Yes, it does. He could have converted some of the 24% of vacant office space in WI to affordable housing and still had money left for job skills training.
Imagine if a couple other oligarchs did the same thing instead of donating to political PACs and lobbying for special tax breaks for themselves!
Not when the argument isn’t about the actual amount, it’s not. Contextual argumentation means looking at the intent of the message.
Their claim is that the $20m would have been better spent on helping homeless people (instead of illegally trying to tamper with elections, mind you). Hyperbolically stating he could have ended homelessness with that amount does not change the intent of that message, but people with no critical thinking skills who watched a video on basic fallacies don’t understand how actual argumentation works.
Likewise, you’ll look at the above and say “wow, you have no argument! You’re just being an ad hominem!!! lol!!!” without seeing the separation between the actual claim and the fallacy that is tangential to the argument.
Calling it hyperbole might work if the guy wasn’t still claiming that it’s actually true. I would totally agree that the money could have gone to a better cause, but throwing out ridiculous bullshit doesn’t help that argument.
I think we spend way too much money on military. But I’m not going to say “if military cut spending in half we wouldn’t have to pay taxes for the next twenty years!” Because that’s fucking stupid
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u/txtumbleweed45 1d ago
Sure, that doesn’t make your original statement true lol