Let me rephrase his strategy here: If someone comes to you with an emotional argument antagonize them and eventually they'll start acting rational.
I'm sorry but not only do I think this is a bad idea I'm hereby calling b#llsh#t on the author. There's no way he made sheep noises at a guy who is emotional about gun control and from that changed the guy's mind.
The problem with this, is that ESR may have cowed the guy into submission, but i now think that ESR is an asshole, and that he's not right.
I remain entirely unconvinced as to the correctness of his position. In fact, i am unclear what the full scope and description of his argument is, because he spends so much time trying to convince us that people who disagree with him are not rational.
Way to fail at argument.
In some cases it may be fine/appropriate to needle your interlocutors with non-logical appeals, but doing so does not win your argument. It shuts down the argument.
ESRs interaction there is particularly frustrating, since his actual argument contains no content. Going to a gun club is not a rebuttal to an argument, it's an attempt to indoctrinate others through means other than logic.
Firing a gun, and learning about gun safety isn't going to change my mind that an populace armed with firearms is a solution for... anything really. Besides, if we really wanted to start an armed resistance, or a guerrilla movement, we don't need guns. Al Qaeda didn't cause 9/11 with handguns, and Timothy McVey didn't blow up the Oklahoma City building with bullets.
> Firing a gun, and learning about gun safety isn't going to change my mind that an populace armed with firearms is a solution for... anything really.
You mean aside from the scads of strong evidence such as the frequent mass shootings by terrorists in Israel until citizens were allowed to carry concealed weapons?
I don't seem to recall the end to the intifada. :P
Arming everyone doesn't solve problems. It just guarantees someone is going to die. You can say "better them than me", but again, that's not a solution.
Carrying a gun may make you feel safer, but that's all it does. Some people tried to make the claim that the Virginia Tech massacre could have been avoided if students were armed on campus. Except that the shooter, who clearly did not value his own survival, caught everyone off guard.
Unless you are always armed, and always vigilant someone is going to get the drop on you. Fire arms are not going to make you safer. There are always random acts of violence.
Also, don't forget that the "good guys" with guns aren't infallible. They accidentally shoot bystanders or even other good guys by accident too (see the NY plainclothes policeman who was killed last week).
From my reading, the author's epiphany was to shift the debate away from substance towards a contest along the linear social dominance hierarchy by trying to out-alpha his opponent, making him his beta bitch. How shocking that this came from the gun-fetish demographic.
(And I say that as a supporter of the 2nd amendment.)
I feel that this technique is orthogonal to the topic of the debate. A more dominant and rhetorically skilled opponent might have similarly stopped the debate in its tracks by insisting that the author loved guns because he was a chicken.
Then, regardless of the response, reply with "Bock bock bock b'cak!"
This is the author's moment of enlightenment? I don't want people like this on my side of the gun debate.
The problem with this technique is that everyone thinks they're right. You would be amazed and appalled to learn how opponents of, say, evolution think that they are the knowledgable few and you are the "sheep" who has been brainwashed by the scientific "man".
There is little to be gained from this kind of mano-a-mano debate, IMO, and much to be lost in terms of time and emotional energy. The intelligent person of programmatic means would be wise to consider how better he might make use of his time, for example in constructing appropriate systems to enable larger scale, and more effective, destruction and undermining of the ignorance in the world.
I'd amend your statement. There is little information to be gained from this kind of debate. You can, however, gain position, status or resources from this kind of debate.
In the real world, it is often necessary to deal with irrational actors. I don't think it is a bad idea to learn how to hack people's irrationality for your own ends. It is evil to short circuit rational debate, but if the debate is already irrational, why not learn how to win it?
I agree. And, in subtle ways, even rational arguments are often won with appeals to emotion. Learning how to use emotion in an argument is a very powerful tool.
I think that by definition, a rational argument cannot be won with appeals to emotion.
