this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2024
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Knowledge Fight

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A community to discuss the podcast Knowledge Fight and topics of interest to the hosts, Dan and Jordan.

This community is unofficial. Neither Dan nor Jordan currently know about it, and I don't feel like bothering them about it. They do not know me.

Feel free to share your bright spot in the most recent bright spot thread.

Rules: If you are fans of Dan and Jordan, you know the rules already. Keep happy thoughts during our battles against poisonous ideologies.

What is Knowledge Fight? Well, no one can make it sound good. So I'll just make up a story.

What happened January 7, 2011? I don't know, but Dan can tell you. Kinda. You see, sometime in 2017, former stand-up Dan Friesen decided to see what kind of shit Alex Jones was spewing on that day on his InfoWars broadcast. Why that day? Well, it would be just your average day on the Alex Jones show, but average days don't exist there.

Dan crawled through the batshit and presented his findings to his best friend, Jordan Holmes. You can listen to that here.

Or skip that fictional origin story of Episode #75 and just visit knowledgefight.com

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After listening to the new episode of Knowledge Fight, here are lessons to be learned from Alex Jones's style of "debate".....

  1. Yelling all the time and never stop talking

  2. Gish Gallop (spewing lots of talking points so nobody can fact-check or counter)

  3. Name calling by pretending to misremember your opponent's name (eg, calling Destiny "Ding Dong" and claims that he forgets his name)

  4. Generalisation your opponents' talking point to make them look bad (eg, twisting your opponent's statement that Ashley wasn't get beaten in the head by saying that "HE THINKS Ashley didn't get shot!")

  5. Whataboustism

  6. Distracting by bringing other topics instead (talking about vaccines or Trump ballot during the Jan 6 debate)

Any other tactics you guys see here?

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[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

This is accurate, but it's missing the central point. It's not about logic. It's a purely emotional way of interacting, more akin to two teenagers trading insults in a cafeteria, or two people threatening each other getting ready to fight.

The point is to posture and insult. Cutting off your opponent before they can make a point, giving them insulting nicknames and hearing them "stick to the facts" instead of punching you when you say the insult or something... that indicates that you're the dominant party. That's what the listeners are looking for. They genuinely don't care who's right or wrong. It's actually more of a badge of pride if one party can be wrong, but bully the other person into still looking like the loser in the exchange (based on tone of voice and presentation and the flow of the conversation), because it gives them someone to look up to and emulate.

That's why so many of them love Trump. He's a D student who can (in their minds) get away with being a POS, and bullying people smarter than him, and they admire and respect him for that.

[โ€“] ook_the_librarian 4 points 10 months ago

It's also interesting to see which of his usual tactics he employs to which opponents. His "debate" with David Duke used much calmer tactics.