Arguments Wiki sample page: Does pineapple belong on pizza?

Yes

There aren't a lot of arguments here, because a lot of them just seem to defend against the demotion of pineapple on pizza, rather than explicitly posit that they belong on pizza. ""Belonging" on pizza" hasn't even been well-defined anyway, so that's something we'll have to sort out in another place.

• It's proven by science that they do. I'll elaborate on this more later.
  • Further point: Citrus flavours and pork harmonise excellently in general. Many pork dishes, such as carnitas, BBQ pork and pulled pork usually have citrus additives to enhance the flavour.^[3]
  • Counterargument: This harmoniousness is contingent on neurotypical and biotypical human flavour reception. People, species and beings with other flavour preferences may experience it differently.
• Pineapples have health benefits. They contain potassium, manganese, vitamin C and fibre, which lower your blood pressure, improve digestion, strengthen your immune system and provide antioxidants.
  • Fallacy: Non-sequitur. This demonstrates nothing about the relation between pineapples and pizza. It only shows that pineapples have their own intrinsic merit.
  • Counterpoint: Some people are allergic to pineapples.

Counterpoints

• It often tastes bad because of the way it contrasts with the tomato base and/or the cheese.

No

• It stands out too much. Nothing else on pizza explodes and releases sweet, hot, acidic juice.^[4]
  • Counterpoint: Surely olives would do that but with sour juice
    • Counterargument: There was no explicit assertion that olives do belong on pizza. Never-mind trying to substantiate that claim (we'll get to that in another article if the demand is high enough), how do you know that conceding both of these claims means that the outstanding properties of pineapples are a moot point when it comes to pineapple not belonging on pizza?

Heritage and cultural issues

• GOSH DANG IT I NEED TO ACTUALLY LEARN ABOUT ITALIAN HERITAGE BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T EVEN USE TO PUT TOMATOES ON IT WHEN THEY INVENTED PIZZA^[5], TRADITIONALLY IT'S COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TO WHAT WE SEE NOW,^[6] AND THE REASON IT'S SALTY IS BECAUSE AMERICA NOW TURNED IT INTO FAST FOOD \(-___________________-)/ \(-_-)/ \(-_-)/ \(-_-)/ \(-_-)/ \(-_-)/ \(-_-)/
• Fallacy: Potential strawman arguments. See note above.
• Fallacy: Appeal to tradition. They are only cultural issues because the Italians have decided that they are. In doing so, they are facilitating more serious forms of harm such as offence, division, prejudice, tribalism and authoritarianism. Because pineapple on pizza being an atrocity is an indefensible belief, they can't support it rationally, which forces them to dictate it aggressively. And because prejudice escalates, the debate has the potential to result in genocide. If you'd rather promote mass destruction than allow pineapple on pizza, you are a psychopath and regardless of your moral arguments, we are going to come for you and we are going to contain you. Hopefully you will be able to be civilly rehabilitated.
• Pizza was not intended to harbour pineapples when it was conceived. The fact that people stole the original culinary creation of Italy is a disgrace and should be reciprocated with the transgressors having their organs burnt and ripped open over and over for ever.
  • This is one of the only cases I've ever seen cultural appropriation apply to food. People have no freaking integrity. They complain about it in many other fields, but nobody bats a bloody eye when people from all over the gosh dang world eat tomatoes when they aren't native South Americans. Have some god damn integrity and start shaming people for eating tomatoes when they have nothing to do with South America. Come on.
  • Counterargument: Saying that just makes you a hateful bigot. You should tear out your own organs and mash them up and burn yourself instead.
    • Counterpoint: You're exactly falling for the tribalist/retributionist ideology the human psyche is trying to perpetuate. You can be better than that
  • Counterargument: Uh I suppose to say, you are uh authoritarian. And uh you have no appreciation for the innovation and unity of the world. And uh you are uh just being unreasonable, and you are trying to uh patent a recipe that can be remade by people at home.
  • Counterargument: Adding pineapple to pizza causes no intrinsic empirical harm.
    • Further point: The real harm comes from the aggressive retaliation of the Italians and other haters defending against the perceived caricatural harm of diversity. Unreasonably defending conformity is known to be socially and psychologically harmful.
• If we don't belong in Italian nuclear attack, pineapple doesn't belong on pizza.
  • Fallacy: Non-sequitur. Analogy does not show a direct correlation.
  • Fallacy: Unsubstantiated claim. If there is a credible threat of Italian retaliation, proper citations must be provided.
  • Counterargument: That's an Italian problem. Also, the existence of pizza is now independent of Italians.
    • Counterpoint: Being nuked is exactly an us problem.

