Re:The Dark Arts – LessWrong
by ukuina on Friday December 29, 2023 @04:39AM
(#38803204)
This was extremely difficult to read. The takeaway seems to be: Push enough non-factual arguments in a coherent whole, and your position becomes perfectly defensible?
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Re:The Dark Arts – LessWrong
by supriyo-biswas on Friday December 29, 2023 @04:47AM
(#38803261)
I wouldn’t call it “perfectly defensible” but rather an argument which is seemingly convincing but takes a lot of effort to unpack and properly respond to. The aforementioned technique causes onlookers to think that the debate has been won by the party presenting the faulty argument, as their counterpart has no simple and immediate rebuttal.
In other circles this is often called a Gish gallop[1], I have no idea why they wouldn’t use more standard terms to describe it, FWIW.