Philosophical Debate Tactics

[mattsidedish]

http://www.johntreed.com/debate.html

At the above link, you'll find an article pointing out some tactics used in debate that are intellectually dishonest. Some of you may have heard me mention the term before. Well, tonight, I will explain it to you all and give you the list of intellectually dishonest debate tactics. This article does not belong to me. I did not write any of it, but below, when I get to the tactics themselves, some of them have been refined to try to remove some of the political ties (insinuations) and some banter about John T. Reed's coaching career. I haven't edited through it with a fine-tooth comb, but I've been following this list for years, and try to incorporate it into every conversation I somehow manage to wiggle myself into.

First, let's go over the purpose of a debate. It is NOT to change someone's mind. It is NOT to tear down a person or make them look bad (though often times, this happens inadvertently). The purpose of a debate is to facilitate the manifestation of truth, and to form a more logical and rationalized interpretation of the implications behind said truth. We could go into discussions about what is truth for days, but the point I'd like to get at here is that in a debate, the first objective in your argument should be to find out what is fact and what is not fact. Second, your objective should be to be certain that every piece of "fact" (on both sides of the argument), are truly fact. Examples would be people who mention studies done to prove their point, but instead, the study went to prove the other opinion. Studies are wishy-washy, so you have to be careful about what all they imply. Once you have made sure that any "facts" provided, you must analyze why your opponent feels the way they do about the facts they present. This is often times known as an interpretation of facts. I also call it logic. This is the main part of a discussion. Ones logic should always entail why they believe the facts contribute toward their viewpoint.

Allow me to clearly define this term, Intellectually honest. An intellectually honest debate tactic is any method that stays true to represent the author's intelligence, by staying true to the purpose of a debate, which is written above. There are ONLY 2 INTELLECTUALLY HONEST DEBATE TACTICS. They are as follows:

1. pointing out errors or omissions in your opponent’s facts
2. pointing out errors or omissions in your opponent’s logic

You must take the time to understand the other person's viewpoint, and understand their logic before you attack it. IMO, 90% of an argument has to do with attacks on the person's logic, therefore, you should try to understand all the information, and you will better be able to use their logic against them. The purpose is to discredit the logic without using your own logic. The only way to do this is to find reasons why the person's logic doesn't work in all cases, or even at all. Often times, this is very difficult.

Allow me to include just a few of the tactics from the list. I have written permission from Mr. Reed to include the list on any forum of my choosing. I first applied this list to the Freethought and Rationalism Discussion Board, then to LessWrong.com as a supplement to my blog post, and finally to SecularCafe.org, where things didn't go very well. I include this list and this thread because it is a very clear way to better approach intellectual debate. Despite their own admissions, I would argue that 50% of participants in what is supposed to be an intellectual debate, perform Intellectually Dishonest Debate Tactics, as you will find in this article.

Without further a due, John T. Reed's list of Intellectually Dishonest Debate Tactics. Don't worry about reading all of them on the link, but understand that you may be called on some of these if you use them.

Name calling: debater tries to diminish the argument of his opponent by calling the opponent a name that is subjective and unattractive; for example, cult members and bad real estate gurus typically warn the targets of their frauds that “dream stealers” will try to tell them the cult or guru is giving them bad advice; name calling is only intellectually dishonest when the name in question is ill defined or is so subjective that it tells the listener more about the speaker than the person being spoken about; there is nothing wrong with using a name that is relevant and objectively defined; the most common example of name calling against me is “negative;” in coaching, the critics of coaches are often college professors and the word “professor” is used as a name-calling tactic by the coaches who are the targets of the criticism in question; as a coach, I have been criticized as being “too intense,” a common put-down of successful youth and high school coaches. People who criticize their former employer are dishonestly dismissed as “disgruntled” or “bitter.” These are all efforts to distract the audience by changing the subject because the speaker cannot refute the facts or logic of the opponent.

