/sci/ - Science & Math

>>7449464

"Attacking a person's argument" and "attacking a person's intelligence" aren't disconnected, though. It's often impossible to debunk their stupid ideas without also debunking the stupid thought process that they used to get there. That's inherently personal.

For example, you can't confront fat acceptance without basically telling its practitioners that they're self-centered, willingly ignorant fuckheads who dismiss science because they don't like what it has to say, and hold a strong double standard for consideration of others (the core of their argument), mostly viewing it as a tool to turn the world into their own personal hugbox at everyone else's expense. No matter how friendly your wording might be, underneath all of the sugar coating, this is what you're saying.

The real question is: How you handle having your intelligence insulted? Do you adapt and grow, or do you stubbornly hole up?

I also think that a lot of these people know that their arguments are founded in flimsy reasoning to begin with. This puts them on the defensive, and causes them to be prone to switching from trying to be the most reasonable voice in the room to trying to be the loudest, most righteous voice in the room as soon as their argument comes under any kind of substantial attack.