Tonight I stumbled upon a very interesting article about effective arguing. The article explains techniques to use in order to win any argument.
DRINK LIQUOR
Suppose you are at a party and some hotshot intellectual is expounding on the economy of Peru, a subject you know nothing about. If you’re drinking some health-fanatic drink like grapefruit juice, you’ll hang back, afraid to display your ignorance, while the hotshot enthralls your date. But if you drink several large martinis, you’ll discover you have STRONG VIEWS about the Peruvian economy.Â
There are several in the article, but this one was my favourite. Some of these may seem very simple, but when you think about it, they are very effective. Even I get thrown off when someone rhymes off statistics. This reminds me of when Stephen Colbert got his viewers to edit Wikipedia to reflect his opinion that the number of elephants in Africa has tripled in the past six months. His argument was that “If enough people say it’s true, it becomes true.”
Caller: The number of elephants has not tripled in the past six months!
Colbert: You have your opinion, I have mine.