StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Basically what it says in the title. We've all, I'm sure, been drawn into a debate by someone looking for one by posing a question which they already have a preferred answer for in the hopes you will bite the bait and get bogged down in a storm of per-prepared arguments and cliche`s. So in the hopes of avoiding these kinds of stupid, time wasting, trollacious, distracting, and often tangential arguments there are two questions I have for everyone.

1. How do you spot loaded questions before you've been reeled into a bigger argument than you wanted to talk about?

2. How do you go about dealing with these kinds of questions once you spot them?

3. How do you deal with them when you realize it was a loaded question only after you have answered it? And as a sub-question of this, how do you deal with the inevitable easy points that the other person will proceed to try and score?

Leading questions would be a related problem that might be of interest here, of course.

Discuss.

1. You think - if he says that, then i say this, then he says that... ( in theory, eventually arguments between me and thanas will become an opening statement and then the two of us just staring at the screen for 15min before one concedes)

2. Highlight them. This is a loaded question because XYZ, and you're using it to avoid issues 123

3. Accept the easy points since you were fool enough to allow them. If they irreperably damage your argument, then your argument was rubbish to start with. If they don't, then they're worthless.

By "easy points" I was thinking more of talking points than actual, substantive arguments.