“Never argue with stupid people because they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” George Carlin
So often it’s me typing out a big old comment. Realizing I can preempt some nuance to help the conversation. Thinking of a dozen more little nitpicks that might happen and realizing it’s just not worth it and it’s really the idiocy of the argument that’s making it so hard to explain myself.
You encountered Brandolini’s Law aka the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle: it takes an order of magnitude more effort to debunk bullshit than it takes to produce it.
Exactly that, one bullshit goes into circulation, it spreads everywhere strengthening its flawed position. And just like it was said, facts dont even matter at that point - requiring a novel approach to disprove it.
I met a guy in a sauna the other day who started preaching to me and saying that he doesn’t believe in science because it contradicts the bible story of creation.
I just had nothing to say to this man. His perception of reality is so far off base that I cannot comprehend his thought processes.
Maybe the temperature of the sauna was a little too high? /s
I went to a catholic school in my country. We got teach biology, evolution, genetics and we also got sexual education including abortion (the practice was illegal at the time). One of the first things that i remember from our teology classes was that “we shouldn’t take what is written in the bible in a literal sense and that it was written to a particular volk in a particular time by men”… and the example the Father used was specifically the Genesis, meaning “earth was not created in 6 days”.
I read stories of those lunatics, i mean, those who trully are in a crusade against reality. Are those more common over the equator or something?
“Right extremists are defending Democracy”
Just 2 weeks ago and I still haven’t recovered from hearing that in person.
There are some people who have just been filled with so much wrong information over the course of their life that it’s impossible to reach them. Anything you say to them will have a keyword that puts their guard up, any fact you share would be fake news. It’s like their brains have been encrypted with the propaganda and hate. It’s pavlovian. I try to recognize it in myself and maintain an open mind but it’s hard.
In science there is an answer “you are not even wrong” which is a polite way of saying that wat you said makes so little sense, that it cannot even be disproven.
Originally used by Wolfgan Pauli, I believe. He also said “I don’t mind your thinking slowly; I mind your publishing faster than you think.”
Its unethical to have a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent.
1/5
Sure. Charlie Kirk was a fantastic example.
He’s alive debating gun laws on here, that video was AI.
It’s not worth the effort to break down their position, and present coherent arguments back to them. They’ll just completely miss what you’re trying to say, and blast back more incomprehensible BS. It’s just raw, blind, ignorant anger, most of the time, we can’t refute emotion with logic, they just don’t hear it.
I live in rual northern Nevada and everyone here is hardcore brainwashed republicans. I used to try to correct them when they said dumb shit but it just made me look stupid, so now I just watch and listen to there ramblings. It’s more entertaining for me and less of a headache.
I lived in rural Idaho during the Obama years and I can’t count the times I had to hear people joking about lynching him. My kids even reported to me their peers would regularly fantasize about shooting the President on the school bus. It was a real eye opener for me and I lost what little respect I had for conservatives.
Same here, actually that is still a thing. The day after Obama won in 2008 I came to work you would’ve thought a second 9/11 had happened. People were legitimately depressed and in raged by it.
It’s hard to win an argument with a smart person. It’s damn near impossible to win an argument with an idiot.
The point you know you’ve beat an idiot in an argument…either they wanna fight you, they start attacking your character or they end the argument with a bullshit excuse.
Yeah, but then why have you bothered?
To pat yourself on the back
I had the misfortune to run into one of those tankies I had heard about on here. They are like the extreme alt right. In that they go so far left they go right.
Like they literally blame feminism for Trump. It felt like talking to a maga. Making up their own definition of terms. Refusing to acknowledge actual definitions.
I didn’t realize who it was at first then took the time to read the user name and was like . Ah. … yes. Your reputation proceeds you. I should not engage with this individual.
Other people had made a post mentioning a few problematic users and this person had been mentioned and other people had chimed in with comments regarding said individual too. This was a while back but yeah…
Yeah, everytime Kenny the fascist comes to tell me the woah’s of the world from his perspective. They get one conversation when I establish their position. The second convo is to establish my own. The third and subsequent conversations are purposefully hostile.
You have to maintain hygiene when dealing with these creatures.
This reminds me of talking to tankies on Lemmy, which is probably a futile endeavour.
For example, they seem to think that Russia’s imperialist invasion of Ukraine is justified. They think that Russia murdering Ukrainians with missiles and drones is justified. I can tell them that these actions are wrong, but they won’t listen.
they seem to think that Russia’s imperialist invasion of Ukraine is justified.
They don’t see it as imperialistic. With other motives it’s easier to justify.
Yeah I guess they see it as the plucky underdog of Russia taking on the decadent oppressive behemoth of the West. Invading Ukraine isn’t taking on the West though. It’s just Putin’s attempt to subjugate Ukrainians to the will of Moscow.
Why do you think that it is a clear cut? Splitting Russia from Ukraine is a Western goal and there has been enough financing that it was more than wishful thinking.
living through .ml during the first days ruzi invasion of Ukraine was quite something.
Just look at the comments that aged like fine barrel of milk: https://lemmy.ml/post/180102 sadly the wayback machine didn’t archive the most toxic drivel I’ve seen there. At this point it was very apparent that .ml is going the way of all social reject social networks like voat or minds etc. there’s a point where a social network crosses this threshold and becomes irredeemable and that was that point for .ml
This was part of why I wanted an unencrypted “X-Domestic” HTTP header. Cannot be sent across national borders, under penalty of…wrist slaps.
Not a full betrayal of one’s identity, but it could at least be used to declare “Hey, I’m a resident of the country you’re in, talking about our politics”. We know there’s an abundance of foreign manipulation going on, we just don’t know how much exactly.
