Trap · reasoning move
◆ The flood of charges
Sounds like: “Colonialism, apartheid, genocide, ethnic cleansing, famine, child killers, organ harvesting, the lobby… how do you explain all that?”
A pile of accusations delivered at once. Nobody can answer twenty claims in one reply, so whatever goes unanswered seems conceded, and answering one looks like ignoring the rest.
Signs
more than three charges in one message; true and false claims mixed; any reply to one item met with 'and what about…'.
Questions to ask
Which of these matters most to you? Which one, if it turned out to be wrong, would change your mind about the rest? Which are about what a government did, and which about what a people is?
What to do
don't chase the pile. Say so openly: 'I can't answer twenty things at once. Which one matters most to you?' Then take that one seriously, grant what's true in it, and link its page. If the pile rests on one premise, usually that the other side is evil, answer the premise (see 'israel-illegitimate').
Example
a list post from colonialism to organ harvesting.
The mirror
a thread of clips and charter quotes presented as 'what they all believe'.
How it works.
The tactic has established names. The 'Gish gallop', named after the creationist debater Duane Gish, is more claims per minute than an opponent can answer. Brandolini's law (2013) states the asymmetry: refuting nonsense takes an order of magnitude more effort than producing it. At state scale, RAND researchers called Russia's version the 'firehose of falsehood' (2016): high volume, many channels, no commitment to consistency ⚠. The pile itself is the argument: each item borrows credibility from the others, and the sheer number stands in for evidence.
The antizionist package.
In this conflict the pile usually comes as a fixed package: settler-colonialism, apartheid, genocide, ethnic cleansing, famine, 'child killers', organ harvesting, 'IOF', 'Zionists control the media', and 'Pallywood' denial of any staged footage. It's the antizionist chain (see 'The chain: coloniser → apartheid → genocide') delivered all at once, with the old libels mixed in among the serious charges. The serious charges each have a page on this site; the libels don't deserve one, and mixing them in is how they borrow a respectability they couldn't earn alone (see 'You need the argument to find the argument').
Traps here:◆ Motte and bailey
The mirror package.
The pro-Israel version is a wall of its own: a MEMRI clip, a Hamas charter quote, a 'Pallywood' video, 'they teach children to hate', 'they celebrate on the streets', 'there's no such thing as a Palestinian', 'Jordan is Palestine'. Some items are true, some are partial, some are false; delivered together, they make a whole people look like the worst of its extremists (see 'The strict enemy frame').
Traps here:◆ "They all…"
Why it works on us
- So many charges from so many directions feel like they can't all be wrong.
- Some of the items in any such list are true or partly true, which lends credibility to the rest.