Five sordid discussion tactics of Verbal High IQs.

[SwordOfStZip]

The depressing thing is that they are often highly successful which is why people use them. Having them laid out here together I think can deflate their ability to influence.

I have seen them used by people with low verbal IQs but in a blundering manner which is less often successful.

I can think of one, possibly two, posters on the Irish interweb the majority of who's output consists of these tactics.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQUkOOWWa5o

 

[AN2]

The depressing thing is that they are often highly successful which is why people use them. Having them laid out here together I think can deflate their ability to influence.

I have seen them used by people with low verbal IQs but in a blundering manner which is less often successful.

I can think of one, possibly two, posters on the Irish interweb the majority of who's output consists of these tactics.

Whose

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQUkOOWWa5o

Psychologising is not my first port of call but I certainly do it

 

[SwordOfStZip]

Psychologising is not my first port of call but I certainly do it

I do it all the time even if I don't type it out all the time. Thinking back on the video I really do wonder was he just to place it with those other techniques. I think psychologising is legitimate with certain characters under certain circumstances.

 

[AN2]

I do it all the time even if I don't type it out all the time. Thinking back on the video I really do wonder was he just to place it with those other techniques. I think psychologising is legitimate with certain characters under certain circumstances.

Yeah, I've talked before about understanding motivation. Which you can sometimes generalise. So for example I think conspiracy theorists are generally compensating.

Or with me and the flat-earthers/creationists, they probably psychologise me as being a trust the science guy or atheist or both, and I psychologise them as being theists (flat-earth being at least quasi-religious and ID more or less completely religious)

 

[SwordOfStZip]

Yeah, I've talked before about understanding motivation. Which you can sometimes generalise. So for example I think conspiracy theorists are generally compensating.

Or with me and the flat-earthers/creationists, they probably psychologise me as being a trust the science guy or atheist or both, and I psychologise them as being theists (flat-earth being at least quasi-religious and ID more or less completely religious)

How so compensating?

Of course not all psychologising is equal- some years back someone assumed that I must be suffering from depression because I found at the time that the "Revisionist" narratives to be more believable than the "Offical" ones as regards the Shoah and said that it would actually cheer me up and help me heal if I were to accept what he saw as the truth, at the time I was in actually a jolly mood, and that is the thing, I have swung back and forth as regards which side is more likely the closer to the truth in that debate but when I have been more downbeat and even depressed about the world as such I have tended to think that the "Official" narrative is more likely true. And I would have thought that psychologically more logical.

 

[AN2]

How so compensating?

Good question, I suppose I didn't clarify

I mean it makes them think that they're smarter than they are

Of course not all psychologising is equal- some years back someone assumed that I must be suffering from depression because I found at the time that the "Revisionist" narratives to be more believable than the "Offical" ones as regards the Shoah and said that it would actually cheer me up and help me heal if I were to accept what he saw as the truth, at the time I was in actually a jolly mood, and that is the thing, I have swung back and forth as regards which side is more likely the closer to the truth in that debate but when I have been more downbeat and even depressed about the world as such I have tended to think that the "Official" narrative is more likely true. And I would have thought that psychologically more logical.

Well I would say that the official narrative has a motivation

 

[Hermit]

The problem is that the liberal arts (the Trivium) are not taught in the public education system, by design most likely. So most people use these dirty tactics unconsciously in the heat of battle, others do it because they have to win an argument at all costs to save their ego. Then there are the sophists who know full well they are lying fucks and use sophistry to fool an audience untrained in identifying their tricks. It's especially common amongst politicians, and the most annoying thing about that is they are never called out by the media, or even by their opponent politicians, when they use obvious logical fallacies.

I compiled a list of dirty debate tactics:

INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST TACTICS

• Lying
• Saying things that don’t make sense but pretending they do
• Being unfair while pretending to be fair
• Pretending to answer questions while not answering them
• Unverifiable data presented as fact
• Refusing to concede when caught out
• Making shit up and bluffing
• Sea-lioning: trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretence of civility and sincerity ("I'm just trying to have a debate"), and feigning ignorance of the subject matter. It may take the form of "incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate", and has been likened to a denial-of-service attack targeted at human beings.
• CUT 'EM OFF AT THE PASS: If you can see where the other person's logic is leading, you can make it very difficult along the way by arguing each minute sub-point and example. If the other person cannot get past the first point, how will a case ever be made?
• Gaslighting
• Talking faster or louder
• Projection
• Nefarious use of NLP techniques
• Word salad, sophisticated babbling, jargon
• Loaded questions
• Out of context quotes
• Faulty rationalisation
• Deliberately provoking opponent / trigger words to trip an emotional response

