I am aware of
- Sea-lioning
- Gaslighting
- Gish-Galloping
- Dogpiling
I want to know I theres any others I’m not aware of
Strawmanning because they won’t or can’t understand your argument, mistaking the map for the place usually because of equivocating on vaguely understood or multiple definitions, non-sequetor this is where someone just yaps for awhile based on the crap that falls out of their head based on the words they heard but didn’t get the point and is barely tracking
Motte and bailey.
- “The Kingdom of Foo has no inequality!”
- “Actually it has quite a bit…”
- “Well it’s still moving in the right direction, and that’s what really matters.”
Innuendo studios has a nice series of videos on this on YouTube
I was going to recommend this very thing.
Moving the goalposts.
Butwhatabout.
Appeal to hypocrisy is big.
I thought it was called “whataboutism”?
Yeah, same thing.
What do you call someone who is convinced you are something you aren’t, based on only a couple words in a comment on a post, draws wild assumptions from that and no actual knowledge and demands you prove them wrong otherwise, they think, they win? Like I’m going to give you my resume to prove I’m not what you think I am? Nope
What do you call someone …
A moron?
I think the most common thing I see online and offline is constantly adding more sources to the discussion to the point that the other person feels they can’t know anything. My grandmother does this with her nonsense and pseudo-intellectual books. Just because I haven’t read “why inner city black people have guns 3” doesn’t mean I can’t not be a racist.
Yeah, feels like a form of gish galloping
That’s sounds like a made up term
All terms are made up terms
On the other hand, when the sources are literally just news stories on npr.com or whatever, there’s no excuse not to just click it and at least read the headline.
Cherry picking is probably one of the most egregious
You can make a university-level essay on a subject, and people will identify one tiny irrelevant detail they disagree with and ignore the overall point
Cherry pick and move the goal post.
For example:
University-level essays? You know for-profit universities exist, right? If you don’t have a masters degree on the subject, then you have no right to speak on the topic.
Oh shit you triggered me with “you don’t have the right” lol
Yeah like I don’t have the right to talk about abortion, reproductive health, or anything like that because I don’t have ovaries
I don’t live in a society, I don’t have a mother, sister, thousands of females in my life who I care about. I don’t get to advocate for women’s reproductive rights, because I don’t have the right bits in my crotchal area
I also don’t get to express an opinion on anything that I am not a personal expert in. If I saw a helicopter with one of the blade snapped off, I’m not allowed to refuse boarding, because I’m not a helicopter maintenance technician. I don’t have the right to express my opinion on the subject
“You don’t have the right, O, you don’t have the right”
False dichotomy - Assuming that because someone doesn’t agree with one viewpoint, they must fully support the opposite. Framing the issue as if there are only two mutually exclusive positions, when in fact there may be many shades in between.
Strawmanning - Misrepresenting someone’s argument - usually by exaggerating, distorting, or taking it out of context - so it’s easier to attack or refute.
Ad hominem - Attacking the character, motives, or other traits of the person making the argument rather than addressing the substance of the argument itself.
Reductionism - The tendency to reduce every complex issue to a single cause - like blaming everything on capitalism, fascism, patriarchy, etc. - while ignoring other contributing factors.
Moving the goalposts - Changing the criteria of an argument or shifting its focus once the original point has been addressed or challenged - usually to avoid conceding.
Hasty generalizations - Treating entire groups as if they’re uniform, attributing a trait or behavior of some individuals to all members of that group.
Oversimplification - Ignoring the nuance and complexity inherent in most issues, reducing them to overly simple terms or black-and-white thinking.Man knows his fallacies! Excellent. This bodes well for interesting discussion!
Appeal to Fallacy.
It might not be a fallacy.
A fallacy doesn’t make an argument wrong.
There are degrees of fallacies.
Claiming a statement is wrong because there might be a fallacy is a thought-ending argument. There’s more nuance and relatability in rhetoric. Refusing to engage because someone’s using a fallacy is reasonable, but calling it by name isn’t a magic spell that forces someone to throw in the towel.
This is a good one. The use of fallacies doesn’t necessarily void an argument, it just fails to support it logically.
