[kls]

Funny I have a new red flag word, it used to be on the internet when you saw the first reference to someone being a Nazi you knew to start taking a critical look at what the accuser was saying but we have invented so many of them now to try to create one word labels to dismiss other peoples positions, stuff like gaslighting, dog whistling now I have to look for sea lioning. What these all have in common is they try to project negative light on the person they are used against and make the reader view their information negatively. It's absurd to me, that asking for some reference and citation to the subject at hand, now has a label word to dismiss it, out of hand. It's been a while since I have been in higher education, but IIRC citation and references where pretty much the basis of research and publication of ideas.

[tptacek]

Literally any term describing a process argument that intends to end a debate will eventually be abused, because message board nerds† love power-ups; in fact, a good many of them, upon learning a new mic-drop argument ("gaslighting!", "begging the question!", "ad hominem!", "tu quoque!") will hide up in the corners waiting for someone to unwittingly reveal a susceptible argument, so they can deploy their new toy on them, like the person who got the super laser-gun thingy in Quake for the first time.

But that only gets you part of the way to understanding. These arguments are & always will be abused. But: just because something is regularly abused doesn't mean there's no validity to it. And of course, pointing out that these arguments are abused is itself a kind of Quake laser cannon argument.

Ultimately, you just have to decide yourself based on context cues whether an argument is valid.

† Obviously, I am one myself

[kls]

I don't disagree with you, just highlighting the frequency of use as of late, and that for me personally the use of them causes me to take a more critical look at what the person utilizing them is actually saying. I personally refrain from using them as I am starting to see them in the light of logical fallacies.

Now on pointing it out, I think a lot of people don't realize they are trying to sway the discourse thru the use of projection rather than logic and reason. I think it is one of those insidious things that just creep in and people don't realize they are doing it. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and think they want to appeal to reason (at lest in life and on HN) and I think many don't see these words work in direct contrast to that, they literally appeal to the mob. I point it out not to gain net fame or quake guns (I will take a pack-o-punch'ed gun in BO Zombies though) but rather I would hope at least one reader of this thread would have the "I never really though about it that way" moments.