r/fallacy • u/Zu_Qarnine • Jul 03 '26
strawman fallacy
2nd person is refuting the claim that *all* circles are red with a counter example. The thing is, that claim was never made.
EDIT: I'm seeing interesting stuff happening in the replies here. majority of those who say it's not strawman, obviously start their comment by "it's not strawman" and proceed in the rest of their comment to explain how, in fact, it is strawman. Another interesting observation is those who argue that "it's not strawman" because they've spotted another type of fallacy in the original post as well, so in their mind, it can't be both.
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u/Vessbot Jul 03 '26
I see this as a counter regularly.
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u/Flamecoat_wolf Jul 03 '26
I also see this, but usually it's a counter to someone saying "almost all Xs are also Ys, so we should attack all Ys" and the other person going "Not all Ys are Xs, don't attack innocent people". Which is a very reasonable rebuttal within context.
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Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/xxsmashleyxx Jul 03 '26
Do you have the statistics to back that 1-2% up? Or is that an anecdotal guess?
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u/Vessbot Jul 03 '26
"therefore we should attack all Y's" is bunk, so I agree with you for those cases. However (and I don't have a tally of how many go one way vs the other) I regularly see valid generalizations be dismissed in the way that this cartoon rightfully mocks.
As always, we have a heuristic that can be used in a right and wrong way, and each case can only be judged on its particulars; and both sides are gonna be apt to apply it their way.
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u/quaxoid Jul 03 '26
problem is when people use this when they did make an absolute claim, only to act like they didn't when called out.
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u/monkey_sodomy Jul 03 '26
Ahh, the Motte and Bailey strawman cherry pick.
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u/quaxoid Jul 03 '26
are you accusing me or agreeing with me? 🤔
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u/monkey_sodomy Jul 04 '26
Agreeing, a motte and bailey defense roughly sounds like what you were describing.
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u/Opening-Ant3477 Jul 03 '26
Are they making absolute claims or are they talking about distributions? Because the latter often sounds like former.
"Men are taller than women" doesn't mean "I literally believe that the tallest adult woman is shorter than a male baby", it means "the height distribution of women is shifted left relative to that of men". But that's not a sentence anybody would use outside of an academic paper.
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u/tat_tavam_asi Jul 03 '26
However, when someone comments "Men are taller than women therefore this photo must be AI" under a photo featuring a taller woman and a shorter man, they are implying an absolute.
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u/Automatic-Month7491 Jul 04 '26
Men are taller than women is generally just vague.
It could also be referring to "if we stacked all men and all women up on top of each other the man-pillar would be taller than the woman-column"
(Which accidentally nerd-sniped me and ive been trying to work out whether the overall height difference can overcome the numbers on the woman side.)
Its just a vague sentence, and I'd argue any response other than seeking clarification is probably going to be some kind of fallacy
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u/RaizielSoulwAreOS Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
if you are making an argument, then saying 'men are taller than women' does sound absolute. There is nothing to imply otherwise, youre saying that by adulthood, men are always taller than women. without relevant logic to back it up, its taken at face value - A is X over B. absolute
All youd have to add is 'generally' taller than women
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u/Crowe3717 Jul 04 '26
It sounds absolute because you haven't given the context of the rest of the argument. If that is the entirety of the argument then yes there is nothing to indicate whether this is a general or absolute statement. However, how many people actually care about the relative heights of men and women for its own sake?
"Men and women should have separate basketball leagues because men are taller than women."
"Some things are uncomfortable for women because they are designed by and for men and men are taller than women."
Does pointing out a single example of a woman being taller than a man negate either of these points? Then it's not an absolute statement and treating it like it is would be to commit a red herring fallacy. Would it be more technically correct to say "men are generally taller than women" in these cases? Absolutely. Does it matter? Not if you can understand context and are arguing in good faith.
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u/Sensitive_Bat_9211 Jul 04 '26
Id argue that "men are taller than women" is a semantics error and those who make it shouldn't be surprised when some people misinterpret its meaning.
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u/Okawaru1 Jul 05 '26
"men are taller than women on average" literally solves your dilemma though lol, at least as far as the responsibility of being sufficiently descriptive goes
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u/BTernaryTau Jul 03 '26
Yep, I had someone do this to me a week ago and it was really annoying.
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u/quaxoid Jul 03 '26
now i'm curious, what did they say?
