The PRC would have imprisoned just as many people as the US, except the people starved to death.
Premise 1 requires everyone to have starved to have been meant for imprisonment
Premise 1 and 2 are comparisons of the prisons of a developed country to the living conditions of a rapidly developing country lifting itself out of feudalism.

This isn't a rational argument! I already said you had a hypothesis you wanted to test, but you keep pretending it has valid conclusions despite not doing the legwork!

[–] p3n@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

A rational argument is an argument that follows some sort of logical thought process, it has nothing to do with whether the conclusion is correct or not.

This is a rational argument:

Premise 1: The Earth is a planet.
Premise 2: The Earth is flat.
Premise 3: All flat planets have edges.
Conclusion: The Earth has edges.

Premise 2 is false, and premise 3 is unknown, so the conclusion is false, but it follows a logical thought process and isn't nonsense.

This is nonsense and irrational:

Premise 1: Apples are round.
Premise 2: Pyramids exist.
Premise 3: Unicorns have horns.
Conclusion: Aliens!

There is no discernible logic or rational thought process. It is just apparently random statements with no connection.

Again, since we can't even agree on commonly accepted definitions for basic concepts, we just aren't going to be able to have any kind of productive conversation.

Good day.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

This is splitting hairs to justify a fubdamentally irrational argument based on false conclusions. I agree about one thing, though, this isn't a productive conversation.