Stop using facts to back your arguments

And start winning them

Cthulhu vogues the Venetian way

Arguing facts is dumb, not because facts don’t matter but because arguments are not about truth. They are about winning in the same way that war is not about planting flags but taking territory. The truth is that when you win, you can just invent your own truth.

Darwin fans will remember the distinct sensation of winning when the ruling for the Scopes Trial came down in 1925, decreeing you can now teach MT (Monke Theory) to kids. However, in contemporary society, Darwin fans may feel like their allies in the science community betray them when they see Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining how, no actually, your sperm don’t have to be male or female to vogue through the vaginal canal just as Mickey Mouse does not need to be Italian to gondola Venetian waterways. Conservatives often miss the fact that just because you want to belong to the Party of Science doesn’t mean you can’t do poppers when you’re in the lab.

Take, for instance, Covid. Imagine explaining to a normie how strange it was at the beginning of lockdowns when authorities announced we would specifically await a vaccine to handle the disease rather than any other kind of medicine or protocol. I have noticed, for instance, that the common cold and toe cancer are two issues we have treatments for, none of which are vaccines. Why would a vaccine and an accelerated program for one necessarily be the tools for the job? Who told you it had to be this way and not some other way?

Also consider the construction of the vaccine as compared to the construction of others. Had any other mRNA technology been brought to market as a vaccine or was this a novel usage of the long-established word “vaccine” to apply to a new technology never commonly enveloped under “vaccine?”¹ If mRNA is not a vaccine in the traditional sense but still works, why did the messaging require it be called a vaccine and not just a shot, medicine, mRNA, a concoction?

I could go on and on posing questions of high and low merit that would absolutely infuriate those who were really about the official medical communications from NIH, the FDA, CDC, and other public-private organs, more specifically questions that annoy:

• anyone who is basically immovably Democrat out of professional or social obligation (most lawyers, NGO employees, John Cena etc.;

• anyone molested or made fun of by a Republican (or who just hates that they come from uncool boomer loser parents in the burbs);

• and anyone who made public proclamations about Covid that might not age well if they were to pronounce any post hoc regret or moderation.

Do you think it would be possible to have any sort of productive argument about any of these topics with any of the aforementioned archetypes who populate our MeatSim? I ask this even considering the possibility that you could pose these questions with an open mind and then agree with their normie answers. The problem is that to ask these questions at all is to identify yourself as someone from the outgroup, someone disqualified from mattering. Your opinion is not only not asked for—it is expressly unwanted and further brandishment will constitute indecent exposure, an act we take very seriously, as we have a serious commitment to ending rape culture, one of the last holdovers of masculinity among the underclasses who are too horny and violent in their ways.

Weeerk.

While I am not necessarily against being violent or horny, I note it makes for poor debate dynamics unless the outcomes you seek involve fucking or fighting. So, I propose another way. We don’t have to live like this.

Agreeing to disagree

Instead of disagreeing with the facts, you should present an argument that is willing to concede the same facts as your debate partner but frames them in a light that bolsters your case.

Those with a JD or otherwise nerdly degree will astutely notice that I’m describing a version of “arguing in the alternative,” but for Substackers.

According to Official Internet Lore, poaster par excellence Covfefe Anon coined the phrase, “The woke are more correct than the mainstream,” often shortened to, “The woke are more correct.”

Covfefe Anon - The Woke Are More Correct Than The Mainstream

Take, for example, a debate about the righteousness or civility of righties vs. lefties. In such a debate, someone with more institutional inclinations might point out the violence that occurred on January 6th as evidence that the American right is populated by savages. Someone with fewer institutional inclinations might counter that the country spent much of 2020 besieged by Antifa and BLM activists who most certainly do not affiliate with the right.

It would be fruitless to get into a pissing match to try and decide who is correct here since it is obvious that everyone is wrong here. (All annoying people should be thrown in prison!)

A better approach would be for our anti-woke player character to agree that January 6th was, in fact, a much bigger deal than the riots and demonstrations in the summer of 2020 because only red state potato people are capable of politically organizing in a way that threatens power, which is why it’s perfectly permissible for Black Panthers, The Weather Underground, or anyone who wore a pussyhat to teach at Columbia but J6’ers must be kept behind cages. In this way, you can nullify the need to agree on data so that you may give them credit for proving your point in a way that lowers the status of their argument, removes the sheen that makes it prestigious and makes them sound like highfalutin Archie Bunkers who just don’t take the voices of women and minorities seriously.

Remember Archie Bunker?

I’m a humble guy and don’t want to take the credit for inventing this particular tactic. Readers may recognize it from the NYT playbook as, “and it’s actually a good thing.” More online types might know describe this phenomenon with Michael Anton’s term: celebration parallax. Whereas once The Gray Lady ran headlines denying an influx of migrants, now it runs headlines telling you how many citizens would give their lives to hear the sweet 3:00 am serenade of classical guitar, chorus pedals, and the castrated caterwauling of a man betrayed by love and in love with bachata. when you could be sleeping through the night like a cuck.

Sashay, Shante

Just to dot my i’s and cross my t’s here, I want to point out that:

• I live in a red state and love potato people!

• The anti-woke player character is not countering the argument with facts. They are establishing what serves as the default narrative or null hypothesis, which is impervious to more charts, further studies.

• Neil deGrasse Tyson is my favorite contemporary scientist.

• I believe in vaccines but not as much as social/biological Darwinism.

1. According to Gemini, emphasis my own: “The first mRNA vaccine to be tested in humans was a vaccine against rabies, developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania in 2013.”

According to Johns Hopkins’ article titled “The Long History of mRNA vaccines” published October 6, 2021 (emphasis here also my own): “Messenger RNA, or mRNA, was discovered in the early 1960s; research into how mRNA could be delivered into cells was developed in the 1970s. So, why did it take until the global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 for the first mRNA vaccine to be brought to market?”

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2021/the-long-history-of-mrna-vaccines