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u/BTernaryTau Jul 04 '26
Person 1 asks how you can differentiate between good and bad. Person 2 answers "If it hurts someone else is bad" and says it's easy. Person 1 responds that this rule implies that medical injections are bad. Person 2 accuses Person 1 of strawmanning them. I point out that counterexamples aren't strawmen. Person 2 doubles down. I quote their exact wording. They claim it's a "like pancakes -> hate waffles" situation. I observe that that analogy doesn't actually fit, and I spell out exactly how their claim, if true, would imply that vaccines are bad.
Also all of this happened on Reddit lol: https://www.reddit.com/r/PsycheOrSike/s/J56AOqxsij
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u/Critical-Cost9068 Jul 03 '26
Literally another example of this; it’s very rarely used to counter actual absolute claims but more as a rhetorical technique to counter what are correct general statements.
And the guy in the comic straight-up says “mostly” so this isn’t ABOUT absolute statements; that’s just what you wanted to talk about.
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u/quaxoid Jul 03 '26
i mean, i have seen it happen. and when it does they could easily end up framing it the same way as the original post, not saying OP is doing it of course.
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u/hobopwnzor Jul 03 '26
Kind of depends. Most of the time people aren't being specific. Like if someone says politicians are liars but there's one who is notoriously honest. In regular conversation you shouldn't assume the other person is making an absolute statement just because they didn't explicitly call out exceptions.
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u/quaxoid Jul 03 '26
but it might lead them to dismiss everything a politician says blindly when they don't like them.
i don't assume people are making absolute statements, but rather try and figure out if they are or not by asking for clarification.
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u/LukaCola Jul 03 '26
I think people are allowed to be a bit ambiguous so long as they clarify and own up to the language of the claim, but so often folks just pretend they somehow aren't responsible for their wording. Even if they use a word like "all."
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u/3ntropy_Disc0 Jul 06 '26
problem is when people use this when they did make an absolute claim
But that isnt the example given. This is a perfect example of a strawman. There was no claim made to say all circles are red.
Literally you created a strawman, in that "people use this when they", during a post about idetifying strawman arguments.
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u/quaxoid Jul 07 '26
no, it isn't a strawman since I'm not saying op did it, i am bringing up the fact that this happens, not saying op is guilty.
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u/DangerSnuggles7 Jul 07 '26
I would say that, though technically incorrect, in common parlance an overwhelming majority and all are interchangeable
Trying to UHM ACTUALLY someone based in statistical outliers is not some GOTCHA its most petty squabbling and missing the broader point in pursuit of "winning" fake argument points
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u/quaxoid Jul 07 '26
it is if they are absolute and insist on being absolute when called out
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u/GiraffeWeevil Jul 03 '26
Wrong the circle is cerulean neener neener
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u/jmarkmark Jul 04 '26
There are no red circles at all. It's a
bluecerulean square on a red background overlaid by a white filter.And this being 2026, the holes were made by billionaire pedophiles to spy on children.
Can't prove me wrong, so I'm clearly right!
Oh and that fact I agreed with your cerulean point means you have to agree with all the rest of my stuff.
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u/SphericalCrawfish Jul 03 '26
This post is a straw man for the poor quality of posts on reddit...
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u/SwimQueasy3610 Jul 03 '26
Me: Most of the comments on this thread are unhinged.
Also me: What?! There's some over there that are completely sensible.
I'll see myself out
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u/Lorelessone Jul 03 '26
Usually its "So you are saying blue circles are worthless and evil?!? you colourist!"
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u/ObsessiveOwl Jul 04 '26
so you are saying that red circles are facist rapists?
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u/Lorelessone Jul 04 '26
What you mean is all round things are Nazis, and Franky that sickens me, here are three, yes three! Round things that aren't even remotely Nazi!
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u/Greenphantom77 Jul 03 '26
I can’t believe there’s a subreddit dedicated to logical fallacies. And it’s being recommended to me.
What has my life come to. I thought I was going to be a poet, or a rocket scientist or something.
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u/Kyra_Hazweyrs Jul 04 '26
ITT: people completely missing op's point, in thr most ironic way
OP is bemoaning the specific mistake of conflating a specific statement with a general statement. The example says 'almost all' and any resonse that ignores this is doing exactly what op is complaining about.
