eli5 Whats a “Straw man fallacy”?
In: Other
Basically, it’s an informal fallacy where one person tries to refute the other’s point but instead of staying on the exact topic, they instead refute some other disconnected point (or seemingly connected point but not really).
The disconnected point they refute is the “straw man” here, which is where it gets the name, because it’s “like the bad arguer is fighting a straw man, instead of fighting me on my topic”
Google for examples if the above is unclear. Basically the person tries to subtly shift the topic, making a left turn and refuting a different argument but trying to make you THINK they actually refuted your point directly with that.
Similar to whataboutism, which is sort of a deflection strawman, where you deflect from the argument by pointing at another bad actor or situation and say “What about that?!? Is that okay????” Like if someone is talking about President Three doing something bad and a fan of Three says “what about president two! They did worse!” And you say “uhh, sure… but we’re talking about Prez 3 right now… stop changing the topic”
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