Is there a way to deal with this legitimately in an argument?

[Saulkar]

Hello there Escapist, been a while since I last made my own thread. Any-hoo, straight to the point. One problem that I have when debating with a lot of people is that they frequently seem to bring up one or more points that is tangentially related to the topic at hand with which they have a far greater or exclusive familiarity with and push that example as the grand contrary to my own argument.


I am somewhat hesitant to give this example because I feel that this will box my point merely into politics and is a poor example to begin with but here I go.

Say I am talking about the liberals and resources (Canadian) and the person I am talking to immediately says that they ruined the country. I bring up counter points to this assertion but they bring up some obscure example that gives legitimacy to their argument. I have no familiarity with this but start to ask questions and they begin to spin a web of depth to seemingly flesh out the example by pointing out that some people back then are still in power and because they met with whoever was responsible that day they are somehow involved and inspired this company to do this, this guy did this, which resulted in this, so on and so forth and because they can bring in half a million other such cause and effects that they have the empirical truth on the matter.

Now here is the kicker, they are not wrong in the sense that they are making anything up, it is all true but the severity and reasoning seems to be entirely subjective (as well as human decision making in these events). They take small obscure examples (in anything, not just politics) and have a suffocating amount of familiarity with it and how it supposedly connects to everything that I cannot hope to penetrate it without a seemingly academic amount of knowledge on it...

I just thought of a better (fictitious) example. Right now I am using a Firepro card and say I start to talk to a person about its benefits in Maya and they will assert that because I supported AMD I am supporting a bad business because they promoted AGP and how it hurt this or that company or technological path. Once again, they are not making anything up, just exaggerating the severity while weaving an obfuscatingly dense web of cause and effect that they expect me to unwind linearly. I would say that it is petty-fogging but that feels like a cop-out as everything is somehow related and it feels intellectually dishonest to dismiss it out of hand.

What do I do in these situations besides walk away? Hell, a quote on the matter by an esteemed intellectual would at least do.

P.S. I know some will people give the most boorishly obvious retort of walk away, you will be wasting only your own time and energy. I know many of these people very well for various reasons (power-lifting, 3d animation, etc) and this argument tactic will always somehow crop up, little one can do about that, and walking away I find is both undiplomatic and rude. There just has to be a better way of dealing with it.

P.P.S. No matter how many times I proof read I can never get it all right on the first go.

 

[Saulkar]

Stop trying to 'win' arguments. People are too proud to lose. Yourself included.

It is not a case of winning. I often want to hear why a person thinks the way they do but more often than not they obfuscate it with convoluted and tenaciously connected subject matter that makes that effectively impossible.

If you can't agree to disagree because arguments are too common with an individual, then you should probably reevaluate your friendship.

Looks like as many times before, my verbosity gets the better of me as I try (and fail) to transparently convey something while simultaneously eliminating ambiguity which only results in me losing track of the bigger picture, allowing misinformation to creep in. What I meant to say is not that we argue a lot (not even remotely), rather that when we do argue that this is often the result and I have no rhetorical tools to steer it back on track. It is not even that is off track. It is skewed... in favour of a related topic that they know more about than me.

This is incredibly difficult for me to accurately convey what I want to say to you.

OK. The first thing I should get out of the way is that there is no ill will between any of us, not even a raised voice, but all the same I cannot think of a way to say: "You are not wrong but you have reached so far that it is not relevant to the discussion at hand."

But I feel am doing to equivalent of saying: "I am arbitrarily setting down hard limits on this debate, what is or is not relevant to the topic at hand and you are not within those limits and thus I am declaring your opinion invalid."

And that feels like I am artificially kneecapping the debate. One would assume if you were to have a casual debate about whether you could call the greater humanity in the present decent and not have your opponent (please ignore the hostile connotation of that word) use their academically extensive knowledge of paleoanthropology to argue that because protohumans were barbaric by our standards that this intrinsically echoes into the present and permanently taints the whole of humanity and its future. Like, they are not inherently wrong as our ancient past has obviously influenced our development into the present but one would assume their opponent would not reach into such esoteric waters to make any discussion one sided and outside the realm of what I assume most people would consider relevant to answer whether or not, in the present, we are decent.