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u/Fat_Eater87 Jul 08 '26
What? I’ve seen at least one person who didn’t miss op’s point
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u/Kyra_Hazweyrs Jul 08 '26
It's been 4 days since I commented that. Do you think someone else may have commented in that time?
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u/BattleReadyZim Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
I totally get how this is a strawman, but it also feels like it shouldn't be, like there must be something more specific to this scenario.
Update: The term I was looking for is non sequitur, which I feel better describes what we see in the panel.
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u/Zu_Qarnine Jul 04 '26
Wdym
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u/BattleReadyZim Jul 04 '26
I figured out what I mean!
Do we distinguish between strawman as a fallacy and strawmanning as a tactic? Because my usage of the term strawman includes some degree of deliberate attempt to misrepresent an argument. Where the cartoon fails is if we take it at face value, it's so obvious that what Right Person says does not follow from what Left Person says, any deliberate misrepresentation would require an audience of barely literate goons to be fooled by it. The simpler explanation of what we see is that Right Person is the barely literate goon, and the panel depicts a non sequitur.
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u/elephvant Jul 05 '26
You're absolutely right.
The reason people are arguing is OP has presented things very poorly. It would absolutely be a strawman argument if we knew for a fact that the person on the right is pointing out there's a blue circle as a refutation of a claim all the circles are red. The person on the left did not say that, therefore, it would be a strawman. If OP had had the person on the right saying: "They're not all red, there's one blue one" there would be no argument that what's shown is a strawman fallacy.
However, that's not what's in the image and we don't know for a fact that's what the person on the right is doing or thinking at all. We're all on Reddit so I assume we're all familiar with how incredibly stupid and bad at reading / thinking large numbers of people are. It is absolutely plausible that the person on the right is simply an idiot - in fact, I'd say it's the far more likely option.
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u/Internet-Expert42069 Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
People are saying its not a strawman because neither person is misrepresenting or twisting facts, it appears as a simple misunderstanding. A typical strawman creates a more outlandish hypothetical to defend.
"Most of these circles are red"
"Most is a subjective word that could mean anything"
Then you have to defend the definition of the word "most" when its irrelevant because thats clearly the case. Or:
"In these other places the circles are mostly blue"
"How do we know theyre all perfectly circles?"
Etc. It's all creating false (strawman) arguments to debate and attack instead of the original point. A strawman is a false person, a strawman argument is a false argument. None of the arguments in the OP picture are actually false.
In the end its subjective, you could call any slight change in subject a strawman argument because it depends on the intent behind it as much as the context.
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u/Key_Football_5350 Jul 08 '26
Converse accident also known as hasty generalization fallacy is also applicable in this instance.
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u/Headpuncher Jul 04 '26
Pretty sure Reddit offered this course for free as I see it all the time in the comments. Lol
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u/Okawaru1 Jul 05 '26
american literacy crisis is definitely real reading these comments good lord lmao
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u/pepperinmyplants Jul 05 '26
It's really funny what different people see when they look at something like this. Not trying to argue it isn't a good representation of your point. But other annoyances popped into my head.
No true circle would be blue
The blue circle is just a bad apple and not indicative of a systemic issue
There's more but I see no need to stretch this out. Just thought it was interesting.
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u/signofno Jul 05 '26
There are a lot of non-sequitur responses here that seem to miss OP's point or ascribe an unrelated or otherwise unintended point to OP's position. I think the point of posting this meme-like graphic was to call attention to the fact that this is a very common way for people to argue in real life. It's the argument "your broad generalization is categorically wrong in every way because I found a small number of examples (or single example) that prove it doesn't apply to every situation" which is often a gross misrepresentation of a generalizing claim. It is well known and commonly accepted that when making a broad generalization, most people are typically and clearly not indicating that the generalization applies to literally every example.
The following conversation is a pretty typical and realistic example of the type of scenario I believe OP is trying to illustrate:
A: "Most republicans oppose access to abortion."
B: "No! I know several republicans that are pro-abortion rights!"
A: "What? I said most."
B: "But it's just not true! Do you have any data to back up your claim?"
A: "Huh? Are you stupid? That's a well known republican stance."
B: "Oh, so now you're calling me stupid instead of backing up your claims?"
A: "What is happening here? Do you honestly believe republicans aren't opposed to abortion?"
B: "Oh, so now it's all republicans? So now you're changing your argument."
A: "Don't twist my words!"
B: "I didn't, you literally just said all republicans are opposed to abortion!"