ATTACK THE OPPONENT

• Ad Hominem: attacking the person instead of attacking his argument.
• Name calling, insults, cheap shots, low blows, personal attacks about opponent’s private life attempting to embarrass them
• Interrupting, shouting down, jamming, intimidating, badgering opponent
• TU QUOQUE (You Too): a charge of wrongdoing is answered by a rationalisation that others have sinned, or might have sinned.
• Needling: attempting to make the other person angry, without trying to address the argument at hand.
• Claiming opponent is wrong without explaining why
• Innuendo / Insinuation
• Accuse opponent of being anti-science
• Accuse opponent of getting angry ("you mad bro")
• Questioning the motives of the opponent
• Hyper-aggressive and adversarial
• POISONING THE WELL: a pre-emptive Ad Hominem. Seeks to form a negative bias against an opponent or his source before he can make an argument. When you say all the bad things that your opponent is doing so they have to defend themselves and not argue their points.

ASSHOLE BEHAVIOUR

• Smug and condescending attitude, mockery, eye-rolling, passive-aggressive behaviour, sighs, fake laughter, rudeness, smarmy, smirking smiles and grins
• Overuse of sarcasm
• Appeal to ridicule / appeal to humour / turning the debate into a nonsense shitshow / joke answers / derail the conversation
• Showboating, showmanship / showing off how much you know about the topic in question / boasting / playing to the audience of supporters
• Being belligerent
• Declaring victory

CHANGING THE SUBJECT

• Refusing to answer questions / dodging questions / fudging
• Digression, Red Herring, Misdirection, False Emphasis) / Distraction
• Changing The Subject (Digression, Red Herring, Misdirection, False Emphasis)
• Introducing new ideas that are unrelated
• False analogy/equivalence/comparison
• Obfuscation
• Scattergunning
• Gish gallop
• Overtalking
• Presenting irrelevant information
• Fast Talking: if you go from one idea to the next quickly enough, the audience won't have time to think.
• Pedantry, nitpicking, semantic tricks
• Delay tactics
• Moving The Goalposts
• Complain that opponent is calling out fallacies
• Concern trolling
• Complaining about hurt feelings
• Playing the victim
• Redefining words
• Sloganeering
• BURDEN OF PROOF / REVERSING THE BURDEN OF PROOF: I don’t need to prove my claim – you must prove it false.
• Demanding opponent answer a question that he has already answered

 

[Hermit]

LOGICAL FALLACIES

• AFFIRMING THE CONSEQUENT: logic reversal. Assuming there is only one explanation for the observation you’re making. A correct statement of the form "if P then Q" gets turned into "Q therefore P". Whenever an argument is in this form:
• ALL OR NOTHING FALLACY
• APPEAL TO ANONYMOUS AUTHORITY: an Appeal To Authority is made, but the authority is not named. For example, "Experts agree that ..", "scientists say .." or even "they say ..". This makes the information impossible to verify, and brings up the very real possibility that the arguer himself doesn't know who the experts are. In that case, he may just be spreading a rumor.
• APPEAL TO AUTHORITY: Basing an argument on an irrelevant, vague or dubious authority.
• APPEAL TO CREDENTIALS
• APPEAL TO IGNORANCE: It must be true because it hasn't been proved false; or false because it hasn't be proved true.
• APPEAL TO RIDICULE: It must be true because… ha ha ha.
• ARGUMENT BY REPETITION (ARGUMENT AD NAUSEAM). Repeating the same argument even though it has been already been addressed by the opponent.
• ARGUMENTUM AD ANTIQUITATEM ("we've known earth is a globe for thousands of years")
• BANDWAGON: the claim, as evidence for an idea, that many people believe it, or used to believe it, or do it. It must be true because it's popular.
• BEGGING THE QUESTION: reasoning in a circle. The thing to be proved is used as one of your assumptions. Assuming The Answer. Circular argument in which conclusion is included in the premise. Premise and conclusion are the same thing stated differently. Basing an argument on an assumption that has not been proven or that is impossible to prove. When an argument’s premise assumes the truth of its conclusion.
• CONCLUSORY STATEMENTS. This is a conclusion statement masquerading as evidence to prove the conclusion in question.
• CUM HOC ERGO PROPTER HOC: claiming two events that occur together must have a cause-and-effect relationship. Correlation = Cause.
• DENYING THE ANTECEDENT: inferring the inverse from the original statement.
• FAILURE TO STATE: if you make enough attacks, and ask enough questions, you may never have to actually define your own position on the topic.
• FALSE ALTERNATIVE: Offering only two options while omitting other relevant, viable options.
• FALSE DICHOTOMY: assuming there are only two alternatives when in fact there are more.
• GENETIC FALLACY: Accepting or rejecting a claim based on its origin, instead of judging it by its merits. "The ancient Greeks knew the earth was a sphere, therefore it's a sphere."
• NON SEQUITUR: something that just does not follow. For example, "Tens of thousands of Americans have seen lights in the night sky which they could not identify. The existence of life on other planets is fast becoming certainty!"
• POST HOC (False Cause): assuming that an event must have been the cause of a later event because it happened earlier. X precedes Y, therefore X caused Y. Establishing a causal relationship from correlation or timing, without sufficient proof.
• REDUCTIVE FALLACY: oversimplification
• REIFICATION: an abstract thing is talked about as if it were concrete. For example, "Nature abhors a vacuum."
• STEREOTYPING FALLACY
• STRAW MAN: attacking an exaggerated or weakened version of your opponent's position. Misrepresenting or hyperbolising opponent's claim. Misquoting opponent.

