This came up yesterday in a bar, but it's fairly useful in politics, other work contexts, and I imagine in arguments where one knows one is right, is going to lose (whether by virtue of force, or more usually because winning has insanely high costs), and is feeling a bit spry.

I often say, "P is not a unicorn." Then people ask me what I mean, and I say that the sort of characteristics that they are implying to P, while I "totally" like P, are in fact part of the very different Unicorn set which contains P, but is sadly also non-real. This is very useful, because instead of someone making the argument P->Q and me having to assert !P to get at Q (sometimes !P can be very impolitic), I can just say that Unicorns don't exist (and hence no modus ponens from Unicorn propositions).

I was reading Michael Huemer's very lively, good, and I think wrong essay on moral objectivism, when lo! my favorite sublogical device was realized (and in 1992, meaning that his Unicorns have priority on my Unicorns (a little joke, since denying that Unicorns have properties is part of the Unicorn argument). He states:

It [moral relativism as meta-ethical theory] is then comparable to the study of unicorns. Nothing positive you say about unicorns can be true since there aren't any unicorns. And it makes no sense to say, "Well, I agree that unicorns are not real, but I still think this is a unicorn.

Ding. Michael would probably object to me using raising the unicorns at all, but since I only bring them up to deny them, he'll have to suffer me gladly. Black Swans and modus tollens in a swift nut-shell, and better, because it's an argument about the lack of properties of impossible objects that resemble actual objects, rather than a denial of properties or extensions of actual objects. !Unicorn is always, always, less insulting to that gal than !P.

Update: corrected the spelling of Professor Huemer's name. Sorry about that.

I never went to my high school prom, but sitting around this afternoon staring at my phone was oddly reminiscent of what it must feel like to put yourself on the line and hope that somebody bites. In any case, here are a few assorted things I discovered while waiting or recovering:

John Roberts's Supreme Court will provide immediate free access to argument transcripts.

Andrew Dilts contemplates Baron Hill's auspicious chances in the Indiana 9th.

Eric Posner defends the for-profit charity.

A couple nights ago, I was at the opera de bastille here in Paris to see Lucia di Lammermoor, one of my favorite Donizetti operas (I grabbed a nutella crepe at the intermission from one of the people who runs a stand around the busy square, and an excellent coffee eclair just afterwards). Those who've read my blogging for a long time know that standing ovations are one of my obsessions - I find them vulgar, in general, and bestowed far too easily in the United States. As I've said before, my rule for a standing ovation is that it's justified if at least one person in your row is literally in tears, and no time else.

But at that performance of Lucia, the French came up with a variation I had never even thought of, and one that kind of incapsulates the latent ambiguity that I think is part of the French national character. Most of the cast, the dancers, the gymnasts, the conductor, the audience booed vigorously, loudly, and for an extended period of time. Although I'd seen booing before at a performance here, I'd never seen anything with this level of malice. But then, then they not only clapped for the soprano who sang the admittedly difficult part of Lucia, but they gave her a standing ovation. Everyone sat down when the rest of the cast came back on for a final bow, and started booing heartily again, as if to make the point even more starkly. What do you do as the cast afterwards? Does this kind of mixed praise spread dissension in the singer's ranks? Anyway, it was all very odd.