Besides.. If you're having to come to a web forum to ask for help for a retort (regardless of whether or not they're being obtuse), then it's blatant you're never going to 'win'.

Like I said before, I do not want to win. I want a way to eloquently steer the course of debates to within a reasonable degree without seemingly dismissing opinions or topics out of hand. In the end, I will admit that such limits are obviously subjective but there must be a well established and cordial way to mediate a conversation. And steer a person (within reason) to answer questions in such as way as to not build successive walls of opaque information. While my grandiloquent writing style betrays my overtly clumsy day-to-day speech mannerisms I often find that I can communicate esoteric knowledge, events, or topics in such as way as to bring clarity and minimize questions and confusion. This cannot be a unique ability limited to me in my circle of contacts and thus there surely must be a way to coax it out of people.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

If you're willing to admit they're right about whatever tangential thing they decided to bring up, admit that they're right but reaffirm that it doesn't pertain to the topic at hand.

***

Example:
Person 1: Games Workshop has the most detailed miniatures.

Person 2: Games Workshop is a shit company with bad business practices.

Person 1: True, but that's not what we're talking about, we're talking about the quality of their miniatures in comparison to other companies, not how shit their practices are.

***

Conversations inevitably branch into other directions, you can either go with the flow, do the same thing they just did to you (change the direction to something else you can talk about) or steer it back onto the original topic.

At least in my personal experience, it doesn't really ruffle feathers to say "hey we're going off on a tangent here, I want to talk about the quality of the miniatures instead of the business practices" but you can only talk so much about the quality of the miniatures unless they're a painting aficionado, which they might not be. Unfortunately in that case, it might just not be something you two can talk long about.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

If you're in a debate or a moot or some other setting, just bring the conversation back to the topic. If they start talking about something unrelated, call them out on it. Pull them back to the question. Make their avoidance obvious to anyone watching. Journalists do this in interviews all the time (or, well, they used to.)

That's rhetorical strategy, though. For a good-faith argument between friends, either be polite and let their tangent roll on, be blunt and keep talking about what you wanted to talk about originally, or just change the subject.

And if you just want to sound smart, the technical term for this is ignoratio elenchi.

 

[axlryder]

Yeah, you see this a lot with ideologues in the real world. People, even fairly smart ones, have trouble really coming up with fully formed and nuanced rebuttals on the fly, so they just have a bunch of counterarguments ready to go and really just go about trying to steer the conversation towards one.

Online it's easy to do research, come up with some pithy retort to help redirect the conversation, or do some logical syllogisms to break down how their superficially sound argument isn't really as pertinent as they'd lead you to believe.

In person, the best way (in my experience) is to counter it with your own highly specific examples and then overtly point out how intellectually dishonest you're being in that moment when you spring one on them. They're already using loaded dice, no reason you should be forced to play honestly. If they don't respond to that, then they're clearly utterly lacking in self-awareness or are actively fighting against it, at which point you're probably going to need to tailor your strategy to the individual/situation.

 

[CaitSeith]

Is the point of discussion the AMD ethics or the benefits of their technology? You may say that walking away is undiplomatic and rude. I say that they are worse when they diverge from the subject and start insinuating you're part of a problem (lots of times the argument comes from a tribalistic point of view, and there is nothing you can do to change it in those discussions). Walking away is a legit move in this case. Other would be a plan to segue the conversation back to the original topic; because they are more than ready to defend their argument against anything you say. And finally you can say "yes, maybe you're right. Maybe having X, Y and Z benefits in Maya isn't worth it if it's unethical".

Bottom line, the best legit way to deal with those arguments when they are off-topic or tangential, is to avoid arguing.

 

[renegade7]

Now here is the kicker, they are not wrong in the sense that they are making anything up, it is all true but the severity and reasoning seems to be entirely subjective (as well as human decision making in these events). They take small obscure examples (in anything, not just politics) and have a suffocating amount of familiarity with it and how it supposedly connects to everything that I cannot hope to penetrate it without a seemingly academic amount of knowledge on it...

