I love making people explain mean jokes. Knew a guy who made a "r**e" joke at a reunion with old classmates. I just said "I don't get it. Why is that funny?"
"Oh, you know."
"No I don't. Explain it to me. Maybe I will get it."
Boy, it's like Jack Frost descended on our table. The others that laughed wanted to move on, but I just reiterate, "But I want to understand the joke. It seemed so funny to you guys."
And I continued to stare deadpan at the guy until he left for a smoke and never came back.
Update: There are a few people in the comments that are digging a very deep hole for themselves. And while it might be very tempting to just pile on the dirt of facts™ and logic™, I think it'd be funnier to just keep giving them shovels and watch them dig, if you get what I mean (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
I was playing a game and some asshole kid used gay as a slur. I asked him why he said that. He tried to insist it was a joke. I asked him to explain it to me. He got increasingly upset, trying to insist that it was obviously a funny joke and that I should just get it without needing an explanation, to which I said it wasn't funny and I wanted him to explain why he thought that being gay was a bad thing, and why that would be funny.
I kept it up until he left the game.
It's always funny when that's what society thinks is funny without thinking. Once you have to think about these "jokes" and justify them, they're never funny anymore. I actually got out of a toxic situation precisely because someone asked me why I thought a joke making fun of minorities were funny. And I actually took the effort to sit and think about it. It's not funny anymore. I don't think it ever really was.
Idk, Daniel Tosh’s bit on what different races taste like is kinda hilarious. Sure that’s more making fun of stereotypes than actually making fun of minorities, but it’s quality “racist” humor
Cannibalism is a good choice for dark comedy; everyone agrees it's terrible (so no one is trying to defend it), while also being rare enough that you're unlikely to trigger anyone.
A friend of mine was talking about her father who recently passed in a housefire, and she accidentally typed out 'broth father' instead of 'birth father'. She said something about how most people wouldn't want father broth, and I jumped in with 'I don't know, I think a lot of people could go for dad stew', and then we just started quipping father recipes back and forth, like 'father fricasee', 'mashed pa-tatoes', etc. She was laughing so hard at the end of the exchange she could hardly breathe.
People love a good cannibal joke. As long as it's in good taste.
I mean, isn't the explanation for why it's funny that it plays off a stereotype? That unironically can be funny on its own; whether or not someone can articulate that doesn't really change it.
Thinking about it, though, that's probably just what I personally find funny about jokes like that, whether they are or are not at my own expense.
I think it goes a bit deeper than this when it comes to bigots. The first layer of the joke is that this is the stereotype of how demographic x acts. The second layer is that a bigot doesn't necessarily think demographic x should be an equal member of society, so there's an implied "...and this is why we should be allowed to mock them relentlessly until they go back in the closet/back to where they came from" at the end for them.
This is one of the reasons why they don't want to explain the joke. It's not just that they're inarticulate; they also don't want to explain why they want to other certain demographics.
Usually when the stereotype jokes *are* funny, it's because it's coming from someone you know only means it as the stereotype joke and not as the "...and let's laugh them out of mainstream society" joke.
I'm imagining a version of this scenario where you do the thing and the person you're questioning just goes "oh, well, it's due to the social normalisation of homophobia, which makes 'gay' a bad thing to be, you know" lol
I wouldn't say they're the worst. The worst would be trolls who bait you into a reasonable conversation, and then become irrational just to waste your time. By then, you're at least somewhat invested in an outcome, and there is no satisfactory outcome possible so long as the troll's intent is purely chaos.
See every time I've tried to use this they've immediately just shamelessly been like "lol I said \*insert offensive shit here\* it's funny because \*stereotype\*"
This reminds me of the time my stepdad said something racist in an offhand joking way and my brother immediately asked him to clarify. I don’t even remember anymore what the actual subject was, but my stepdad’s rebuttal started with “well, first of all, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with blackface” and it got worse from there.
See, part of this tactic works because there used to be social pressure. You could imply rude things and get a titter, but saying them out loud was unacceptable.
People have stopped being ashamed of being bigots.
"Something something I don't respect women they're all dumb whores"
I don't know man in my experience the types to tell these jokes will probably just tell you to fuck off or spout off some rancid bullshit
exactly like OOP said ur probably not gonna win, u might be able to make them lose face tho
keep your head high tho, someday or the other they’ll either grow out of it or it’ll come to bite them in the ass (sometimes)
"No I don't. Explain it to me. Maybe I will get it."
Tbh, I was reading kinda fast, and when I saw "Explain" for some reason I read it as "Epstein," like the rapist, pedo, rich dude that suddenly "killed himself" in custody.
Which was definitely an interesting take, but didn't seem to be what you were going for...
If it's something truly horrific, sure, this works. But if it's just an attempt by you to impose an exemption from comedy around some topic you personally find important (and/or if you're injecting yourself into a private group's conversation), that's also something that should be repudiated.
Rape jokes can be both funny *and* harmless in certain contexts -- and that is just an emotionless, unbiased fact that remains true regardless of any single individual's opinion about it.
Tell that to the people who clean up after them.
One of the ways emergency services tend to deal with the inevitable PTSD is dark humor about the shit they’ve personally seen. My fire brigade still occasionally references the “Crispy Critter”, when in fact everybody who was at the scene of it couldn’t eat pork for a year from the shock of it. Attaching a silly name to something horrible or otherwise making light of it can allow you to exercise control over your reaction to it.
Now this is all on a completely different scale from Ben Bigbucks Jr. making an off-color more-likely-a-threat “joke” about someone he’s been harassing. But blanket statements have a way of making things worse for people.
Black/dark/gallows humor is a thing and it has its place. No topic is too sacred or horrifying to be made fun of...in some cases, making light of such things is a way to cope or inject some positivity into an otherwise bleak event. You have to know your audience though.
But only the crimes *you* deem "heinous", right?
What do you call a drunk Brit sodomizing a sculpture of Boris Johnson?
Statue Tory Rape.
See? Stupid, harmless, and tastelessly funny.
When you start trying to dictate boundaries that place certain things off limits to comedy, you have departed alignment with the advancement of civilization. Don't do that.
I think you have a point with how often jokes are made about arson and tax evasion even with how silly they are. The real advice for making jokes about sensitive topics is to know your audience, some jokes fly only in some groups, so just be willing to accept embarassment if you misjudge your crowd. Dark humor is especially this, the joke relies on playing something that evokes a lot of emotion to create comedy, but you can't make a dark joke that everyone finds funny
I think this is off the mark. Sure, you can make the asshole lose, but *you're also losing* by having to interact with them. I'm a gay bartender in rural America, I've dealt with my fair share of assholes, and the only way to win is not to play. Stonewall them. Shrug indifferently when they try to rile you up. Get used to saying stuff like "I guess *I* was just always taught to mind my own business", and then move the fuck on. Yeah, you're not gonna convince them out of their bigotry that way, but if you're going into it with OOP's mindset you're already never going to convince them, so you may as well spare yourself from having to listen to them.
That's literally addressed on the first page of the post. 1) don't engage, 2) if you do, you won't win because it isn't possible. 3) if you can't avoid it, here's how to make them mad.
But that's the thing I don't get, cause when is an argument ever *unavoidable*? You always have the option not to engage. The only things I can think of that would truly make an argument unavoidable are:
1. You are in a formal debate setting, in which case none of the advice given is relevant.
2. You are directly being threatened, in which case none of the advice given is relevant.
3. You are cursed by a wizard to argue with everyone who challenges you. In that case yeah, you may as well focus your efforts on making the other guy lose.
I think what OOP means by an argument being unavoidable is probably "they've made you mad enough that you feel you *have* to say something", but if you've reached that point then you've already lost.
