The Goomba Fallacy

The goomba fallacy is when some people say A, and some people say B. And then you say, isn’t it ridiculous that people believe A and B at the same time? But it isn’t necessarily true that anyone believes both at the same time.

Never heard of the goomba fallacy? That’s because it’s new. It was coined in 2024. It’s widely circulated in certain parts of the internet, and if you’re not in those parts of the internet then good for you, you’re not missing much.

goomba fallacy original image

The goomba fallacy doesn’t have anything to do with goombas. It’s just that the meme image that popularized the fallacy contains goombas. Source

My instinct when learning about a fallacy has always been to pick it apart. What exactly makes the fallacy wrong? Are there contexts where the fallacy isn’t wrong? What is the goal when people commit the fallacy, or point out the fallacy? So here is my overanalysis of the goomba fallacy.

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Origami: Polyrhythmic flower

Polyrhythmic flower

Polyrhythmic flower, designed by me

This is a pleat-based design, similar to other designs I’ve posted before.  They’re fairly simple to fold on the spot and improvise.  This probably took me like 20 minutes to fold, but I like the idea.

So what’s the idea behind this one?  I fold the paper into 16 divisions… and also 15 divisions.  So the outermost pleat is 1/16 – 1/15 = 1/240.  The next pleat is 2/16 – 2/15 = 2/240, and so on.  So the pleats are very small towards the edge of the paper, and very large towards the center.  Ever since I demonstrated this idea to myself, I’ve been wondering how I can apply it to make more complex designs.

How do I fold 15 divisions, you ask?  I have some diagrams here, but I’ve been thinking for a while I ought to make some clearer diagrams.