This is called the cherrypicking fallacy. When a large number of examples are used, it's called a Gish gallop. [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop]


By fixating on a small number of specific incidents rather than overall trends, a disingenuous debater can make those incidents appear to be representative of the overall pattern. Since the cherrypicker is likely to have studied those specific incidents in depth (regardless of their background knowledge of what they're discussing) they're able to make their position appear more well-informed than it actually is.

A Gish gallop is basically the extension of that from a small number of examples to a large number. By vomiting a huge number of talking points at you, the demagogue puts you in a situation where it's not feasible for you to refute all of them in detail. This can be by way of sheer volume, or by framing lack of specialization as lack of knowledge (for instance, a creationist debating a biologist and asking a dozen questions about evolution but slipping in one question about astrophysics, which a biologist can't hope to respond to meaningfully).

Since studies supporting a given argument are never more than a Google search away, especially in the social and medical sciences, and because anti-science promoters are good at disguising their beliefs as science, it's especially important to point to expert consensus rather than individual studies.

This is the best response on two counts. First, it refutes and undermines the demagogue's claim that the cherrypicked data points are representative. Second, it puts the demagogue on the defensive, since now they must explain why the consensus of relevant experts contradicts them. They then have to either agree that the experts are right or explain why they're wrong or why they'd hide the truth. This then gives you the chance to expose the arrogance (if they think they're smarter than all of the scientists in the world) or conspiracy nuttery (if they think all the scientists in the world are in cahoots against them) at the core of the anti-science demagogue's position.

 

[Fox12]

Well, if they have facts and reasoning behind their argument, they you'll have to counter with you own. If you can't, then you'll lose the argument. I wish more people would rely on in depth arguments, actually. I would even argue that there's no shame in admitting that you're not familiar with that subject area, and that you're not qualified to speak on it. Your conceding the point, but you're not necessarily agreeing with their overall opinion. There's no glory in being stubborn. There is respect in admitting that you need to learn more. Take it as an opportunity to research the topic and become more knowledgeable. If you're correct, then you'll find evidence to support your argument. If you find your wrong, then you may learn something.

If you can't defeat their argument on that specific topic then try steering the discussion into an area you're more familiar with. For example, I was debating a christian once. I only had a passing understanding of science at the time, and while I was able to easily hold my own in the argument, I was more comfortable with history, since that was my major. As a result I relied more on a historic argument at the time then I did on a scientific one. There's nothing wrong with this, since my information was correct, and I made valid points. I cited evidence, and dismantled his arguments.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

If you're willing to admit they're right about whatever tangential thing they decided to bring up, admit that they're right but reaffirm that it doesn't pertain to the topic at hand.

***

Example:
Person 1: Games Workshop has the most detailed miniatures.

Person 2: Games Workshop is a shit company with bad business practices.

Person 1: True, but that's not what we're talking about, we're talking about the quality of their miniatures in comparison to other companies, not how shit their practices are.

***

Conversations inevitably branch into other directions, you can either go with the flow, do the same thing they just did to you (change the direction to something else you can talk about) or steer it back onto the original topic.

At least in my personal experience, it doesn't really ruffle feathers to say "hey we're going off on a tangent here, I want to talk about the quality of the miniatures instead of the business practices" but you can only talk so much about the quality of the miniatures unless they're a painting aficionado, which they might not be. Unfortunately in that case, it might just not be something you two can talk long about.

This is probably the best way to handle it. I usually go for the less polite "What the fuck does that have to do with anything!?"

 

[Glongpre]

I usually say, "that isn't relevant to my question". And if they continue, I reassert that and explain what I am asking again. If you can explain it respectfully, then people are usually pretty cool about it.

If I am frustrated I will throw out the:

"What the fuck does that have to do with anything!?"

It does not work, unfortunately.

 

[Saulkar]

Thank you all for your input but something came up and so it might be a day or two before I can address anyone.

Take care.

