If you don't want to read all this, the main parts is where I bold part of the paragraph further down where I don't understand what to do to argue with this, but may need to read more for more context.
First off, I am aware of how stupid of a conversation this is anyway, and I should just avoid, but this guy constantly is picking arguments like this, and I am not really sure what to do related to them. The point is not so much this specific conversation, but conversations like these as well [picking apart this one as an example would be fine as well].
I don't believe you need to really know the game I am talking about, as once again that doesn't matter, to help me, the point is how do I argue with this sort of reasoning?
I basically was saying how in an aspect of League of Legends professional play has made the game less enjoyable for me to watch [as in, how it has changed to promote a certain thing over the years]. I then gave a few reasons. Simple ones but this was just me talking about my opinion on the issue, no big deal, but if you must know reasons such as: "Well when it is a top and bottom lane swap every game, two of the three lanes become 1v2 lanes. This causes less early interaction between players [I went into more detail on this, but for the sake of keeping this shorter], and less dynamic matches. So I don't enjoy watching these sorts of games on the professional level anymore as they all seem too paint by numbers the same."
This was never me presenting some great argument. I was simply stating what I don't personally like about something as on offhand remark, not condemning it, but it became very clear he was wanting to argue about this.
He starts out by saying [this is paraphrasing of course, but I do think I appropriately am representing his sentiments and words], "No, it is better now" as his reasoning, and his reasoning never gets beyond "well this is the better strategy to win", and he never seems to no matter how much I tell him understand or listen to me saying how I am not saying it isn't the best strategy, I am saying it is more dull to watch as a viewer since it became a prominent strategy. I am not trying to argue against that even with him effectively giving no reason very much [and if I do prove something he says to be false, he just moves goalposts], but more of trying to just defend what I dislike.
It just goes downhill from here. I try and explain to him that isn't what i mean, but he keeps trying to misrepresent my argument in one way or another, no matter how much I tell him that is not what I am saying, and even restating my main points as to why I feel this way. He then finally makes a condescending comment, I basically say "come on man I am just saying an opinion why are you getting all argumentative about it".
He says how it is because my opinion isn't based on fact, but instead on other opinions so it is not valid, and he won't believe me unless I give him hard facts. I personally found this silly [as I if anything gave very solid reason and many as to why I dislike it, from even a core game mechanics level in detail. I am not sure how much better of facts one can give for such a like/dislike thing]. Plus, I found it silly this whole opinion based on opinion thing he was giving me, and so much as even sent him direct definitions of the word opinion that completely contradicted what he said from several dictionaries, example of one:
a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.
At this point where he is trying to desperately redefine the word opinion and other such words [which he has a history of doing a lot] I said something like, "ok whatever, if you can't even accept that is what the word opinion means, I didn't even know how to have this conversation from this point." [Not to mention I went far beyond any reasonable level of proof of facts one can give for something as a personal like/dislike, as I stated earlier in far greater detail than stated in this for brevity].
How am I supposed to logically argue with this? I just don't know what to do. He is constantly changing his story, misrepresenting my case to make it easier to argue with [but to state again, misrepresenting or misstating it entirely what I am even saying], if I ever do prove something he says outright wrong he constantly moves goalposts around, and defining words how he conveniently wishes them to be defined [in more cases than just the example in this].
I just don't know what to do with this. This guy is overall a nice dude, but randomly picks these insane nonsensical arguments every few weeks and I just don't know how to deal with this. I by no means do claim to be perfect in this sort of stuff, but this all just seems crazy to me.
Also maybe I am super absurdly wrong, but I just don't see it in this case. None of this even made sense to me as any sound reasoning, and it all just seemed like some silly argument to prove it was "stupid of me for disliking _______ for the reasons I stated in great detail".
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