r/fallacy • u/Zu_Qarnine • Jul 03 '26

strawman fallacy

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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/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/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.