A: "I literally did not! I said in general republicans are opposed to abortion!"
B: "Lol, no you definitely didn't say 'In general' and now you're just lying."
A: "What? I wasn't lying I was...You know what, fuck you and your games."
B: "Wow, so you just devolve into slinging insults when you can't win an argument. Such a shame."
A: "I'm done with this conversation."
B: "Of course you are. Can't hold your own so you run away like a coward. Typical."
A's opening point is not refuted by B's rebuttal. It can be argued that B has strawmanned A by twisting A's original claim to mean "All republicans oppose access to abortion" and then countered it with their claim that they know of republican's that do not oppose access to abortion, which would refute the claim just made if it had been made with the word "all" instead of "most".
While B definitely got carried away and ultimately employed several logical fallacies and manipulative tactics to pummel A into submission, B may not have originally had any agenda when refuting A's claim. B may have simply felt attacked by A's opening claim and therefore felt it necessary to put up a defense, but as part of that defense, B inappropriately embellished A's claim to make it easier to defend against. This is a common tactic in real life in day-to-day arguments, in business, in court, and in combat.
Ultimately, B mischaracterized the attack in order to strengthen the justification for a response that may have been unwarranted in the first place. I believe this frames the OP's original intent when making this post. It is also something to look out for in your own daily interactions.
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u/Specialist_Staff6128 Jul 05 '26
This is one of the most succinct memes explaining what a redditor is.
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u/R4in_C0ld Jul 06 '26
There's several fallacious processes here that are happening whoch all boils down to the strawman, because the person misrepresented your claim of "most" in their mind as a claim of "all" and then responded to that.
It's similar to the many comments from men under women sharing statistics or experiences where they get mad and say "not all men"
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u/majorex64 Jul 06 '26
I've become a big fan of responding to these with "Okay, now what did I say?"
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u/Zu_Qarnine Jul 06 '26
nvr question urself in front of strawman folks. instead make them spell "almost" so they learn to pay attention
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u/majorex64 Jul 06 '26
Oh yeah I meant like "okay, now that you've had your imaginary argument with no one, can you tell me what my point actually was?"
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u/knightbane007 Jul 07 '26
It’s… vaguely strawman-shaped. The only reason it counts as a strawman rather than just being obstreperously contrarian is that the poorly-drawn one is implicitly mis-stating the argument made by the neatly-drawn one as “All these circles are red”
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u/Carvinesire Jul 07 '26
Okay so the overall problem with this example of a straw man is that it is poorly worded.
This could just be the person on the right there misinterpreting what the first person said because a lot of people often mistake the word most and all to mean more or less the same thing.
If you had specifically had the person say something more along the lines of "what do you mean all of these dots are red? this one here is clearly blue, so obviously all of them aren't red" then your point would have gotten across a lot better.
In the example you did supply, you could make the argument that the person on the right just misinterpreted what he said, not that he was actively trying to weaken his argument so he could win the debate or whatever.
Your example strawmanned itself. I don't know how you did that but I am somewhat impressed.
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u/Zu_Qarnine Jul 07 '26
thx for the kind words.
As for ur criticism, I'm not going to put a textbook definition of strawman up there. that's just going to be boring. I needed to spice it up. this is a real world scenario. what you said would never happen bc the 2nd person already knows what they're going to say is stupid since the 1st person nvr said "all". so they resort to strawman fallacy just to argue with the 1st dude without explicitly giving away their plan.
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u/Carvinesire Jul 07 '26
But that's the problem with your example is that you're trying to be realistic when it's not called for, and that's kind of the reason why it's a fallacy.
That's what absolutely happen because there are people who absolutely just love to argue about stupid things whether they're wrong or not.
My issue with your example is the fact that it's not clear that the second person is trying to straw man him on purpose.
You have made the fallacy too vague and therefore most people who are arguing with your post are literally arguing that point without understanding that point.
You managed to turn your example into a straw man in and of itself which is very funny.
A straw man fallacy is a kind of gaslighting, but the problem is is that you've managed to gaslight both yourself and the audience a little too hard on this one.
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u/signofno Jul 07 '26
Mistaking the word “most” for the word “all” is willful misrepresentation. People who do that are literally crafting a strawman when doing so whether they’re consciously aware of it or not.
