Thursday, November 29, 2018

The Kraken tries arguing on Twitter

I'm not exactly a proficient Twitter user. Something something tentacles getting in the way of the character limit etc. So I only rarely get on that platform, and even more rarely interact with people. But, occasionally I get a random shard of coral stuck in one of my arms and need to engage. Who are the most obnoxious [real] people on Twitter? My vote, as insignificant as it is, goes to the gun nuts. They are like pit bulls that just lock jaws on an argument and just never let go. I happened to see David Hogg's tweet about taxing gun sales to fund research on gun violence. Kind of like alcohol and tobacco taxes are supposed to fund health care (I don't know what those actually do except impoverish smokers). Anyway, I immediately thought of Chris Rock's famous stand up routine about making bullets cost $5000 each. And here's the result, I wasn't angry until Glen chimed in. It's only when the reprogrammable meatbags who have done a great job on internalizing gun lobby propaganda that sound like strong pillars to them but are actually made of smoke start shooting their mouths off that I go full Lakoff.






Yes, there is a tax on firearms and cartridges already existing. It did not dissuade the Las Vegas shooter from spraying thousands of bullets into a crowd. If the idea is that making something more expensive will lead to lower consumption of that product has any merit, then a surtax on ammunition should be productive. Perhaps, if you are discussing things in good faith and your aim is actually to decrease gun violence, then this would be a conversation worth having. But:



This is an individual that wouldn't understand how arguments work if one walked up and slapped him in the face with a rifle. So I abandoned good faith and simply rejected the premise of his NRA talking points. Talking points that have obviously never been challenged by anyone after they have escaped his pie hole.







It seems that the art of arguing with gun nuts seems to be expending as little effort as possible for each line while rejecting the premise of each of their assertions. The NRA and gun propagandists have presumable spent a lot of money and time crafting these "criminals don't care" frames and injecting them into the minds of followers. If you have spent your entire life with the intellectual crutch of merely accepting these talking points and never having them challenged or even spending a moment of critical thought on them, then it makes sense that they sound like "common sense." As much as "the sun rises in the east" but never asking why it does so. Telling them that the sun isn't actually moving and it is actually the Earth rotating into view of the sun fries circuits.

No expert here, but I'm pretty sure when you claim to have won the argument you have really just given up. I could keep challenging him on who these criminals are, are they completely monolithic and sharing every attribute? Or is this simply a lazy, unfounded, and sweeping generalization without meaning? Most stories of gun massacres I read specifically state that the weapons and ammunition were bought legally, so I don't know what on Earth he is talking about. He sure got touchy after I deduced that he supports gun violence from his words didn't he? But I guess I will give him points for not calling me a libtard or communist.

After Glen stopped liking every reply from Fat Cat and nobody else stepped in to support the cat, his enthusiasm for making me cry started to wane. Just for future reference here is a chart of logical fallacies, it is one of many. Should we play bingo on it?

The fundamental components of argument are that the party making an assertion has to defend it. The other party has no need to prove the assertion is incorrect. To "win" your assertion must be supported with facts and evidence. Making assertions "all criminals obtain their guns illegally" without proof is called conjecture and is as hollow as regurgitating talking points without any understanding of what they mean.

Now for some obligatory book references:

Lakoff, because to negate a frame is to activate a frame (criminals don't obey laws).

Altemeyer, because gun nuts are almost by definition scared little rabbits who surrendered the ability to think critically and assess new information to fear a long time ago.

Charles, because the gun debate should have some actual facts and history.

Neiwert, because gun nuts really do inhabit a different, much more violent reality from the rest of us

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)