When you’re scrolling through Facebook, often times you will stumble upon a comment in which someone is talking about their stupid political opinion. There are many ways to tackle this situation, but if you actually want to convince them that they are wrong and you are right, there is a very specific set of instructions you must follow:
Step One: Listen to Their Position
And take notes of every stupid thing they say, you’ll need these notes later on. This shouldn’t be hard since, at this point, you’re still just stalking the comment thread, waiting for the right moment to strike. Now that you have thoughtfully considered their point of view, we can move on to Step Two.
Step Two: Call Them a Dumb Fuck.
On top of being a great icebreaker, calling someone a dumb fuck in the first sentence of your argument is sure to pacify and emasculate your opponent, publically humiliate them for their lack of knowledge, and put them in the perfect mind frame to accept a new worldview.
Step Three: Strawman Their Position
Don’t attack your opponent’s argument; that feeds into the illusion that their framing is correct. Instead, build up an extreme version of their argument and attack that. In most cases they will attempt to correct your strawman, but don’t back down, because best case scenario, they will accept your framing and argue from a weakened position.
Step Four: Stalk Their Facebook Page
Keep in mind weak points to attack. Are they ugly, overweight, have no friends, or post stupid things to their wall? These are all great options of weaknesses to take note of, but be creative! Sometimes it’s more effective to take something they view to be a positive thing and turn it into a negative thing.
Step Five: Attack Their Weaknesses
You’ve stocked your arsenal, heard their stupid opinions, scoured their stupid page, called them a dumb fuck, and now you’re ready to dress down this silly human and attack every crevice of their existence. The key to being successful in Step Five is to utilize every previous step: 1) maintain and build upon your strawman and continually reference it. This keeps them on the defense. 2) point out how shitty their personal life is and link it to how stupid their opinion is. 3) call them a dumb fuck again.
Step Six: “Haha” React Their Comments
On each of your opponent’s comments, hover over the “Like” button and select the “Haha” reaction. This will make it look like you are laughing at how stupid their point of view is. At the very least this will make them feel self conscious and reconsider whether they did actually say something stupid (they did!).
Step Seven: Success
The biggest mistake newcomers make in this process is that they don’t know when to fold and bail from the comment thread. Your opponent is too full of pride and ego to actually admit that you convinced them. Leaving a conversation demonstrates that you are far too intellectual to continue speaking. At this point, you’ve demonstrated how much smarter than them you are and sometimes, all it takes is a seed of knowledge to grow into a big stupid tree. It may not happen now, it may not happen tomorrow, but rest easy knowing that if you followed this strategy to the T, your opponent will fully change and adopt your worldview.
James P. W. Martin 