Dinner Discussions Two: Fallacious Reasoning

Despite the obvious evidence that us eating as an entire family is dangerous, as proved in the previous dinner discussions, we were planning on doing it again. Maybe it’s just the idea of us all sitting down to dinner that gets us in a strange mood, because tonight, even after Blake left for guitar lessons, we all had a feeling that a strange discussion would begin.

It started with the chips (we had nachos for dinner). Eden was in a whiney mood (like he had been all day). “Well if you hadn’t woken me up this morning I would be in a better mood.” “It was eleven. Don’t be such a baby, and you woke me up at 7 yesterday.” “That was different. This was my only day to sleep in.” “Oh, and I suppose that last Thursday and Friday never happened.” “This is different.” “How?” “This is this week.” “Plus, most of your exams were in the afternoon; you could have gone in later. And you have tomorrow to sleep in.” “Not all of my exams were in the afternoon. Name one.” “Chemistry.” “I had to go in to study.” “Well it’s not my fault you’re stupid and can’t balance equations.” So anyway, Eden was whiney mood and demanded to know why we didn’t have gross flavored nacho chips. I replied with the obvious answer, because flavored chips are icky. “Baby” “Don’t interrupt, I’m getting to that part.” Eden announced that calling things icky was very baby like of me and decided to call me a baby for the rest of dinner. (Because, again, he can’t come up with any good insults.)

So, after this, we talked about our plans for the weekend. Eden and I are going to DFO (Direct Factory Outlit) with Jackson, Sinead, and Shirley. Eden decided to ask his parents for money for shoes. When he was explaining that he had his converse for his jeans but he needed other shoes because his converse didn’t match, I couldn’t help but point out how girly he sounded. “You’re so sexist. This is the twenty-first century, girls can’t expect not to be discriminated against and discriminate at the same time. This is just like in gym…” “Ok, I’m going to go ahead and cut you off, I’m telling the story.” So anyway, Eden went ahead and told me pretty much that. Then he went on to rant about how girls could use the excuse “I’m having lady problems” to get out of gym, as an excuse to eat chocolate, and as an excuse to let their emotions run rampage. But he can never say “I’m having man problems” to do anything. (Like I said, he was being very whiney today. Maybe he’s pmsing. That would follow my theory that he is a girl.) “More sexism. Guys can be whiney to. And I am a man. A M-A-N. Man, man, man!!!” I take it back. He is clearly overcompensating. “Am not.” All the evidence leads to it. Unfortunately, until he is willing to admit it, I have no concrete proof. “Ha” But hey, it’s a theory, and so is evolution and seeing as most people believe that. “I am not overcompensating.” “Sure you aren’t. Just keep telling yourself that.” So, the conversation went on. First, we discussed how it shouldn’t be sexism, it should be genderism. Eden explained this with some complex society and culture crap that nobody cares about. “Hey, that’s not true. Everyone, Hannah is a man.” “Seriously, you’ve called me that every blog entry, get some new insults.” “I just call you that because your reaction is so funny every time. I don’t see why you freak out so much.” “Hold on a minute, can we backtrack a few lines. You’re saying that I freak out, take a look in the mirror.” While Eden explained it with his fancy words and logic, I refuted his statement using IDictionary. You see, IDictionary defines –ism as denoting a belief and sex as reproductive intercourse. Sexism should logically mean the belief that people should reproduce. And sexist, -ist meaning an adherent (thank you studies of religion) should mean someone who believes in reproductive intercourse. In short, someone who believes that people have sex to reproduce, which makes everyone sexist. However, genderism won’t work either. Gender means the state of being either male or female. Genderism is therefore the belief that people are either male or female. And genderists are clearly people who believe that there are male and females. And with that statement, I blew away Eden’s stupid argument. “What fallacious reasoning.” “Look at the title of this blog.”

That wasn’t the only supposed fallacious reasoning we encountered. I decided to explain why Eden sounded so much like a girl in his begging for shoes. First, my sister got to make custom converses for her birthday. She was so excited that she ran off and I didn’t see her again until I was about to get off skype. The second, several of my friends (Syd comes to mind in particular) have gigantic shoe collections. Therefore, whilst Eden is jabbering on about how his darn converses just don’t match his shorts, he reminded me so strongly of Haeli and Syd. He announced that this was fallacious reasoning, stating that it was like saying “A chair has four legs and a table has four legs so a table is a dog.” And he didn’t understand why we were cracking up until Heath said, “yeah, and a dog has eyes, and I have eyes so I must be a whale.” Eden attempted to explain that I knew what he meant but it was to late. We spent the rest of dinner making ridiculous deductions with fallacious reasoning. The best:

“A chair has four legs and a table has four legs so a table is a dog” (of course)

“A planet is round, and you’re round, so you must be a planet”

“All girls pms and Eden is pmsing so he must be a girl” “Hey, we didn’t even say that one.” “But we all know it’s the truth” “I AM A MAN! Do I need to prove it to you?” “No, you’ll just embarrass yourself. After all, that will probably prove my over-compensating theory.”

“I have one!” “I’m going to regret this, ok, what is it?” “Babies say things like icky, Hannah says things like icky, so Hannah must be a baby.” “Wow, brilliant. You want a cookie. Here you go, steady, steady, good boy. *pats Eden on the head*” “I’m not a dog.” “Dogs are overly spastic, you’re overly spastic, and so you must be a dog.”

And with that logical fallacy, and my complete control over the keyboard, I bid you ado with two questions left in your mind. The first, does the moon really exist? And the second, what is the ultimate question to the ultimate answer? Find out next time at Hannah and Eden’s Most Excellent Adventure. (Haha, I’ve always wanted to say that.)