Changing the subject: debater is losing so he tries to redirect the attention of the audience to another subject area where he thinks he can look better relative to the person he is debating, but admits to no change of subject and pretends to be refuting the original on-subject statement of his opponent

Questioning the motives of the opponent: this is a form of tactic number 2 changing the subject; as stated above, it is prohibited by Robert’s Rule of Order 43; a typical tactic used against critics is to say, “They’re just trying to sell newspapers” or in my case, books—questioning motives is not always wrong; only when it is used to prove the opponent’s facts or logic wrong is it invalid. If my facts or logic are wrong, my motive may be the answer to why. But let’s cut out the middleman of why my facts or logic are wrong and just point exactly what the error is. Pointing out the suspicious motive only indicates there is no error, just an attempt to insinuate an error by innuendo.

Citing irrelevant facts or logic: this is another form of tactic Number 2 changing the subject

False premise: debater makes a statement that assumes some other fact has already been proven when it has not; in court, such a statement will be objected to by opposing counsel on the grounds that it “assumes facts not in evidence”

Hearsay: debater cites something he heard but has not confirmed through his own personal observation or research from reliable sources, e.g., Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s allegation that a Bain Capital investor whom he refuses to name told him that Mitt Romney has not paid any taxes for ten years.

Unqualified expert opinion: debater gives or cites an apparently expert opinion which is not from a qualified expert; in court, an expert must prove his qualifications and be certified by the judge before he can give an opinion

Sloganeering: Debater uses a slogan rather than using facts or logic. Slogans are vague sentences or phrases that derive their power from rhetorical devices like alliteration, repetition, cadence, or rhyming; Rich Dad Poor Dad’s “Don’t work for money, make money work for you” is a classic example. In sports, coaches frequently rely on cliches, a less rhetorical form of slogan, to deflect criticism.

Motivation end justifies dishonest means: debater admits he is lying or using fallacious logic but excuses this on the grounds that he is motivating the audience to accomplish a good thing and that end justifies the intellectually-dishonest means

Cult of personality: debater attempts to make the likability of each debate opponent the focus of the debate because he believes he is more likable than the opponent

Vagueness: debater seems to cite facts or logic, but his terms are so vague that no facts or logic are present. A facebook poster demanded that I debate American hegemony with him regarding the Boston Marathon bombers’ motives. I refused on the ground that hegemony was too vague a term. He then “proved” it was not vague by posting the dictionary definition of hegemony. If a word having a dictionary definition proves it’s not vague, then every single word in the English language is not vague because they all have dictionary definitions. Which begs the question of why the word “vague” itself exists. Debates where any party is allowed to use vague terms are endless and settle nothing. This is an aspect of name-calling. Calling someone an objectively-defined name, like a convicted felon, is not name calling. Calling him a “womanizer,” as was used to prevent Senator John Tower from being confirmed as Secretary of Defense, was name-calling. The period when he was said to “womanize” was when he was a single man. He said he thought it was called going on dates.

Playing on widely held fantasies or fears: debater offers facts or logic that support the fantasies or fears of the audience thereby triggering powerful desires to believe that override normal desire for truth or logic

Claiming privacy with regard to claims about self: debater makes favorable claims about himself, but when asked for details or proof of the claims, refuses to provide any claiming privacy; true privacy is not mentioning them to begin with; bragging but refusing to prove is silly on its face and it is a rather self-servingly selective use of the right of privacy; The worst offenders are the U.S. Navy SEALs who claim to be great but they “not at liberty” to reveal the details because they are military secrets. Enough details have leaked out, however, that those not in the SEAL cult of personality can see that if you could buy the SEALs for what they are worth and sell them for what they claim to be worth, you would have a substantial capital gain.

Stereotyping: debater “proves” his point about a particular person by citing a stereotype that supposedly applies to the group that opponent is a member of; dismissing criticism by academic researchers by citing Ivory Tower stereotypes is an example of this debate tactic. For example, Professor David Romer of Cal did a study that found coaches should go for a first down far more often and kick far less on fourth down; Some coaches laughed and rejected his findings because he is a “professor,” turning the report sideways when reading it, dismissing Romer as “Ivory Tower.” If Romer is wrong, it is because of an error or omission in his facts or logic; not because he is a college professor.

