I figured you'd probably think so. What else am I supposed to do? Seriously. Why is everyone so anti- establishment? You think an expanded playoff will help? I mean is that the essence of this debate? We need an expanded playoff? The biggest proponent of one is Michael Leach. Case closed as far as I'm concerned. I write what I write. Let him decide if it's senseless garbage. If it is, he'll wake up to that soon enough. For the record, I played a role in extending the BCS contract out when it came up for renewal in 2010 I campaigned hard to reinitiate it. I also petitioned in effect, with differences, obviously, the present format. I'm against a playoff. Is that straight-forward enough? I don't think a playoff addresses any problem better than the BCS expanded to include an additional two teams. Or, effectively CFP. Or the Belt, in effect, even if it isn't expressly sanctioned. Makes life a lot easier for everyone else. Four teams is sufficient, also necessary. Notre Dame keeps making it harder to legislate. They need to join the ACC. As far as admitting eight teams, I'm not necessarily against that idea. Eight would at least include every bowl pairing suitable for a national championship. But it should include everyone. Meaning every conference championship. Meaning sixteen team conferences. Meaning restructuring it so all Eight are represented. Meaning we reorganize. As follows:.
1. Atlantic Coast Conference: include Cincinnati, Navy and Notre Dame.
2. Big Ten Conference: include Colorado and West Virginia.
3. Big Twelve Conference: include Arkansas, Coastal Carolina, Central Florida, Liberty, Memphis, Rice, S. Methodist, and Tulsa.
4. Pacific-12 Conference: include Boise St., Brigham Young, Hawaii, San Diego St., and Nevada Las Vegas.
5. Southeastern Conference: include Tulane, Kansas and Clemson.
6. Mountain West Conference: include Arkansas St., Louisiana Tech, S. Mississippi, S. Alabama, Texas St. UTEP, S. Alabama and S. Florida.
7. Mid-American Conference: include Army, E. Carolina, Marshall and Temple.
8. C-USA and Sun Belt: merge, add Houston.
Independent: Massachusetts, to FCS.
That's eight conferences of sixteen teams all equally represented to the national championship. That's eight teams equally deserving to the playoff. F.W.I.W.
This problem is much more widespread than most people (or maybe even all people) are aware of. In particular, in the field of human thinking it is almost universal.
while people don't like finding that the position they hold is wrong, they hate much more finding that their arguments are nonsense. Thus, when a person supports a position by a nonsense-argument, they will be even more reluctant than usual to admit that their position wrong. They will also find any person that points to their nonsense-arguments irritating. This causes most of people to avoid pointing to other people when they use nonsense-arguments.
When a person holds a sound position, they can avoid the unpleasant situation of having to admit a nonsense-argument by using sound arguments to support their position. Thus, normally we should not expect a person to defend a sound position by nonsense-arguments. Hence, when a person uses nonsense-arguments it is not only not supporting their position, it is actually suggesting that their position is wrong.
Implications
When you make a nonsense-argument
If you are not actually interested in understanding the subject of discussion, then there is no problem. However, if you are interested, you should monitor yourself to see if you make nonsense-arguments. When you find that you have used a nonsense-argument (i.e. somebody refuted your argument with a short counter-argument), you should avoid doing the common thing, which is either changing the subject or coming with a new argument. Instead, you should re-think what you know about the subject, assuming that your position (the one you were trying to defend) is wrong. The point is that once you have defended your position (which is probably wrong) by a nonsense-argument, you will find it even more difficult to find that it is wrong in the future, and will hinder your understanding of the subject.
Discussion with somebody that uses nonsense-arguments
As explained above, once a person uses a nonsense-argument, they are unlikely to be ever convinced that their position is wrong. In principle, you may try to point to the nonsenseness of their argument, and hope that they will do the right thing as in the previous section. In practice, however, it is more likely that they will either pick another nonsense-argument or change the subject, and the only effect you will have is irritating them. As mentioned above, most of people already worked out the latter point, and avoid pointing other people's nonsense-arguments.
It should be noted that if you think that you have spotted a nonsense-argument, it is not necessarily because the other person used a nonsense-argument. It may also be because:
You misunderstood what they said/wrote. You need to assure that you do understand what they say/write before concluding that they used a nonsense-argument. In oral discussion, that means asking the other person what exactly they mean. In written discussion, that means reading carefully the text again, looking for relevant points that you may have missed.
Your counter-argument may be wrong. You need to think carefully about your counter-argument, rather than rely on your intuition. In general, you should try to drop your intuition before concluding that somebody else's argument is nonsense.
If you avoid pointing the nonsense-argument, or you do and the person you discuss with picks up a new nonsense-argument or changes the subject, then the discussion becomes useless. You are not going to learn anything useful from the other person, because their position is probably wrong, and they are not going to learn anything from you, because they are going to defend their position. Of course, there may be reasons why you will want to continue the discussion (politeness, you want to get the other person to do something, you are arguing for an audience), but it is better described as a 'psychological wrestling' rather than a discussion.
While the fact that a person uses a nonsense-argument strongly suggests that their position is wrong, it gives only very very weak support to your position. That is because yours and the other person's position are not the only possible positions, so even after the other person's position is eliminated, there are competing positions.
Observing somebody using nonsense-argument
As discussed above, that suggests that the position this person holds is unsound. This suggestion becomes stronger when the person knows a lot about the subject, because in this case they would have found it easier to find the sound arguments, if there were any. The latter point may seem paradoxical, but that is only if you assume that knowledgeable people don't hold wrong positions.
It should be noted that because in this case the person does not have a chance to correct or defend themselves, you need to be more careful in checking that it is really a nonsense-argument. On the other hand, it is important that you take into account the possibility that the person uses a nonsense-argument, no matter what their authority is, because otherwise you will be misled by the Blatant nonsense effect.
How to show that somebody that uses nonsense-arguments is holding a wrong position
As discussed above, it is not actually possible to show that somebody that uses nonsense-arguments is holding a wrong position, because they can always come with new nonsense-arguments. What is possible (in a discussion that is for the sake of other people) is to show that they use nonsense-arguments. Thus when arguing with somebody that uses nonsense-arguments, it is important not only to show that their current argument is wrong, but also to show that it is nonsense.
That is a problem because people regard it as impolite, and most of them don't understand the distinction between saying that somebody's position is wrong and between saying that their arguments are nonsense. As a result, most of people cannot be convinced that somebody that talks nonsense is holding a wrong position, unless they already figured it out themselves. This, with the blatant nonsense effect, explains how so many nonsensical theories have such a strong following.
