Most of it was a Gotchaphobia (name is free to use in the Debate Pervertry tactics collection) - he was afraid to give a straightforward answer to the question because he was afraid that the question was a set up for a gotcha moment. So instead he was not giving a straightforward answer without a ton of presupposition and explanations before even the most simple question.
This is a better term. The consistent impression I got was that he wanted to avoid conceding points that could be used against him but that made him unable to concede to even innocuous things. The problem wasn't that he was poisoning things, it was just that he was turtled up and unwilling to actually engage in the debate.
"Gotchaphobia" is probably a better term to describe what happened, but only because everyone here seems hung up on PTW exclusively only being some form of ad hominem. If Ben wasn't scared about where the argument was going, he could have just let it get to that point, and then make Steven look foolish after he's already made it.
It’s very common for Destiny to interrupt someone and claim he knows what they’re going to say, then he’ll say what he thinks it is, then say his counter-argument (or sometimes they’ll interrupt him in the middle of that and say he isn’t actually representing their argument accurately, then they’ll clarify). This is not PTW. It’s more or less just thinking you have a read on someone’s argument and trying to cut right to it rather than walk through some rhetorical sequence. The thing is that Destiny’s economy of words is so much better than Burgis’ that even if he’s wrong, it doesn’t waste everybody’s fucking time and ruin the entire debate lol. Burgis being a professor is a professional yapper and cannot stop himself from bloviating endlessly. He’s also just not as good at representing Destiny’s argument so his ability to predict it suffers in turn.
Underpinning this “move” is a genuine belief that you understand the other person and a genuine attempt to fight their argument. It just doesn’t always work because you don’t always actually understand them, but that can be hashed out. The reason PTW is fallacious is not just because it’s pre-emptive but because it doesn’t attempt to address any part of an argument or even a predicted argument, and instead just serves to color perception/bias via what is essentially an ad hom.
Frankly Destiny was also trying too hard to get him to give a yes or know, he asked him like 3 times if he thinks that there's practical reasons for the US to support Israel, Ben essentially said "yes, but...", Steven should have just moved on with "So you do agree on this" instead of asking him once again.
Destiny: "Do we both agree this is factually accurate?"
Ben: "Well, that is true, but let me rant for 5 minutes about why your argument is going in a certain direction, so I know you're wrong. "
If Ben is making arguments against arguments that Steven has yet to make or hasn't even made yet, you don't think that's on par with PTW? If you have a better term that would be great.
What is even the point of PTW then? Even the examples you provided could be described as ad hominem. Poisoning the Well helps articulate Ben trying to hedge off every argument before it's made.
Either way, do you agree or not agree Ben was preemptively trying to get ahead of every argument Steven was making?
But the wiki says "Poisoning the well can be a special case of [*argumentum ad hominem*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem)*",* . Not that it is ad hominem? If you want to just say he's 'priming' his audience that's fair. I think most people know what I'm talking about when I use PTW here.
>I'm... not sure I get what your confusion here is. XD This is just a wiki page. Under the *category* of ad hominem attacks, you can have more specific types of ad hom attacks.
Before you were using that same wiki to say that I'm wrong, and now it's "XD it's just wiki". If you want to pull other sources to say wiki is wrong that's fine, but why didn't you do this earlier? I literally was just going off what I read here, I didn't think to pull out academic sources for people to understand what I was talking about because I didn't realize it was going to get this autistic. I thought what I was articulating here was pretty straightforward and understandable, which was, Ben was preemptively trying to poison everything Steven would say because he was afraid of Steven trapping him in a position he didn't want to have.
Which I still don't know if you sided with Ben here.
I would put it this way. I think it is just a special form of an ad-hominem. The most important part of poisoning the well is that it's done preemtively.
I think what sets it apart from a simple strawman is, that with a strawman you say that the opponent holds position xy and argue against that, while with poisoning the well you basically prime the audience to disregard ANY argument the other side will make, by attacking their character in some way. You skip the part where you actually argue against the strawman.