Scapegoating: debater blames problems on persons other than the audience; this is a negative version of playing on widely-held fantasies; it plays on widely-held animosities or dislikes

Arousing envy: debater attempts to get the audience to dislike his opponent because the audience is envious of something that can be attributed to the opponent

Redefining words: debater uses a word that helps him, but that does not apply, by redefining it to suit his purposes, like leftists calling government spending “investment”

Citing over-valued credentials: debater accurately claims something about himself or something he wants to prove, but the claim made is one that attempts to get the audience to over-rely on a credential that is or may be over-valued by the audience; for example, some con men point to registration of a trademark or corporation as evidence of approval by the government of the con man’s goods or services

Claiming membership in a group affiliated with audience members: debater claims to be a member of a group that members of the audience are also members of like a religion, ethnic group, veterans group, and so forth; the debater’s hope is that the audience members will let their guard down with regard to facts and logic as a result and that they will give their alleged fellow group member the benefit of any doubt or even my-group-can-do-no-wrong immunity, also called “affinity fraud”

Accusation of taking a quote out of context: debater accuses opponent of taking a quote that makes the debater look bad out of context. All quotes are taken out of context—for two reasons: quoting the entire context would take too long and federal copyright law allows “fair use” quotes but not reproduction of the entire text. Taking a quote out of context is only wrong when the lack of the context misrepresents the author’s position. The classic example would be the movie review that says, “This movie is the best best example of a waste of film I have ever seen,” then gets quoted as “This movie is the best...I’ve ever seen.” Any debater who claims a quote misrepresents the author’s position must cite the one or more additional quotes from the same work that supply the missing context and thereby reveal the true meaning of the author, a meaning which is very different from the meaning conveyed by the original quote that they complained about. Furthermore, other unrelated quotes that just suggest the speaker is a nice guy are irrelevant. The discussion is about the offending quotes, not whether the speaker is a good guy. The missing context must relate to, and change the meaning of, the statements objected to, not just serve as character witness material about the speaker or writer. Merely pointing out that the quote is not the entire text proves nothing. Indeed, if a search of the rest of the work reveals no additional quotes that show the original quote was misleading, the accusation itself is dishonest. This was done to Mitt Romney in 2012 when he said that as a consumer he liked to be able to fire people at service providers, by giving his business to one of their competitors, so they would be more motivated to do a good job. It was taken out of context as proof he liked to fire people in general when he was a boss.

>>>I have only included 20 of the Tactics for somewhat of a sense of brevity. I don't make this thread because I believe this forum has an issue with intellectually discussing topics. I also do not approach this issue with a vigilante type mentality. I belie3ve that EVERYONE can benefit from applying intellectually honest debate tactics, and that everyone is responsible for maintaining the validity of their own argument.

[The Voice of Time]

There are ONLY 2 INTELLECTUALLY HONEST DEBATE TACTICS. They are as follows:

1. pointing out errors or omissions in your opponent’s facts
2. pointing out errors or omissions in your opponent’s logic

Simple answer: no.

Pointing out the result of combining the facts and the logic is also very much an important point, or else you're just walking around in circles and not really doing anything with the debate.

In case of politics for instance, it doesn't matter if people see all the facts and all the logic is correct as long as they don't get to the same conclusion, which happens because people interpret things differently (they have different associations for instance), and you therefore have to by force of persuasion turn other people's viewpoint to yours.

Also when facts are insufficient (which is the usual case) and a decision has to be made, you often have to turn to people's common sense, their intuition, about what results can be gained from taking a specific course of action. Which means you'll have to conjure a kind of story they can believe in and which they can help you (and presumably themselves) manifest, although a corrective rule about this is that story must mirror the world (not be based upon lies) and have manifestability (be within the reach of known resources and be the better among several different paths) to go from a mere belief to a goal of progression.

There is also a problem when the discussion concerns ethics, because here you have different basic assumptions that lead to incompatible conclusions, and yet again you have to persuade people's emotions to favour one over the other, as ethics is a realm in which emotions reign and where facts and logic adapt towards the initial assumptions and not the other way around (which is not to say they become false or polluted, they merely change their emotional implications and therefore their value for the given individual, which means a statement of ethics with the same result "right", has different sets of premises).

