I am aware of
- Sea-lioning
- Gaslighting
- Gish-Galloping
- Dogpiling
I want to know I theres any others I’m not aware of
Whataboutism
Well maybe but lemme tell you about the others!
Buttery males
This makes the males so slippery!
Here is a great piece someone put together a while ago which goes through many of the techniques bad actors use.
I remember reading that list years and years ago and thinking how petty it was that so much effort has gone into it.
Now I’m a little bit worried about how far ahead of the game these cunts are.
Dude. Power seekers have been doing this shit since ancient times, and you’re getting your panties in a twist about people who fight back against them? Anons know this stuff because they’ve been dealing with it since the dawn of the net.
To be fair I wasn’t around in ancient times to get my loincloth in a twist about it. When I saw that list the Internet was just moving away from Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan chat rooms. It wasn’t the all-pervasive life-replacement it is today.
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
Moving the goalposts.
Butwhatabout.
Appeal to hypocrisy is big.
I thought it was called “whataboutism”?
Yeah, same thing.
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!
Using a wedge issue as a universal bludgeon to attack anyone that disagrees with them.
Not sure what technique that’s called. Concern troll, possibly?
Also, vote manipulation. Basically they spin up a bunch of alts across different instances and boost/demote posts and comments in an attempt to steer discourse toward their agenda.
Concern troll is, as I understand it, more directly faking concern for a person. Things like "Are you okay? Do you need to talk to someone?"because you rebutted their argument, or “Suicide/self harm are never the answer” because you posted an opinion they disagree with. Sometimes it even rises to the point of reporting comments as self harm in a way that gets an automated or admin response.
Sock-puppet or from 4chan “samefagging”. Sorry for the use of the word.
There is a series "The Alt Right Playbook" that covers a lot of bad faith and manipulative tactics, many of which are used online.
I hate the one where you call them a fascist (because they literally are) and then they come around and call you a “blue MAGA”.
like bitch, if I was “blue MAGA” I’d be making IEDs and forcing abortions on women and shit. ain’t nobody got time for that. I’m building a garden so I can fuckin eat this year.
Calling someone “blue MAGA” is the equivalent of saying “no you!”
However, it’s time to stop pretending like some small group of “MAGA” conservatives have hijacked the party and taken things too far. The monied interests backing Trump are the same as have been backing Republicans for decades. The Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, etc. Mitch McConnell has been working to fill the federal courts with Federalist picks for a long time. Picking or just outright manufacturing court cases that would set new precedents. Hell, even those thinktanks are just recent iterations of the same interest’s attempts to shape the government as they see fit. Trump is just a nepo baby turned grifter who got lucky because his grift was actually effective at attracting and controlling the loudest segment of the Republican base.
Trump just transparently said “As long as I get filthy rich, get to be king, and you keep [metaphorically] sucking my dick, I’ll keep my followers in line and use my position to put your people in power so they can implement your ‘Project 25’ or whatever.” Republicans mostly objected to him because he lacked subtlety and was transparently greedy and petty. He ignored the game of slow, subtle changes and manipulation through “decorum” that Republicans had become experts in. Unfortunately for us, that worked wonders on a subset of the population
The people who helped those Republican politicians keep getting elected and basically wrote their proposed laws noticed Trump was popular. When it became apparent that Trump’s followers were loyal, the money jumped at the chance to fast track their vision and backed him completely. They helped tweak and hone Trump’s message to amplify his grifter magic. That plus some changes to election laws around the country, gerrymandering, and likely other more covert, extralegal vote manipulation got him back in power.
Anyone who unironically says “blue MAGA” immediately gives themselves away as someone to not take seriously.
@BrainInABox@lemmy.ml is a troll.
Blue maga? I wouldn’t encourage people to vote for the Democrat party if it had any viable competition.
No, I think you have the definition of that word wrong blue Maga is just the people on the left that are making money, commenting, andreacting to the shit people do on the right. CNN and MSNBC telling us the latest bullshit Trump has done is a blue Maga type behavior
I was under the impression it was the “Hillary warned us” and “Putin is behind everything” crowd, since it mirrors the MAGA saviour and conspiracy fantasies.
Oh wow. You see, Russia is behind all this, holy crap this nation is cooked. It’s fucked it’s gone. I have a person on the Internet telling me Russia isn’t behind anything and they are totally not planning the destruction of the United States because they Totally have not had a singular leader(Putin) for the last 30 or so years where we have TOTTALY NOT had disruption every four or so😏
Anyways, I looked up the definition for myself and it looks like you’re the one that’s right, At least about the Hillary part. so sorry for my rant.
I’ll give you a huge one.
Purity tests (when cosplaying as liberals). If a person isn’t super-duper liberal on every single issue then you can’t support them.
There’s tons of this on this very site. People who will tell you they’ll stay home and not vote for someone, if they only support 80% of what they seemingly want. People see this, then emulate said behavior.