 

[beyondbrainmatter]

Hello there Escapist, been a while since I last made my own thread. Any-hoo, straight to the point. One problem that I have when debating with a lot of people is that they frequently seem to bring up one or more points that is tangentially related to the topic at hand with which they have a far greater or exclusive familiarity with and push that example as the grand contrary to my own argument.


I am somewhat hesitant to give this example because I feel that this will box my point merely into politics and is a poor example to begin with but here I go.

Say I am talking about the liberals and resources (Canadian) and the person I am talking to immediately says that they ruined the country. I bring up counter points to this assertion but they bring up some obscure example that gives legitimacy to their argument. I have no familiarity with this but start to ask questions and they begin to spin a web of depth to seemingly flesh out the example by pointing out that some people back then are still in power and because they met with whoever was responsible that day they are somehow involved and inspired this company to do this, this guy did this, which resulted in this, so on and so forth and because they can bring in half a million other such cause and effects that they have the empirical truth on the matter.

Now here is the kicker, they are not wrong in the sense that they are making anything up, it is all true but the severity and reasoning seems to be entirely subjective (as well as human decision making in these events). They take small obscure examples (in anything, not just politics) and have a suffocating amount of familiarity with it and how it supposedly connects to everything that I cannot hope to penetrate it without a seemingly academic amount of knowledge on it...

I just thought of a better (fictitious) example. Right now I am using a Firepro card and say I start to talk to a person about its benefits in Maya and they will assert that because I supported AMD I am supporting a bad business because they promoted AGP and how it hurt this or that company or technological path. Once again, they are not making anything up, just exaggerating the severity while weaving an obfuscatingly dense web of cause and effect that they expect me to unwind linearly. I would say that it is petty-fogging but that feels like a cop-out as everything is somehow related and it feels intellectually dishonest to dismiss it out of hand.

What do I do in these situations besides walk away? Hell, a quote on the matter by an esteemed intellectual would at least do.

P.S. I know some will people give the most boorishly obvious retort of walk away, you will be wasting only your own time and energy. I know many of these people very well for various reasons (power-lifting, 3d animation, etc) and this argument tactic will always somehow crop up, little one can do about that, and walking away I find is both undiplomatic and rude. There just has to be a better way of dealing with it.

P.P.S. No matter how many times I proof read I can never get it all right on the first go.

Those are examples of red herrings. A red herring is a type of informal fallacy:
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/150/Red-Herring

How do you deal with those, when they come up in a discussion? Just call out the fallacy, explain what it is, refuse to engage the side topic and point back to the original issue. You could sugarcoat it by stating that you want to discuss the other topic at a different time. You also could force the issue. You could state something like: "Since you're not engaging with the original topic, I take it you concede the issue?"

 

[Laughing Man]

I just thought of a better (fictitious) example. Right now I am using a Firepro card and say I start to talk to a person about its benefits in Maya and they will assert that because I supported AMD I am supporting a bad business because they promoted AGP and how it hurt this or that company or technological path. Once again, they are not making anything up, just exaggerating the severity while weaving an obfuscatingly dense web of cause and effect that they expect me to unwind linearly. I would say that it is petty-fogging but that feels like a cop-out as everything is somehow related and it feels intellectually dishonest to dismiss it out of hand.

Nothing foggy about that at all, it's relevant only to a point and that point was about a decade ago. It's as with anything in the real world the pros and cons in an argument have to be measured on their own merits. Something like pulling poor business practice because they supported an outdated technology a decade ago would sit very low on the score chart compared to a counter point such as they support Freesync now and to be honest falling back to very small, insignificant and often outdated examples of previous behaviours is usually the first sign that the person you are 'debating' with has run out of relevant or constructive points to help backup whatever argument they are trying to make.

You can also look at it this way, someone who has to fall back to such points is more than likely never going to listen to what it is you are trying to say anyway. I mean look at it from this point of view. You have made a relevant and highly valid point that has a good measure in the debate and their best reaction is to pull some small obscure and potentially outdated factoid out of nowhere to me that screams of someone who is so unwilling to listen or consider a valid point of view that they are just doing whatever they can do to convince 'themselves' that they are right. Put simply the best course of action is to walk away,

 

[axlryder]

snip

Off topic but I've been meaning to ask. What is your avatar from?

