This was from the other thread about WTC7. At what point is an argument so silly or without merti that it doesn’t or can’t have a well thought out rebuttal?
What if someone argues that blacks are mentally inferior? Is the slightest personal remark verbotten and the only legitimate response a detailed analysis of the mental capacities of African Americans v. other races?
What if someone argues that the SMDB does not exist to fight ignorance, but is actually controlled by left-handed lesbian Venutians for the purpose of brainwashing Earthings and gettting us to join their “one galaxy” interplanetary alliance?
Must we respond with facts only, or should we give them the phone number of their local looney ward?
The problem with almost all conspiracy theories is that there is no valid way to rationally respond. In the first place, they are asking you to prove a negative (e.g. that the government did NOT bring down WTC, did NOT kill Kennedy). Such a proposition rarely lends itself to accurate proof, but in the few scant instances where you have such proof, it is waved away with the notion that the government planted that evidence.
IMO, these arguments are ridiculous and deserve the scorn they get…
One always has a choice of not responding to arguments seen to be ridiculous or deserving of scorn.
Attempting porcine coloratura will always require forbearance and tact with no small measure of fact denial.
When you reply to someone’s absurd theories with insults, you’re no longer trying to persuade them to change their minds. This is true regardless of how poorly thought out their theories are. Once they realize that you’re just making fun of them, they will quit listening to you. You and all the other people who already understand how ridiculous those theories are will have a lot of fun calling the believers in those theories names, but you’re no longer talking to them, since they have quit reading your posts. The motto of the SDMB is “Fighting ignorance,” not “Letting ignorant people know how worthless they are.”
Exactly. When you start making fun of a debate opponent, you have ended the debate. There isn’t going to be any more meaningful discussion, just a lot of juvenile name-calling. Which you yourself started.
Seems to me the mod comment makes it pretty clear. There’s a big difference between demonstrating the belief is stupid, and calling the other person stupid.
In dealing with conspiracy types, I always make a point to attack the argument, not the argue-er. I will use facts, reason, logic and hopefully wit.
If their response shows that they can learn, or at least willing to try, or if they have valid rebutals for my points, then we can continue.
If on the other hand, they “put another layer of tin foil on”, I write off it off to expereince and let them roam free.
Then I report them to the illuminatti, using my built in mind radio suplied to me by the Builderbergers, after I helped those groups cover up the Elvis, UFO, Big Foot connection to the Kennedy Assasination.
O.K., you can’t really work for the Illuminati and the Bildbergers, since you can’t even spell their names correctly. That must mean that you work for . . . them. No, I can’t write their name. This is too horrible. Agents of them are now posting to the SDMB!
They’re not listening anyway. They’re never going to listen. The mockery is for the benefit of the neutral onlooker, to communicate how little respect the conspiracy argument merits.
No, the mockery is for the benefit of the one doing the mocking, who feels good when he is making fun of other people. Third parties aren’t impressed by mocking. Sometimes they are even turned off by it and become sympathetic to the people being mocked.
Actually, there are quite positive and rational ways to respond to these conspiracy theories in a debate. Present strong evidence that Oswald acted alone. Present strong evidence that the terrorists acted solely under the direction and funding of bin Laden and Muslim extremists from the M.E.
I avoid the word “prove” only because proof is a little fuzzy except in math.
jtgain, how can you tell when a theory about a conspiracy has some merit and when it is stupid and outlandish? You are labelling all “conspiracy theories” as foolishness. Or have I misunderstood you?
You are aware that people do conspire to commit crimes. And if that conspiracy ever comes to light it is usually because someone gets a hunch or develops a theory that there was a conspiracy.
If I’m repeating material already sufficiently covered, my apologies.
I did not say that one could never display scorn for the outrageous. I’m pretty sure that it would not be difficult to find threads where I have noted how silly certain themes might be.
However, in the context of an ongoing debate with proponents of both sides involved, the boundaries between calling an idea stupid and calling everyone who believes the idea stupid and calling the specific poster who advances the idea stupid begin to blur to the point where there is certain to be a violation of the “no insults” rule.
If you absolutely have to comment on the stupidity of another poster, then open a Pit thread and have at it. If you need to demonstrate that an idea or belief is stupid, then simply demonstrate it without resorting to insults to attempt to make your point. As long as you choose to post in Great Debates, (or IMHO or GQ or the Comments on… Fora, etc.), then you need to restrain yourself so as to avoid Pit-like behavior.
= = =
I should also point out that my specific comment was directed to the participants of that thread. I was not instituting a new rule that will be rigorously enforced from this day forward. In that thread, the boundaries had long since washed away and several posters were one bad phrase away from being Warned. Context determines a lot of what happens in moderating this place.
This is an unfortunately common misconception, and one repeated often by those espousing conspiracies theories. It is entirely wrong.
I attacked it in greatest detail in two posts in this thread, which are worth copying here.
and
While it is possible to rationally attack conspiracy theorists, neither the theories nor the theorists are monolithic. You attack individuals individually. Those who come in just to mock are best served by being mocked back in return. If they are there solely to demonstrate their superior mind powers, humor is a better offensive maneuver than reason, which is what they expect and are best able to deflect.
Personally I try to give a solid and fact-based answer. If someone is clearly not listening, I’ll still try again with a different response. If the third post does nothing but repeat the first two, the gloves come off. As is often said, we’re not trying to persuade the posters as much as the lurkers. They are far less likely to repeat the moronic claims elsewhere if they see they will be treated with derision rather than respect for their anti-establishment bravery.
No one policy is right. Some issues have sides and unanswered questions and those must be taken with the utmost seriousness. But all conspiracy theories are wrong, and almost all are wrong in identical ways. It’s takes a trivial amount of time to identify these, just as it normally takes a trivial amount of time to recognize that a statement on physics is so wrong as to be gibberish.
Mocking is better than simple name-calling. Humor is a disinfectant. They scurry when it is applied. Name-calling makes them martyrs to their cause. It may be a subtle distinction, but it is an important one.
At the very least, can we try to stomp out that piece of supporting logic that so much of their intellectual position rests on, namely that the true existence of conspiracies necessarily implies the true existence of conspiracy theories. Not so. Treat it as you would the claim that Creationism is science and it will retreat under a storm of scorn.
More seriously, I have a nephew who went through a long period of Knowing Everything, worse than usual. Whenever someone tried to tell him something he disagreed with, and that was almost everything, he’d say, “That’s just stupid.” Notice he didn’t say “You’re just stupid,” but ya know, it feels the same. This did not lead to calm discourse but did lead to a decided lack of girlfriends.
The line between insulting the idea and insulting the presenter is fuzzy, at best.
Well, mockery can be fun, so it tends to be overplayed.
But I disagree: mockery can be a fairly effective method of persuasion. But it’s necessary to at least start with a serious argument, then move to mockery only after a couple of rounds. Otherwise, the levity might smack of unfairness, at least to those not already predisposed to your POV.
More generally (and not in reference to this particular thread) wisecracks are a SD tradition.
