Strawmen don't exist in real life

The Straw X tropes, and possibly some to many others in The War on Straw, are by definition about fictional characters, not unreasonable positions. As such they shouldn't have Real Life folders/sections, should they?

That definition also makes them not YMMV, since it's about the work, not the perception of the work.

The child is father to the man —Oedipus

Isn't the whole point of straws that you create one (whether you yourself are real or fictional) to set up the position that you want to counter? Real Life examples are perfectly acceptable IMHO, so long as they occur in media (ie.: a strawman in the news or a talk show).

Fanfic Recs orwellianretcon'd: cutlocked for committee or for Google?

That's not RL though, that's advertisement of "other" (I forget if we have a news/pundit section).

Fight smart, not fair.

Correct. Only fictional characters can be strawmen. Kill any/all Real Life examples, or move to Stealth Parody or Poe's Law if they are a case of a real person acting out a strawman for lulz.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

A "real life" strawman would be when someone makes a strawman, not a person themselves - for example a biased news program makes strawmen out of certain political or social viewpoints.

Those would count, because they're not accusing people of being strawmen, they're point out when people are made into strawmen.

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

I have no idea how this ended up on this thread. >.<

edited 19th Oct '10 11:59:21 PM by savage

Want to rename a trope? Step one: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

You can probably see real-life strawmen on your local station TV ads every day between now and November 2, attributing cartoonishly distorted evil views to the candidate's opponent (who naturally is all that stands between you and such unimaginable evils.)

Jet-a-Reeno!

That would be in the Advertising category, though, not Real Life.

What's precedent ever done for us?

On the other hand, can we please not list every example of someone strawmanning someone else in a political ad? There are whole websites devoted to this, and it's not our mission. Plus, Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgement.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Question then.

Where so we put all the people who actually do believe in some inane things that only strawmen should believe?

For example, the discussion I once had in college with a Women Studies professor who truly and sincerely argued that women did not require male sperm in order to procreate, but that if women would just stop having sex with men that they would begin producing children asexually.

I'm not making it up. I don't know what the heck to call such a person.

^ Personal experience with someone holding similar views suggests "idiot". But that's off-topic for this thread.

All your safe space are belong to Trump

Sounds like that one would go in the Troper Tales section of You Fail Biology Forever.

What's precedent ever done for us?

Well, I'm just pointing out that the Women Studies professor seemed a lot like a real life Straw Feminist.

Of course, I understand what everyone is saying. That she really is just You Fail Biology Forever, and not a straw anything because she's real.

So I agree that she shouldn't actually go on the Straw Feminist page, but I understand why similar real life people get added to strawman pages. And once we understand why, it becomes clear that there is going to continue to be people trying to add real life examples unless we create some sort of very clear policy about where those examples go.

Maybe a Dark Wiki trope "I Cant Believe Its Not Straw!" With a link from all the Straw pages telling people to put "real life" examples there?

edited 20th Oct '10 7:47:38 AM by Sackett

The thing is that people have extremely different views on what is an extreme political view. For some, it is that, while for other even affirmative action is unacceptable. I'd like to suggest that we cut the Troper Tales for these pages too, for that reason and because its examples are completely contradictive of the definition 90% of the time.

Not really. Because "their ideas are asinine" isn't actually part of the definition of "strawman," though it's the way to bet. The key is that the character was invented and given (often exaggerated) views for the purpose of the writer's surrogate defeating those views. Even — especially — if the professor actually believed that, she wasn't assigned those views by someone who wanted to discredit her, or feminism, or women's studies as an academic field.

I like that idea. As long as it is indeed on Darth Wiki.

The child is father to the man —Oedipus

Not liking the Darth idea. Take a look at the old Troper Tales / Real Life sections of straw feminism, or even some of the thread here adn you'll see why.

The alternative is to cut it entirely, and make it stick. We continue to have to deal with the idea that This Wiki is open season for people to soapbox about Real Life, when it is at best tolerated and at worst nuked from orbit when it gets out of hand.

edited 20th Oct '10 2:33:22 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I'm of the opinion that it will be less work if we have a place so we can tell people "Put that stuff over there."

Otherwise we'll have to continually keep deleting stuff and cleaning up after people who don't get it.

edited 20th Oct '10 7:52:51 PM by Sackett

It's really a toss-up. Either way, there are going to be people who don't get it. So what it boils down to is, do we keep repeating "We don't want this at all, and if you bring it in we'll throw it away entirely", or "We don't want this in the living room — if you must bring it in, keep it in the basement"? Which one will get through faster?

I know in real life, the second rarely works...

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Thing is, the title of this topic says it all: Straw Men do not exist in real life. Someone can be accused of using a Straw Man argument, but then we get back to the "When did this become Real Life Tropes?" argument...

But soft! What rock through yonder window breaks? It is a brick! And Juliet is out cold.

And again, since YMMV so much on what is and isn't strawman politics, the only possible outcome that I can see is a flamewar and loads of entries that could be a ttributed to Complaining About Ideologies You Don't Like.

Is there a standard disclaimer that can be put on the top of the page stating that due to Poe's Law and possible Flame Bait, there should never be a Real Life section on this page?

But soft! What rock through yonder window breaks? It is a brick! And Juliet is out cold.

I still think it would be easier to divert those postings to an "I Cant Believe Its Not Straw" page.

^I'm willing to bow to Mad's greater experience on these matters.

^^It's not about Poe's Law, it's an issue of the definition.

I was specifically inspired byStraw Vulcan, where some of the Real Life examples can be slotted into an Other folder but some are about real people/groups behaving in ways in which "strawvulcans" in fiction are often are often shown behaving.

The child is father to the man —Oedipus

bump?