I should know this from my years on the internet

[james_davis_nicoll]

[Poll #1333503]

Comments

[oh6.livejournal.com]

Implying or stating that the person you are are arguing is a bigot.

Criticizing their grammar.

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

You can be an idiot but not a bigot, but you cannot be a bigot without being an idiot.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Burn! Burn the heretics, before their vile maunderings corrupt the True and Innocent! Burn them lest their spiteful lies lure others away from the True Faith! There are no excesses in the defense of Truth; go forth, Defenders of Virtue, and destroy the Infidel with Holy Flame!

-- Steve's decided that all things are acceptable in moderation, including moderation.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

I don't think I can answer this question without knowing whether the person I am hypothetically arguing with is an idiot, a bigot, both, or neither.

[dsrtao]

No one can be convinced of their own idiocy. Sometimes they can be convinced of their own bigotry.

[chriskarate.livejournal.com]

This question presupposes that one isn't in an environment where idiocy and bigotry are, through obscure mental yoga, seen as virtues.

[redbird]

Persuasive to whom? And of what?

Sometimes the point is, in fact, to convince third parties that the person you're arguing with is an idiot, bigot, or both, rather than to persuade anyone of a point in the nominal topic of argument.

Right, Vicki, there you go answering one of James's argument-causing polls seriously.

"Your Godwin Can't Save You Now!"

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

Accusations of genocide always convince the other person to run howling into the internight. Unless that other person is a little unreasonable. Then a mass-attack by war-zeppelins is the only sensible course of action.

[barberio.livejournal.com]

It would depend entirely who you were trying to persuade.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's more effective to imply the other person is (a) drunk.

[cofax7]

I suspect the point is that one can rarely persuade either an idiot or a bigot that they are being stupid or prejudiced.

However other viewers/readers might be informed by the conversation, as I have been in times past.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Does anyone try to *persuade* in an internet argument?

[badgerbag.livejournal.com]

Something about this question reminds me of Hitler.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Getting into a discussion of what a bigot is in the abstract; eventually someone will jump in with citations that such-and-such *can't* be bigoted behavior, because they do that. Cognitive dissonance ensues.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I usually phrase that as "Nothing in the rules says you can't do both." supergee usually calls it "Embrace the power of 'and'."

[amberite.livejournal.com]

Neither of those is at all an effective tactic.

Giving them input that, should they process it correctly, will lead them to ask the question "am I being an idiot/bigot here?" is in line with the Socratic method, and much more workable.