you install it. A "keygen" is a program written by hackers that can generate such serial numbers randomly. As you can imagine, such programs cannot be legal, as it cheats the software maker out of their money.

Which makes the question above beyond ridiculous and into totally moronic scale.

However, that's not the worst offender. Here's one better.

Will someone please help me hack someone else's Yahoo! Mail password?

No, I'm not making this up. This person claims to be helping a female friend who suspect her husband is seeing some other woman and using Yahoo! mail as contact. Does this person not even THINK that 1) this is illegal 2) Yahoo's use policy specifically forbids any sort of this behavior, and 3) Yahoo! Answers may NOT be the best place to ASK such questions?

Q: "Is it true ,that using"cruise control" in wet and slippery conditions will cause control loss of your car?"

Image via Wikipedia (see original discussion)

Well, is it true? Let's think about that, and analyze the question properly. Diagram the assertion shows:

"using cruise control in wet and slippery conditions" --cause--> "control loss"

YES OR NO?

The problem here is a little tricky. Does the control loss come immediately? Some time after? Never, or only in certain circumstances?

The answer logically is "only in certain circumstances". Thus, logically, the answer to the original answer is FALSE. A certain SECONDARY condition must be met (such as one wheel spins and the other does not). You may just get lucky and never hit a bad patch and lose control. It's not a "given". Cruise control <> spin out.

Now let's analyze the actual situation itself.

Let's say you are driving in the rain, no cruise control, going straight, and one of your wheel is spinning empty (hydroplanes) while the other one has traction.

The following should happen:
* the side with traction PUSHES the car toward the side without traction
* driver hits the brakes and turns toward side with traction (opposite turn)
* the side-to-side weight transfer is balanced and neutralized
* due to braking, more weight went forward, reestablishing traction to both wheels
* driver regains control of vehicle

Let's revisit the scenario, but with cruise control this time

* side with traction pushes car toward side without traction
* driver hits the brakes (which disengages cruise control) and turns toward side with traction
* the side-to-side... hey, it's exactly the same thing!

See the problem?

I can hear you say now... But it's the TIMING! It takes TIME to lift the foot from the floor to the pedal! And the driver on cruise control is less likely to be alert! By the time brakes are applied he's already spun out!

But you just admitted what the problem really was... "Driver's lack of attention." It wasn't cruise control at all.

I rest my case.

P.S. At least one supposed mechanic ("I don't need to reference a website to know how cruise control works") claims that you will speed up uncontrollably if your wheel loses traction. Hah!