Too much of something

• Pineapple makes the crust too moist.
  • Counterargument: That would be because the pineapple is too wet. In cases where that applies, it's the chefs' fault for not drying out the pineapple first.
• Adding pineapple to pizza makes it too sweet.
  • Counterpoint: That might be because there is an imbalanced ratio of pineapple and other elements. There may be too much pineapple on the pizza. Also see: pineapple on pizza works better with complementary ingredients.

Counterarguments

• Pineapple on pizza works better with complementary ingredients. These include spices, and/or pork items such as ham or pepperoni.
• People may also consider pineapple on pizza as disgusting because their experience with it was bad. It may have been prepared poorly, which gave them a misleading impression of the nature of pineapple on pizza.

Counterpoints

• Some people have pineapple allergies. They often don't get diagnosed, so they just dismiss them as bad.^[7]
  • Counterpoint: Such people are in no place to say anything about pineapple. Their allergic disposition renders them unqualified to personally speak about pineapple on behalf of people who are nonallergic to them.
• Pineapple on pizza is perceived as disgusting because the consumers haven't gotten used to it. Frequent exposure to a certain food item increases acceptance, preference and appreciation. In psychology, this is known as the exposure effect. For example:
  • People got a similar reaction when they tasted vegemite for the first time. One of the children who ate vegemite on toast thought it might have been chocolate, so the sudden strong sensation of bitterness was shocking.^[8]
  • Foreign dishes with unusual elements are perceived as disgusting too. In Iceland, there is a dish called svio where people eat boiled sheep heads, which include the eyeballs. There is also a popular Asian snack called balut, which is a soft-boiled egg containing a duck fetus. It's commonly sold in Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines. And in Korea, they eat sannakji which is baby octopus cut into pieces and eaten while squirming. These examples may not work on you, depending on your accustomisation, but there are many such examples of different countries eating extralocally bizarre foods that they consider normal.
    • Further point: If you find those disgusting, it's probably because you haven't tried them. If you have tried them and found them disgusting, you might still have to try them many more times so you can develop a taste for them.
      • Counterargument: This is how people become accustomed to evil. Abuse, famine, slavery, war, bigotry, fascism and hardship don't become good because people get used to them, or end up supporting them under the influence of hundreds of maladaptive psychological phenomena.
        • Counter-rebuttal: Adding pineapple to pizza causes no intrinsic empirical harm. The above evils cause a lot of (obvious, but substantiable) intrinsic empirical harm.
      • Counterargument: Those are disgusting because they illustrate the normalised abuse of animals. See veganism.
        • Counter-rebuttal: See: pineapple on pizza works better with complementary ingredients.
          • Counter-rebuttal: Ham and pepperoni are ambiguous, but sheep heads, duck fetuses and squirming octopodes are explicit. Pork can be made plant-based, but those dishes openly glorify the unnecessary hunting of animals.
    • Counterargument: Pineapple is a fruit, while the above examples are animals. More generally, these examples have nothing to do with pineapple on pizza and say nothing about it's place on pizza.
      • Counter-rebuttal: These examples are pertinent, because they illustrate the common quality of culinary accustomisation. You clearly haven't been reading the argument properly
    • Counterargument: The above examples are disgusting in their own right. Pineapple becomes an issue when it is added to pizza.
      • Counterpoint: They are not necessarily disgusting (or not disgusting). See: pineapple on pizza is perceived as disgusting because the consumers haven't gotten used to it; people may also consider pineapple on pizza as disgusting because their experience with it was bad.
  • Inversion counterargument: Pineapple on pizza is perceived as tasty because the consumers have gotten used to it. The exposure effect excuses potentially bad food, rather than proving their merit. Theoretically, people could accustom themselves to things like pasteurised dog droppings - the argument can be used to prove that any remotely edible food is good, which would invalidate the meaning of culinary goodness.

Depends

• The state of belonging is a subjective assessment.