 

[Saulkar]

At least in my personal experience, it doesn't really ruffle feathers to say "hey we're going off on a tangent here, I want to talk about the quality of the miniatures instead of the business practices" but you can only talk so much about the quality of the miniatures unless they're a painting aficionado, which they might not be. Unfortunately in that case, it might just not be something you two can talk long about.

Makes sense, I will keep that one in mind.

ignoratio elenchi.

Just did some light reading on that and man oh man, that one opened up my eyes. I will admit that I am guilty of it sometimes but now that I can fundamental understand what it is, it is that much easier to avoid and/or call out.

In person, the best way (in my experience) is to counter it with your own highly specific examples and then overtly point out how intellectually dishonest you're being in that moment when you spring one on them. They're already using loaded dice, no reason you should be forced to play honestly. If they don't respond to that, then they're clearly utterly lacking in self-awareness or are actively fighting against it, at which point you're probably going to need to tailor your strategy to the individual/situation.

I will only address this one as it pertains to people I know in real life; And it is good advice but something I was hesitant to add, because I was afraid people in this thread would only focus on it alone, and that is where I can have some very specific and in-depth knowledge but someone straight up tell me I am wrong and I just freeze and transform from being inarticulate into a mute. I am probably wrong but I think that this is what is called an appeal to ignorance as they will tell me I am wrong and refuse to explain why I am inherently wrong and either force me to prove that I am not wrong or descend into what I now recognise as a ignoratio elenchi. Since I can now recognise what I knew to be a missing piece in my rhetorical tool box I think I can call out a derailed debate better while following your advice.

Since studies supporting a given argument are never more than a Google search away, especially in the social and medical sciences, and because anti-science promoters are good at disguising their beliefs as science, it's especially important to point to expert consensus rather than individual studies.

This is the best response on two counts. First, it refutes and undermines the demagogue's claim that the cherrypicked data points are representative. Second, it puts the demagogue on the defensive, since now they must explain why the consensus of relevant experts contradicts them. They then have to either agree that the experts are right or explain why they're wrong or why they'd hide the truth. This then gives you the chance to expose the arrogance (if they think they're smarter than all of the scientists in the world) or conspiracy nuttery (if they think all the scientists in the world are in cahoots against them) at the core of the anti-science demagogue's position.

Good advice, I will keep this in mind as I really need it.

Well, if they have facts and reasoning behind their argument, they you'll have to counter with you own. If you can't, then you'll lose the argument. I wish more people would rely on in depth arguments, actually. I would even argue that there's no shame in admitting that you're not familiar with that subject area, and that you're not qualified to speak on it. Your conceding the point, but you're not necessarily agreeing with their overall opinion. There's no glory in being stubborn. There is respect in admitting that you need to learn more. Take it as an opportunity to research the topic and become more knowledgeable. If you're correct, then you'll find evidence to support your argument. If you find your wrong, then you may learn something.

I tend to face a case of the one proof fallacy in this regard and their interconnected esoteric knowledge often makes piecing it all together, even upon further research of each individual point, excruciatingly difficult. It does not help that Google's algorithms tend to sniff out the slightest amount bias in an inquiry so that all of your search results either support or disprove the relations you are trying to investigate. So much work for a 5 minute discourse while waiting for some random schmo to get their sweaty butt off of the bench-press bench. I am not afraid to admit when I am wrong but often it is not so clear as we can agree on many things but the outcome of those things could be radically different like this other (somewhat) fictitious example:

ME:"So the scientist who did the most recent study on global warming were funded by this group."
Dude: "Mmmmhmmm, Mmmmhmmm,"
Me: "And a lot of their evidence came from core samples and refined satellite data."
Dude: "True, true."
Me: "From this we can deduce:"

Me/Dude: "Their efforts and results appear legit"/"They are clearly frauds with an agenda."
Me/Dude: "Wait, What?!"