[mattsidedish]

If "it doesn't matter if people see all the facts or logic," they are not participating in an intellectual discussion based on facts. They are participating in the propaganda filled pick-your-side monopoly penut gallery which the government calls for. Assuming you're from Norway, you'd probably not understand this. People do not simply "discuss" politics anymore (or at least the majority of them do not). Politics is usually not an area of facts, logic, OR the manifestation of truth. It is usually a shit fest designed to gain public satisfaction based upon lies and false promises, which are also lies. What it boils down to is politicians gaining public support by any means necessary so they can become as rich as possible. The same goes for the citizens, but on a smaller scale. They are the pawns of misinformation, false rhetoric, and a multiplicity of red herrings meant to distract from real issues and put the focus on our obsessively controlling government.

Facts should never be insufficient. If you are incapable of creating a worthwhile discussion based on facts and logic then I don't know what you could possibly be talking about other than metaphysics and some other aspects of philosophy, in which it is not a discussion, it is merely someone presenting their belief/interpretation of something and someone else agreeing/disagreeing with it based on their own subjective merits. If there are any real "truths" about metaphysics, it would be entirely easier to establish a case for a notion, and would therefore eliminate the need for it, no?

Creating a "story" to aid your assertions is still requiring facts and logic, no matter how you put it. Your story must be truthful (as you stated- "not based on lies"-) and there must be a logical nature about it to make it seem like a clear representation of what someone would do or believe. If it wasn't logical, no one would believe it, and if it wasn't factual, it wouldn't help in your discussion, it would only serve to distract from the issue by not being worth my time.

[The Voice of Time]

If "it doesn't matter if people see all the facts or logic," they are not participating in an intellectual discussion based on facts. They are participating in the propaganda filled pick-your-side monopoly penut gallery which the government calls for. Assuming you're from Norway, you'd probably not understand this. People do not simply "discuss" politics anymore (or at least the majority of them do not). Politics is usually not an area of facts, logic, OR the manifestation of truth. It is usually a shit fest designed to gain public satisfaction based upon lies and false promises, which are also lies. What it boils down to is politicians gaining public support by any means necessary so they can become as rich as possible. The same goes for the citizens, but on a smaller scale. They are the pawns of misinformation, false rhetoric, and a multiplicity of red herrings meant to distract from real issues and put the focus on our obsessively controlling government.

Facts should never be insufficient.

It's rather tragically comic that for all your championing of facts and logic your entire first paragraph here is one huge generalization on no logical basis. You can't abstract things you find to be the case in some quantity (regularly, often, sometimes, etc.), and say "this is how it is...". If you want to be taken seriously at least don't break your commandments.

[The Voice of Time]

Facts should never be insufficient. If you are incapable of creating a worthwhile discussion based on facts and logic then I don't know what you could possibly be talking about other than metaphysics and some other aspects of philosophy, in which it is not a discussion, it is merely someone presenting their belief/interpretation of something and someone else agreeing/disagreeing with it based on their own subjective merits.

It is still a discussion regardless of whether people talk about beliefs or not. People present a way of thinking which is then reacted upon, and criticising logic or facts is not the only way in which to react, and certainly not the only intelligent way. It's virtually saying finding factual and logical errors is the only pursuit worthy of intellectual discourse, but that traps the notion of intellectual discourse to a poor and insignificant role when facts and logic are already well accounted for. A role nobody in their right mind should accept. Instead, the intellect should pursue all forms of excellence in discourse, such that it may optimally contribute.

In discussions, this would include the sharing of ideas, the opening of minds towards new experiences and the closing of minds when minds are being polluted with inefficient knowledge (counter-wisdom, which we could also call it). It would also include explorations of ideas such as to know the extents to which they can reach within the boundaries of logic, facts and shared basic assumptions (common sense). It is often the aim of the intellectual, especially in philosophy these days, to enter a topic asking questions about it, throw it back and forth between perspectives and to explore its limits, in this way they would try to exhaust the potentials of a topic such that it could be better understood what it is about and how it is the way it is.

[The Voice of Time]

If there are any real "truths" about metaphysics, it would be entirely easier to establish a case for a notion, and would therefore eliminate the need for it, no?

I don't know what this means, you'll have to rewrite that sentence.

