Talk:Chewbacca Defense

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Confusing

"confusing, isnt it?" is not a satisfactory conclusion to put an end to this article. As it is touched earlier in the article, using (and or accusing the other side of using) chewbacca defense is a real and working tactic in real life discussions, which leads to the conclusion that this tactic, or technic needs to be well known and mastered to begin with a real life argumentation to make sure that the discussion doesnt come to a dead end. also noteworthy that real life discussions are often not followed purely for the estabilishment by the sides of what can be known about a situation but rather are typically problems raised by one party (interested in a certain outcome) to which outcome the other party may relate in several ways, eg: being interested in preservation of the status quo, or being interested in changing the status quo in a different direction, and/or different magnitude - also real life discussions while involve interests not necessarily take place in a setting with equal access to information. these aspects lend chewbacca defense (and also all other argumentative fallacies) a very real and practical use, different from what is implied in the case of a "mathematically" pure and ideal scholastical debate. 89.134.199.32 (talk) 21:20, 16 January 2019 (UTC).

What do you want the article to say? It offers a good description of the Chewbacca defence, thorough but not over-long, and will allow you to recognise and name it. There's no certain way to counter this kind of thing. If there was, then everybody would believe sensible things and we wouldn't need 50000 articles on different logical fallacies. --Annanoon (talk) 21:55, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

The problem is while the South Park episode makes a lot of references to the O.J. Simpson trial, the actual event was a considerably different breed of idiocy. The prosecution rushed to trial rather than having a grand jury to make sure the evidence was reduced to its barest essentials, went to trial before all the physical evidence had even been collected, and used a story of domestic violence going back to 1989 which was of questionable relevance. Their biggest screw-up was with the glove that, thanks to what it had gone through, had changed in size — trying to show the glove did fit was sloppy and dumb.(Evaluating the Prosecution's Case, PBS Frontline.) So South Park's "Chewbacca Defense" is from a fictional (and inaccurate) version of an actual case that required ignoring the gross incompetence of the prosecution in the actual case for the joke to even work.--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:15, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

TVTropes.org

Dear moron who keeps edit warring in a blind panic, look up fair use. You'll note certain exceptions from copyright law. This article is covered under "comment, criticism or satire/parody" Further, TVTropes.org is not the originator of the Chewbacca defense, South Park and its parent corporations are. Finally, you can't copyright tropes. In conclusion, you are wrong. Bye now! ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:00, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't dispute that the trope of the Chewbacca Defense is most of what you said. However, what's at issue here is the description text, which was copied directly from the tvtropes article, and even now over a decade later remains largely intact. If the description were to be rewritten so as to be completely RW-original, attribution would definitely not be necessary. That said, I'm kinda disappointed in my fellow tropers for edit warring instead of trying to have a damn discussion, given that it'd be against policy to do it like that on our own site. We're supposed to be friends here; that's part of why this article even exists in the first place. --2600:1014:B10C:8192:872E:431B:84F2:D585 (talk) 21:08, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Unless you want to completely rewrite the description, just be a good sport and add the credit back. 2601:243:701:A830:E930:85E9:579C:DED5 (talk) 02:26, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

I'll add it as an external link. I don't really see how the two articles are enough alike to risk violating Fair Use. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 02:32, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Copyright infringement(?)

I know that you stole from TvTropes. I'm aware that TvTropes didn't make the trope, but the description is copy+pasted from TvTropes circa 2007, when the site used a CC-BY-SA license, which means that you need to give that page the same license, and provide credit for the source. ^{— Unsigned, by: 2601:647:8003:9350:f519:d4b7:f784:f78 / talk / contribs}

Do you have proof for your claim? Cosmikdebris (talk) 23:29, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

The oldest RW page does say the text is lifted from TVT. Both articles have changed since 2008, and a link to TVT has since been added (see above discussion). Slocknog (talk) 00:04, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Again, I fail to see how the current works are close enough to infringe on TVT's copyright. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 00:17, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Rebuttal

