ATS Guide to proving your point without sufficient evidence

This is all fairly legit advise that actually works...And it's just kind of dawning on me now what the implications of this are...Facts don't matter. All that matters is how you present your facts. It goes back to the old addage: People would rather someone who has bad ideas expressed very well instead of someone who has great ideas expressed very poorly.

Actually, it's worse than that...as evidenced by the recent election. As evidenced by Bush, people would rather listen to someone with horrible ideas, expressed poorly, as long as you can put the fear of God into them, and you have a scapegoat to blame all of your troubles on, hehe...

As to the sky argument...the sky is not red. Nor is the sky blue. Indeed, all color is a matter of perception. Is grass green? Really? Take a blade of grass into a room. Now, turn off the light. What color is it? You see, grass is black of course.

I myself am actually fairly colorblind. My friends have a grey dog. To me, he looks no different than forest green. Now, my friends, my wife, whatever, can all tell me this dog is grey until they are blue in the face, but it doesn't change the fact that to me, he's a green dog.

[edit on 11-1-2005 by Gazrok]

(TrueAmerican is a Mr. Mad with his hands tightly around the reigns. A little tweeking in a situation like this could go far. However, you don't want to go too far. This appears to be our first dissentor(baaad spellin' ) to the thread and we want to keep 'em around to use as examples of how to refute arguements. Now just in case you were reading this too loudly in your head, I meant to say whisper think through this so TrueAmerican doesn't hear and get upset.by this.)

lol, upset? nah. You can u2u me all you want jake, doesn't change my point or my position on your thread. And sure, use me as an example. Yeah, I dare dissent (note:spelling correct ), for it is you that would use this board for satire directed at its very membership, not I. I got better things to do, like read about banshee's latest conquest in the ring.

instar: Shut the up. Actually, the real reason I'm not a politician is that I do that Theresa HEinz-Kerry thing of not thinking before I speak. I can really upset people like that, you idiot dog humper!

Junglejake ,its a fun thread but dont go too far ok.

Originally posted by pantherlady39
Here's why the sky looks blue. White light, like sunlight, is composed of all the colors of the rainbow. The molecules in Earth's atmosphere are just the right size to send sunlight flying in all directions as the light strikes the air. This is called "scattering," and it so happens that the blue in sunlight is scattered more strongly than the red.

Noooooooooo! My own fiance' has been taken in by it. Ohhh the Humanity!

Originally posted by junglejake
I am going to demonstrate how you can prove a valid point without sufficent evidence using tactics that are very common here at Above Top Secret.

I know that this is a "funny" thread. However, I have been very frustrated in some topics by the exact nature of your material posted here. And no, there isn't any rational answer to these tactics.
Your topic, actually pointing out examples of how this is done has been humorous, but also instructive.

I have voted junglejake for the Way Above Top Secret award.

edit to show vote


[edit on 1/11/2005 by Mahree]

Mahree: There is a tactic against these verbal WMDs. Call 'em. As soon s you call someone on doing something like this, you're going to get either uber-anger or shame. Uber-anger turns the manipulator into a Mr. MAd, who you can deal with using similar verbal tactics. The other possibiliey is they will feel complete shame at having done that. Bull. They're feeling complete shame at having done that and gotten caught. It'll kill an arguement 9 times out of 10, and usually when you call one of them on it, other ATS members chime in and agree with you. To quote Dan Bern: "And all you need to do that is one good pair of big balls." Everyone's thinking it, just open the floodgates and say something. I suspect you'll be shocked at how many other people jump in agreeing with you. Usually after an ATS bottom raping, the person will take a sabatical, curb their use of these little tricks, or leave ATS completely. No matter what the situation, you win the debate, and they look like a manipulative %&$#...Unless they're really good at the word game and can turn it around. I have yet to meet that person, but I'm looking forward to it

Enough of my arrogance, I'm off to watch the simpsons.

One final point before I go to bed (I think). If you have multiple email accounts, sign up two people to ATS. Then, you can have one person either reinforce what you're saying or attack it.

Attack it, you ask? Yes! Some people will nail you with doozies. I'm still debating how to handle TrueAmerican's fantastic attack (I'm better than this so I'm not going to lower myself to your level attack. Very effective.) In a situation like that when you are still getting a handle on manipulation of the weak minds, create a new personality on ATS. You can have someone argue with you asking all the questions you wish would be asked, all the comments you wish would be made, and you can have them blow up and get banned when it's apparent they've lost the argument. People will remember that exchange far longer than they remember a post by TrueAmerican (sorry, but you did say I could use you as an example) saying he's better than you.

I, unfortunately, don't have this alter ego, I only have one paid email account. Blast! I will, however, be responding to TrueAmerican some time tomorrow. I do have to say I love that name. USA all the way! GW in 08! (lol how many people just started seeing red there? Red as in anger, not states...Hmm, think I might make the country electorate count my sig...)