List of fallacies - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[AN2]

LOGICAL FALLACIES

• AFFIRMING THE CONSEQUENT: logic reversal. Assuming there is only one explanation for the observation you’re making. A correct statement of the form "if P then Q" gets turned into "Q therefore P". Whenever an argument is in this form:
• ALL OR NOTHING FALLACY
• APPEAL TO ANONYMOUS AUTHORITY: an Appeal To Authority is made, but the authority is not named. For example, "Experts agree that ..", "scientists say .." or even "they say ..". This makes the information impossible to verify, and brings up the very real possibility that the arguer himself doesn't know who the experts are. In that case, he may just be spreading a rumor.
• APPEAL TO AUTHORITY: Basing an argument on an irrelevant, vague or dubious authority.
• APPEAL TO CREDENTIALS
• APPEAL TO IGNORANCE: It must be true because it hasn't been proved false; or false because it hasn't be proved true.
• APPEAL TO RIDICULE: It must be true because… ha ha ha.
• ARGUMENT BY REPETITION (ARGUMENT AD NAUSEAM). Repeating the same argument even though it has been already been addressed by the opponent.
• ARGUMENTUM AD ANTIQUITATEM ("we've known earth is a globe for thousands of years")
• BANDWAGON: the claim, as evidence for an idea, that many people believe it, or used to believe it, or do it. It must be true because it's popular.
• BEGGING THE QUESTION: reasoning in a circle. The thing to be proved is used as one of your assumptions. Assuming The Answer. Circular argument in which conclusion is included in the premise. Premise and conclusion are the same thing stated differently. Basing an argument on an assumption that has not been proven or that is impossible to prove. When an argument’s premise assumes the truth of its conclusion.
• CONCLUSORY STATEMENTS. This is a conclusion statement masquerading as evidence to prove the conclusion in question.
• CUM HOC ERGO PROPTER HOC: claiming two events that occur together must have a cause-and-effect relationship. Correlation = Cause.
• DENYING THE ANTECEDENT: inferring the inverse from the original statement.
• FAILURE TO STATE: if you make enough attacks, and ask enough questions, you may never have to actually define your own position on the topic.
• FALSE ALTERNATIVE: Offering only two options while omitting other relevant, viable options.
• FALSE DICHOTOMY: assuming there are only two alternatives when in fact there are more.
• GENETIC FALLACY: Accepting or rejecting a claim based on its origin, instead of judging it by its merits. "The ancient Greeks knew the earth was a sphere, therefore it's a sphere."
• NON SEQUITUR: something that just does not follow. For example, "Tens of thousands of Americans have seen lights in the night sky which they could not identify. The existence of life on other planets is fast becoming certainty!"
• POST HOC (False Cause): assuming that an event must have been the cause of a later event because it happened earlier. X precedes Y, therefore X caused Y. Establishing a causal relationship from correlation or timing, without sufficient proof.
• REDUCTIVE FALLACY: oversimplification
• REIFICATION: an abstract thing is talked about as if it were concrete. For example, "Nature abhors a vacuum."
• STEREOTYPING FALLACY
• STRAW MAN: attacking an exaggerated or weakened version of your opponent's position. Misrepresenting or hyperbolising opponent's claim. Misquoting opponent.

List of fallacies - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It's all well and good having a list of (the names of) fallacies in your pocket but if you don't know how to, or mindlessly, apply them then it kinda means f*ck all (thanks for your other comedy post chock-a-block with irony)

 

[Hermit]

Bulverism is a type of ad hominem rhetorical fallacy that combines circular reasoning and the genetic fallacy with presumption or condescension. The Bulverist assumes a speaker's argument is invalid or false and then explains why the speaker came to make that mistake or to be so silly (even if the opponent's claim is actually right) by attacking the speaker or the speaker's motive.[1]

The term Bulverism was coined by C. S. Lewis after an imaginary character[2] to poke fun at a serious error in thinking that, he alleged, frequently occurred in a variety of religious, political, and philosophical debates.

