In life, we occasionally find ourselves out of our depth. The Powers That Be would prefer if we would simply be quiet and listen a while in a serious conversation that we know zero about. But imagine if you wanted to talk anyways. What if you didn't know what was happening, and you still wanted to give them an empty-calories fried chunk of your mind?

Straight away, one has to attack. Conversations are always about the person, and arguments are always about making the other guy seem like as much of an idiot as you in actuality are. Seize upon your opponent's weaknesses. Rather than develop counter-strategies or actually hold a belief about the topic, the quickest way to pose a serious threat to a person advocating an idea is to point out their personal flaws.

  • If they seem unsure, then broadcast doubt throughout the exchange. Measured approaches are for baking, and reserves are for strawberries. What kind of lily-livered dog-baiting weasel uses words like "sometimes" and "maybe" and "conditional"? The world needs hard and fast rules, or it all goes sideways, like hell in a hamsterball. Why be a Mayhaps Margarit when you could be a Dictum Daryl?
  • If they are mistaken once, then wonder if they've ever known what they were talking about. Every so-called "fact" that they introduce from now on will be referred to with an honorific "assuming that's true...", "supposedly" or even as much as an "allegedly". It's not hypocritical of course; you would hold yourself to the same standards, it just so happens that you have the happy high ground of not knowing a thing.
  • If they've ever held a slightly different position on the topic, be sure to point that out. Ask them, "is this you?" People don't change, and if they do, they shouldn't. Flip flops are for hippies, and waffles are for Belgians. Far better to keep true to the same ideals regardless of new truths unveiled to you; there is no wavering in the backbone of a person who hasn't changed since high school. Integrity means letting new information wash off you like water off the back of a countertop.

The twin principal forces of logic and reason will avert these trying accusations against their person, if their argument is sufficiently strong. But if these personal attacks should land without significant rebuttal, then know that the holy winds of argument are on your side.

The internet is a battle of wits and just because you showed up empty handed doesn't mean you need to stay that way. Drain their patience and their energy by letting them spend all the effort establishing neutral concepts like "background" and "facts". You are a dumb newbie, unworldly and needing of constant explanations, make them explain like you're a child. Appeal to their better nature, the kind of sucker who's willing to follow your lead is the perfect mark for what's about to come up next.

Interpret the central idea in an incredibly idiotic manner. This is the most important part of the conversation, so it would be a lost opportunity to actually understand this part. Reduce it, simplify it, ask them to chew it up for you so that it's easier to digest, and once it's been so mangled for your benefit, you can point out the many flaws of this barely grasped idea, some of which you may have helped invent. There's no need to defeat an idea in its strongest form, so you mutate it into a weaker, dumber version before you go mano-a-mano against it (or chicka-a-chicka for indolent know-nothing belligerents of the fairer sex). This approach is called a Strong Man fallacy, because it usually wins the fight, like a guy with big muscles for-all-to-see.

Use analogous logic. Analogous logic is logic that uses transformative effects on the flow of logic from one form to another. Arguments that make sense in one context are sure to sound good(-ish) as long as they have the same working parts. Why think twice? Then again, why think once? You might not have argued about this before, but you've argued about something before, just go ahead and used what worked there. Rerunning the classics helpfully skips both the pestersome "thinking" phase and the foregone "knowing" phase and lets you gets straight to the raised voices and fever pitch part of the argument.



"You don't think it's a problem that they want to make unions illegal? Those workers should have rights."

"Sure, but prohibition never works. They'll just get their union memberships off the black market."



"It's not such a big deal that North Korea has weapons of mass destruction. After all, they're statistically more likely to use them on accident or around the house on a family member than anyone else."



Flee from the strong points of your opposition. As Sun Tzu in the Art of War says, it's important to be incredibly sneaky, like a wretched craven gremlin, or some kind of slimy little creep. If they appear well-researched or cited, then look for a less verbose part of their argument to go after. Cast vague aspersions on their evidence without forming an objection that has enough substance to actually bear a response. Remember, you might not have read any papers, but throw around words like sampling error and p-factor and pretty soon people will be reminded how much they don't like reading papers either.

If you're getting the business for not knowing as much as you should, or if the old back-and-forth is just getting tiresome, remember that arguments are good place to bring up things that you sort-of remember. Next time you serve up a scam-and-baloney-story on wry, drop in a couple a fun factoids. If knowledge is power, then making things up is a clean sustainable energy source. Like an internet Scheherazade, one can always answer the questions raised by one pile of nonsense with the puckering undulations of a fresh new one. A thousand and one politically infantile misrememberings of headlines, comments in passing, and text displayed over dancing teens will stay the exposure of your ignorance to the presumed delight of your audience.



"Did you know that Hank the Tank was a crisis actor? That's why they framed him."



"I heard that the Ghost of Kyiv got his start in a top secret unit under the U.S.S.R., gunning down UFOs to prevent them from bringing world peace."


Respectfully acknowledge the validity of an opponent's argument when (and only when) it is utterly incontrovertible. This helpfully redirects the flow of the conversation away from the argument that they just made, and toward how composed, mature, and intelligent each of you are. You're both here to exchange well-formed arguments like the ones that just whomped your ass, and instead of taking the whomping, you want to posture as if you're admiring the boot located in your now utterly bruised rump. Well kicked, old chap. Excellent footwork.

Get points on the board. Remember, explaining things or worse, asking somebody for information, burns times and questions that you could be spending flapping the old gums. Every pause for clarification or to allow someone else's repulsive opinion to be aired is time NOT spent whiplashing the train of thought with non sequiturs, libeling a public figure, and let us not forget the old standby that once was America's talk radio pastime: making things up and then getting mad at them. In the learned words of the late great master of debate Dr. Limbaugh, nobody ever kicked a grand-slam-dunk-in-one through the uprights by playing defense.

Above all else, be sure of yourself. Confidence is always the key. For those of you who might have concerns about being so confident on a topic that you know literally nothing about (i.e. chumps), a helpful tip is to remind yourself that you are the main character here. Whatever the basis for this argument is about isn't relevant just because it has "affects real people", it's relevant because it came across your computer screen. As a benevolent solipsistic internet god, you breathed life into this idea by thinking about it, now briefly existing as a reason to demonstrate your expertise in the specialized field of whatever-you-feel-like, and it will eventually return to the lifeless slumber that lies outside your concern afterwards.

You are navigator, explorer, and enlightener of these contentious spaces, beaming out across a sea of ignorance. If you do not eventually find the point in these waves of rhetorical cartography... well, then it probably never existed in the first place.