The Kiwi Experiment
You can read from here for some light entertainment:
http://kiwifarms.net/threads/sluthate-com.6192/page-18#post-523888
Things to take away:
- It's surprisingly easy to hand their asses to them if you remain calm and collected. Usually even feminists etc can occasionally raise an argument that, if not precisely true or valid, takes a bit of thought to uncover the flaw. Here, it's more like correcting a child's homework. Almost every point they make has some glaring, obvious deficiency. Pointing these out each time feels more like guiding them in how to reason than debating someone.
- Having said that, the vast majority of responses are not "points" at all. There are at least five main types of responses, all of which are much more abundant than a counter argument:
- Claiming that their experiences are more valid than yours. Usually phrased as "confirmation bias" to try and sound scientific.
- Claiming that their viewpoint is correct and yours is not, without any backing reasons or arguments (usually complemented by an insult)
- Making arbitrary and subjective declarations about you as an attempt to justify dismissing your reasoning without the need to actually tackle the reasoning itself. The most common one is "Autistic". Something can be declared autistic if it's worded in a calm and reasoned manner, or if they simply don't like what you said. This reveals a deep lack of understanding about the nature of Autism. Their understanding seems to be that logic and impersonal phrasing is autistic, and irrational emotion is normal. This is irrelevant to the true autistic traits such as habitual actions/OCD-like behaviour, inability to filter between sensory inputs (to focus on only the relevant), an inability to read social cues and body language etc, issues with motor coordination, and a few others.
- Attempts to defame character. Apart from that an argument can be dismissed due to an unrelated character trait, the interesting thing is when these are simply made up. They literally make a story and then behave as though it's true.
- Insults. No attempt to discuss/reason. These are at least honest in their intention, although a mob-mentality takes place due to the majority sharing the same viewpoint, which gives rise to a deluded sense of validity where an opinion is seen as more valid simply for being shared by others there.
- Eventually, they resort to censorship because they get frustrated due to, perhaps, a subconscious understanding that they look stupid within the context. This is rationalised via claims such as debate is off-topic. Note that debates with "lolcows" that are less calm can go on for dozens of pages without being deemed "off-topic", because they extract amusement from it, and a false sense of superiority. Thus the off-topic complaint is an excuse hiding the true reason for censorship.
I think what we should learn from this is to not let ourselves end up like these people. It's ironic that they predicate their site's existence on making fun of others, when it seems to me as though they are as pathetic and dim-witted as the worst of their "lolcows".
We should be vigilant. We must ensure that we focus on objective reasoning and calm discourse, and avoid the traps of mob-mentality, delusions of grandeur, smug arrogance, dependence on Ad Hom, closed-mindedness, and assumptions of correctness. I know we don't always follow all these perfectly, but there's been very few people on this forum who are as big of a hypocritical douche-nozzle as the people in that place.
