Sometimes I’ll just be like ‘you’re not a high school social studies teacher, you don’t need a works cited page. Either believe it or not.’ Other times I’ll point out their pattern of behavior and argument strategy before they even get to the final stage, where they say since it didn’t come from a reputable source it doesn’t count. They don’t seem to grasp all of their beliefs are being influenced by propaganda sources so of course any real news will seem strange to them. They’re interesting creatures.
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I've got a friend who tries to posture himself as neither right nor left. That he's above partisanship and that both sides are brainwashed. We have a semi ongoing argument about hcq's efficacy in regards to wuflu and the general impact of wuflu in general. I say semi ongoing because it's more like he'll post a meme he thinks it's snarky and I'll comment with a similar meme and then some studies and articles.
Despite his posturing he's quite clearly bought everything the media has said hook, line, and sinker. On the rare occasion he engages he'll post something from a mainstream site or a clearly biased lesser site. Never directly addresses the issues or even puts forth an argument much less a cohesive one and has a habit of strawmanning constantly. The most recent incident was my response to an article he posted courtesy of the daily beast I believe in which it tried to de-legitimize Stella Immanuel because she said something nutty about demon sperm or whatever. The entire article was a poorly written strawman itself.
In response I led off with a meme posted here not too long ago about Fauci knowing about hcq's effectiveness on sars, effectively calling him a mass murderer, following it with a snippet of an article talking about his knowledge and him basically calling chloroquine and hcq basically a treatment and a vaccine. I then followed that up with a few more articles which I never comment on to see if he bothers to read them. The best thing he could come up with was that Sars and covid aren't the same thing and that it's only because covid has mutated since its original discovery. More articles and studies from my end highlighting the successes of hcq just resulted in another comment that Sars and covid weren't the same thing. It should also be no surprise that he's got at least stage 4 TDS.
Some advice from someone who used to do the exact same thing and get nowhere, just stop.
This person is not engaging with you in an honest way, they do not want an honest discussion or debate, they are not interested in finding middle ground or the facts, they want to WIN and that's it.
Debate is healthy and something I'd encourage, but what you might have failed to learn from your friend is that some fights are better left alone. The best way to deal with someone like this guy is to have the argument publicly and change other people's minds when they see how delusional he is, consider him a lost cause.
You'll feel much better afterwards, I remember the feeling of frustration after having an argument with these kind of people and I suspect that's why you wrote your long post!
I don't mind having them with him, I need to sharpen my discussion/debate skills and I don't think he's too far gone yet. But these discussions were held in a small discord server of friends in a channel where everyone could see, another person engaged as well but it was more due to their mistrust of big pharma and a fear of things they read about Africa's experience with hcq which transitioned into another interesting discussion about individualism and collectivism. I think I can at least convince him (the original friend) that things aren't as bad as they seem and it isn't the end of the world and that Trump isn't as bad as he thinks, but it'll take some time.
People who say they aren’t the same thing have no clue what they are talking about. They don’t know the pathway to entering the body and the mechanism for replication. It’s like saying that spike strips work on a ford escort but not a mustang GT. Of course, they work on both because they both still have tires that can be punctured. Doesn’t matter how big the fuckin engine is.
Nice analogy.
Ask him if he knows that COVID-19 is the name of the disease, not the name of the virus. And then ask him if he knows the Coronavirus is named SARS-CoV-2.
I got similar friends. It's sad because many of them are pretty smart. Just brainwashed.
Ah he must be one of those people that thinks “reality has a left wing bias”. He watches left biased news and reads left boded newspapers but he doesn’t think of himself as left wing.
Pretty much. He's blissfully unaware of it, too. Not to mention he's one of those that thinks black people can't be racist because racism requires a power dynamic and black people don't have that.
Oh so he’s one of those racists that think black people should be held to a lower standard than other races because blacks are inherently without power? Got it haha
Nailed it.