💾 Archived View for yujiri.xyz › argument › yujiris-first-law.gmi captured on 2023-12-28 at 15:32:15. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Yujiri's Law of Argument

Yujiri's Law: The more distinct proofs someone claims to have, the more likely they are to be wrong.

There are *5* reasons why this *must* be true:

It *must* be true because it's *associated* with other true things: you're reading this law on my site, and I'm usually right about things, which means you should expect that I'm right again. Therefore my law is true.

It's true because if you deny it, then you're saying someone could make something true just by claiming to have an arbitrarily large number of proofs.

It's true because someone who knows they're wrong is incentivized to make up lots of bogus proofs to make their case appear stronger at a quick glance (and to discourage rational people responding, since they'd have to read and deal with all of them).

It's true because if you don't believe that having a lot of claimed proofs makes someone likely to be wrong, then you'll end up having to make detailed arguments against people with a lot of claimed proofs. This will take a lot of time and you won't have as much left to focus on more reasonable opponents, so you won't be as effective as furthering your goals or spreading your ideas. Therefore, having a lot of claimed proofs makes them likely to be wrong.

You can see empirical examples. For a super extreme one, there's a book titled "200 Proofs Earth is Not a Spinning Ball". You can't argue with empirical demonstration.

https://www.amazon.com/200-Proofs-Earth-Spinning-Ball/dp/B072PPB3HB

There are rarely more than 3 distinct valid arguments for something true.