this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2025
594 points (84.1% liked)
Comic Strips
20630 readers
2885 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- AI-generated comics aren't allowed.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yeah what the hell is this comment section? What a way to out yourselves as assholes by acting like this comic is personally attacking you
Nice Kafka trap again. The irrational love repeating their fallacies.
And then it lists two examples that don't fit this definition. I get the feeling Debate Wiki isn't the best primary source
Though the examples don't matter, they do fit. Everyday arguments regularly leave some premises unstated. Kafka trap conditions
Whether they affirm or deny the implicational conditions doesn't matter. If they affirm, then the condition (trivially) follows. If they deny, that's taken as evidence the condition is true. Then (by affirming the antecedent they object to the policy) their consequents follow.
Another comment shows a treatment in symbolic logic.
I can't stress enough that your own source says that a Kafka trap is when someone saying "I'm not X" is used as evidence that they are in fact X.
The first example fits. The fact that the person said they aren't an enemy of the state is used as evidence that they are in fact an enemy of the state.
In the latter two examples, the evidence that a person is in some way bigoted has nothing to do with their claims that they aren't bigoted.
How is this an example of someone saying they aren't X, and that assertion being used as evidence that they are X? The parent in this situation is not saying "I'm not against non-binary people" and then being accused of being against non-binary people because they said that. They're against policies intended to improve the lives of non-binary individuals, and being accused of being against non-binary people because of that.
Any parent who is not arguing against these policies could make the claim that they are not against non-binary people, and would not be accused of being against non-binary people because of it.
The citizen in this example is not being accused of being racist because they said they aren't racist. They're being accused of being racist because they're against these progressive policies. Any citizen who is not against these progressive policies would not be accused of being racist if they also said that they aren't racist. These aren't Kafka traps, by the web page's own definition.
I already explained to you whether they affirm or deny doesn't matter by logic: all possibilities lead to the same conclusion. That's the fallacy.
Here's the definition again.
Note the keyword if: this definition concerns a conditional statement. Affirming the conditional statement doesn't require affirming the antecedent.
What if they affirm x? Conclusion trivially follows. Neither affirm nor deny? Doesn't matter, because conditional statement is asserted: all possibilities lead to same conclusion.
Consider the conditional statement: if the moon is made of cheese, then we can eat it. Is it true? Yes. Is the moon made of cheese? No.
(Re)learn logic.
This isn't a kafka trap, though I understand the confusion - the fandom site you linked to appears to have a faulty understanding of what it is. To be a kafka trap requires accusation.
The yucky example from your fandom page about a parent criticizing progressive policies to support non-binary students is a great example of how this doesn't work: for it to be a kafka trap, the accusation that they (hate non-binary/are themselves non-binary) would have to be made in response to their concerns and then their denials be taken as an admission. Just raising them initially is not a kafka trap.
And that isn't what's happening in the above comment, either. People aren't being criticized for defending themselves, people are being criticized for
To be a kafka trap they would have to have been directly accused ("Hey I think you're a shitty person") and then because they're defending themselves ("You say you're not a shitty person?") have the conclusion drawn that they are a shitty person ("Only shitty people say they're not shitty people").
Criticizing them for feeling that they were the one being accused is not a kafka trap. Were I to say "I think people who are paranoid are bad" and some random passerby were to say "Well I'm for one not bad!" it would be pretty reasonable to draw conclusions about them considering themveslves to be paranoid.
This comic is not criticizing all men. This comic is criticizing men who engage in a depressingly quite common pattern of behavior. There's an extremely interesting discussion to be had about why that pattern of behavior is so common when so many men aren't the ones doing it (basically a loud minority can make an outsized impact on broad perceptions) but in their haste to attest to how offended they are, that never seems to be considered.
I don't doubt that most of the people attacking this comic aren't at all guilty of what the comic is criticizing. But that doesn't make the comic at all wrong, or the experiences of the many women in this comment section somehow made up.
This is a fallacy because it's a form of circular reasoning: a person who is not x would truthfully deny being x. Hence, the fallacy implies if a person is not x, then they are x. This is logically equivalent to assuming the person is x.
They are claiming the people who criticize the fallacies in the comic are 'outing themselves as assholes' as 'personally attacked'. They assume if someone criticizes the comic, then they must be the type of person the comic criticizes. There's no possible way the comic has an actual flaw to criticize.
This is a Kafka trap with the condition x as if they criticize the comic, then they are the type of person the comic criticizes. The trap supposes the condition is always true. It implies anyone who criticizes the comic must be the type of person the comic criticizes.
By ad hominem fallacy, they proceed to discredit any critic's claims that the comic could have an actual flaw to criticize.
In symbolic logic
Whether or not you accept the argument conforms to a Kafka trap, the fact remains they unjustifiably assume faulty premise A → B, conclude B, & proceed to dismiss their criticism via apparent ad hominem.
The frequent defense of & blindness to fallacies is an interesting phenomenon that isn't that mysterious to explain: some people are stubborn, shitty reasoners.