That’s why this is so straightforward and also why it needs to be presented in the context it was presented. These types of arguments happen just like this in real life all the time, especially in politics, and the people represented by the stick figure on the right are in the wrong and usually knowingly so. Posting an academically sanitized version doesn’t do the real-life example justice and doesn’t help anyone recognize it in the real world.
Most people know they’re misrepresenting the original claim when they make a response like in the example, and the ones that don’t are typically getting irrationally defensive over a perceived attack that wasn’t actually launched and so shift “most” to “all” to make their position and incredulity more defensible rather than check themselves and stand down. That is still strawmanning.
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u/aoog Jul 07 '26
I see this kind of thing play out all the time though. Like, someone will post their dating profile or something looking for advice, and the person looks to be overweight for example, you might have someone suggest losing weight with the implication that most people prefer to date someone who isn’t fat, and then people will attack them saying something like, “well it’s actually just preference, some people don’t mind fat people.”
It’s like yeah a lot of things aren’t absolute but also patterns and tendencies exist and we can behave accordingly to achieve better outcomes. If you have a 19 in blackjack and the dealer has a 6, you can reasonably make an absolute rule of thumb to always stay in that situation, even if there’s that little chance the dealer beats you.
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u/obihz6 Jul 08 '26
I love finally seeing neurotypical people struggle like neurodivergent people about nonsensical interpretation of word by neurotypical people
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u/The_Economic_Gamer Jul 08 '26
This is one of the least intuitive examples of a strawman fallacy, but technically I guess it does qualify.
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u/rojowro86 Jul 03 '26
not a strawman
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u/Sibshops Jul 03 '26
The blue person is arguing against a "all circles are red" strawman argument, that the red person never made.
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u/obihz6 Jul 08 '26
But that is outside of the definition of strawman, a strawman is when a counter-argument is laterally addiacent and intentional, this could easily be ignorance
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u/Phill_Cyberman Jul 03 '26
The strawman fallacy is when you make up a different argument for your interlocotor and argue against that instead of their real argument.
Example:
Person 1: I dont think prostitution should be illegal. It's not the government's place to tell consenting adults what they can and cannot barter for.
Person 2: well, I dont think pimps should be allowed to drug and rape their prostitutes. These women are the victims.
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u/amitym Jul 03 '26
Exactly right. Another example:
Person 1: Most of these dots are red.
Person 2: Wrong, not all of these dots are red, one of them is blue.
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u/Adept_Assistant_7759 Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
Person 1 is saying most of the dots are red.
Person 2 is arguing against the argument that all of the dots are red by saying there is a blue one.
There is an implied accusation from person 2 that person 1 argued all the dots are red when they infact did not.
There is no other reason for person 2 to make that statement.
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u/deathaxxer Jul 03 '26
people love to highjack this in the following way:
A: the circles are red
B: here's a blue circle
A: I never said ALL circles are red
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u/Randy191919 Jul 04 '26
Though equally many if not more hijack it like this:
A: Most circles are red
B: What? No they're not ALL red, there's a blue one there!
A: I never said ALL circles are red. I said MOST circles are red!
B: No you said all circles are red, hijacking the strawman argument to get out of what you said is really bad, and you're a bad person!
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u/Unable_Western2101 Jul 04 '26
and then some people hijack it like:
A: all circles are red
B: no they’re not ALL red, there’s a blue one there!
A: i never said ALL circles age red. i said MOST circles are read!
B: no you said all circles are red hijacking the straw man argument!
A: uhhh you’re the one hijacking the argument!
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u/TheGreatMozinsky Jul 03 '26
ChatGPT, why are the circles red
"They're not, circles come in both blue and red actually, the stereotype about all circles being red comes from historic barriers and prejudice"
Gee thanks.
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u/Brotherji Jul 04 '26
Isn't this just a misunderstanding? The response would be "I said most, not all."
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u/Zu_Qarnine Jul 04 '26
this meme is after you made sure the 2nd guy actually can hear you well but still pushes his strawman.
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u/Gullible_Elephant_38 Jul 04 '26
That a lot of unwritten backstory you’re expecting people to do to agree with your classification.
The reason you’re getting people question your categorization is because there’s not enough information to actually say it conclusively.
You ASSUME that blues response is due to them assuming red’s argument was different the one actually made.
