Five logical fallacies that will help you in any online argument

Ever get the feeling that person with whom you disagree (ie, they are the one who’s wrong) is talking absolute hen-dung but you can’t pinpoint it, asks Colm O’Regan.

THE internet — the information superhighway that was meant to lead to enlightenment and help slake our thirst for knowledge. But as time as gone on, that highway has mostly been down to one lane due to millions of minor traffic accidents and millions of others rubbernecking. It’s all the arguing. There’s nothing wrong with argument and debate but a lot of it has degenerated to the extent that if it took place in a school-yard, we’d all be sent home with notes to our parents in our homework journals.

People are shouting “fake news” or words at each other ending in “tard” — that aren’t or custard or bastard. (Just to be clear, if you are using tard as a suffix, it originates with retard which is a hurtful and damaging term for people with an intellectual disability. Hopefully it went out with leaded petrol and the Phone-Box Outside Spar. But if you are calling someone a somethingtard, you’re echoing the word retard. So please stop.)