How to win arguments

Steve Ash

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I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win arguments on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me. You too can win arguments. Simply follow these rules:

* Drink Liquor

Suppose you're at a party and some hotshot intellectual is expounding on the economy of Peru. a subject you know nothing about. If your drinking some health-fanatic drink like grapefruit juice, you'll hang back, afraid to display your ignorance, while hotshot enthralls your date. But if you drink several large martinis, you'll discover you have STRONG VIEWS about the Peruvian economy. You'll be a WEALTH of information. You'll argue forcefully, offering searing insights and possibly upsetting the furniture. People will be impressed. Some may leave the room.

* MAKE THINGS UP

Suppose, in the Peruvian economy argument, you are trying to prove Peruvians are underpaid, a position you base solely on the fact that YOU are underpaid, and you're ticked if you going to let a bunch of Peruvians be better off. DON'T say: "I think Peruvians are underpaid." Say: "The average Peruvians salary in 1981 dollars adjusted for the revised tax base is $1,452.81 per annum, which is $836.07 before the mean gross poverty level."

NOTE: Always make up exact figures.

If an opponent asks you where you got your information, make THAT up too. Say: "This information comes from Dr. Hovel T. Moon's study for the Buford Commission published May 9, 1982. didn't you read it?" Say this in the same tone of voice you would use to say "You left your soiled underwear in my bath house."

* USE MEANINGLESS BUT WEIGHTY-SOUNDING WORDS AND PHRASES.

Memorize this list:

Let me put it this way
In terms of
Vis-a-vis
Per se
As it were
Qua
So to speak

You should also memorize some Latin abbreviations such as "Q.E.D., e.g., and i.e." These are all short for "I speak Latin, and you do not."

Here's how to use these words and phrases. suppose you want to say:
"Peruvians would like to order appetizers more often, but they don't have enough money."

You never win arguments like that. But you WILL win if you say: "Let me put it this way. In terms of appetizers vis-a-vis Peruvians qua Peruvians, they would like to order them more often, so to speak, but they do not have enough money per se, as it were. Q.E.D."

Only a fool would challenge that statement.

*USE SNAPPY AND IRRELEVANT COMEBACKS

You need an arsenal of all-purpose irrelevant phrases to fire back at you opponents when they make valid points. the best are:

You're begging the question
You're being defensive
Don't compare apples and oranges
What are your parameters?

This last one is especially valuable. Nobody, other that mathematicians, has the vaguest idea what "parameters" means.

Here's how to use your comebacks:

You say "As Abraham, Lincoln said in 1873......"
Your opponent says "Lincoln died in 1865."
You say "You're begging the question."

OR

You say "Liberians, like most Asians........"
You're opponent says "Liberia is in Africa."
You say "You're being defensive"

* COMPARE YOUR OPPONENT TO ADOLPH HILTER

This is you're heavy artillery, for when your opponent is obviously right and you are spectacularly wrong. Bring Hilter up subtly.
Say: "That sounds like something Adolph Hilter might say" or "You certainly do remind me of Adolph Hilter."

So that's it: you now know hot to out-argue anybody.

Do not try to pull any of this on people that carry weapons.
 
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Male Answer Syndrome?

Steve, I must say this sounds a lot like Male Answer Syndrome...

Why Men Always Have Opinions, Even On Subjects They Know Nothing About

In the animal kingdom, males exhibit what is known as "display behavior" in order to attract females and to ward off rival males. They thrust out their chests, ruffle their plumage, and generally try to appear more impressive than they really are. On nature shows, this is comic. It appears comic, too, when it shows up among humans: the guy in the Camaro with all the gold chains, say, or Vanilla Ice's haircut. It has been discovered that display behavior is much more common among humans than had been previously believed.