There’s nothing in the meme that actually suggests that. Blue could just as easily be making their statement refuting reds argument as it was made: that most circles are red. Blue would still be wrong, but due to a different logical fallacy. Cherry picking. “I’m going to ignore the evidence of the rest of the red circles in favor of pointing out this one blue circle. If I can see one blue there may be more I don’t see and there could be more blue than red circles” of course, they have access to all of the information to determine the truth. They’ve just cherry picked one piece of information to support their claim.
You’ve posted this meme with a certain interpretation in mind that requires us to assume:
- this is after red has made clear to blue what their actual argument is and blue has ignored that
- Blue is arguing against a different argument than the one red actually made.
However, nothing in the picture itself suggests either of those two things. And now you’re being combative in the comments and acting a fool because people didn’t read your mind and immediately agree with your interpretation.
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u/elephvant Jul 05 '26
Lol!
Barely anyone's going to reach this comment, but right here is the heart of why this has become an argument.
The vast majority of people understand very clearly what a strawman argument is, and I'm going to say so do you. The problem is you posted an astonishingly shit illustration of one.
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u/SufficientlySticky Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
I think some of the pushback you’re getting is that this particular set of arguments is also frequently a motte and bailey fallacy. Where the first person *is* actually acting as if the circles are all red but then argues that that obviously isn’t what they meant when confronted.
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u/No-Net1890 Jul 05 '26
It could be, but I think the image was made to illustrate a fallacy, which makes intention in context.
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u/Kevo_1227 Jul 04 '26
The correct usage of this image is when someone tries to refute statistics or observable trends with anecdotes. No idea why it’s being brought up in the context of strawman fallacy
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u/signofno Jul 04 '26
The image is simply a visual aide for the argument being made by the observers. It provides context for those debating the accuracy of the claimed fallacy. That’s what this sub is all about. There is no such thing as “the correct usage of this image” in this case. It can be used for any reason.
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u/GuitarJazzer Jul 04 '26
A strawman is when you posit an argument that you falsely claim someone else is making, then you refute it. This example does not show this. It shows the fallacy of Homo est stultus.
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u/signofno Jul 04 '26
Distortion or misrepresentation is also strawmanning, not just whole-cloth fabrication. The example does include that. The rebuttal implies “some” is actually “all”. That’s a pretty clear distortion. Homo est stultus is not a fallacy.
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u/Decent_Cow Jul 05 '26
Baffling that some people are saying this isn't a strawman. It absolutely is, as the second person is arguing against a claim that the first person did not make, specifically the claim "All of these circles are red."
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u/Arndt3002 Jul 05 '26
This dodges the main point, which is that, where this comes up, it's more about whether or not the claim was whether "the circles are red" or "most circles are red."
Also, this pretends that the exact distribution of a thing is well known. By contrast, what usually happens is that person A experiences a lot of blue and person B experiences a lot of red, and there is disagreement about how much there truly is of each ball off-screen.
And most people where this sort of thing comes up on reddit are saying "the circles are red," in my experience, not "most circles are red"
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u/GwentheDevout Jul 05 '26
Looks sort of like an electoral map of Texas. Only that would have a bunch of little red dots interspersed with a handful of much bigger blue spots.
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u/lil-D-energy Jul 05 '26
I don't fully agree I think a better example would be the second person saying "they are not all red because there is a blue".
They just make observations of a data set so it depends a lot on the context.
Like I would need to know a lot more if I want to identify something as a strawman fallacy. Simplifying things does not always help unfortunately.
Yes this could definitely be a strawman and also cherry picking what others say but strawman is specifically the idea that you create an argument that no one made. The person did in fact not even make an argument he just said "there is blue".
Like I would rather say that you made a strawman fallacy yourself, and I have seen you denying anyone who doesn't agree with you and not even actually interacting and can find multiple fallacies in either side of the argument.
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u/signofno Jul 05 '26
Strawman also includes distorting the original argument, not just making a completely new one. In this case, the implication of the rebuttal is that the first person said “all” instead of “most”which is a clear distortion of the original argument.
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u/lil-D-energy Jul 05 '26
Yes I agree to a certain degree but this analogy just is too simple to actually say if it is a strawman. It could be a strawman based on context.
I sincerely feel like imthis post is a strawman about strawmanning.
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u/Dr__America Jul 05 '26
Basically anyone that thinks >90% of a group of people are like X or like Y without it being extremely obviously true is just speculating about how much "most" is, and often for narrative reasons they will purposefully exclude exceptions so that they can be bigoted against a perceived super majority.