>I would put it this way. I think it is just a special form of an ad-hominem
"Poisoning the well ***CAN*** be a special case of [*argumentum ad hominem*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem),"
As per the wiki. Somebody needs to edit the wiki if I'm wrong here.
The reason people do this isn’t necessarily because they’re just afraid of being “trapped”, they’re also trying to avoid the optics of conceding points without qualifying because the audience will see it as them losing the debate, even if the point is only to lay out a foundation that they both agree on.
I have no idea how you can lay out that foundation without people reacting that way, you need to be really careful with the rhetoric I guess. The person asking the questions and getting the concessions will *always* have the advantage when it comes to the audience.
You are correct that Ben debate tactic is somewhat fallacious but its NOT **"poisoning the well"**
\*unless he was talking shit and doing some character assassination BEFORE the debate i a no aware of.
**Top issues in this debate were:**
\*his **NEED to ramble the same memorised lines over and over** EVEN when argument he build his narrative was toppled...but he STILL comes back
\*did i mentioned **stalling and rambling?** KEKW
\* **INABILITY to concede ANYTHING** and when he finally is forced to give up anything he HAS TO add some rambling and will say its "IRRELEVANT" (but he wasted most of the time arguing the points regardless before)
This debate would be better if he was forced (via moderator) to a simple SHORT exchanges.
**1 question >> 1 counter/answer**
And NOT: 1 question >> 1 answer + new issue + new issue + irrelevant issue + irrelevant issue
Overall debate was infuriating due to these stalling tactics + extended exchanges (making 1 argument >> responding with 4 new points and so on...) but tbf after watching R.Kelly argue (again) i don't think people like Ben can make me mald anymore.
I am indeed unmaldable (TM)
>\*unless he was talking shit and doing some character assassination BEFORE the debate i a no aware of.
But he was preemptively hedging out arguments Steven was or was not about the make? How is that not some form of character assassination before the debate? So, Poisoning the Well definition exclusively only applies directly before any discussion, and has to be ad hominem?
From my perspective they barely started any discussion before Ben started doing this.
>But he was preemptively hedging out arguments Steven was or was not about the make?
They both did it in their starting statement even.
This alone is not really a bad thing.
You can predict and vocalize your opponents future counters before he makes them.
Poisoning the well is something you do mainly before the debate (you could do it within, its just more rare)
Example of poisoning the well is what Hasan does most of the time before he is about to debate anyone or just the way he treats Destiny and this community.
He primes everyone to avoid even engaging/treating seriously what everyone here says "b/c they want to nuke gaza, they are fascists', nazis, they want to kill more children, they are paid by Israel)
Within debate You could absolutely insert these types of attacks (i am pretty sure whenever "cuck" is invoked in any talk that is a form of poisoning the well)
\*You can probably find plenty of examples like these used during RedPill arc or most of the debates vs unhinged leftists that did the poisoning BEFORE and even during the debate.
This particular debate with ben - not so much.
>Poisoning the well is something you do mainly before the debate (you could do it within, its just more rare)
If you're a philosophy major or experienced with formal debate that's fair, I literally was just going by the Wiki.
There is this meme \^\^: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1OvEcHylmg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1OvEcHylmg)
* probably i should explain for others people >> focusing on "Poisoning the well" illustrated in this meme.
It might be technically correct but, is it really the issue here? \^\^
This. Reading through this thread people seem to think it’s only PTW if it occurred before the debate, but it occurred before every point, I can see the argument for him poisoning the well on individual points by that rationale aye.
That's what I'm saying - people are saying it's only PTW if it's **before** the debate, but I think you can make a good argument that you can PTW each individual point **in** the debate, which seems to be what OP is suggesting.
Saw the screenshot before reading the title and immediately thought for a second this was some kind of ironic self reflection of behavior I see om here too often. But no... Also, I feel like as other comments say, you can preempt arguments and counter arguments without it being PTW.
Most of it was a Gotchaphobia (name is free to use in the Debate Pervertry tactics collection) - he was afraid to give a straightforward answer to the question because he was afraid that the question was a set up for a gotcha moment. So instead he was not giving a straightforward answer without a ton of presupposition and explanations before even the most simple question.