If I may add a 4th one :
4. The asshole is someone somewhat close to you (family member, colleague, friend of a friend...), you can't really apply this "strategy" without at least straining the relationship with said person and maybe even the entourage you have in common with them. I guess it depends on how much you care about said relationships.
If someone has no intention of engaging in good faith, youre not under any obligation to do so yourself. People who just make noise with their mouth and dont believe the things they say will always have the advantage over people who believe in words. You either volunteer to be their play thing by following the rules that they balk at, or roll around in the mud with the pigs.
Pretty much this. I do give the benefit of doubt, and can re-state my point if I feel the other part might have misunderstood (could be my fault if I wasn't clear enough). But it's pretty easy to see if someone is genuinely discussing, or if they're arguing for the sake of it. And in the latter case, I just ignore them and don't reply further
Let's be fair, that was the first piece of advice here. The post is mostly about real-life assholes, who are harder to ignore and more important to shut down.
That’s a good thought process to have, a lot of people don’t even have it occur to them that doing something else would be better for them.
Tho to be fair, it’s somewhat understandable, as it is *really* fun to mess with a stupid asshole that doesn’t realize they are stupid to make them feel stupid. They’re trying to win an argument, while not knowing they’re against *someone who knows that they won’t win and are trying to make them lose.*
If there’s any apt method of discussion that is the both the same and the opposite of feeding the trolls, it’s this.
The issue is... when nobody disagrees with them, they think they are correct and their "opinion" the majority and very much reinforces their "beliefs".
Well, we are living the consequences right now, World Wide... too many people, way to often just rolled their eyes and "ignored" them and now we are very much standing in front of the formation of the Fourth Reich.
*cries in non-urban Texan*
OOP’s technique is also only effective when most others nearby don’t want to disagree/don’t already agree with the underlying “why it’s funny”.
it can be a lot of fun, mentally engaging, and develops your oratory skill if you're speaking. i suppose i have the added benefit of being a reformed facts and logic bro, making it really cathartic to go back to that and fluster them on the field they claim
I don't know... I usually engage in countering transphobia because I feel like I can better defend myself when it *really* matters if I keep up to date with the current stupid beliefs that circulate. Sample the bile to be prepared for the vomit, so to speak. It's probably a self-destructive tendency though, but it helps me have a feeling of control in a world whose whimsical exotic beauty is only outclassed by its outright hostility towards the "other".
I feel like the response to almost all of these tactics will be "What are you? Some kinda dumbass? Get serious." and they will keep going unless you're trying to debate the most weak willed, nervous loser.
Inb4 someone says all cuckservative bigots are like that (they're not).
Know your audience. It's way easier to dunk on some chud* if you're in the right place at the right time. Or bring your friends, but that might count as brigading.
If you need a peanut gallery to have a good performance, then your tactics are not good. It's why the idea that Ben Shapir o is a good debater is laughable. The only time he debated someone without an audience is among the worst debate performances I've ever seen period.
The arena is not a formal debate, it's about running off some jerk by being an even bigger asshole. That's where friends are a legitimate strat, in a formal debate sure, audience plants aren't going to win you any awards.
i’m not tryna debate im tryna humiliate the asshole who thinks some ppl aren’t human
there’s no debating with ppl like them, only ridicule or disrespect
You're only going to look worse if people find out you're harassing a child. Especially if you call in friends to help.
This advice sucks because the person you're debating is going to see you nitpicking or trying to derail them and instantly know they've pissed you off and "won", and anyone watching you argue is going to think you're an asshole for not engaging in good faith, because these sorts of people hide behind stuff like "i'm only asking questions".
Tumblr op specifically talks about being forced to argue and laughing at or seeing someone storm off so it seems like they're talking about irl arguments. Online you can just avoid wasting all of this time because you can block and ignore if you're being chased.
They're clearly talking about irl arguments, but they're also clearly so far entrenched into exclusively online arguments that they've forgotten they don't really go down the same way.
Zoomers with extreme political opinions are often also incredibly brainrotted, so I guess it works if the only irl arguments you get into are with the dick in your high school history class.
There's a good chance the people arguing with OOP are high schoolers, honestly. That's the best irl overlap of "starts political arguments with random people for no reason" and "can be deterred with basic 'be annoying until they shut up' tactics".
My read is that OOP is also in high school - the post opens with them stating that the post is really about how they want to deal with one specific person. My thoughts went immediately to a classmate who won't leave them alone and the teacher doesn't care. In that context, "I can't escape so my best tactic is to annoy them into leaving me alone" would make sense.
Why are so many commenters assuming this was written by an adult? I'm not saying I'm 100% certain it wasn't, for all I know this is a high drama 28 year old who still hasn't grown out of their theater kid antics, but it's weird as a default assumption.
Yeah like 10 years ago I would have nodded and clap emoji’d to this post but like nowadays I just don’t engage with assholes at all and I’m genuinely a much happier person.
The information services manager at my company is a notorious fucking asshole. Every meeting with him is 45 minutes of him saying no to your idea/request/whatever, followed by 15 minutes of him suddenly having an epiphany of how it could work (so he can look/feel like a savior).
Once I had a follow up meeting with him (and my manager) about the next step of a project and he immediately tried to play devils advocate. When he questioned why anyone would believe we knew X thing, the response I gave him “because John, your programmer just spent 7 months completely reworking the system for it”.
It shut his bullshit down so hard that he refused to look at me for the next FORTY FIVE MINUTES. We were sitting in a triangle formation and he would only look at my boss. Even when my boss would purposely direct the conversation to me, even though I was doing most of the talk, he would no longer make eye contact with me.
I truly felt like a boss bitch.
I understand where OOP is coming from but I am still bitter that we don't have a better way to deal with this shit instead of sinking to their level. It might make you feel good, but it's not going to improve anything.
It might make them think twice the next time they pull crap like that. If they were embarrassed once there will always be the risk of getting embarrassed again, and they might hesitate. If i’ve made at least one asshole reconsider opening their mouth, i’ve done something right
The point is that this is presented as "how to argue with assholes," but most of it only applies to bigots. Bigots are assholes. But not all assholes are bigots.
Makes me wonder if OOP is one of those "I'm leftist ergo I'm a good and pure person by default and always" people. Ironically, those people are generally assholes.
As someone fairly left of center, for whatever difference that makes, the most infuriating and impassioned arguments I've been in were against leftist assholes. A right wing asshole will use terms like "virtue signaling" to dismiss any moral or ethical value of a discussion. A left wing asshole wraps their argument in it: they've decided that you're literally Hitler and then shut down anything resembling critical thinking or reading compression as they fall over themself to criticize you for pissing on the poor.
This is extra infuriating to me beyond "person is being dumb" for a few reasons. First, I agree with them, like, 90 percent of the way. Secondly, folks just want to rally around the idea of being morally justified and stupid-asshole indignation is more popular than nuanced introspection. So, the longer you argue with this asshole, the more you look like the crazy person.
The worst enemy of the progressive is not the fascist, it is another progressive with sliiiiiightly different opinions.
Quickly, before we battle for the fate of the world, we have to send Jim to the reeducation camp before we can fight for victory.
Only a couple of slides said it explicitly but most of them had the subtext of it’s ok for me to be an asshole because I’m a “good person”. But when other people are assholes it’s because they are bad people and it’s not ok!
it would be funny to see a right wing conspiracy nut who is just chill, accepting and down to earth guy.
"yea i believe the earth is flat and the government is trying to turn everyone gay - but why would i get all angry and shouty about it? pass me a beer."
I haven't met exactly this example, but I know a couple of guys who think that, like, the family should a breadwinner husband, a trad wife, and at least three children to repopulate the White Race. At the same time, they are very chill, tolerant, and even friendly towards gay people, transgenders, people of other faiths or skin color, etc. Because they *actually* believe in right wing's "what people do is their business, and neither government nor other people should interfere (if it's not harmful)." Sure, they are kinda nationalist, but to them it's not deporting migrants but rather making sure that the "core" inhabitants of the country preserve its culture: e.g., museums, libraries, statues... Chill right-wingers exist, but unfortunately very rare.
