Table of Dirty Tricks
Name: Lavonte Eaddy
| Name and Number of Dirty Trick | Decision-making Leading to Use | How You Would Detect the Trick | How You Might Counter the Trick |
| Accuse your opponent of doing what he/she is accusing you of (or worse) Dirty Trick #1 | This trick is a defense mechanism used by manipulators to confront an attack from their opponent. | This trick can be detected when the individual I am confronting refutes an accusation by accusing me of the same accusation. | By asking the opponent to either admit or deny the accusation with probable evidence without necessarily defending themselves through retaliatory mechanism using the same accusation. |
| The slippery slope trick, Dirty Trick #2 | This trick is used by people to show that any choice taken by an individual will lead to several negative consequences. | An opponent who uses this trick is normally pessimistic and will never admit to being wrong. They will try to show how there will be a ripple effect of negatives if an individual chooses to do what they are telling them not to do. | I would ask the opponent to justify their accusation without referring to unforeseeable consequences that might not actually happen or becoming overly pessimistic. |
| Appeal to authority/ Argumentum ad Verecundiam, Dirty Trick #3 | This trick is applied by people who want masses to agree to their point of view no matter how wrong, crude or politically incorrect it might be. | This trick will manifest itself if an individual repeatedly refers to certain powerful people who openly agree to their views. | This trick can be countered with evidence that seeks to critique the views of an individual based on research, science or past experiences and examples |
| Appeal to experience, Dirty Trick #4 | An opponent will use this trick to disapprove your authority in a certain area of expertise especially if you are younger than them or not as powerful as they are. | In an argument, the opponent will tend to show how experienced and authoritative they are in a certain area while trying to show that their opponent is an amateur in that area or accuse them of biasness. | To counter this trick, I would ask the opponent to refer to something other than experience to back their authority and knowledge of the area in question. |
| Appeal to fear, Dirty Trick #5 | Normally, an opponent will use this trick when they want to show you that they are the best chance you have of surviving an impending problem. | This trick is detectable when the opponent tends to spell doom if what they are saying is not followed or people do not trust them. This is mostly manifested in Christianity. | An opponent who spells doom but align themself as a savior can be countered easily by asking them how they will go about saving people from an impending problem whereas they are also prone to suffer the same fate. |
| Appeal to pity, Dirty Trick #6
| An individual will use this trick when they have no other excuse to give and are probably aware that whoever is accusing them of a certain accusation is aware of their sad or pitiful situation. | This trick manifests itself clearly when an individual tries to appeal for sympathy from their opponent by showing how pitiful their life is. | I would confront this trick by asking the individual to stop giving excuses founded on sympathy. However, I would choose my words carefully so as not to come out as apathetic. |
| Deny or defend inconsistencies, Dirty Trick #18 | Manipulators use this trick as a way of appealing to masses of their ability to be dynamic and open minded. | Whenever faced with an obvious contradiction from a past argument, a manipulator will express their lack of knowledge on the subject matter. However, the trick will be detected if they justify it by hiding behind the veil of change. | By openly asking the individual what led to the change in mindset from a previous point of view without necessarily using metaphors and proverbs. |
| Demonize their side, sanitize yours, Dirty Trick #19
| A manipulator will use this trick to conceal their true intentions by showing that their opponent does not believe in what the manipulator is saying out loud. | You can tell that an individual is using this trick when they repeatedly accuse an opponent of things they are advocating against. | By asking the manipulator to show clearly how they reached to the conclusion that their opponent is what they are accusing them of is a good enough counter attack of this trick |
| Ignore the main point, Dirty Trick #24
| Manipulators use this trick to divert attention from a given subject matter. | A sudden change in coherence of what is being discussed shows that the individual is evading the discussion or main point. | When I realize that the individual is shifting from the main point, it is important to stop them from proceeding with the argument and then ask them a more direct question in context of the main point. |
| Throw in some statistics, Dirty Trick #43 | Manipulators will use numbers to impress people on their knowledge of the matter being discussed. | A sudden use of statistics that are not backed up by credible sources. | I would write the numbers down and the aforementioned sources and then ask anyone in the audience to back up them up from the said source by use of search engines like google. |
| Attack the person (and not the argument), Dirty Trick #10
| A spin artist would rather attack their opponent than lose an argument. | Use of brutal words against an individual is a clear sign that a spin artist is attacking the person and not the argument. | Being polite however brutal and vulgar the attack by the spin artist may be is very strategic against this sort of trick |
| Call for perfection, Dirty Trick #12
| This trick is used by manipulators to assert that they can only agree to their opponent’s view under unrealistic conditions | Giving unrealistic conditions to agree to your opponent’s view while the intended goal is to divert attention from your opponent’s argument would show that the manipulator is calling for perfection. | Countering the call of perfection trick is possible when you ask the manipulator to show how the conditions he/she is setting can be attained. |
| Hedge what you say, Dirty Trick #22 | To avoid being caught in a lie, it is very important to hide behind the veil of words. | Indirect answers are a sign of hedging. | A manipulator can be called out for their errors after closely listening to what their explanations are. |
| Evade questions, gracefully, Dirty Trick #20 | The decision to use this trick is reached when an individual is confronted with a hard question or one that would implicate them or someone they are trying to defend. | Unnecessarily long answers for questions that require short and direct answers is a clear sign that the individual is evading the question. | The best way to counter this trick is by asking the opponent a closed ended question without giving them the leeway to give detailed explanations. |
| Flatter your audience, Dirty Trick #21 | This trick is applied to lower the defense of an opponent’s audience to appeal to them and win them over to their views. | An individual will regularly use flattery and carefully chosen words that complement their audience when expressing their views and argument. | I would ask the audience to follow through my opponent’s views and argument based on articulation of argument rather than flattery. |