Somehow, liberals would rather get 0% of what they want instead of 50% because of the missed 30% that the candidate doesn’t support.
Politicians you don’t like can make good policies and politicians you do like can make bad policies. Parties are not football teams for you to take blind sides and politicians are not celebrities to be veneered blindly. They are public servants, nothing more.
It’s a global phenomenon, but Americans are particularly affect by the false dichotomy fallacy of having the two sides of political spectrum represented when, in reality, they just have two flavors of right to choose from. Both are shit in their own way.
People love to turn off their brains and follow the leadership. That’s what makes us easily manipulable. It’s not because someone aligns politically with you that they are working with your best interest in mind.
Sorry for the random rambling.
Yeah, and you’d think that even leftists would agree that having the people in charge that want cheaper college, and cheaper medicine/healthcare would be the better option, even if (from their lens) they are a right wing party.
I agree 100% with the purity test thing, but “liberal” ≠ leftist. That’s not a purity thing, it’s a “words have specific definitions” thing.
I know idiot tankies say this, and I know they are annoying when they constantly use “liberal” as an insult… But it is technically correct that they are two distinct ideologies (with some overlap).
Sure. My point stands. A leftist will get 30-50% of what they want with a Democrat in office compared to 0% of what they want.
A toddler can work out it’s better that you get a small portion of what you want, instead of nothing. It’s really that simple.
Do Not Wait To Strike Till the Iron Is Hot; But Make It Hot By Striking
People who abstain from voting dem need to read that.
genocide is not something you negotiate away. Some things arent for sale. If you choose to whore for those sweet sweet zionist paychecks, thats on you. Dont project that vileness on others.
Was this supposed to be a demonstration of projection? If so, well done.
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.
Whataboutism
“Russia invaded ukraine! Putin must be held accountable!”
“Yeah well what about Iraq, 2003???”
That’s the “tu quoque”, aka “you too” argument evasion
Down with the empire! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viriathus
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What’s the word for dumping a novel of slop like this?
This is satire right lol? The utter lack of formattinf gives it away. Otherwise it’s just totally unhinged
New copypasta just dropped everyone!
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“Thought-terminating clichés”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_cliché
Also… I don’t think it has a name, but dubiously claiming any of these examples in an argument. Maybe it’d just be called “deflection”.
I’ve seen so many valid arguments shutdown as whataboutism, sealioning, concern trolling when they were valid arguments. It’s just as much bullshit as actually doing any of those things.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
Here’s a handy guide to help.
Why do we not have some brilliant mind just fully memorize all of the ins and outs of how these arise and just crush bad faith arguments by simply labeling them in real time rather than engaging with them?
Like, if framed correctly “I don’t engage in logical fallacy. I will immediately call it out, move on, and go back to the relevant topic.”
“Oh you don’t care about starving children?”
“That’s an appeal to emotion. I won’t engage with this obvious logical fallacy. I will address the causes of children suffering to alleviate their suffering.”
“But the cause is illegal immigrants!!!”
“That’s a strawman. I won’t engage with logical fallacies. If you’d like to have a discussion about solving problems, Im all ears, but until we’re done pointing fingers, this conversation is over.”
That’s a tactic I’ve seen widely used, especially by the assholes we are talking about.
Words have meaning to us, and fascists love that because they are not beholden to any truth at all.
It’s actually somewhat effective in my experience. Another thing I’ve recently started doing is calling out mean comments. Nobody wants to think of themselves as a mean person but it’s quite difficult accusation to argue against when the evidence is right there in front of their face.
Be the change you want to see:) Really, though, it’ll take all of us calling these out.
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To be clear, almost every argument contains a fallacy in it. Having a fallacy in an argument only introduces the possibility of it being wrong, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s wrong.
An example of a valid argument is like:
P1: Socrates is a man P2: All men are mortal C: Socrates is mortal
The conclusion is guaranteed to be correct if the premises are correct. Most scientific arguments are technically invoking a fallacy or are invalid in some way, due to the extrapolation from an experiment in lab conditions to a more general conclusion.
You’re conflating two separate ideas.
A valid arguent needn’t any logical fallacy.
Edit: You’re talking about syllogisms? I think? But like that’s tangential to my point. See my new post addressing your other inaccuracies.
Okay I’m free now.
Im so glad you gave me this gem.
Your response itself relies on several fallacies… false equivalence, hasty generalization, equivocation, a strawman, and non sequitur reasoning, probably more?
You’re incorrectly conflating logical fallacies (which are clear mistakes in reasoning) with inductive uncertainty or experimental limitations in science. Logical fallacies invalidate reasoning structures. Scientific reasoning explicitly includes uncertainty and error correction as fundamental principles; it’s not fallacious; it’s cautious and probabilistic.
Additionally, your example of Socrates is actually demonstrating deductive validity, a different kind of reasoning entirely. Thus, your argument misrepresents logic and science simultaneously. Please correct these fallacies if you want this conversation to proceed productively
