This reminds me of a famous tweet: "Twitter is the only place where well articulated sentences still get misinterpreted. You can say 'I like pancakes' and somebody will say 'So you hate waffles?'"

Reviving 3 years later because of the Right's new use of the word 'groomer' is 1000% this.

You're doing god's work. And by "you" i mean your team. and by "doing god's work" i mean "explaining fallacious rhetoric in a way I approve of".

coming back and rewtaching this... for absolutely no reason

I mean, "misogynist hellscape of unregulated capitalism" describes 95% of all US business and industries, but the point still stands

Even 5 years later this video is so so relevant. The right's recent use of the word "groomer" to refer to queer people has been Theseus'd HARD and it's so incredibly frustrating. The transition from "Queer people exist in the world" to "Exposure to queer people will influence kids" to "Queer people are purposefully being around kids to 'recruit' them into the ranks" to "Queer people are 'grooming' children" is so insidious. But it's also completely mind-boggling that anyone would fall for it? It's truly hard to have a conversation with someone who thinks like this, because it feels like even thinking about this concept for more than two seconds makes it totally fall apart? I'm just kinda at a loss as to how to proceed in these situations. How do you reason with somebody who thinks like this???

As a trans person, I really appreciate you saying "correct pronouns" when referring to a trans child; calling them "preferred pronouns" has always rubbed me the wrong way. Like, no, misgendering us ain't an option bud!

Theseus dies in Infinity War

This tactic is basically "how to cancel an online leftist 101" and it's been used against sooo many. A great example was the conversion of "Contrapoints voiced a line in a video alongside another voice performer who has said transmed shit" to "Contrapoints is a transmed".

You know why I'm here, and I know why you're here.

"THE LEFT is antisemitic" was Theseus'd from "THE LEFT hates Israel," which was Theseus'd from "THE LEFT supports Palestine," which was Theseus'd from "the left wants the Israeli government to stop bombing Palestinian civilians."

This Ship of Theseus concept is also reminiscent of an old Soviet “Radio Yerevan” joke:

Going through my regular rewatch of the series. "Trans women are forcing lesbians to sleep with them" at

Save the Rainforest -> Protect our Resources

The SWERF example reminds me of another example in social-studies research. There is an infamous study that claimed that children raised in households with gay parents were less likely to be "successful" later on in life, and more likely to face childhood adversity. At face value the data seems to be great. The study brags that it had the largest sample size of any study on gay parents. Everything seemed to confirm the suspicion of conservative commentators, until one looks at the study's definition of "gay parents": having ANY sexual relationship with someone of the same gender EVER. Turns out that parents that have sexual relationships with more people also tend to be in less stable circumstances (i.e., divorced and dating, etc), which in turn makes it more likely that the child is raised in an unstable circumstance. Like the porn example, they redefine a word without giving the reader much indication (or justification) for their own definition, knowing that the reader will assume they are operating on the standard definition of the word. It's deceptive, but not unique to social media and the internet.

I'm surprised you didn't mention the most common Ship of Theseus:

Man, I don't remember enough of the context to find the article again, but ages ago I read a headline that said something like "Athlete runs over disabled volunteer" and when you read the article, he knocked into her while running to celebrate with his teammates on the field. No one was actually hurt and no fricking car was involved like the language implied.

"The Ship of Theseus is a kind of elaborate euphemism: what language they use reveals what they think we care about; what language they won't use reveals what they can and can't say. It's a temperature check for where we are as a society - what things do horrible people feel they can get away with and what things do they have to disguise; but no disguise is perfect, and if you do the fact-checking it will show you where they're weak. People will try to contort the truth... but the truth leaves an essence behind."

"An antifa shooter killed people" got Theseus'd from "antifa killed a man," which got Theseus'd from "an antifascist killed a Nazi," which got Theseus'd from "an antifascist shot a Nazi who was following him while carrying weapons. Then bystanders tried to help the Nazi, but were kept away by the police, resulting in him dying."

This reminds me of what happened with Lindsay Ellis, and it’s an unfortunate example of the left fighting itself.