Stupid easy example that supports me, I know but I feel hesitant to use any real examples which are both really nebulous through complexity (and thus difficult/impossible to accurately convey) and doing would generally feel wrong; Yet I want to get my point across. I have been wrong in the past and conceded on those points but dealing the with mess that many of the arguments I get into makes it not so clear.

Sigh, I tried reiterating and making this as generic as possible but I just cannot and thus making myself a liar. I hope I am not being too rude by mentioning that one of the guys I regularly talk to went to university for business and uses his seemingly savant knowledge of companies and politicians to explain why the movement of money proves that global warming is not real because there is supposedly very big money in proving that it is real and thus it is not. I am not saying that there could not be some small truth in what he is saying (money in politics), only that he constantly draws upon counter points and example to mine that I have never heard of and while he is not making anything up I can easily point out why it is incompatible with mine after some research most but not all of the time only then be drowned in a dozen other examples I have never heard of.

Those are examples of red herrings. A red herring is a type of informal fallacy:
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/150/Red-Herring

How do you deal with those, when they come up in a discussion? Just call out the fallacy, explain what it is, refuse to engage the side topic and point back to the original issue. You could sugarcoat it by stating that you want to discuss the other topic at a different time. You also could force the issue. You could state something like: "Since you're not engaging with the original topic, I take it you concede the issue?"

I will admit that I am terrible with spotting red herrings until I walk into them as I feel the need to give everything the benefit of the doubt unless I have explicit, first hand knowledge as once again I feel that if it is somehow related then who am I to dismiss it? At the same time however, after reading your's and other's links I can now see how it is an explicit act of misdirection and thus feel more confident it calling it out.

Nothing foggy about that at all, it's relevant only to a point and that point was about a decade ago. It's as with anything in the real world the pros and cons in an argument have to be measured on their own merits. Something like pulling poor business practice because they supported an outdated technology a decade ago would sit very low on the score chart compared to a counter point such as they support Freesync now and to be honest falling back to very small, insignificant and often outdated examples of previous behaviours is usually the first sign that the person you are 'debating' with has run out of relevant or constructive points to help backup whatever argument they are trying to make.

You can also look at it this way, someone who has to fall back to such points is more than likely never going to listen to what it is you are trying to say anyway. I mean look at it from this point of view. You have made a relevant and highly valid point that has a good measure in the debate and their best reaction is to pull some small obscure and potentially outdated factoid out of nowhere to me that screams of someone who is so unwilling to listen or consider a valid point of view that they are just doing whatever they can do to convince 'themselves' that they are right. Put simply the best course of action is to walk away,

I will keep that in mind. It is not so clear cut as I used a deliberately clear cut example but I will keep in mind what you shared.



Thanks for all of the input Escapist but I must end with this bit. I am on good terms with the people I am implying in this thread but there are some things that we really, really disagree on. Even if we do not agree in the end, even if I am proven wrong, I still want to compose myself to the best of my abilities in each discourse. And to ensure that I can spot when I am being given the run-around and in the end hope to improve my confidence.

EDIT: I will add that there is a good chance I conveyed completely irrelevant or contradictory information in my long-ass post sooo, yeah, let me know if you find any.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

What the OP is referring to sounds quite a lot like the Composition/Division [https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/composition-division] fallacy. Basically, just because something's true of one aspect of something that doesn't make it rue for the entire thing and, in reverse, just because something's true about a larger thing it isn't necessarily true for every detail of it.

Composition can be likened to saying "I can see with my eyes and my eyes are part of my body, thus I can see with all my body parts".
Division can be likened to saying "Black Americans earn less then white Americans, thus no black American earns more then a white American".

 

[Saulkar]

What the OP is referring to sounds quite a lot like the Composition/Division [https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/composition-division] fallacy. Basically, just because something's true of one aspect of something that doesn't make it rue for the entire thing and, in reverse, just because something's true about a larger thing it isn't necessarily true for every detail of it.

Composition can be likened to saying "I can see with my eyes and my eyes are part of my body, thus I can see with all my body parts".
Division can be likened to saying "Black Americans earn less then white Americans, thus no black American earns more then a white American".

Ooooo, that strikes a chord. I am definitely going to read more about that.