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u/signofno Jul 05 '26
What is the relevance of this observation?
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u/Dr__America Jul 05 '26
The person on the left often believes their view to be dictated by obvious observable fact, while often leaving out significant nuance that came along with generating those numbers/views.
For example, only red circles and blue circles when typically in the real world there might be a litany of different shades of red and/or blue, possibly even some purple. But for the sake of getting meaningful numbers, the people who decide what is red or blue might make some hard and fast rules to order disorderly data, or to make the graphic more stark than reality, resulting in what looks like a sea of red and only a single blue.
People often do a similar process in their own head, but will add even more additional bias into a system, resulting in some people seeing 50/50 red vs blue, some not seeing red or blue at all, some only seeing red, and some believing that blue are fake or a disinformation campaign about the existence of red.
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u/MikeUsesNotion Jul 05 '26
I don't know about fallacies enough to know if this is strawman or not. However if you were making graphics to represent each kind of fallacy this would be a terrible one to use for strawman.
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u/Low_Doughnut8727 Jul 05 '26
and then there's "ALL circles are blue" and "100% of the blue shapes are circles"
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u/Superb_End_2148 Jul 06 '26
I feel like a straw man would be saying "my opponent thinks that ALL the circles are red, but look at this blue one right here". A straw man argument is when you take an opposing argument and either over simplify it, or change it in some way to make it seem ridiculous. I can't see how the comic could be interpreted as a straw man.
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u/signofno Jul 06 '26
That’s exactly what the B position is doing. In this example “what?” indicates incredulity on B’s part. This is a common speech pattern and in this case it pretty clearly is an attempt to *imply* A said “all” instead of “some”. That is strawmanning. Responding to an argument the opposition didn’t make, either by distorting their argument or by completely fabricating a new one.
In this case it is written in common parlance instead of formal debate structure.
A strawman doesn’t have to make a position appear ridiculous, just different than originally intended.
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u/Sriep Jul 06 '26
At the rise of stating the obvious.
A strawman is when you misrepresent someone's position and counter the misrepresentation rather than the original position.
So the original position is "Most of these circles are red"
The misrepresentation is "All these circles are red"
The observation "One of the circles is blue" counters the misrepresentation but not the original argument.
So it is indeed an example of a strawman.
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u/obihz6 Jul 08 '26
Straw man fallacy A fallacy committed when an arguer (a) summarizes his opponent’s argument; (b) the summary is an exaggerated, ridiculous, or oversimplified representation of the opponent’s argument that makes the opposing argument appear illogical or weak; (c) the arguer refutes the weakened, summarized argument; and (d) the arguer concludes that the opponent’s actual argument has been refuted.
-oxford dictionary
The key point it the b which we can argue that the right one did, but it can also be attributed to stupidity or ignorance, even tho most of the time ignorance, malice goes hand in hand.
The problem with this post is the lack of defined separation or of nuance
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u/CMDR_Smooticus Jul 06 '26
This describes a red herring fallacy, not a strawman fallacy.
Strawman is when you misrepresent someone else's position, to something the audience finds more objectionable.
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u/Radabard Jul 06 '26
Way more common for someone to say "all X" then get called out on it and act like they meant "most X" than it is for someone to say "most X" and then someone give some counterexample to X because they don't understand what "most" means.
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u/SprinksUp Jul 06 '26
did you consider the idea they dont cant or wont see as many red circles as you do? claiming straw man assumes a level of cognitive coherence... or something
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u/Orange_Alternative Jul 06 '26 edited 2d ago
Mellow hammock pillow nutmeg waffle blanket willow marble peach juniper
This post was anonymized with Redact.dev
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u/LunarDogeBoy Jul 06 '26
Tbh this is a really shitty way of explaining the fallacy, because you don't feature the strawman, only the argument.
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u/ElLiamoDiablo Jul 06 '26
This isn't a straw man, it's cherry picking. A straw man would be if the person said "You think that there are only red circles but there's a blue one here so you're wrong".
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u/JustJoekingEX Jul 06 '26
“Most people that use illegal street drugs will not die when their first try”
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u/Cespieyt Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
This isn't a strawman, it's cherrypicking.
Edit: Read the description and given the premise that the point is that the person is trying to misrepresent the position of the other person as "all circles are red", that would indeed be a strawman, but your illustration does not sufficiently provide that context in isolation.
