It's asked daily on asktrp “how do I deal with this alpha” ? I find there predicament a lot like teaching autistics the social graces. It needs to be done with rules and structure whilst explaining the rationale.

Tl;dr Use scheming psychology and people's behavioural predictability to win argumentative attacks.

intro

You will undoubtedly come across assholes in your life. They’re better at being an Asshole than you and have more experience of belittling and shaking someone's frame. In this post I will address how they get so “sharp”, the arena you see yourself fighting in and how to counter most assholes.

Warning I have been attacked for boxing people in using these techniques

The development of social skills

From an early age, we're either brought up as an “oak tree”, or a “sapling”. They both share the same objective to reach the sun. However being an Oaktree has it's obvious advantageous; tall, outstretched branches, immovable. These traits allow the oak tree to soak up as much sun as possible, making it a fierce competitor and allowing it to grow stronger.

Now the sapling grows in shade of the Oaktree. In order to reach the sun at all it needs to stretch, bend and grow in funny angles. It gives the sapling a poor frame and it can be easily derooted because of it. The sapling is not even guaranteed any sun.It has to grow in the shade of the Oaktree and adapt to how the Oaktree grows.

This is much like children. There's always going to be the one child who courts all attention and is free to grow and dominate. The surrounding children are forced to grow in adaptation to him and the attention + experiences they get will be limited. This is the grounding for betas and why they don't naturally understand social graces and how to handle attacks/arguments. Instead they need to restructure their lives and alter their course to head in the right direction.

Address your aim : Maintain frame whilst putting them on the defence and give the public blood whilst conducting yourself.

You need to think of this as a physical fight, if he keeps throwing jabs and you keep defending, countering and moving to his pace you will exert all your energy and focus on trying not to get hit.

Whilst it’s a logical strategy, the public (the lions) want blood and they don’t care who they get it from. Essentially you need to craft your own attack and have the other person on the ropes at all times. We will now address various argument styles and tactics.

Warning basic banter

The Justifier

Ass :“ You’re wearing shit clothes, did you buy them from a charity shop ?”

Billy :“Well no actually, I think you’ll find that I spent £80 and they’re from xxxxx designer shop”

Ass :“I’d ask for a refund because it doesn’t match your massive head”

Score 2:0

What happens is the Ass is on the attack, Billy is forced to justify his actions and defend his beliefs. After defending the Ass goes for the second blow and the public execution starts.

The Ass has two attacks he can loop back to at any time to create an impact and Billy has zero.The justifier has the compelling feeling to prove the other guy wrong which makes him lose the fight, suppress this.

The Over Reactor

Ass :“ You’re wearing shit clothes, did you buy them from a charity shop ?”

Billy: :“FUCK OFF YOU CUNT”

Ass :“well someones a bit aggressive”

You :“NO IM NOT I JUST DONT WANT TO PUT UP WITH ASSHOLES LIKE YOU NOW FUCK OFF”

Score 2:0

Billy is now reactory, he appears aggressive and has allowed the ass to make him react emotionally. The Ass will most likely make an observation of how Billy is reactory.The reactor thinks that by shouting he scares his attacker off, whilst true and often arousing fear is best saved for private arguments to settle quickly. In public it draws too much negative attention and the Ass can switch to a position of compassion and make Billy look like the bad guy.

Alternatively should Billy be a likely threat, then shouting, snarling etc will ignite the Fight, Flight, Freeze effect. The Ass has to choose between physically fighting for his safety. Actually running from the scene or profusely apologising to neutralise the threat. Or freezing and having limited use of his brain to coin a counter move.

Stuck in their frame

Ass :“ You’re wearing shit clothes, did you buy them from a charity shop ?”

You :“Yeah well they’re better than yours mongrual”

Score 1:0

Wrong ! as you’re still fighting inside their frame and being too reactive. HE’s got you up against the ropes and you don’t even know it.

Agree & Amplify

Ass : “ You’re wearing shit clothes, did you buy them from a charity shop ?”

Billy : “Yeah you’re probably right, I’m so poor HAHAHA (Big fake laugh)

Score 0:1

Agree and amplifying works as you neutralise their attack by agreeing with them.

If you raised a topic in a debate and had ammunition to back up your claims but your opponent agrees with your initial point, any use of that reserved ammunition makes you look petty, therefore it’s safer to move on from the initial point.

By amplifying the point you make him look like a buffoon, his initial point seems ridiculous, even outlandish and therefore you’ve discredited the initial point made by the jester. Also you're making him work harder, he won't plan to preempt you agreeing with him often thinking several attacks ahead on the same point. He now has to revisit his strategy.

The Destroyer

Ass : “You’re wearing shit clothes, did you buy them from a charity shop ?”

Billy :”Ignore* eggggghhhh brush your teeth you fucking hobo”

Ass :“Fuck off mate i’m better looking than you, monobrow “

Score 1:2

This sequence will continue but I want to analyse what’s been said already

By ignoring, Billy refuses to bite the bait the ass has laid out in front of him and enter his frame. Billy then lays his bait out in front of the ass in the form of an observational statement or a loaded question and waits for the ass to bite and enter his frame.