Have you ever wondered why:

* Men who have never been west of Kentucky can tell you about the mentality of the Japanese?
* Men who can't pay their credit-card bills have a plan for dealing with the national debt?
* Men who aren't on speaking terms with their families know how to achieve peace in the Middle East?
* Men who flunked high-school physics can explain what went wrong at NASA?
* Men who haven't had a date in six months know what women really want?

Try an experiment: Ask my friend Jeff, who spends his weekends fixing up his Harley and watching female mud wrestling, how he thinks political autonomy will affect the economies of the Baltic states.

His brow will furrow; he will purse his lips thoughtfully. "It's interesting that you mention that...," he will begin, and then he will come up with something-probably nothing remotely feasible, but something.

This behavior-the chronic answering of questions regardless of actual knowledge is known as Male Answer Syndrom. The compulsion to answer varies from person to person, but few men are happy saying, "I don't know." They prefer, "That's not what's important here."

They try not to get bogged down by petty considerations, such as, "Do I know anything about this subject?" or "Is what I have to say interesting?" They take a broad view of questions, treating them less as requests for specific pieces of information than as invitations to expand on some theories, air a few prejudices, and tell a couple of jokes. Some men seem to regard life as a talk show on which they are the star guest. If you ask, "What is the capital of Peru?" they hear, "So tell us a bit about your early years, Bob."

Sometimes this expansiveness is appealing. If you ask a woman, "Why did Madonna go on the David Letterman Show?" she will simply shrug helplessly, acknowledging that some things are simply unknowable. A man, on the other hand, will come up with a few theories (she has the same agent? overdose of Prozac). Men have the courage and inventiveness to try to explain the inexplicable.

But Male Answer Syndrome (MAS) is by no means harmless, as my friend Pauline discovered at the age of 8. She had found that eating ice cream made her teeth hurt and asked her father whether Eskimos had the same problem. "No," he said. "They have rubber teeth." Pauline repeated this information in a geography lesson and found herself the laughing stock of the class. That was how she learned that a man, even if he is your own father, would rather make up an answer than admit to his ignorance.

Later in life women run into the same problem: Men can speak with such conviction that women may be fooled into thinking that they actually know what they're talking about.

My friend Jeff (he of the Harley) is full of expertise on subjects as diverse as global warming and Elvis' current whereabouts. In reality, however, he is an expert at only one thing: making very little knowledge go a very long way. For him answering is a game, and not knowing what he's talking about just adds to the thrill.

Expressing skepticism can be highly inflammatory. Even mild-mannered Abe Lincoln types may react to, "Are you sure about that?" as a vicious slur on their manhood and find themselves backing up a ludicrous assertion with spurious facts.

Many women actively encourage male answering behavior. There is in the female correlative condition known as the Say What? Complex. Women who behind closed doors expound eloquently on particle physics may be found, in male company, gaping at the news that the earth is round.

MAS tends to be mild until puberty; boys begin to speak with authority on matters of foreign policy at the same time they start to grow facial hair. And how MAS developed: Since killing wooly mammoths and attacking enemies with rocks are now frowned upon, and since shirts open to the navel are not appropriate in every social situation, men prove their masculinity by concocting elaborate theories about football.

Growing awareness of MAS has led some to call for a moratorium on all male-female conversation. This is alarmist. But care should be taken. Women must remind themselves that if a man tells them something particularly interesting there is a good chance that it is particularly untrue.

(I found this on the net years ago. Sounds like something Dave Barry would have written but I have never found a source.)
 
thats the truth

he is awesome in that area of expertizzz, tried once to baffel him with and all i got was more of his extremly well educated logic and factual computations..and yes he was drinkun and i was un armed at the time:rofl:
 
i was un armed at the time:rofl:


Must not have been this time.....

shotgun-2.jpg
 
Personally, I have never understood why men always have such difficult experiences conversing with the female of the species.

I was born male and as such have been naturally endowed with my position in the human pecking order.

I have always and will continue to have the last word.

Yes Dear

:dunno:

DT
 
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