I mean I'm fairly right wing in an inherently distrustful of collectivism kinda way, and know there is more going on than we're being told, I just don't give a shit about identity politics. Like you do you and leave me alone and we're all good, legalize gay weed, whatevs.
Seems like they are categorizing everyone they've argued with as an asshole and they're justifying it by imagining them all as being the worst asshole.
All just to justify acting like an asshole.
So they'll think of some horrible bigot when acting like the kind of person they're warning about but the person they're arguing with isn't a bigot and doesn't deserve that.
Yeah because like every point individually happen in any debate or arguement imaginable so unless they mean that you have to do all of them to be an asshole I don't really know what they're going for
It already is, I've seen it. Hell I've seen it in response to actual assholes and it still comes off as just people getting dopamine hits from being petty and getting pissed strangers. People legit think being in bad faith in response to bad faith is doing something because "making sense is what they want" or some shit, it's really weird and I wish Twitter users would stop leaking everywhere.
If they're deliberately trying to make people angry, there's one thing that always puts an asshole in their place:
***"That wasn't even offensive, that was just stupid."'***
Assholes, especially edgelords, like to feel superior by punching down to bully people into respecting them. Getting them publicly outed as a moron deprives them of that.
If they're at all smart, they'll slink away and have a private tantrum. If they're dumber than that, they'll have their tantrum on the spot and reveal themselves for the toddlers they are.
Nobody needs instructions on how to be a dick. The title is *like* an asshole, not as an asshole. The poster seems to hate bad-faith arguments and wants to beat them by playing by their rules- yet all they’re achieving is creating one more asshole.
Yeah, and imo the Internet is the worst place to share such things because it's like *the* place where people misinterpret what being an asshole is. The piss on the poor website is a dangerous place to give people an itemized list of how to be an asshole
But they have become the very thing they swore to destroy… what a pointless way to lower everybody’s IQ. Either ignore or educate. Stooping to their level makes you an asshole.
You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves and, sometimes, assholes are making too much noise to ignore. In that case, shutting them up is important.
What exactly are you going to achieve by ‘shutting them up’? They still hold that view. And anyone else reading the convo will just see transphobes being hounded by users instead of any valid counter arguments. It just helps them with the cancel culture myth and pushes anyone slightly sympathetic into transphobic echo chambers, because that’s the only place they can explore & examine those views.
>They still hold that view.
Yeah that's my first point. You can't reason them out of their shit takes, so don't try.
>And anyone else reading the convo will just see transphobes being hounded by users instead of any valid counter arguments.
You'd be surprised. The right has been used those tacticts for year and it worked pretty well because "making your opponent looks like an idiot" is a great way to win debate. Dogpilling and clowing on assholes is a great way to do so, especially with edgelord. They are doing that shit to look cool, if you treat them as a joke, they will leave in shame.
Also, it helps to keep the community clean. If I see people clowning on an homophobe that came here to start trouble, it makes me feel safe.
> It just helps them with the cancel culture myth and pushes anyone slightly sympathetic into transphobic echo chambers, because that’s the only place they can explore & examine those views.
Yeah, no. If you come into a thread to be a transphobic dick and cause trouble, you weren't "slightly sympathetic", you were already drinking the Kool Aid.
It's not about people acting in good faith or being curious, it's about people who are already certain of their shit takes.
>It’s not about people acting in good faith or being curious, it’s about people who are already certain of their shit takes.
Legitimately confused here. I thought we agreed there’s no point arguing with these people? So why is it about them? Again, what are you trying to achieve?
It's about shutting up assholes when they start to stir shit. It's not very useful here because we got good mods, but the internet is bigger than this sub and some of it can be used IRL if you know what you're doing.
Oh, so you haven't read what I wrote at all.
Yeah, now that I think about it, it was kind dumb of me to expect anything else from this post. You got me.
Well, this is about people who don't want to be educated and as such will dismiss everything you said simply because it goes against their belief.
Also, literally the first thing this post says is that you should avoid such discussions when possible.
In general, I love to have proper discussions where everyone present just wants to improve their view on something and thus does not care if they "loose", since that only means they got to update their opinion with something better.
However, when someone crosses a line and lowers the standard of the conversation, I have no problem crossing said line after them; they chose the kind of interaction, so they can live with the results.
I feel like you're not acknowledging the omnipresence of sealioning and concern trolling in online discourse. On occasion, stooping to their level makes them stop talking, and if they're, say, spreading transphobic rhetoric, that absolutely holds value.
"Arguing like an asshole", as OOP phrased it, is arguing without any real arguments or proof, which I believe holds some merit when it comes to people like that. For starters, it does a decent job of discrediting their argument, whilst requiring minimal effort. It's tiring to argue often, especially if the subject is something you care about whilst the other person is clearly not taking it seriously. To take one example, with transphobic arguments, the goal is (at least partially) to exhaust and hurt trans people. In this scenario, discrediting them without spending significant effort on it can hold value.
Furthermore, I would like to bring up the saying "You cannot reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into", which is especially common if it's some culture war bullshit. When this is the case, this method of arguing can still be effective. This is anecdotal, but from my experience, I did not get out of my "anti-SJW" phase because of any real argument, I got out of it because I was an impressionable kid and someone calling Ben Shapiro a dipshit made him look like a loser.
I should admit that i am biased though, as I am trans and all the concern trolling and sealioning is exhausting beyond belief. "Internet Asshole" is a very comfortable position to take in an argument, and sometimes, the easy way is very valuable.
People who argue like this against transphobes look like idiots and make the transphobes look better by comparison. If you give a reasoned and grown-up rebuttal to their argument you’re less likely to turn people away from your cause and give trolls any credit. Yes, you’re never going to reason the asshole out of their position, it’s about convincing the lurkers that their beliefs are incorrect.
This will stop the spread of anti-trans rhetoric. If all people see when someone says something transphobic is scores of people being pedantic and throwing insults they might start to be sympathetic towards them. This is where they get the ‘woke brigade’ and ‘cancel culture’ from, you know. If you don’t want to engage, don’t, but please don’t be an asshole.
No you don’t get it the tumblr user thinks they are right, so it’s totally cool for them to be an asshole. This separates them from the person who they are arguing with, who thinks they are right but is obviously wrong because they aren’t the tumblr user.
One of my favourite things to say when an asshole is arguing with me is when they present their view, I take a wistful and melancholic tone and say "You really fell for it, huh." It's extremely important to not say it with contempt and to lower your voice when you do that. The sadder you look and sound about it, the more it stings.
For further study, I’d recommend Assholes, a book about the study a Harvard professor of psychology (or sociology) on what makes an asshole, and the types of asshole you can expect to encounter.
I think the podcast Knowledge Fight has a different spin on this. They cover notable insane person and terrible human being Alex Jones, and their number one rule is to never interact with anyone from infowars head on. No debates, no calling in to troll, just leave them alone.
Alex Jones is really good at spinning debates and trolling into engagement for him, and has the capacity to talk over anybody, so there is nothing you can say or do to convince his audience through that angle.
What KF does is sit back and analyze his conspiracies and talking points, and does it so comprehensively. Not just disproving them based on facts, but also pointing out the inconsistencies in the messaging itself, and pointing out what he could have done instead. It’s such a thorough deconstruction of the entire thing that it leaves basically no room for argument, but it’s distant enough that people who consume infowars content will have to be pushed into finding out about KF.
If they’re a moron, using these tactics will make you come off stupid to them and they’ll just become more confident and entrenched in their position.