The only exception I can think of is revealing to a person that their perceived utility function is different from their actual utility function. (E.g., how happy does owning diamond necklace actually make you?) But in that case, appealing to emotion is more about revealing new information (about emotions) than overriding rational thought.
It's not all about the logos, folks. Not knowing that is going to bite you for the rest of your life.
If somebody is venting to you about gun control, abortion, global warming, wolf reintroduction, or whether size matters, they are not going to respond to logic. A minute or two of conversation will tell you if they can be reached that way. Figure that out, and save yourself an ulcer.
This fact is actually one that even a hacker should be able to grasp, as it rests purely in your realm.
My favorite part of his technique is that he starts from the premise that arguments like "criminals will use your guns against you" and "the weapons available to citizens are insufficient to repel the police" are "factually and historically ignorant babble". It's a good thing we had people like him "short-stopping communist counter-coups in the Baltic states".
Actually, my impression after reading the piece, is that his response is 'we are sheep with guns'.
I've met two types of gun enthusiasts: the ones that like hunting o other sport shooting and are basically nerds who like throwing around statistics and how-to tips, and the ones that believe a Mad Max dystopia is coming any day now, or are possibly convinced it's already here, who strike me as a bunch of paranoid lunatics.
A gun is a perfectly valid home defense option, but the dystopian crowd always seem to be waiting for some kind of reverse rapture in which they'll finally get to show how well-prepared they are. They remind me of the martial-arts types that talk endlessly about what would happen if they were ever to get into a fight, but don't feel comfortable riding public transport.
You mean, heavy use of ad hominem attacks followed by a return to the topic? Yes, I'm sure we've all done that.
And I'm sure we all have plenty of experience showing that insulting your interlocutor is not a successful means to convince them of anything whatsoever.
Exactly what I mean. While it certainly is not useful in a rational debate, it could be useful (under some circumstances) to short circuit an irrational one.
I'm interested, since many debates are (unfortunately) irrational.
There isn't an 'emotional argument masquerading as logic' anywhere in the article or the comments. Unless the suggestion is that every argument is an attempt at logic, in which case 'logical argument' is a tautology.
From the article:
I think, now, that gun owners need to be replying more often to hoplophobes simply by echoing their “Baaa! Baaa! Baaaa!” back at them. Because only that reaches the actual fundamentals of the thinly-rationalized anti-firearms prejudice we so often encounter.
Yeah, because your assumption that those with an anti-firearms stance are by definition 'hoplophobe' and 'prejudiced' isn't a close-minded, arrogant, emotional position at all. The 'fear' argument is easily turned around: you only think you need a gun, because you are afraid of what could happend if you didn't have one.
The proper response to the presented 'arguments' are:
Q: “Why do you guys think you need firearms?”
A: That's not an argument
Q: “Criminals will just take them from you and use them against you.”
A: Criminals have their own guns and don't need ours. There is no evidence that the risk you name outweighs the benefits of owning a gun.
Q: “They’re useless for anything but killing.”
A: Umm, that's the point: they can be used to kill people before they kill you.
Q: “You can’t seriously think they’re a deterrent against overreaching governments, the cops will just come for you you first.”
A: If almost everyone has a gun, the cops can't come for 'you' first.
Not only does he present stupid arguments, he is also incapable of defusing these stupid arguments and has to resort to imitating sheep. And this is supposed to be a hacker guru, someone worth imitating. God help us all...
For all we know, he may have given all of the same answers you did. Have you ever tried to give intelligent responses to someone who has already decided you are wrong? This is what is meant by an "emotional argument masquerading as logic". Somebody asks seemingly logical questions with the sole intent to bait and knock down the responses no matter how logical and well thought-out they are. The author of the article eventually recognized that this was just a pissing match and tried a different approach which worked better in that particular isolated case. From your "proper response" I have to believe that you would have fallen for the bait.
I'm sorry but not only do I think this is a bad idea I'm hereby calling b#llsh#t on the author. There's no way he made sheep noises at a guy who is emotional about gun control and from that changed the guy's mind.