For example, I could craft a perfect, clean, cold-cut argument so water-tight and beautiful that even ben-fucking-shapiro would have a come-to-jesus. Calling my opponent a “dickhead” at the end (ad hominem) doesn’t prove anything, but it doesn’t nullify the entire rest of the argument either. Plus it’s fun.
I agree, an argument can be a narrative, too. One where the second person is a dickhead.
This is everywhere on the internet. I think it’s people looking for an easy way out in arguing. Purposely include a few logic fallacies and watch as the vast majority of people latch onto them. Ignoring any previous points they were trying to make. I like ad hominem.
Online debate is a waste of time. You can somewhat short-circuit the bad-faith stuff by arguing values instead of facts or policy.
For example, if you say that the State has no right to remove trans kids from their parents, you’ve made a legal argument that’s vulnerable to all the bad faith and you may even be technically wrong. However if you argue that you trust parents to decide what’s best over the State, there is nothing to argue about. Bonus, you might actually get some real talk out of reactionaries.
Then they say they trust parents to make decisions on vaccines when what they mean is they are anti-vax.
Online debate can help in niche situations. It’s not about convincing the person
toyyou are directly opposing. It’s about getting the counter arguments in a bigger forum so less brainwashed people might be able to avoid getting brainwashed.This is it, you’re not likely to convince the person you’re arguing with (*), but you can convince lurkers.
*You won’t convince them then, they’re too prideful and defensive to accept alternate ideas during the argument. But you might plant a seed of doubt. Overtime, it might grow and and be accompanied by other doubty plants from seeds planted by others along the way, and who knows? They might have a breakthrough someday, and that argument, perhaps from years ago, was a part of it. I’ve been on both sides of this dynamic myself online and in person.
It’s very helpful in figuring out your own opinions on a topic too. It doesn’t matter much if you convince anyone else.
It’s not about convincing the person toy are directly opposing. It’s about getting the counter arguments in a bigger forum so less brainwashed people might be able to avoid getting brainwashed.
I would describe this as the epitome of “bad faith” commenting.
You are not replying to their actual comment, you are grandstanding to the echo chamber.
Except literally not the echo chamber. The intent is to get the message to those not yet brainwashed so they don’t end up in an echo chamber. You can still directly and genuinely rebut their dumbassery. That’s not “bad faith”. The fact that I know the idiot won’t be swayed by the truth, doesn’t change the fact it’s the truth. Addressing idiotic points explicitly is not bad faith.
The intent is to get the message to those not yet brainwashed
You can still directly and genuinely rebut their dumbassery.
I know the idiot won’t be swayed by the truth
You aren’t talking about “good faith” comments.
You’re imagining someone has already made a bad faith comment and you now have justification to be bad faith in return.
Considering the value of a comment on the internet ONLY in relation to the person the comment is in reply to seems weirdly blinkered and bizarrely individualistic.
I think that’s a bit of a false dichotomy.
I never intended to imply you only have to consider this one thing, but I think if a good faith comment exists, it’s one that respects the human on the other side of the screen they’re talking to and assumes good intent.
As human beings in good faith we give the benefit of the doubt and when someone crosses that line well then we do the calculus on how to respond without being a pushover
I would agree with you there are certain bad faith comments out there that aren’t worth responding to in good faith and that’s the scenario OP was trying to point out.
So let me ask you something. We all know that a big part of shaping public opinion online is simply just being exposed to an opinion repeated over and over again. Like when someone says something and then has multiple rebuttals that are similar. Or like when we read an opinion over and over again that is not contested. Given what you said, how do we make headway in shaping opinions publicly by disengaging and allowing their opinions to freely go uncontested. If online debate is a waste of time, why are the just powerful and richest people investing in shaping it while you tell others to disengage
Given what you said, how do we make headway in shaping opinions publicly by disengaging and allowing their opinions to freely go uncontested
To engage you’d have to go into those public spaces, go back to reddit, YouTube comment sections, Facebook groups, etc.
If online debate is a waste of time, why are the just powerful and richest people investing in shaping it while you tell others to disengage
Because the powerful and richest have more money and power than you do.
If you’re interested in shaping public opinion I think you need to ask yourself why you are on Lemmy instead of somewhere else?
youutube, they just call everything woke.
If you’re interested in shaping public opinion I think you need to ask yourself why you are on Lemmy instead of somewhere else?
