# Telling someone their premise is wrong is threadshitting now? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [September 26, 2016, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telling-someone-their-premise-is-wrong-is-threadshitting-now/766926 "2016-09-26T13:14:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 105
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telling-someone-their-premise-is-wrong-is-threadshitting-now/766926/105 "2016-09-29T05:16:41Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > This would force anyone who wants to explore a contra-factual hypothetical to frame it inside a disclaimer. I’m fine with that. > [@](#): > > “If demons existed, then…” Do we really have to make that effort? Can’t the context speak for itself? > > Do you agree that, if the OP had made the effort to put up such a disclaimer, that then if someone said, “That doesn’t wash; demons still don’t exist” (“calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg”) that that would be threadshitting? > > To my way of thinking, the hypothetical is implicit in the question. And in any case, a polite engagement would consist of saying, “There aren’t any demons. However, if they did exist…” and then actually answering the doggone question. > > “They don’t exist,” period, full stop, end of dialogue is dismissive. It’s a blunt refusal to engage in debate. But since the OP was originally placed in GQ, it strikes me as perfectly appropriate to refuse to engage in debate. And it’s why I was in vehement disagreement with post #4 to the thread, submitted while it was still IN GQ: > [@Demonology- Are there demons who do whatever they want? Bad and good?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demonology-are-there-demons-who-do-whatever-they-want-bad-and-good/766844/4): > > And by “these types of posts”, **watchwolf49** (and a vast majority of the rest of the board) mean “questions that do not have any possible factual answers”. Because the questions actually DID have a factual answer, that answer being “No” (whether to volunteer the underlying reason(s) for that being the factual answer is a different matter, on which I can be persuaded to vote against). > [@Trinopus](#): > > It’s like the chairman in the Senate conference room who turned the lights out when an ad-hoc committee was trying to hold hearings. Dick move, but I disagree that it’s like that. > [@](#): > > And, yeah, the Dodgers are pretty hot stuff! (“We hates them forever!”) You’re on the list. 🙂 --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/telling-someone-their-premise-is-wrong-is-threadshitting-now/766926)._