How using logic ended my interaction with someone.

Several years ago I had encountered a person on youtube, as you do from time to time, who had written some things that were right up my alley of skeptical thoughts and something that I wanted to promote. I had read the ideas and found no logical fallacies and thought it would be quite good to share this writing with others.

I wanted to have this person talk on my channel about the writings and ideas. They were not quite ready to do so, but we stayed in contact. The writings became a book that I got. I was waiting for them to be ready - and a friend of mine expressed wanting a copy of the book, so I asked the writer about getting a copy.

This is when the person informed me that they were going into hiding.

This of course, is strange. People do not go into hiding as a normal thing. What could be the cause of this?

So I asked.

The answer was that Trump is a narcissist and was going to try to become a tyrant, that his followers would target people that wrote books like this, and that person was afraid for their life.

Now, this seemed rather - to put it mildly - strange. So I did what I always do when someone makes claims. I asked critical questions. Lots of them.

How do you know (X)? What proof is there for (Z)? What makes you think that anyone could find you?

Good, critical questions. Or so I thought.

They reacted... badly.

"Trump is a criminal."

"If he stays in office we are all fucked." 

"He is driving the country towards nationalism."

So, even more claims.

Of course, I asked how they knew any of this was true, and that even if it was true - how any of that proved that people were going to go after people that wrote books like this.

That never got an answer.

Silence.

Then - they returned. I was glad, and tried to reach out to talk to them - to get them to come on and talk about the book and...

"I asked you not to contact me again (meaning personal email or phone) unless you were going to discuss the narcissism of Trump"

I've checked and rechecked my email - no they never wrote that. I again tried my best to explain that it is not about Trump. Never was. It was and is about how we decide what is or is not true - the epistemology. 

Didn't matter. Person said not to contact them again.

So logic lead to an end to the interaction.

What went wrong?

Well, I speculate that it seems to the person that I am not on the right side - that I am disagreeing with them because I am asking questions, that I'm on "the other side" or something like that. Not with us - you against us. This happens sometimes.

The topic (X) does not matter. Not even a little. What matters is the logic, always. Anyone makes a claim, that person must support that claim. That is how it works. You can not just say something is true without proof of some sort, more so when your conclusions are leading to a choice that is not normal.

Now, had person not been going into hiding, I would not have asked any questions about the statements at all. It was only because I was worried about them doing that - and also not having the book be something that can be had by the public for (as far as I knew forever) that worried me. Thus my goal was to get person to see the lack of reasoning they had.

Clearly, I was not able to do that.

Cognitive dissonance in action.

It can be anything.

For many its God beliefs.

For some its religion.

For others its politics.

Orangeman bad, agree with me!

Well - guess what? You're going to get the same treatment as everyone else making a claim.

When its your pet claim. When its something you believe is true. When its your cherished idea is when you react. You become unhinged, you lose logic. This happened before within the realm of political things here (click)

Its okay when the skeptic is asking critical questions about all the other topics - but not that one! THAT TOPIC... oh no don't ya dare... Its happened before, it will happen again I'm sure.

What can you do?

Always be willing to question everything, and more so the things you hold most dear.

In other words: Be skeptical.