(Not OP) Because the “somewhere elses” all have their own fucked up problems, like algorithms that optimise for combativeness, and corporate control of various debates. Lemmy has the potential to provide a viable alternative, and it needs content in order to get big enough to do it. It’s the long game.
Great answer.
the “somewhere elses” all have their own fucked up problems, like algorithms that optimise for combativeness, and corporate control of various debates
I think keeping this in mind is key. When corporations have full control of these debates we realize maybe we’re wasting our time trying to appeal to their algorithms and should just build a new space without it.
Inherently the new space will be a little smaller and reach less people, but we value that because it gives us a bit more room to speak.
I have never seen an online discussion where gaslighting was used. People usually just learned the term and they think it’s a synonym for lying.
That’s the problem with relying on slang instead of real conversation. The desire to process our social media feeds as fast and with as little typing as possible means we encapsulate complex issues into ridiculously overgeneralized shorhand. We take in minimal information about each item, apply minimal quality control (mostly our own prejudices), use minimal thought to arrive at value judgements that make us feel morally impeccable, and spit out condensed replies. It’s superficial hillbilly-grade communication with a delusion of being informed, involved and enlightened.
No we don’t! /s
Gaslighting could take the form of saying “my political team would never do [the thing].” Their political team subsequently does [the thing]. Then claiming they never said the original statement. Sometimes they’re even so fucking stupid as to leave that comment visible so you can just screenshot it and ask “this you?”
… ask me how I know.
Basically every step of the narcissists prayer is attempted gaslighting
That didn’t happen. And if it did, it wasn’t that bad. And if it was, that’s not a big deal. And if it is, that’s not my fault. And if it was, I didn’t mean it. And if I did, you deserved it.
Narcissus was so hard done by. The guy clearly was not interested in pursuing a relationship, but everyone was still asking him out all the time. That’s harassment. Rhamnusia shouldn’t have answered Ameinias’ prayer for vengeance. She should have just told Ameinias to get over it and stop staking his self worth on a guy who isn’t interested.
How is that not just lying?
Gaslighting (if my understanding is correct) is manipulating someone. Making someone question their own sanity, blaming them, isolating from other people and making them dependent on you.
Lying on the internet to win a stupid argument with a stranger hardly can even start to measure to that.
From my example, the part where they claim to have not made the argument is what I’d consider gaslighting. My understanding of gaslighting is any attempt to make someone question reality. So the reality is they definitely said one thing. When that goes wrong, they claim to have never said it. It’s a tool of someone who manipulates.
Then almost any blatant lie would be gaslighting, which I don’t think fits the meaning. My understanding is there are more necessary attributes for a situation to be “gaslighting”, mainly the manipulation and dependency.
If someone lies about what they said in writing (in the age of internet archive of all things) it’s just a plain lie, and a dumb one at that.
This is an excellent example of moving the goalposts, thank you!
Gaslighting is lying but not all lying is gaslighting. Think overt propaganda but on a more personal level
It wasn’t a nazi salute, he was just waving
Check out Rational Wiki’s page on logical fallacies https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy
Is there a word for dragging the argument to near-unrelated topics? E.g, post about lemmy.ml having comments on whether Ukraine has a nazi government.
I believe that’s “whataboutism”?
all of them, and are done by propaganda bots, like from russia, and israel. also trying to do the both sides argument, while ignoring that the other side is the one perpetrating it.
It must be nice knowing that you’re so correct that everyone who disagrees with you must be a bot.
One I see people use frequently and I’m not sure they realize it’s a bad argument is the fallacy of relative privation.
“X is bad. We should do something to fix X.”
“Y is so much worse. I can’t believe you want to fix X when we need to fix Y.”
Both X and Y can be bad and need to be fixed. Fixing one doesn’t preclude fixing the other.
An alternate form of this is:
“A is bad”
“B is worse, so A is fine.”
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Is okay to choose A simply because B is quite literally orange hitler?
Obviously yes. Doing so isn’t saying A is fine, doing so is saying B is worse, and bad is still better than worse.
If you tried to say that there was no reason to be concerned with A because B was worse, that’s a fallacy. But acknowledging that one of two options, while still bad, is LESS bad, isn’t a fallacy. That’s just being realistic.