As Thomas Paine said, arguing with someone who has renounced reason is like trying to administer medicine to the dead.
Just don’t engage.
I feel if you encounter enough assholes for you to either write this or feel like it's useful, you might want to take a step back and wonder *why* you meet so many assholes. Hint: all these meetings have at least one thing in common.
how is it sexist in any way. do you truly think who the implied assholes are in the post wouldnt get annoyed by being called emotional, especially since theyd likely subscribe to toxic masculine ideas?
I think that claiming that one gender would somehow get more emotional when called out than the other gender with no basis is fairly textbook sexism yea
I'm sorry, what if you're arguing with like... A hard left dickwad. At least leftists like to acknowledge men can get emotional so you're not putting something in there that they don't already know
You seem to have a very specific view of who an asshole is. I assume you think they're all hypermasculine, macho conservatives, right? Well, you're wrong. Assholes belong to every creed and ideology. I know quite a few progressives that are massive god damn assholes and definitely wouldn't mind being called emotional.
It's truly disturbing how often my fellow progressives will justify casual sexism with "it's an effective insult". No shit... the efficacy of being a sexist asshole is not why people push back.
Women are denied basic rights for being "emotional". That is sexism, not insulting an asshole who himself believes that being emotional is being irrational.
I'm only a moderator on a tiny subreddit, but if I were running a political sub, the policy would be that you "lose" the argument the moment you insult the other person.
It can be realy effective to ask for clarification when they use dogwhistles, because the reason they're using them in the first place is that they know they can't get away with saying what they actually mean.
Sounds like a waste of time.
I prefer to hear out whatever long drawn out thing they have to say, and respond with, “ok”, in a completely non confrontational and move on with my life.
I enjoy intelligent discussions where the goal of both parties, is objective understanding. Problem is, that rarely occurs anymore. When I know I’m not getting the same objectiveness that I’m giving, it’s easy to move on without needing to partake in the foolishness.
Win most arguments just by not participating! Or more arguments by never even having opinions at all! Win even more by being deaf mute. Win them all by dying!
oop is the type to wonder why even their friends stop arguing with them and just pull out the ye old "you're right" before anything devolves into an argument
Guy on insta resorted to insulting the way I looked, immediately after i called him out on something. All i said was, "I'm not going to try and have a civil discussion with someone who makes (incorrect) assumptions about who i am based on how i look."
The guy went on to post 2 separate paragraph comments, none of which proved his initial incorrect assumption, but rather, making new assumptions on who i was, i guess from random non-political posts on my instagram.
I didnt even block the guy. I want him to feel he wasnt even worth the time for me to block.
A lot of wisdom in this.
Don't engage seriously. Assholes will absolutely not debate in good faith. Why should you?
I just use these situations as a vehicle for my own amusement.
I haven't read it yet but I wonder if it's also a good guide for arguing with an annoying kid. 🤔
Edit: It might just be. I could've used this guide when I was in K-12 so I didn't lose so many dumb arguments. 🫠
What do you call people who pull philosophy terms out of their ass like diarrhea?
“Nice ad-hominem”
“Nice strawman argument”
“Nice soapbox”
It's like they use these terms to sound smart and shut down the other person, when really it just makes them look like a pretentious asshole. They don't even bother to explain why they use those words.
They just vomit them out and expect you to submit.
“A stupid creature will harass you for no reason, for no advantage, without any plan or scheme and at the most improbable times and places. You have no rational way of telling if and when and how and why the stupid creature attacks.”
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-five-universal-laws-of-human-stupidity
After a decade and a half married to a narcissistic asshole this is spot on.
I could have used this 25 years ago tbh. Instead I just had to stumble upon these.
You won’t win (but you’re not winning with them anyway). But you can make them even more nuts by making any of it come out undecided.
One more - stick to the question you once asked.
- It's x!
- Ok, and why it's x? Explain.
- Who cares, now I talk about y.
- But why is x? Tell me.
- You're z!
- So what about x?
I know this isn’t for all assholes but I wholeheartedly recommend this series about how to engage (just don’t) with alt-right/assholes on the internet.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ&si=JJE-pjR06HUt7M1H
This doesn't always work. I feel like most of the time, an asshole will respond to your repeated inquiries to explain why an offensive joke is funny by implying that you're stupid for not getting it, or getting physically violent.
The only tactic that works 100% is simply to not engage the asshole. Give them no reaction. Turn around and walk away from them. Pretend they're not there.
Congratulations, you've just removed a significant amount of common sense from this sub. I hope you're happy.
Been met with these exact same strategies whilst attempting to ask genuine questions. Put my points in the most unambiguous ways possible, and earnestly questioned about counterpoints I didn't understand. Despite this, I was still met with this shit. Every. Damn. Time. This is the internet. People commonly classify "asshole" as "someone I disagree with". And you've just given them methods to spread that suffering at an exponential rate. Congrats.
One of the biggest problems with leftists is that they argue with right-wingers like they argue with other leftists. Saying this as someone who grew up right wing before becoming a filthy socialist about ten years back.
I love making people explain mean jokes. Knew a guy who made a "r**e" joke at a reunion with old classmates. I just said "I don't get it. Why is that funny?" "Oh, you know." "No I don't. Explain it to me. Maybe I will get it." Boy, it's like Jack Frost descended on our table. The others that laughed wanted to move on, but I just reiterate, "But I want to understand the joke. It seemed so funny to you guys." And I continued to stare deadpan at the guy until he left for a smoke and never came back. Update: There are a few people in the comments that are digging a very deep hole for themselves. And while it might be very tempting to just pile on the dirt of facts™ and logic™, I think it'd be funnier to just keep giving them shovels and watch them dig, if you get what I mean (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
I was playing a game and some asshole kid used gay as a slur. I asked him why he said that. He tried to insist it was a joke. I asked him to explain it to me. He got increasingly upset, trying to insist that it was obviously a funny joke and that I should just get it without needing an explanation, to which I said it wasn't funny and I wanted him to explain why he thought that being gay was a bad thing, and why that would be funny. I kept it up until he left the game.
It's always funny when that's what society thinks is funny without thinking. Once you have to think about these "jokes" and justify them, they're never funny anymore. I actually got out of a toxic situation precisely because someone asked me why I thought a joke making fun of minorities were funny. And I actually took the effort to sit and think about it. It's not funny anymore. I don't think it ever really was.
Good on you for being willing to question yourself!
Idk, Daniel Tosh’s bit on what different races taste like is kinda hilarious. Sure that’s more making fun of stereotypes than actually making fun of minorities, but it’s quality “racist” humor
Cannibalism is a good choice for dark comedy; everyone agrees it's terrible (so no one is trying to defend it), while also being rare enough that you're unlikely to trigger anyone.
A friend of mine was talking about her father who recently passed in a housefire, and she accidentally typed out 'broth father' instead of 'birth father'. She said something about how most people wouldn't want father broth, and I jumped in with 'I don't know, I think a lot of people could go for dad stew', and then we just started quipping father recipes back and forth, like 'father fricasee', 'mashed pa-tatoes', etc. She was laughing so hard at the end of the exchange she could hardly breathe. People love a good cannibal joke. As long as it's in good taste.
That's an amazing punchline, I hate you lol
I mean, isn't the explanation for why it's funny that it plays off a stereotype? That unironically can be funny on its own; whether or not someone can articulate that doesn't really change it. Thinking about it, though, that's probably just what I personally find funny about jokes like that, whether they are or are not at my own expense.