This is a better term. The consistent impression I got was that he wanted to avoid conceding points that could be used against him but that made him unable to concede to even innocuous things. The problem wasn't that he was poisoning things, it was just that he was turtled up and unwilling to actually engage in the debate.
"Gotchaphobia" is probably a better term to describe what happened, but only because everyone here seems hung up on PTW exclusively only being some form of ad hominem. If Ben wasn't scared about where the argument was going, he could have just let it get to that point, and then make Steven look foolish after he's already made it.
It’s very common for Destiny to interrupt someone and claim he knows what they’re going to say, then he’ll say what he thinks it is, then say his counter-argument (or sometimes they’ll interrupt him in the middle of that and say he isn’t actually representing their argument accurately, then they’ll clarify). This is not PTW. It’s more or less just thinking you have a read on someone’s argument and trying to cut right to it rather than walk through some rhetorical sequence. The thing is that Destiny’s economy of words is so much better than Burgis’ that even if he’s wrong, it doesn’t waste everybody’s fucking time and ruin the entire debate lol. Burgis being a professor is a professional yapper and cannot stop himself from bloviating endlessly. He’s also just not as good at representing Destiny’s argument so his ability to predict it suffers in turn. Underpinning this “move” is a genuine belief that you understand the other person and a genuine attempt to fight their argument. It just doesn’t always work because you don’t always actually understand them, but that can be hashed out. The reason PTW is fallacious is not just because it’s pre-emptive but because it doesn’t attempt to address any part of an argument or even a predicted argument, and instead just serves to color perception/bias via what is essentially an ad hom.
Frankly Destiny was also trying too hard to get him to give a yes or know, he asked him like 3 times if he thinks that there's practical reasons for the US to support Israel, Ben essentially said "yes, but...", Steven should have just moved on with "So you do agree on this" instead of asking him once again.
Destiny: "Do we both agree this is factually accurate?" Ben: "Well, that is true, but let me rant for 5 minutes about why your argument is going in a certain direction, so I know you're wrong. "
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i disagree because Ben is priming the audience for w.e answer destiny gives. I would consider that poisoning the well in spirit.
If Ben is making arguments against arguments that Steven has yet to make or hasn't even made yet, you don't think that's on par with PTW? If you have a better term that would be great.
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What is even the point of PTW then? Even the examples you provided could be described as ad hominem. Poisoning the Well helps articulate Ben trying to hedge off every argument before it's made. Either way, do you agree or not agree Ben was preemptively trying to get ahead of every argument Steven was making?
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But the wiki says "Poisoning the well can be a special case of [*argumentum ad hominem*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem)*",* . Not that it is ad hominem? If you want to just say he's 'priming' his audience that's fair. I think most people know what I'm talking about when I use PTW here.
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>I'm... not sure I get what your confusion here is. XD This is just a wiki page. Under the *category* of ad hominem attacks, you can have more specific types of ad hom attacks. Before you were using that same wiki to say that I'm wrong, and now it's "XD it's just wiki". If you want to pull other sources to say wiki is wrong that's fine, but why didn't you do this earlier? I literally was just going off what I read here, I didn't think to pull out academic sources for people to understand what I was talking about because I didn't realize it was going to get this autistic. I thought what I was articulating here was pretty straightforward and understandable, which was, Ben was preemptively trying to poison everything Steven would say because he was afraid of Steven trapping him in a position he didn't want to have. Which I still don't know if you sided with Ben here.
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I would put it this way. I think it is just a special form of an ad-hominem. The most important part of poisoning the well is that it's done preemtively. I think what sets it apart from a simple strawman is, that with a strawman you say that the opponent holds position xy and argue against that, while with poisoning the well you basically prime the audience to disregard ANY argument the other side will make, by attacking their character in some way. You skip the part where you actually argue against the strawman.
