Do you think it's formally ad hominem to say someone has an ideological posture that is broadly considered negative.
For instance, suppose someone wrote a long essay arguing for redistribution of wealth and you said they were a Stalinist. Separate from whether it's douchey or good form, is it formally ad hominem?
Speaking for myself, when I'm occasionally (usually unhappily) in the position of disagreeing with someone, I go out of my way not to ascribe any sort of position to them. Like, if you think someone's a fascist, that's all right, but if you're putting on the proper form for argument, it seems to me generally you should stick to why what they think is wrong and/or bad.
@ZachWeinersmith
Well, initially I was with you on it probably being an ad hominem.
But then I recalled that in theoretical computer science a lot of the formal arguments boils down to "this thing is equivalent to the halting problem", which is the sort of naming claim you ask about. In my mind this fact rehabilitates the move you suggested.
However, the key point is that you actually put in the work to show the equivalence, simply claiming it from thin air doesn't count. But that's a general rule in arguments: you need an actual chain of reasoning to claim something substantial, otherwise you are cheating.