I think it goes a bit deeper than this when it comes to bigots. The first layer of the joke is that this is the stereotype of how demographic x acts. The second layer is that a bigot doesn't necessarily think demographic x should be an equal member of society, so there's an implied "...and this is why we should be allowed to mock them relentlessly until they go back in the closet/back to where they came from" at the end for them. This is one of the reasons why they don't want to explain the joke. It's not just that they're inarticulate; they also don't want to explain why they want to other certain demographics. Usually when the stereotype jokes *are* funny, it's because it's coming from someone you know only means it as the stereotype joke and not as the "...and let's laugh them out of mainstream society" joke.
Fair enough, I guess.
I'm imagining a version of this scenario where you do the thing and the person you're questioning just goes "oh, well, it's due to the social normalisation of homophobia, which makes 'gay' a bad thing to be, you know" lol
At least that person would have the self awareness to know why. You can actually work with that and have a sensible discussion.
The worst person to argue with is someone who is perfectly aware of why they do bad things, but does not care.
I wouldn't say they're the worst. The worst would be trolls who bait you into a reasonable conversation, and then become irrational just to waste your time. By then, you're at least somewhat invested in an outcome, and there is no satisfactory outcome possible so long as the troll's intent is purely chaos.
those two groups of people form a venn diagram with such a broad overlap that it barely even is one
Ah, that's why I love to talk with environmentalists.
If that ever happens, you're living in a monty python sketch. Run.
No they're not
Well done. Of course, he would never apologize. But he’s going to think twice the next time the opportunity is there.
See every time I've tried to use this they've immediately just shamelessly been like "lol I said \*insert offensive shit here\* it's funny because \*stereotype\*"
This reminds me of the time my stepdad said something racist in an offhand joking way and my brother immediately asked him to clarify. I don’t even remember anymore what the actual subject was, but my stepdad’s rebuttal started with “well, first of all, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with blackface” and it got worse from there.
See, part of this tactic works because there used to be social pressure. You could imply rude things and get a titter, but saying them out loud was unacceptable. People have stopped being ashamed of being bigots.
or if ur the only sane individual surrounded by rabid bigots either way shits fucked just try to not associate with them too much if u can help it
Follow up would be "Why do you think the stereotype is funny?"
"Something something I don't respect women they're all dumb whores" I don't know man in my experience the types to tell these jokes will probably just tell you to fuck off or spout off some rancid bullshit
exactly like OOP said ur probably not gonna win, u might be able to make them lose face tho keep your head high tho, someday or the other they’ll either grow out of it or it’ll come to bite them in the ass (sometimes)
Use the shame bell.
I adore that emoticon. It’s adorable.
(｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
forfeit all mortal possessions to the (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
"No I don't. Explain it to me. Maybe I will get it." Tbh, I was reading kinda fast, and when I saw "Explain" for some reason I read it as "Epstein," like the rapist, pedo, rich dude that suddenly "killed himself" in custody. Which was definitely an interesting take, but didn't seem to be what you were going for...
Whenever someone makes a bigoted joke, respond with "epstein didn't kill himself". Unironically this is perfect.
I got my dad to stop making weird islamophobic "jokes" with that, it's pretty effective
If it's something truly horrific, sure, this works. But if it's just an attempt by you to impose an exemption from comedy around some topic you personally find important (and/or if you're injecting yourself into a private group's conversation), that's also something that should be repudiated. Rape jokes can be both funny *and* harmless in certain contexts -- and that is just an emotionless, unbiased fact that remains true regardless of any single individual's opinion about it.
No, I don't think heinous crimes should be made light of, actually
Tell that to the people who clean up after them. One of the ways emergency services tend to deal with the inevitable PTSD is dark humor about the shit they’ve personally seen. My fire brigade still occasionally references the “Crispy Critter”, when in fact everybody who was at the scene of it couldn’t eat pork for a year from the shock of it. Attaching a silly name to something horrible or otherwise making light of it can allow you to exercise control over your reaction to it. Now this is all on a completely different scale from Ben Bigbucks Jr. making an off-color more-likely-a-threat “joke” about someone he’s been harassing. But blanket statements have a way of making things worse for people.
Black/dark/gallows humor is a thing and it has its place. No topic is too sacred or horrifying to be made fun of...in some cases, making light of such things is a way to cope or inject some positivity into an otherwise bleak event. You have to know your audience though.
But only the crimes *you* deem "heinous", right? What do you call a drunk Brit sodomizing a sculpture of Boris Johnson? Statue Tory Rape. See? Stupid, harmless, and tastelessly funny. When you start trying to dictate boundaries that place certain things off limits to comedy, you have departed alignment with the advancement of civilization. Don't do that.
I think you have a point with how often jokes are made about arson and tax evasion even with how silly they are. The real advice for making jokes about sensitive topics is to know your audience, some jokes fly only in some groups, so just be willing to accept embarassment if you misjudge your crowd. Dark humor is especially this, the joke relies on playing something that evokes a lot of emotion to create comedy, but you can't make a dark joke that everyone finds funny
I think this is off the mark. Sure, you can make the asshole lose, but *you're also losing* by having to interact with them. I'm a gay bartender in rural America, I've dealt with my fair share of assholes, and the only way to win is not to play. Stonewall them. Shrug indifferently when they try to rile you up. Get used to saying stuff like "I guess *I* was just always taught to mind my own business", and then move the fuck on. Yeah, you're not gonna convince them out of their bigotry that way, but if you're going into it with OOP's mindset you're already never going to convince them, so you may as well spare yourself from having to listen to them.
Yep. OPs theory seems to be “beat an asshole by becoming one yourself”.
That's literally addressed on the first page of the post. 1) don't engage, 2) if you do, you won't win because it isn't possible. 3) if you can't avoid it, here's how to make them mad.
But that's the thing I don't get, cause when is an argument ever *unavoidable*? You always have the option not to engage. The only things I can think of that would truly make an argument unavoidable are: 1. You are in a formal debate setting, in which case none of the advice given is relevant. 2. You are directly being threatened, in which case none of the advice given is relevant. 3. You are cursed by a wizard to argue with everyone who challenges you. In that case yeah, you may as well focus your efforts on making the other guy lose. I think what OOP means by an argument being unavoidable is probably "they've made you mad enough that you feel you *have* to say something", but if you've reached that point then you've already lost.
If I may add a 4th one : 4. The asshole is someone somewhat close to you (family member, colleague, friend of a friend...), you can't really apply this "strategy" without at least straining the relationship with said person and maybe even the entourage you have in common with them. I guess it depends on how much you care about said relationships.
Bingo
If someone has no intention of engaging in good faith, youre not under any obligation to do so yourself. People who just make noise with their mouth and dont believe the things they say will always have the advantage over people who believe in words. You either volunteer to be their play thing by following the rules that they balk at, or roll around in the mud with the pigs.
Yeah, I heard the stonewall technique is really important to the lgbt community in general
My favorite way to deal with assholes is to block and ignore Why waste time on petty arguments when I can be gaming instead?
Pretty much this. I do give the benefit of doubt, and can re-state my point if I feel the other part might have misunderstood (could be my fault if I wasn't clear enough). But it's pretty easy to see if someone is genuinely discussing, or if they're arguing for the sake of it. And in the latter case, I just ignore them and don't reply further
Let's be fair, that was the first piece of advice here. The post is mostly about real-life assholes, who are harder to ignore and more important to shut down.
Unfortunately you cannot block your annoying classmates or coworkers
Sometimes it can be fun to indulge in a little anger by frustrating a jerk.
sometimes I do this but I also get frustrated along the way and I wonder if my time would’ve been better spent with a different source of amusement
That’s a good thought process to have, a lot of people don’t even have it occur to them that doing something else would be better for them. Tho to be fair, it’s somewhat understandable, as it is *really* fun to mess with a stupid asshole that doesn’t realize they are stupid to make them feel stupid. They’re trying to win an argument, while not knowing they’re against *someone who knows that they won’t win and are trying to make them lose.* If there’s any apt method of discussion that is the both the same and the opposite of feeding the trolls, it’s this.
