• lennybird@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    If they’re arguing in bad faith, odds are high they’re just a right-wing operative intending to sow defeatism and wedge-drive. Often they’ll pretend being a concerned centrist but nowadays they feign being a leftist or tankie, which kills two birds with one stone.

    With this in mind don’t bow out, just make your strongest arguments upfront and target the bystander audience. It’s the only way to act as damage-control. But don’t waste your time with them, specifically.

    • flicker@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I flipped up through the chain and only now am I seeing all the edits they made. I knew something was screwy when they replied to my reply to myself- dude was camping this thread. Definitely not a good faith.

      I do not have the energy to argue with such a waste of time. I don’t understand people who find enjoyment in “arguing” like that person does.

    • Natanael@slrpnk.net
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      7 months ago

      And when responding, make sure to point out there’s no controversy, there was never a “gotcha”, those arguments were never missed or ignored, the truth was never in question.

      Because the goal is to make people doubt, making people think there’s more support for the false narratives than there really is, so you have to IMMEDIATELY reinforce that they’re liars in your opening statement (or they got their talking points from liars).

      One of the best ways to do it is to demonstrate their questions are so basic you didn’t need to put effort in to answering them, and doing it by answering with links is very effective at that. “but they won’t read the links” - yes but that’s not the point, the point is to nerf their ability to steal attention and accurate links does in fact do that because it reduces the likelihood of other trolls joining and it’s easier to end the thread there.