Legal Eagle (an actual lawyer) in Real Lawyer Reacts to South Park Chewbacca Defense goes over the episode and legally there is a lot off about it. Which given the quality of most court room scenes on TV (stuff that would not be allowed in a actual US court) makes is effectively useless.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:04, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Usd Legal Eagle's real name - Devin J. Stone, Esq. as well as where he is a licensed attorney ( DC, Maryland, Virginia, New York, & California)--BruceGrubb (talk) 02:04, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Seriously, what the hell were these edits even about? This article is about the imposing *rhetorical device* that the Chewbacca Defense is. Of course you can't bring literal star wars in a real court of law, and of course in no way or shape South Park ever tried to pose as verisimilar to anything (let alone legal drama). The sketch is only an extreme parody of the actual non-sequitur that was allowed irl, and that legend says helped OJ's case so much (was there nullification in 1995? was there a mistrial? I don't think so). And LE isn't rebutting anything in this regard, in fact the final catchphrase gets even praised for "sticking with you and the jury". p.s. there's even more to that if you are interested to the big careful planning behind Cochran's masterplan. --Mirh (talk) 22:59, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

More pragmatic definition

So I think I have just seen one instance on live TV, and I'm just flabbergasted by its efficacy.
Like, you don't recognize its absolute work of genius, until its context is close enough that you were seriously invested into the argument.

Imagine there was some long tricky discussion about politics, or economics, or something. And at some point the guy talking with you comes out with: "look, I have been in this game for a long time, and I know your kind of people.. you should come clear about your fixation". And then they go on the most textbook rant about the environment vs jobs fake dilemma (I don't even know if climate change action had anything to do with the topic, but I guess there's nothing that you can't capitalistically reframe with that lens), snubbing working class people and all. Last, they bring up some "famous interview of an american senator that everybody will have certainly seen" where allegedly "they have been asked how much the sea level was going to rise per degree of temperature, and they couldn't answer".
"So you see it's all just posturing" (lowkey implying this to be identity politics for whatever the opponent outgroup was supposed to be). CHECK MATE.

And you'd be forgiven to wonder: what even is the Chewbacca line here? Well, one key detail that I was omitting is that this wasn't in any country of the anglosphere, but in Italy. And if the average Mario doesn't know a iota about Yankee politicians (POTUS aside), the parochial audience of this regional talk show is certainly even *below* this abysmal bar. So, what could you even reply?
It's a very bad gish gallop, but you can't just focus on a single thing, yet the bullshit asymmetry principle means you can't cover much more either if you don't want to bore or seem a garrulous prick. Like, the only way out seems the "Overriding Theme Rebuttal" approach if any, but even after a hour of pondering I still couldn't find a breach.

It doesn't actually make sense, yes, with SP Cochran even admitting this himself. Yet that's just the "high-order semantic" level.
Meanwhile, beneath, the still-syntactically-correct sentences are managing to sow pure stir in the minds of absentminded listeners that aren't used to really pay attention to each single word. Call it implicit association, call it semiotics, call it unconscious dog whistle, but when the initial jumbled setup is followed by "None of this makes sense" the bad vibes can spillover to one's personal disposition of the case at hand.
Conversely, if you are the big brain 200IQ dude that always puts the most effort into understanding a situation and all its possible intricacies, this pile of garbage utterly overwhelms you (like in a famous gag).
And so my wondering was: should you try to define the CD in terms of its constitutive properties (picking up nouns at the furthest edge of what people could even parse, trying to cobble them together in a negative analogy as tacit but resemblant to the original crux as possible, then hoping the emotional transitive property can do its sticky magic), or could you just look at its final effect of being a gish gallop that is so disingenuous that its only hope of succeeding is assuming dimwits will hear it? --Mirh (talk) 22:41, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Question

How does 'bafflegab' link up with the Chewbacca Defence? Anna Livia (talk) 00:22, 21 November 2023 (UTC)