[The Voice of Time]

Creating a "story" to aid your assertions is still requiring facts and logic, no matter how you put it.

Aye, but the story is called a story because of its inclination to vague language that, even if the point is clear ("we will do this and this and this because of this and this and this"), the vague language can easily produce a lack of scientific measure. Therefore what exactly are you, as the logician and fact-index, supposed to say about it?

What you could do, is comment facts about the course of action and remind of logical requirements in the process of following the course. However, as an intellectual you are then wasting the opportunity to grant a better proposal, or a largely altered proposal, because you are unable to take the leap of faith in yourself to provide your own story, which, if you are a technocrat for instance, might be much better because it's based on a better intuition and knowledge of the circumstances. But neither intuition nor knowledge is easily quantifiable without bias (knowledge is here meant practical knowledge, not knowledge in the form of a logical system), so if you are to take the leap of faith, you have to base yourself on obscure self-centred measures and very rough statistics.

Your story must be truthful (as you stated- "not based on lies"-) and there must be a logical nature about it to make it seem like a clear representation of what someone would do or believe. If it wasn't logical, no one would believe it, and if it wasn't factual, it wouldn't help in your discussion, it would only serve to distract from the issue by not being worth my time.

Yes but again, waste of intellectual capacity at the cost of less capable decision making, or in a simple discussion that doesn't involve decisions, it might present less fruit from intellectual exploration, in this instance keep in mind that before things become facts they are hypothesis, and hypothesis are created by intellectual explorations. While basic logical laws virtually always work as basis, it is not simply taking premises and adding them up to conclusions always, sometimes you need to expand an imagination (art or day-dreaming has often helped people here) and to do so you present a case, which may be true or not, and see how far you can take it by stretching its elements gradually to their extremes. When you've created this map, then you usually try to contract it back into place, and in order to do this you need the equivalent of sorting algorithms in your head, and then logic and facts will often help, but not always there either, because some ideas create doubt about their general relationship with logic and facts, and some ideas are seen as beacons from which to shed light on new maps.

[Kuznetzova]

In this article I will be describing three common trolling tactics utilized by vicious trolls on the internet. Over the years, these methods have been honed to a science. The science of trolling makes the discussion as annoying and frustrating as possible for the participants, while simultaneously sneaking under the radar of the moderators. The three methods I will be describing is Logic Creep, Sophistry, and Citation Fetching.

These types of troll tactics are most effective in portions of the internet dedicated to complex intellectual, scientific, and philosophical topics, because the range of education in this topics varies wildly among the participants. The troll is aware of this fact, and leverages it to his own nefarious ends.


Logic Creep
Logic Creep(*1) is a tactic where a troll suddenly acts as if even the most basic, transparent rules of logic no longer operate in the conversation, or in the world for that matter. Two of the most common logic rules that go missing during Logic Creep are instantiating an object with the properties of a category that you are naming it with, and very simple deduction.

Sophistry
Sophistry is spinning arguments that sound superficially correct, but are rife with unestablished premises. The troll never pulls off sophistry in a clear way, because that would be too easy to spot. Instead they roll their arguments up in a spaghettified knot of several unestablished premises, knowing that the person they are debating would need to spend a quarter of an hour dispelling all of them. This can be variously called sophistry, or "engaging in sophism".

Citation Fetching
The troll attacks a person's credibility by demanding they produce citations for their claims, from reputable sources. The troll is aware that from a third-person perspective, this places the claimant on a defensive posture, and (whether this is fair or not,) produces the social illusion that claimant's credibility is at stake. The troll has no intention of reading any of the links or the citations produced by the claimant. His true desire is to simply cause the honest discussioner to waste his time running around fetching one citation after the next, after each demand for one. The troll giggles at the fact that he has caused a person to run back and forth fetching a stick like a dog. Citation fetching is most effective in contexts in which the troll (often correctly) surmises that the group of people present are not trained enough in the topic to differentiate wobbly claims from established science.

And now on to the examples.

Examples of Logic Creep.
Simple deduction allows arguments of the following form:
All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Thus, Socrates is mortal.

Or more,
All mammals have hearts.
All dogs are mammals.
Thus, all dogs have hearts.