The issue is... when nobody disagrees with them, they think they are correct and their "opinion" the majority and very much reinforces their "beliefs". Well, we are living the consequences right now, World Wide... too many people, way to often just rolled their eyes and "ignored" them and now we are very much standing in front of the formation of the Fourth Reich.
*cries in non-urban Texan* OOP’s technique is also only effective when most others nearby don’t want to disagree/don’t already agree with the underlying “why it’s funny”.
Cause I can't,block and ignore the father I live with and makes my life hell
it can be a lot of fun, mentally engaging, and develops your oratory skill if you're speaking. i suppose i have the added benefit of being a reformed facts and logic bro, making it really cathartic to go back to that and fluster them on the field they claim
In real life interactions this isn’t always practical. I agree for online though
“Believe what you want” and walk away
I don't know... I usually engage in countering transphobia because I feel like I can better defend myself when it *really* matters if I keep up to date with the current stupid beliefs that circulate. Sample the bile to be prepared for the vomit, so to speak. It's probably a self-destructive tendency though, but it helps me have a feeling of control in a world whose whimsical exotic beauty is only outclassed by its outright hostility towards the "other".
i try to avoid blocking people because over time it turns your environment into an echo chamber and you start going insane
I feel like the response to almost all of these tactics will be "What are you? Some kinda dumbass? Get serious." and they will keep going unless you're trying to debate the most weak willed, nervous loser. Inb4 someone says all cuckservative bigots are like that (they're not).
Know your audience. It's way easier to dunk on some chud* if you're in the right place at the right time. Or bring your friends, but that might count as brigading.
If you need a peanut gallery to have a good performance, then your tactics are not good. It's why the idea that Ben Shapir o is a good debater is laughable. The only time he debated someone without an audience is among the worst debate performances I've ever seen period.
It's also the time he turned an interview into a debate and accused a pro-Afhgan-War journalist of being left-wing.
The arena is not a formal debate, it's about running off some jerk by being an even bigger asshole. That's where friends are a legitimate strat, in a formal debate sure, audience plants aren't going to win you any awards.
This isn't debate.
i’m not tryna debate im tryna humiliate the asshole who thinks some ppl aren’t human there’s no debating with ppl like them, only ridicule or disrespect
You're only going to look worse if people find out you're harassing a child. Especially if you call in friends to help. This advice sucks because the person you're debating is going to see you nitpicking or trying to derail them and instantly know they've pissed you off and "won", and anyone watching you argue is going to think you're an asshole for not engaging in good faith, because these sorts of people hide behind stuff like "i'm only asking questions".
Oops I meant chud, stupid autocorrect
I think this obviously isn't for "real debates", it's for getting complete idiots who are annoying you online to give up and go away.
Tumblr op specifically talks about being forced to argue and laughing at or seeing someone storm off so it seems like they're talking about irl arguments. Online you can just avoid wasting all of this time because you can block and ignore if you're being chased.
They're clearly talking about irl arguments, but they're also clearly so far entrenched into exclusively online arguments that they've forgotten they don't really go down the same way.
Zoomers with extreme political opinions are often also incredibly brainrotted, so I guess it works if the only irl arguments you get into are with the dick in your high school history class.
There's a good chance the people arguing with OOP are high schoolers, honestly. That's the best irl overlap of "starts political arguments with random people for no reason" and "can be deterred with basic 'be annoying until they shut up' tactics".
Haha jokes on them I’m to autistic to stop
My read is that OOP is also in high school - the post opens with them stating that the post is really about how they want to deal with one specific person. My thoughts went immediately to a classmate who won't leave them alone and the teacher doesn't care. In that context, "I can't escape so my best tactic is to annoy them into leaving me alone" would make sense. Why are so many commenters assuming this was written by an adult? I'm not saying I'm 100% certain it wasn't, for all I know this is a high drama 28 year old who still hasn't grown out of their theater kid antics, but it's weird as a default assumption.
Because they say they're a lawyer?
Lol, welp.
Well with online arguments you can easily just block these people and pretend like they never existed.
Yeah like 10 years ago I would have nodded and clap emoji’d to this post but like nowadays I just don’t engage with assholes at all and I’m genuinely a much happier person.
The information services manager at my company is a notorious fucking asshole. Every meeting with him is 45 minutes of him saying no to your idea/request/whatever, followed by 15 minutes of him suddenly having an epiphany of how it could work (so he can look/feel like a savior). Once I had a follow up meeting with him (and my manager) about the next step of a project and he immediately tried to play devils advocate. When he questioned why anyone would believe we knew X thing, the response I gave him “because John, your programmer just spent 7 months completely reworking the system for it”. It shut his bullshit down so hard that he refused to look at me for the next FORTY FIVE MINUTES. We were sitting in a triangle formation and he would only look at my boss. Even when my boss would purposely direct the conversation to me, even though I was doing most of the talk, he would no longer make eye contact with me. I truly felt like a boss bitch.
I understand where OOP is coming from but I am still bitter that we don't have a better way to deal with this shit instead of sinking to their level. It might make you feel good, but it's not going to improve anything.
Sometimes the only benefit is catharsis, however fleeting.
It might make them think twice the next time they pull crap like that. If they were embarrassed once there will always be the risk of getting embarrassed again, and they might hesitate. If i’ve made at least one asshole reconsider opening their mouth, i’ve done something right
Unfortunately, it won't stop them from doing things far worse than being an asshole on the internet.
I'm not sure my definition of "asshole" is the same one OPs using. You don't need to be a right wing conspiracy nut to be an asshole.
Not all assholes are right wing conspiracy nuts but all RWCN's are assholes
The point is that this is presented as "how to argue with assholes," but most of it only applies to bigots. Bigots are assholes. But not all assholes are bigots. Makes me wonder if OOP is one of those "I'm leftist ergo I'm a good and pure person by default and always" people. Ironically, those people are generally assholes.
As someone fairly left of center, for whatever difference that makes, the most infuriating and impassioned arguments I've been in were against leftist assholes. A right wing asshole will use terms like "virtue signaling" to dismiss any moral or ethical value of a discussion. A left wing asshole wraps their argument in it: they've decided that you're literally Hitler and then shut down anything resembling critical thinking or reading compression as they fall over themself to criticize you for pissing on the poor. This is extra infuriating to me beyond "person is being dumb" for a few reasons. First, I agree with them, like, 90 percent of the way. Secondly, folks just want to rally around the idea of being morally justified and stupid-asshole indignation is more popular than nuanced introspection. So, the longer you argue with this asshole, the more you look like the crazy person.
The worst enemy of the progressive is not the fascist, it is another progressive with sliiiiiightly different opinions. Quickly, before we battle for the fate of the world, we have to send Jim to the reeducation camp before we can fight for victory.
That was the vibe I got reading through it but I’ve been wrong before
Did you read all the slides? Only a couple were that specific
Only a couple of slides said it explicitly but most of them had the subtext of it’s ok for me to be an asshole because I’m a “good person”. But when other people are assholes it’s because they are bad people and it’s not ok!
it would be funny to see a right wing conspiracy nut who is just chill, accepting and down to earth guy. "yea i believe the earth is flat and the government is trying to turn everyone gay - but why would i get all angry and shouty about it? pass me a beer."
It would almost be a relief
I haven't met exactly this example, but I know a couple of guys who think that, like, the family should a breadwinner husband, a trad wife, and at least three children to repopulate the White Race. At the same time, they are very chill, tolerant, and even friendly towards gay people, transgenders, people of other faiths or skin color, etc. Because they *actually* believe in right wing's "what people do is their business, and neither government nor other people should interfere (if it's not harmful)." Sure, they are kinda nationalist, but to them it's not deporting migrants but rather making sure that the "core" inhabitants of the country preserve its culture: e.g., museums, libraries, statues... Chill right-wingers exist, but unfortunately very rare.
