One of my favourite Dilbert cartoons, from Scott Adams' book "Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel," pokes fun at a particularly weaselly debating technique which involves restating your opponent's statements using "bizarre absolutes" so that you can refute a subsequently nonsensical and irrelevant position:
Dilbert: We should add this feature to our product to make it more useful:
"Bizarre Absolute" Guy: "Are you telling me that not one person on earth will use our product without that feature?!!"
Dilbert: "You just changed what I said into a bizarre absolute."
"BA" Guy: "Oh, I change everything you say?!"
It's pretty embarrassing when you end up resembling the foil in a Dilbert cartoon, as "Kitchener Conservative" does back here when, after I complain about PM Stephen Harper's reclusive inaccessibility these days, KC replies in a bizarre absolute kind of way:
I guess what you must be saying is that Harper should run outside once a day between running the country and Question Period, so that every John Q. Protester can feel good that they can get picture taken with Harper present.
Tune in tomorrow when "KC" does his best impression of Dilbert intern Asok, who is convinced to crawl into the office ventilation system in an emergency attempt to shut down the Jeffries tubes in order to prevent an imminent warp core breach.
No comments:
Post a Comment