📝 'Logic Jam' trolling technique
The other day I came across an interesting concept. Honestly, I never noticed it in action or gave it much thought when certain situations happened to me in real life.
As you may know, “trolling” has many facets. In fact, trolling itself can exist outside the internet in various shapes and forms.
Full-on trolling in real life is too direct, too straight-on. Not subtle. It can be easily called out and neutralized. Don’t feed the troll, right?
But what if a full-swing trolling hook could be slipped in on the sly during an argument with someone? And by the “argument” I don’t mean an actual physical altercation but rather a duel of ideas, discussion, or brainstorming. Politics at work, politics outside of work, everyday slice of life interactions, you name it.
I am not even sure if there is a formal term for it. I am no professional debater.
OK, too lengthy an exposition, time to sculpt the concept into something tangible.
Picture yourself making a case or an argument for something. You chain your thoughts reasonably well, trying your best in good faith to ensure that your point is clear and understood by your interlocutor.
But then, as a counter-argument or a response or a question to your well-formed thoughts, you get something extremely preposterous and ludicrous. It’s so wild that you can’t even wrap your head around how exactly anyone could have ever come up with the nonsense that has just been blurted out.
Essentially, you’ve been dumbfoundedly disarmed, my friend. The opposing argument is so thick (and in bad faith on purpose, mind you) that it knocks you entirely off balance. Not just your argument, but also you as a whole.
Let this concept sink in and ask yourself whether you’ve ever had this “trolly” yet seemingly inane tactic used against you?
Your logic is jammed now, like a hefty batch of wood logs stuck in an old, decrepit woodchipper. It helplessly screeches and scrapes, but nothing moves.
As with the jammed machinery, you need to jump through hoops to even begin restoring balance.
It might take you hours to pick apart and point out all the flaws in the opposing side’s arguments just to keep the conversation in good faith.
And the question of the day here is whether you truly need to keep engaging in good faith. You already got a response just to dumbfound and possibly spite you. Why carry on? To get even more logically jammed and dumbfounded?
There is no winning this. You might just throw a reciprocal “Logic Jam” and see what happens. Like an EMP blast frying what is left of those dopamine supercharged neurons. Just to see if the opposing troll will feed your wholesome trolly spirit.
After all, it takes one to know one.