An honest discussioner may claim in a conversation that, "all dogs have hearts" and the troll will spring logic-creep on them with "How do you know? How many dogs have you dissected?" The honest discussioner will admit that he has never dissected a dog in his life. The troll will propose they have made a false claim and that they either have no evidence, or that their credibility and desire for "genuine conversation" are now disputed. (In reality, we can know with certainty that dogs have hearts because human beings have the capacity of deduction. If we say that Buster is a dog, then Buster is instantiated into the category "Dog". Buster then inherits all the properties of the Dog-category. The troll will pretend like language suddenly does not work this way.) The conversation quickly becomes derailed into an argument of personal credibility. The troll's corrosive acid works its magic.

An honest discussioner may refer to the geological period called the "Ice Age" by scientists. The troll will claim there was no Ice Age, and "How do you know if you weren't there?" Logic-creep is a fallacy, because in the most extreme case we could claim the following sentence: "George Washington did not do his banking at the bank last night at 3 AM." Logic-creep would demand, "How do you know for sure when you weren't there to see it?" (We can know for sure. Dead people don't visit banks, and banks are closed at 3 AM.)

In these examples we see that the troll has suddenly decided that all genuine logic is no longer operative in the universe. Trolls never utilize logic-creep in such blatant examples, but wait for complex topics before springing the trap. In practice, the troll never uses them with such transparency, but she will wait until the right time as to when the conversation becomes sufficiently complex. She will use the tactic so that none of the participants are completely conscious of it taking place.


Examples of Sophistry

- "So what did the ancient Egyptians do that caused the interdimensional aliens to build the pyramids for them?"
or
- "When God made the trees, some of them had leaves and others had needles, because God prefers both variations in photosynthesis."

The troll has tossed a salad bar of premises into the discussion, none of which were agreed to be true by the participants. But worse, the premises are often correlated in ways that would take blueprints to unravel. Sophistry is not always funny, and can be pointedly hostile:

- "What did the North Vietnamese do that forced the USA to invade the country?"

The troll has assumed a premise that does not even hold up to examples from recent history (Honest variant would look more like, "Why did the USA decide to invade Vietnam?") We can't assume the NAZIs broke treaties with Russia and invaded them because Russians did something that "forced them to invade". Nor could we assume that the European armies of the Crusades were somehow forced to enter the middle east, or that Southern Spain was invaded and turned into a caliphate because the Spaniards "did something to deserve it". And here we begin to see the blueprints of unraveling that the troll intended.


Example of Citation-fetching
Honest discussioner makes the claim "Neuroscience has established that several mammals, including mice and monkeys, have a capacity for episodic memory.". At this point, the troll surmises that the people present are not trained in neuroscience enough to tell whether this claim is reasonable or a bunch of speculative hung-flooey. He demands that the discussioner produce a citation of the particular experiments that demonstrated this. (There are many). Unfortunately, the discussioner does not have these citations ready on-hand to post on the internet immediately, and thus he may waste many up to an hour trying to dig them out of books and other websites. The troll knows this. When a topical citation is produced (such a title of a book and its author) the troll then attacks the credibility of the source, thus causing the inflicted person to dig deeper and deeper into the literature -- like a dog digging in the ground for a bone that is not there. The troll knows this is happening and he is giggling with glee. His giggling is not seen because facial expressions are completely invisible on the internet. People walking into the discussion as third parties will only ever see a person demanding citations for what appear to be "wobbly claims", and a person becoming frustrated and not producing them fast enough.

All the while, the fact of the matter is that episodic memory has been established well beyond a shadow of a doubt by experimental science, and published in peer-reviewed journals. These types of troll tactics are most effective in portions of the internet dedicated to complex intellectual, scientific, and philosophical topics, because the range of education in this topics varies wildly among the participants. The troll is aware of this fact, and leverages it to his own nefarious ends. In the neuroscience issue above regarding memory, if the participants were all grad students in neuroscience, they would immediately recognize that the troll was being an uncooperative and unreasonable in his demand for "citations".