Similar to Antony Flew's "subject/motive shift", Bulverism is a fallacy of irrelevance. One accuses an argument of being wrong on the basis of the arguer's identity or motive (real or presumed), but these are irrelevant to the argument's validity or truth.

Bulverism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[AN2]

The problem is that the liberal arts (the Trivium) are not taught in the public education system, by design most likely. So most people use these dirty tactics unconsciously in the heat of battle, others do it because they have to win an argument at all costs to save their ego. Then there are the sophists who know full well they are lying fucks and use sophistry to fool an audience untrained in identifying their tricks. It's especially common amongst politicians, and the most annoying thing about that is they are never called out by the media, or even by their opponent politicians, when they use obvious logical fallacies.

I compiled a list of dirty debate tactics:

INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST TACTICS

• Lying
• Saying things that don’t make sense but pretending they do
• Being unfair while pretending to be fair
• Pretending to answer questions while not answering them
• Unverifiable data presented as fact
• Refusing to concede when caught out
• Making shit up and bluffing
• Sea-lioning: trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretence of civility and sincerity ("I'm just trying to have a debate"), and feigning ignorance of the subject matter. It may take the form of "incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate", and has been likened to a denial-of-service attack targeted at human beings.
• CUT 'EM OFF AT THE PASS: If you can see where the other person's logic is leading, you can make it very difficult along the way by arguing each minute sub-point and example. If the other person cannot get past the first point, how will a case ever be made?
• Gaslighting
• Talking faster or louder
• Projection
• Nefarious use of NLP techniques
• Word salad, sophisticated babbling, jargon
• Loaded questions
• Out of context quotes
• Faulty rationalisation
• Deliberately provoking opponent / trigger words to trip an emotional response

A flat-earther posted that

Is it a how-to guide

ATTACK THE OPPONENT

• Ad Hominem: attacking the person instead of attacking his argument.
• Name calling, insults, cheap shots, low blows, personal attacks about opponent’s private life attempting to embarrass them
• Interrupting, shouting down, jamming, intimidating, badgering opponent
• TU QUOQUE (You Too): a charge of wrongdoing is answered by a rationalisation that others have sinned, or might have sinned.
• Needling: attempting to make the other person angry, without trying to address the argument at hand.
• Claiming opponent is wrong without explaining why
• Innuendo / Insinuation
• Accuse opponent of being anti-science
• Accuse opponent of getting angry ("you mad bro")
• Questioning the motives of the opponent
• Hyper-aggressive and adversarial
• POISONING THE WELL: a pre-emptive Ad Hominem. Seeks to form a negative bias against an opponent or his source before he can make an argument. When you say all the bad things that your opponent is doing so they have to defend themselves and not argue their points.

ASSHOLE BEHAVIOUR

• Smug and condescending attitude, mockery, eye-rolling, passive-aggressive behaviour, sighs, fake laughter, rudeness, smarmy, smirking smiles and grins
• Overuse of sarcasm
• Appeal to ridicule / appeal to humour / turning the debate into a nonsense shitshow / joke answers / derail the conversation
• Showboating, showmanship / showing off how much you know about the topic in question / boasting / playing to the audience of supporters
• Being belligerent
• Declaring victory

CHANGING THE SUBJECT

• Refusing to answer questions / dodging questions / fudging
• Digression, Red Herring, Misdirection, False Emphasis) / Distraction
• Changing The Subject (Digression, Red Herring, Misdirection, False Emphasis)
• Introducing new ideas that are unrelated
• False analogy/equivalence/comparison
• Obfuscation
• Scattergunning
• Gish gallop
• Overtalking
• Presenting irrelevant information
• Fast Talking: if you go from one idea to the next quickly enough, the audience won't have time to think.
• Pedantry, nitpicking, semantic tricks
• Delay tactics
• Moving The Goalposts
• Complain that opponent is calling out fallacies
• Concern trolling
• Complaining about hurt feelings
• Playing the victim
• Redefining words
• Sloganeering
• BURDEN OF PROOF / REVERSING THE BURDEN OF PROOF: I don’t need to prove my claim – you must prove it false.
• Demanding opponent answer a question that he has already answered

 

[AN2]

Mathematically impossible hair-do was pretty funny I'll give him that

 

[AN2]

What is the Boomer Truth Regime ((c) Academic Agent) -


View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e4zCMxGGuxY