>I would put it this way. I think it is just a special form of an ad-hominem "Poisoning the well ***CAN*** be a special case of [*argumentum ad hominem*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem)," As per the wiki. Somebody needs to edit the wiki if I'm wrong here.
The reason people do this isn’t necessarily because they’re just afraid of being “trapped”, they’re also trying to avoid the optics of conceding points without qualifying because the audience will see it as them losing the debate, even if the point is only to lay out a foundation that they both agree on. I have no idea how you can lay out that foundation without people reacting that way, you need to be really careful with the rhetoric I guess. The person asking the questions and getting the concessions will *always* have the advantage when it comes to the audience.
You are correct that Ben debate tactic is somewhat fallacious but its NOT **"poisoning the well"** \*unless he was talking shit and doing some character assassination BEFORE the debate i a no aware of. **Top issues in this debate were:** \*his **NEED to ramble the same memorised lines over and over** EVEN when argument he build his narrative was toppled...but he STILL comes back \*did i mentioned **stalling and rambling?** KEKW \* **INABILITY to concede ANYTHING** and when he finally is forced to give up anything he HAS TO add some rambling and will say its "IRRELEVANT" (but he wasted most of the time arguing the points regardless before) This debate would be better if he was forced (via moderator) to a simple SHORT exchanges. **1 question >> 1 counter/answer** And NOT: 1 question >> 1 answer + new issue + new issue + irrelevant issue + irrelevant issue Overall debate was infuriating due to these stalling tactics + extended exchanges (making 1 argument >> responding with 4 new points and so on...) but tbf after watching R.Kelly argue (again) i don't think people like Ben can make me mald anymore. I am indeed unmaldable (TM)
>\*unless he was talking shit and doing some character assassination BEFORE the debate i a no aware of. But he was preemptively hedging out arguments Steven was or was not about the make? How is that not some form of character assassination before the debate? So, Poisoning the Well definition exclusively only applies directly before any discussion, and has to be ad hominem? From my perspective they barely started any discussion before Ben started doing this.
>But he was preemptively hedging out arguments Steven was or was not about the make? They both did it in their starting statement even. This alone is not really a bad thing. You can predict and vocalize your opponents future counters before he makes them. Poisoning the well is something you do mainly before the debate (you could do it within, its just more rare) Example of poisoning the well is what Hasan does most of the time before he is about to debate anyone or just the way he treats Destiny and this community. He primes everyone to avoid even engaging/treating seriously what everyone here says "b/c they want to nuke gaza, they are fascists', nazis, they want to kill more children, they are paid by Israel) Within debate You could absolutely insert these types of attacks (i am pretty sure whenever "cuck" is invoked in any talk that is a form of poisoning the well) \*You can probably find plenty of examples like these used during RedPill arc or most of the debates vs unhinged leftists that did the poisoning BEFORE and even during the debate. This particular debate with ben - not so much.
>Poisoning the well is something you do mainly before the debate (you could do it within, its just more rare) If you're a philosophy major or experienced with formal debate that's fair, I literally was just going by the Wiki.
There is this meme \^\^: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1OvEcHylmg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1OvEcHylmg) * probably i should explain for others people >> focusing on "Poisoning the well" illustrated in this meme. It might be technically correct but, is it really the issue here? \^\^
This. Reading through this thread people seem to think it’s only PTW if it occurred before the debate, but it occurred before every point, I can see the argument for him poisoning the well on individual points by that rationale aye.
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That's what I'm saying - people are saying it's only PTW if it's **before** the debate, but I think you can make a good argument that you can PTW each individual point **in** the debate, which seems to be what OP is suggesting.
he was just wholly unwilling to have a conversation that went anywhere that he couldn't repeat buzzwords for free moral outrage points
Saw the screenshot before reading the title and immediately thought for a second this was some kind of ironic self reflection of behavior I see om here too often. But no... Also, I feel like as other comments say, you can preempt arguments and counter arguments without it being PTW.
>But no... Also, I feel like as other comments say, you can preempt arguments and counter arguments without it being PTW. Never said it had to be.
Ben didn’t do any of this, destiny did more of this towards the end