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I absolutely detest the way some people "argue" and attempt to shame their opponent. Shaming doesn't work on me; it just pisses me off. As soon as someone begins attacking me as a person instead of my argument, I lose all patience with them and honestly start to view them as stupid and incapable of rational thought. The conversation on their end normally contains an implicit assumption that their viewpoint is automatically the correct one (no willingness to even hear other perspectives), and personal attack techniques include phrases like, "you are trolling" (even though half the US population shares the "troll" viewpoint), "the flaw in your argument is...", "unless you are a [something genetically immutable], your privileged white male opinion does not matter". Pull up the list of logical fallacies on Wikipedia and they hit almost every single one of them.

I have had calm, rational debates with people who have viewpoints that are completely opposite to mine. Both of us come away from the conversation feeling enlightened, and occasionally one of us changes our mind on an issue because of a persuasive argument. This is what a good debate should be like. But unfortunately, people who can debate like this are few and far between.

Far more often I just end up frustrated and leave the "debate" part way through. So many people get angry and emotional if you criticize their viewpoint, and I don't have the time or energy to deal with it. Although sometimes if I'm in a good mood, I will stir things up for entertainment: if I am listening to a debate between two people I know, and one of them is using shaming tactics and logical fallacies, I will join in on the conversation (if permitted) and automatically take the side against theirs, even if I have the exact same viewpoint that they do. Then I will tear their argument down the best way I know how (it's fun to argue against your own belief). And at the end I will reveal that my viewpoint was actually the same as theirs.



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