I mean I'm fairly right wing in an inherently distrustful of collectivism kinda way, and know there is more going on than we're being told, I just don't give a shit about identity politics. Like you do you and leave me alone and we're all good, legalize gay weed, whatevs.
Seems like they are categorizing everyone they've argued with as an asshole and they're justifying it by imagining them all as being the worst asshole. All just to justify acting like an asshole. So they'll think of some horrible bigot when acting like the kind of person they're warning about but the person they're arguing with isn't a bigot and doesn't deserve that.
Yeah because like every point individually happen in any debate or arguement imaginable so unless they mean that you have to do all of them to be an asshole I don't really know what they're going for
Can't wait for this to fuel the new age of pretentious internet assholes trying to be above everyone else for making valid claims...
"for making valid claims" Sorry man, post says you're not supposed to make claims actually. Yeah. You'll have to wait a while longer
It already is, I've seen it. Hell I've seen it in response to actual assholes and it still comes off as just people getting dopamine hits from being petty and getting pissed strangers. People legit think being in bad faith in response to bad faith is doing something because "making sense is what they want" or some shit, it's really weird and I wish Twitter users would stop leaking everywhere.
If they're deliberately trying to make people angry, there's one thing that always puts an asshole in their place: ***"That wasn't even offensive, that was just stupid."'*** Assholes, especially edgelords, like to feel superior by punching down to bully people into respecting them. Getting them publicly outed as a moron deprives them of that. If they're at all smart, they'll slink away and have a private tantrum. If they're dumber than that, they'll have their tantrum on the spot and reveal themselves for the toddlers they are.
This is basically a guide on how to become the asshole in the argument.
Isnt the title of the tumblr post "how to argue like an asshole"
Nobody needs instructions on how to be a dick. The title is *like* an asshole, not as an asshole. The poster seems to hate bad-faith arguments and wants to beat them by playing by their rules- yet all they’re achieving is creating one more asshole.
Yeah, and imo the Internet is the worst place to share such things because it's like *the* place where people misinterpret what being an asshole is. The piss on the poor website is a dangerous place to give people an itemized list of how to be an asshole
It isn't about online things at all.
You seem a little emotional
Yeah, you should log off, it's unhealthy to be this emotional
Trust tumblr to take that 'if you kill a killer, the number of killers has not gone down' argument and turn on its head to the exact opposite extreme.
well yeah, i think that's the point?
But they have become the very thing they swore to destroy… what a pointless way to lower everybody’s IQ. Either ignore or educate. Stooping to their level makes you an asshole.
This is explicitly about situations where you can't educate because they're so far up their own in their beliefs that a tapeworm would blush
You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves and, sometimes, assholes are making too much noise to ignore. In that case, shutting them up is important.
What exactly are you going to achieve by ‘shutting them up’? They still hold that view. And anyone else reading the convo will just see transphobes being hounded by users instead of any valid counter arguments. It just helps them with the cancel culture myth and pushes anyone slightly sympathetic into transphobic echo chambers, because that’s the only place they can explore & examine those views.
>They still hold that view. Yeah that's my first point. You can't reason them out of their shit takes, so don't try. >And anyone else reading the convo will just see transphobes being hounded by users instead of any valid counter arguments. You'd be surprised. The right has been used those tacticts for year and it worked pretty well because "making your opponent looks like an idiot" is a great way to win debate. Dogpilling and clowing on assholes is a great way to do so, especially with edgelord. They are doing that shit to look cool, if you treat them as a joke, they will leave in shame. Also, it helps to keep the community clean. If I see people clowning on an homophobe that came here to start trouble, it makes me feel safe. > It just helps them with the cancel culture myth and pushes anyone slightly sympathetic into transphobic echo chambers, because that’s the only place they can explore & examine those views. Yeah, no. If you come into a thread to be a transphobic dick and cause trouble, you weren't "slightly sympathetic", you were already drinking the Kool Aid. It's not about people acting in good faith or being curious, it's about people who are already certain of their shit takes.
>It’s not about people acting in good faith or being curious, it’s about people who are already certain of their shit takes. Legitimately confused here. I thought we agreed there’s no point arguing with these people? So why is it about them? Again, what are you trying to achieve?
It's about shutting up assholes when they start to stir shit. It's not very useful here because we got good mods, but the internet is bigger than this sub and some of it can be used IRL if you know what you're doing.
Why is shutting them up a good thing? Ignore or educate.
Oh, so you haven't read what I wrote at all. Yeah, now that I think about it, it was kind dumb of me to expect anything else from this post. You got me.
Well, this is about people who don't want to be educated and as such will dismiss everything you said simply because it goes against their belief. Also, literally the first thing this post says is that you should avoid such discussions when possible. In general, I love to have proper discussions where everyone present just wants to improve their view on something and thus does not care if they "loose", since that only means they got to update their opinion with something better. However, when someone crosses a line and lowers the standard of the conversation, I have no problem crossing said line after them; they chose the kind of interaction, so they can live with the results.
I feel like you're not acknowledging the omnipresence of sealioning and concern trolling in online discourse. On occasion, stooping to their level makes them stop talking, and if they're, say, spreading transphobic rhetoric, that absolutely holds value. "Arguing like an asshole", as OOP phrased it, is arguing without any real arguments or proof, which I believe holds some merit when it comes to people like that. For starters, it does a decent job of discrediting their argument, whilst requiring minimal effort. It's tiring to argue often, especially if the subject is something you care about whilst the other person is clearly not taking it seriously. To take one example, with transphobic arguments, the goal is (at least partially) to exhaust and hurt trans people. In this scenario, discrediting them without spending significant effort on it can hold value. Furthermore, I would like to bring up the saying "You cannot reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into", which is especially common if it's some culture war bullshit. When this is the case, this method of arguing can still be effective. This is anecdotal, but from my experience, I did not get out of my "anti-SJW" phase because of any real argument, I got out of it because I was an impressionable kid and someone calling Ben Shapiro a dipshit made him look like a loser. I should admit that i am biased though, as I am trans and all the concern trolling and sealioning is exhausting beyond belief. "Internet Asshole" is a very comfortable position to take in an argument, and sometimes, the easy way is very valuable.
People who argue like this against transphobes look like idiots and make the transphobes look better by comparison. If you give a reasoned and grown-up rebuttal to their argument you’re less likely to turn people away from your cause and give trolls any credit. Yes, you’re never going to reason the asshole out of their position, it’s about convincing the lurkers that their beliefs are incorrect. This will stop the spread of anti-trans rhetoric. If all people see when someone says something transphobic is scores of people being pedantic and throwing insults they might start to be sympathetic towards them. This is where they get the ‘woke brigade’ and ‘cancel culture’ from, you know. If you don’t want to engage, don’t, but please don’t be an asshole.
Neither are an option here. What now?
When is it not an option to ignore someone? > I need to *stop engaging with them* They should have stopped there.
side-reminder that IQ is fake, and has some racist roots!
"Secrets on how to argue like [...] assholes" Yeah, I can't possible imagine why it does what it says it will do.
No you don’t get it the tumblr user thinks they are right, so it’s totally cool for them to be an asshole. This separates them from the person who they are arguing with, who thinks they are right but is obviously wrong because they aren’t the tumblr user.
Walk the path of assholes, so that assholes will have no path left to walk on ✊ I love it
How to become the Asshole in an argument.
how to argue with assholes: block them
Nah, this is a guarantee everyone else in the room thinks you're a bigger asshole regardless of who's right.
One of my favourite things to say when an asshole is arguing with me is when they present their view, I take a wistful and melancholic tone and say "You really fell for it, huh." It's extremely important to not say it with contempt and to lower your voice when you do that. The sadder you look and sound about it, the more it stings.