Key ways to engage someone into your frame and “bite” is to arouse interest in them. E.g. “That's a bit unusual ?” - “what is ?” - then you'd insult. This is the first step of the fight, do not move on until he bites, think like a buzzfeed click bait headline.

continuing

Billy: “You know i'm telling the truth otherwise you wouldn’t have reacted the way you did”

Score 1:3

Ass :“I didn’t react at all” / “Don’t give me any of that bullshit” - Now on the defence

Score 1:4

Billy: “Look you’re over reacting again you’ve just proved my point - EVERYONE knows ”

Score 1:5

What happens is Billy pairs his initial attack with how ass reacts. It doesn’t matter if he's unreactive, over reactive, squinting. whatever. Billy just has to pair the two together and anything Ass does from that point is framed to how HE knows and how EVERYONE else knows what Billy said to be the truth.

Billy creates the arena and terms of the fight on the first 2 initial points. That the Ass has horrible teeth and that he's reacting / hiding / secretive because he knows it’s true.

To do this effectively you force your opponent on the defence and you keep him looped and focused on his own body. Anyone can pull up facts and figures however there’s nothing stronger than direct observational evidence in the present moment. You ruin their credibility, you out them as being unstable and any action they do is framed as being overactive and subject them to public opinion. Even if they're not yet overactive by doing this, it will annoy the fuck out of them, proving your point.

  • Billy wins by default.

Anything additional the Ass says, Billy just has to keep looping it back to how the ass is reacting because deep down inside he knows it to be of truth.

“Look you’re trying so hard not to react now”

“Stop trying to hide, we ALL know it’s true”

“Don’t change the subject to try and hide the facts”

“Why are you so secretive”.

“You're only saying that because I made you upset earlier”

“ look it's not that bad, if you feel that bad about it do something, we're ALL here for you”

You just keep looping on your initial point, and they can’t win.

Your argument moves on from there to forcing them to justify why they reacted that way in the first place.

Crush them completely

All good things must come to an end permanently. You’re going to leave a sour taste in this guys mouth as you’ve pretty much cheated him out of a win. It wasn’t even hard to make him look like an idiot and he will seek to re engage with you in the future. So crush him.

Create a schema for this person's characteristics, behaviour or situation.

A schema is an organized pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them.

In this instance you create a Nickname for the person associating it to this “experience” that the audience is free to use and find comical. For example “Fence Posts” - as he has teeth like burnt down fence posts.

At any point in the future should this guy try arguing with you, shut him down by referring back to his nickname “fence posts”. He won't want to strengthen the schema and will most likely avoid a verbal confrontation with you. Should he engage you, just keep referring to “fence posts”, strengthening the schema and getting a few cheap laughs from the crowd.

You should always be the first person seen to exit the confrontation graciously. You refer back to how you ended the argument and how your opponent wants to continue. Your exit should be simple “this discussion is over, I don't want to talk to you, you're obviously unstable”. “You're embarrassing yourself, I'm not interested in this anymore”. “You seem violent, I'm leaving”

What to do when they become aggressive

Change your position.

You were initially on the attack, now play the sincere and genuinely concerned person.

You infuriate your attacker as he can see through your bullshit. However you appear concerned and genuinely helpful to an outside eye. He either has to buy your fake helpfulness or become even more overactive whilst you remain kind and caring.

“Oh come on man don't take it too seriously, it was only a joke”

“What's wrong? Something else has obviously happened to you today that you're not telling us about, what's wrong?”

“Go and have a breather man you look wound up”

“You don't usually act this way, is everything ok?”

ignore past facts, focus on the present and future

Focusing on the past is something a justifier is likely to do. If you follow suit you're going to be playing defense and it's hard to prove your point to a crowd of people who only have the observable evidence in front of their eyes.

Therefore: past < present < future.

The past being where the justifier spends his time arguing. The present, running the destroyer loop and keeping the Ass focused on his actions and on the defense. The future is where the masters play wetting their opponents gunpowder before they have a chance to use it and giving them control of the frame.

For example, should the ass look like he's about to hit you, push him to do it :

“go on hit me , do it I want you to so that it's recorded on CCTV and I can legally ruin you”

“You look like the type of person who starts bar fights, are you going to hit me? Is this what you do, go to bars and start fights?”

Should your opponent have a sequential predictable pattern, call out the moves before he does it.

“ I bet you're going to go and run for help like you always do, go on get moving”.

“Oh watch you're about to play victim now aren't you, get on with it so we can all go home”

By controlling the present and the future it puts you in charge. You focus your intentions solely on their actions and future actions, framing and reframing everything they do. You destroy any charisma they have by dispelling it, making them look boring and predictable.

lessons learned

  • attack people's actions framing and reframing them as reactory/sensitive

  • always attack and never defend

  • switch to sincere when they become aggressive

  • encourage them to use their predictable moves

  • leave the argument first graciously

  • practise the sequence, it requires little wit. You'll be more comfortable and have more room to think of witty comments when this becomes natural

  • people will attack you for doing this