[forexsoft]

How to win any argument (part 1)
Garth Sundem
Jul 25, 2010

Here’s how I roll: my wife loves three-dollar bagels from the Sunday farmers’ market. And so she says, “Let’s get a loaf of bread, some flowers, and a flat of strawberries!” When we jog the double stroller home with only bagels, I feel I’ve won. It’s only the next day that I start thinking…wait a minute!

No more.

But Kristi’s a PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology and is thus armed with all sorts of sneaky mental trickery, in this case “anchoring” my expectations to bread, flowers, and berries, so bagels seem like a bargain (Steve Jobs did similar by intially pricing the iPhone at $500, so that $299 seemed like a steal).

So I’ve decided that rather than trying to out-logic Kristi, I will deal in its opposite: illogic (which happens to be right up my alley, anyway.) Specifically, I’ve armed myself with the tools of the ancient Roman Senate, thus guaranteeing I win every marital argument from this point forward.

Here, for your use and enjoyment, are the illogical strategies for success in any dispute:

• Appeal to Ignorance: if it isn’t proven, it’s false-”Did you SEE me bogart the last of the jamocha almond fudge? No? Well, there you go.”
• Ad Hominem: Discrediting an argument by discrediting the person making it-”I am right because you suck.”
• Affirming the Consequent: If x, then y. Y, therefore x-”When you’re wrong you get defensive. Oooh, oooh, you’re getting defensive. You’re wrong! I win!”
• Argument to Logic: if an argument offered is false, then the entire claim is false-”Actually, that’s not my spoon in the sink! Thus am I exonerated!”
• Loaded Question: Any answer validates an assumption-”Why must you always persecute me unjustly?”