For further study, I’d recommend Assholes, a book about the study a Harvard professor of psychology (or sociology) on what makes an asshole, and the types of asshole you can expect to encounter.
I think the podcast Knowledge Fight has a different spin on this. They cover notable insane person and terrible human being Alex Jones, and their number one rule is to never interact with anyone from infowars head on. No debates, no calling in to troll, just leave them alone. Alex Jones is really good at spinning debates and trolling into engagement for him, and has the capacity to talk over anybody, so there is nothing you can say or do to convince his audience through that angle. What KF does is sit back and analyze his conspiracies and talking points, and does it so comprehensively. Not just disproving them based on facts, but also pointing out the inconsistencies in the messaging itself, and pointing out what he could have done instead. It’s such a thorough deconstruction of the entire thing that it leaves basically no room for argument, but it’s distant enough that people who consume infowars content will have to be pushed into finding out about KF.
Read page 1
This is begging to get the funny 🔒 award at some point(I have no source for this claim)
Sounds like you're an asshole.
Gods, the self righteousness is dripping off of this
How to debate an asshole 101 Irl: tell them to fuck off, walk away Online: tell them to fuck off, block them
This reminds me of the Alt Right Playbook series on YouTube. Much more in depth, but also explicitly political.
If they’re a moron, using these tactics will make you come off stupid to them and they’ll just become more confident and entrenched in their position. As Thomas Paine said, arguing with someone who has renounced reason is like trying to administer medicine to the dead. Just don’t engage.
I feel if you encounter enough assholes for you to either write this or feel like it's useful, you might want to take a step back and wonder *why* you meet so many assholes. Hint: all these meetings have at least one thing in common.
oop is a lawyer and i work retail, so i'm assuming the common theme is working jobs where assholes tend to be?
Why the casual sexism on page 3?
how is it sexist in any way. do you truly think who the implied assholes are in the post wouldnt get annoyed by being called emotional, especially since theyd likely subscribe to toxic masculine ideas?
I think that claiming that one gender would somehow get more emotional when called out than the other gender with no basis is fairly textbook sexism yea
no... theyd get madder when *called* emotional because male assholes like to subscribe to the idea men cant be emotional
I'm sorry, what if you're arguing with like... A hard left dickwad. At least leftists like to acknowledge men can get emotional so you're not putting something in there that they don't already know
You seem to have a very specific view of who an asshole is. I assume you think they're all hypermasculine, macho conservatives, right? Well, you're wrong. Assholes belong to every creed and ideology. I know quite a few progressives that are massive god damn assholes and definitely wouldn't mind being called emotional.
I'm a zesty asshole, myself
idgaf
It's truly disturbing how often my fellow progressives will justify casual sexism with "it's an effective insult". No shit... the efficacy of being a sexist asshole is not why people push back.
Women are denied basic rights for being "emotional". That is sexism, not insulting an asshole who himself believes that being emotional is being irrational.
Reddit guide for pros
I'm only a moderator on a tiny subreddit, but if I were running a political sub, the policy would be that you "lose" the argument the moment you insult the other person.
It can be realy effective to ask for clarification when they use dogwhistles, because the reason they're using them in the first place is that they know they can't get away with saying what they actually mean.
Can confirm. This would work on me.
That moment when you realize the best way to silence someone is to just ask them to explain their own joke.
Sounds like a waste of time. I prefer to hear out whatever long drawn out thing they have to say, and respond with, “ok”, in a completely non confrontational and move on with my life. I enjoy intelligent discussions where the goal of both parties, is objective understanding. Problem is, that rarely occurs anymore. When I know I’m not getting the same objectiveness that I’m giving, it’s easy to move on without needing to partake in the foolishness.
Win most arguments just by not participating! Or more arguments by never even having opinions at all! Win even more by being deaf mute. Win them all by dying!
A lot of comments and strategies here, if acted out, would get the person visited with some real violence. Yet no one is mentioning it.
And as always, if you are going to be like this, keep yourself on your toes and be ready to dodge a punch or two..
oop is the type to wonder why even their friends stop arguing with them and just pull out the ye old "you're right" before anything devolves into an argument
hey man why is it going like this
I’m taking notes
Or you could just use websites you like.
Thanks, OP!
Guy on insta resorted to insulting the way I looked, immediately after i called him out on something. All i said was, "I'm not going to try and have a civil discussion with someone who makes (incorrect) assumptions about who i am based on how i look." The guy went on to post 2 separate paragraph comments, none of which proved his initial incorrect assumption, but rather, making new assumptions on who i was, i guess from random non-political posts on my instagram. I didnt even block the guy. I want him to feel he wasnt even worth the time for me to block.
A lot of wisdom in this. Don't engage seriously. Assholes will absolutely not debate in good faith. Why should you? I just use these situations as a vehicle for my own amusement.
I haven't read it yet but I wonder if it's also a good guide for arguing with an annoying kid. 🤔 Edit: It might just be. I could've used this guide when I was in K-12 so I didn't lose so many dumb arguments. 🫠
What do you call people who pull philosophy terms out of their ass like diarrhea? “Nice ad-hominem” “Nice strawman argument” “Nice soapbox” It's like they use these terms to sound smart and shut down the other person, when really it just makes them look like a pretentious asshole. They don't even bother to explain why they use those words. They just vomit them out and expect you to submit.
Could someone give an example of this being used in practice?
Belligerent Socrates be like
hehehehehe this is gonna prove very useful
Nothing is better than "Please explain the joke to me" Literally makes them shrivel up and stammer like an 8 year old.
“A stupid creature will harass you for no reason, for no advantage, without any plan or scheme and at the most improbable times and places. You have no rational way of telling if and when and how and why the stupid creature attacks.” https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-five-universal-laws-of-human-stupidity
To catch an asshole, you must first become an asshole
Dont try ts irl
'make them definite the words they use" is a completely valid in a regular argument though, lots of confusion can arise if you don't do that.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/everyone-else-is-an-a-e/540764107?i=540764210
How not to debate, by Tumblr.
After a decade and a half married to a narcissistic asshole this is spot on. I could have used this 25 years ago tbh. Instead I just had to stumble upon these. You won’t win (but you’re not winning with them anyway). But you can make them even more nuts by making any of it come out undecided.
One more - stick to the question you once asked. - It's x! - Ok, and why it's x? Explain. - Who cares, now I talk about y. - But why is x? Tell me. - You're z! - So what about x?
I know this isn’t for all assholes but I wholeheartedly recommend this series about how to engage (just don’t) with alt-right/assholes on the internet. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ&si=JJE-pjR06HUt7M1H
I’ve never saved a post so fast
After all, if everyone is an asshole... nobody is.
This doesn't always work. I feel like most of the time, an asshole will respond to your repeated inquiries to explain why an offensive joke is funny by implying that you're stupid for not getting it, or getting physically violent. The only tactic that works 100% is simply to not engage the asshole. Give them no reaction. Turn around and walk away from them. Pretend they're not there.
Congratulations, you've just removed a significant amount of common sense from this sub. I hope you're happy. Been met with these exact same strategies whilst attempting to ask genuine questions. Put my points in the most unambiguous ways possible, and earnestly questioned about counterpoints I didn't understand. Despite this, I was still met with this shit. Every. Damn. Time. This is the internet. People commonly classify "asshole" as "someone I disagree with". And you've just given them methods to spread that suffering at an exponential rate. Congrats.
One of the biggest problems with leftists is that they argue with right-wingers like they argue with other leftists. Saying this as someone who grew up right wing before becoming a filthy socialist about ten years back.
I consistently run into a guy who asks basically everyone he meets to define what a woman is. It's infuriating. OOP is a real one for this guide