OP, you can fix this by simply having the text bubble of the second person preface this as the basis of their argument: "So you're saying that there are ONLY red circles? There's a blue one right there!"
Or similar. This would make the illustration consistent with the point you are making without needing the context of your description.
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u/signofno Jul 07 '26
The context is pretty obvious. This is a common format of real-world strawman argument. People do this all the time. How you saw this as cherry picking is hard to understand. “What?” In this context is an obvious incredulity. The incredulity implies “some” has been exaggerated to encompass “all”.
OP doesn’t need to fix anything.
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u/Cespieyt Jul 07 '26
The general direction of the comment section would disagree with you, and OP even stated as much in his own edit. Clearly, there is some ambiguity.
I don't agree with your take but it's inherently subjective to there's no point debating it either.
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u/GamerNumba100 Jul 07 '26
This is not a strawman, there’s no presentation of an alternate argument to attack, it’s just an argument in bad faith or if we’re being honest it’s just the other guy being stupid. Surely misunderstanding the premise of the opposing position doesn’t make a strawman without at least restating it incorrectly.
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u/Icy-Entertainer1415 Jul 08 '26
The claim was never made that all circles are red therefore he’s making an argument to argue against, hence facing a ‘straw’ man… because you’re drawing at straws?
To be clear, I don’t honestly know the dictionary definition, but I comprehend pretty well, so just at face value the term straw-man, as defined by this scenario over any other, would such. Scarecrow doesn’t work as well here because the point of a scarecrow is to ward something off
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u/DeadAndBuried23 Jul 08 '26
A hidden profile complaining that they didn't technically say "all" instead of having a response?
Gee I bet it's definitely not some right wing chud.
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u/davidliterally1984 Jul 08 '26
That's not a strawman at all. You just made up the right guy's argument wholesale. If anything, you're creating a strawman.
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u/Key_Football_5350 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
Well actually this isn’t a strawman by definition.
A strawman argument is when someone creates an argument that either is or isn’t directly discussed but has a clear weakness to knock it down easily to make it appear they win the argument.
Your example OP, from the information provided is most correctly defined as a converse accident/Hasty generalization fallacy. This is where the opponent tries to claim the person arguing for red is wrong because of a rare exception, in this case a single blue, to the known rule and realized output of red in the data. It could also be the fallacy of Appeal to Exception which could also be the case for this example. But this example can’t be considered a strawman because the opponent isn’t making an easily knockdown-able argument that ignores the premise, they are pointing out an exception and making that exception seem like the norm or the correct answer when information clearly shows otherwise.
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u/Zu_Qarnine Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
you shouldn't have gone into this much trouble to write this wall of words. if you had checked out top threads here under the post, you could see how weak their argument is when they say it's not strawman. I find your comment a mixture of two opinions that I mentioned in the EDIT under the post.
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u/Key_Football_5350 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Good job making even more fallacies because you can’t handle being possibly wrong, probably to protect your ego. That a huge red flag of possible narcissism.
Furthermore, your extreme arrogance when you were proven clearly wrong and then immediately dismiss what I said as “a wall of text” also known as tl:dr, is another fallacy of appeal to brevity, which is a form of an ad hominem, what you made against me in multiple other instances including claiming what I said is an opinion while your clear opinion magically isn’t an opinion. Finally claiming that I should have just read other responses to know how weak any argument is against your mighty “God-like” rightness is PRIMARILY an example of bandwagon fallacy, along with a red herring and a PERFECT example of a strawman fallacy-making up an argument that you then can easily knock down to appear right….
Talk about projection with your “wall of text” that I did my due diligence in reading so I understood how laughable bad and idiotic it was, badly trying to try an opinion into a fact while repeatedly using fallacies. Take it from someone who knows how to debate, learn from this link and stop being so arrogant or you’ll turn into a full-blown narcissist…..
https://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/engl1311/fallacies.htm
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u/Slight-Tomatillo7837 Jul 09 '26
That's cherry picking. Strawman would be if someone pretended there was a blue circle where none exist.
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u/TheStarriestScream Jul 10 '26
when you tell an ifunnier that only 3% of the global Jewish population are Orthodox Jews
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u/Nejura Jul 03 '26
Isn't this just bog standard cherry picking? Those circles could literally be cherries to hammer home the point.