This thread makes me wonder.

There are some bizarre and obviously wrong  ideas which refuse to fade. For the purpose of politeness, let's choose Flat Earth Theory to kick around. It checks both boxes nicely. If you don't subscribe to this bit of madness, you probably find it incomprehensible that anyone would.

People who espouse this fall into two buckets; the crazy and the evil.

For an interlocutor the difference in approach between the two is not small.
Kindness versus contempt.

I hope we'll all agree that it's preferable to treat the damaged  (crazy) with a degree of kindness. After all, there but for the grace of God and whatnot. That doesn't mean coddling, because you shouldn't indulge them but cruelty for crueltys' sake is evil.

Simultaneously, and this can be difficult, you need to accept the futility of dialogue. This is a belief they have. A faith, if you will. It's not addressed by logic or evidence. Full stop. If these folks were suseptable to reason on this subject, they wouldn't hold the beliefs they do. It's not a condition able to be shifted by argument.
It's not like the truth is hidden. Cause that up there is the moon, and that over there is the sun. If you've been on a plane, you might have seen the curve of the earth.

So walk away from the topic. If you and they are lucky, this may be the only hole in their heads. They might be perfectly nice otherwise. Or the bats have completely taken over the belfry. If you feel like taking the time to find out, good on you. YMMV.

Now let's toddle on over to the other hand; the (evil) liars. We call it 'trolling' online. That's as good a name as any other.

I'm not clear on what motivates this. Could it be a hatred of the idea of truth? It could be a hatred of their fellow humans. They seem to exist only to inspire frustration. Seriously, if you have an insight into whatever is going on inside someone like this, I'm interested. I wouldn't be surprised if doing this habitually causes a slide down the Turing Scale towards non-sophont.

If you engage with these wankers it should be on your terms. As a kind of mental masturbation. If you get a kick from it, hey, go ahead and relive that Monthy Python Argument Room skit. But that's all you're doing. There is nothing like a dialogue happening. There can't be.

I'm a big fan of blocking. There's more fulfilling things to do. These toenails aren't going to clip themselves, right? Again, YMMV.

There IS something else that needs to be asked: how do we tell these groups apart? I don't have a great answer for that. I'd suspect that the liars are more likely to reach for the normal bag of bad faith argument modes. Ad hominem, Gish Gallop, Tu Quoque, etc.  And especially gaslighting. Oh goodness, I bet they love gaslighting. Because liars are going to lie. But just because they're liars doesn't mean they're dumb, so maybe not.

WebsterMark wrote on 11/06/19 at 17:24:16:



Thank goodness you're not making it personal....lol

No. A collective portrait of the Main Stream Media.

gaslighting (present participle)
manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.

So help me out here, am I gaslighting when I remind TT and Mavi that their  opinions are not facts and that if they think they are, their view of reality is questionable?

So you learned nothing from the constant 2 - 3 year drumbeat of "Trump colluding with Russia" story? Over and over I heard 'there's strong evidence...."we now know...Adam Schiff "I've got absolute evidence...."  and yet at the end of the day, there was what? Nothing. Nada. Zero.

Did it occur to you that you are the one being gaslighted?

As more and more information comes out about the connections,  exaggerations, flat out lies and perjury from those leading the Democratic coup against Trump, it occurred to me that what we're seeing is no different than what we'd see if this forum were in charge of this impeachment. Think about it. Sew would be Pelosi, TT would be Pencil neck Schiff. Eegore strikes me as a Mitt Romney type, always playing both sides of the fence...

I'm probably Lindsey Graham. Jog would have to be Senator Kennedy from LA. Doesn't say much but sometimes what he says leaves you laughing your a$$ off. Ray has to be Rand Paul.

.....an yet that’s preferable to anyone the Democrats put up.....

I like you as Pelosi, it fits. But, do you have a wall around your property like her? Asking for my friend José. He’s too far from Bernie’s seaside place and he needs a place to pitch a tent for a while,