Let me give you all a little explainer on what is currently one of the meta avenues for internet discussion and argument. This is the practice of "winning" arguments by being stupid. I am not throwing around "stupid" as the type of insult that comes on sarcastic coffee cups, but as the most succinct way to describe a certain type of disingenuous behavior that is used as a tactic or strategy on the internet. The basic idea is to pretend to not understand basic concepts and facts, forcing someone else to go to the effort of explaining basic ideas, and therefore keeping the argument at the most crude and basic idea possible. If the stupid argument is ever refuted, by simple logical inference or appeal to obvious facts, the game of whack-a-mole will continue with the presentation of an even more stupid argument.
The principle is pretty easy to explain, So let me use a prime example. This is the tweet of a congresswoman from Georgia, sent in December 2021, during the second winter of Covid-19:
1. Every single year more than 600,000 people in the US die from cancer.
The country has never once shut down.
Not a single school has closed.
And every year, over 600,000 people, of all ages and all races will continue to die from cancer.
Upon reading this, you might think several things:
- "Cancer isn't contagious!" This is a really obvious one! If cancer was a contagious disease that we could prevent, we probably would do a lot!
- "We actually do have all sorts of laws and regulations to prevent cancer!" Maybe we don't know the exact facts and figures, but the government has all sorts of rules to prevent cancer, like anti-smoking rules.
- (And if you think you are really clever, you will do what I just did---check to see if any schools were closed over asbestos). This takes 30 seconds to look up, and the answer is yes.
- "We also have lots of other laws to prevent other contagious or infectious diseases!" It wouldn't be too hard to think of other examples of laws that shut down things to prevent other infectious diseases. Food inspectors, for one. (I am getting sucked into this even as I am trying to disprove it, trying to buttress my own argument)
- "We also have all sorts of laws about other threats! I still need to buy special small toothpaste tubes for security theater!" Well, now we could just think of all the ways, every day, our liberty is curtailed in thousands of ways.
If you thought any of those things, or any other obvious arguments, congratulations, you are as gullible as me. Because you are putting mental effort into refuting an argument that someone obviously put no effort into making. It takes a person with basic intelligence and honesty less than a minute to think up reasons why that argument is stupid. But in an example of the
bullshit asymmetry principle, it would take a long time to go through them point by point. Do you know, off the top of your head, what federal regulations about asbestos abatement are? Of course you don't, but a stupid person can just keep asking questions and making false equivalencies. By trying to respond to someone's stupidity, you are forced to simplify everything you think.
I have a litmus test for when people are making these types of arguments. Well, my first one is whether someone says something that makes me think... "Where do I even start?" These are:
- "Is this person trying to convince me, or trying to show me that they can't be convinced?" When someone really wants to convince you, they will try to do things like proactively address your concerns, using neutral language (instead of incendiary language), and maybe conceding that there isn't a perfect solution. If someone sets up a wall by pretending you have nothing to talk about...they aren't trying to convince you, they are trying to put on a show.
- "Could they make a good argument instead of a bad argument?" In the example above, it is really easy to make a good argument about the same point. Does a government have the right to curtail civil liberties for utilitarian purposes? I mean, sure, it is Polysci 101 stuff, but it is a legitimate enough argument, even if you disagree with it. In just about every disingenuous argument I have witnessed, I can imagine a much better argument. But once you go to the effort of making a good faith argument, you then have to support it, instead of galloping off on a series of absurdities.
A lot of this arguing style was centered in so-called "conservative" politics, but by now, it is common across the political spectrums. It also has a lot of its origins in twitter, a site where there is no downvote or negative consequences for grasping for attention. It is one reason that I believe that the idea of a site like this one, where users are rewarded for effort, is an important one that should return to the internet. Why is it that I put more intellectual effort into eating a candy bar than actual real world politicians who are responsible for matters of life and death put into anything?
What would the internet be like if effort and intelligence were rewarded?