Chuck was late again. This was no good, really. His students were really capable of more mischief than he gave them credit. He should be keeping an eye on them.

When he entered the room, he tossed his briefcase down on the desk. As if to make up for lost time, he positively ran to the board, and started doing notes.


“Misleading vividness!” Chuck called. “If a story seems plausible enough, people will believe it. Take this textbook wikipedia example:

Bill: "Police marksmen should use tasers instead of guns when it's safe to do so."
Anne: "Can you imagine what would happen if those darts from the taser went into your eyes, piercing your eyeballs, and then if they sent the high voltage through your eyes and brain! It would probably kill you and be much worse than being shot."

Usually, one story should be enough to combat an idea. When you’ve hard enough practice, you’ll be able to shoot these ideas down with ease. But for right now, you’ll need a few tries. So today, try and make every response a misleading, vivid example. Parry their stories with your stories. If their uncle lost his tooth fishing, and thus decided to leave them alone, then by God, yours lost his arm because he didn’t kill that fish off fast enough.

You guys know the drill by now. Split up into pairs, pick a topic to argue about, and give graphic, misleading examples about why your opponent is wrong. Don’t be afraid to get creative. Remember: if it’s an easy connection to make, you’re not working hard enough. If you’re grasping for straws, fight to solidify that argument, instead. If your opponent seems to have a lot of good reasons why it’s poor, shoot them down. It’ll make it stronger.

Go and argue! What are you waiting for?!” He gave them intimidating looks. “MOVE IT!”


[OCD: Just a minute, guys and gals… Dark and sinister OCD, have at thee!]