Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Dilbert, and the art of rhetoric.


There's an amusingly-relevant Dilbert cartoon that relates nicely to the quality (or lack thereof) of discourse on this blog lately. In the strip, ubergeek Dilbert is chatting with a colleague who has the annoying personal habit of over-exaggerating what other people say in order to discredit their arguments:


Dilbert: "You know, if we added this feature to the unit, it would increase its marketability."
Colleague: "OH, SO YOU'RE SAYING THAT ABSOLUTELY NO ONE WILL BUY THIS UNIT WITHOUT THAT FEATURE?!?!"
Dilbert: "Um ... you exaggerated what I just said so that it's not at all what I meant."
Colleague: "OH, SO NOW I EXAGGERATE EVERYTHING YOU SAY?!?!"

You know the type, don't you? You've met them before. Sound familiar?

CC: "I really don't have much sympathy anymore for American troops dying in Iraq."
Right-wing wanker: "OH, SO YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ANY MILITARY VETERANS WHO WERE KILLED IN COMBAT, HUH?!?!"

You get the idea. Now, let's all sit back and watch for the next example, shall we? Shouldn't be long now.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I really don't have much sympathy anymore for American troops dying in Iraq."

That sums it up pretty well, I think. I'm a soldier and I just got back from Iraq. Your site is a disgrace to anyone who believes what you put on it.

It's nice to know what people like you really think.

Anonymous said...

Hey asshole, I was a soldier too. and I fully understand where CC is coming from. You guys are dying over there for nothing. I'm sure glad I got out in time before our idiot president sent us there. We should have finished the job in Afghanistan.

Anonymous said...

I know what I was fighting for. I can see you don't.