[Kuznetzova]

It is very easy to get sucked into a troll and becoming increasing intertwined in the troll's sticky web. The troll is totally aware of this. Often the troll will engage you in such a way, that retreating from the conversation will produce the illusion that he has "won" in the eyes of the onlookers. So if you disengage from him, he wins, but if you interact with him, he wins. The vicious person on the other side of the internet connection is all-too-aware of this catch 22.

Regarding Citation Fetching - Always abide by the rule that you should never go hunt down a citation until you have very carefully determined that the person is genuinely interested in reading what you show them. After so much citation fetching has taken place, you are being reduced to a person who doing someone else's research. Basically you become like a person who is teaching someone a topic (like medical science) for free, at your expense, simply because they are in a perpetual state of doubt about what you say.

Nobody on this forum should be put under the pressure of having to teach everyone early 19th century German philosophy, if the doubters of it don't take enough initiative on their own time to read it.

Ultimately, when it comes to trolling on the internet, the troll always wins in the end, because his goal is destruction, manipulation, deception, and provocation. Clarity and veracity are rare and fragile objects. It takes an entire society of education and science to produce them, but only 1 uncooperative person can bring them down. The only way to defeat a troll is to first spot them, and then remove them using the forum's technological features.

[Arising_uk]

... Clarity and veracity are rare and fragile objects. It takes an entire society of education and science to produce them, but only 1 uncooperative person can bring them down. ...

What a load of old tripe, you think too much of the interweeb. The weeb has just given the ignorant and uneducated a voice, so what. Philosophy has always been largely ignored by such and technology just makes it more apparent. The way to deal with trolls is to show their stupidity writ large and leave it up to others to judge the veracity of ones words. If you know what you're talking about it shows in philosophy.

[tbieter]

About the scholastic disputation:
http://www.societyofscholastics.org/disputatio/

[Blaggard]

... Clarity and veracity are rare and fragile objects. It takes an entire society of education and science to produce them, but only 1 uncooperative person can bring them down. ...

What a load of old tripe, you think too much of the interweeb. The weeb has just given the ignorant and uneducated a voice, so what. Philosophy has always been largely ignored by such and technology just makes it more apparent. The way to deal with trolls is to show their stupidity writ large and leave it up to others to judge the veracity of ones words. If you know what you're talking about it shows in philosophy.

I prefer winding them up in turn and watching them explode. within the rules of course.

The ironic thing about trolls is they are really easy to wind up.

I once had some chav basically threatening to kill me and my family, ten minutes into the discussion because he refused to use anything but 1337 and t3xt speak and when pulled up on it he would get really angry, was hilarious. Total numb nut kid, from some ghetto of London I expect,I don't care if people can't spell to well as long as what they right makes some sense and I don't mind people not using spell checkers assuming they can spell but people using cyber gibberish are taking the piss on an English language based forum. Also another form of troll is the grammar Nazi, who likes to point out spelling and grammar errors and his nemesis the deliberately paw spealer who likes tow powst really

badly

passed

parsed I mean

N0n3s3nse just to infuriate any passing gramarrian.


, not to be confused with the pedagogue who's intentions are more banal.

It's sad though the rise of the troll and chav culture, I blame the government. Some kids leave school these days with a reading age of less than 10 it's kinda depressing. I am hardly the most literate person on the planet but I can at least spel.

As you know the common advice is to put them on ignore, but they take this now as a game, so if they can troll a forum without getting any response they get xp and can level up, it's called Troll Wars and you can be assured if it happens as an internet game, it no doubt happens for real too.

A gamesmaster decides basically how much damage the Troll has accrued to his hitpoints, and if he has been killed and so on, usually they meet up on some troll hole later. Sad I know but I've seen the after game frot sessions and pwn wars, I can divert you to at least two sites who have dedicated games people directing their so called campaigns.

Some of the dumbest versions of troll things I have seen are:

Holocaust denier/racist troll (often from a racial minority themselves, seldom actually white or even racist.)
Creationist troll (always an atheist)
Atheist troll (seldom an atheist)
Evolutionist troll (not a devout follower of Dawkins or Darwin.)
Clown troll, Clowns are evil, everyone knows this, but at least the ones on the internet are easy to turn off, the ones for real are IT.