Hoist Them On Their Own Petard

38  2017-05-25 by magnora7

Have you heard this phrase before?

It means to take the strengths of the enemy, and use those strengths against them. Set up scenarios where their own approach is the very thing that ruins them.

This tactic is everywhere, because it's very powerful. It creates the appearance of a self-inflicted problem, which looks like a 1-person victimless crime. This keeps people from pointing the finger at who may have actually caused the issue.

We see this tactic in online forums, where those looking to destroy conversations will seek to get others in a highly emotional state, which can take hours to calm down from, and then accuse them of being emotional. And all the emotionalization in the forum may cause people to avoid the conversation altogether, effectively muddying the well of conversation by adding emotional content where there should be substantive content.

This again goes back to the pyramid of debate: http://fablegod.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/disagreement-hierarchy.jpg

When playing competitive poker or video games, a common phrase for this phenomena is being "on tilt". If someone gets so emotional they cannot play correctly because they cannot think clearly, they're said to be "on tilt". This comes from pinball machines going "on tilt" and locking up when they sense the machine being bumped, to prevent cheating. People sometimes would get upset out of frustration and hit the machine, which would cause it to go on tilt, which would cause them to lose the the ball.

Another example of hoisting someone on their own petard would be in a sumo wrestling match. If a smaller wrestler is going against a larger one, they cannot win by weight and strength alone. So as a result, a common tactic is that the smaller wrestler will trick the larger one in to throwing his weight in a bad direction that throws him out of the wrong. Perhaps the larger one is goaded in to rushing forward, and instead of engaging, the smaller one quickly dodges out of the way, and the larger one cannot stop in time and falls out of the ring, losing the match.

Another example would be central banking. A government may be in a financial crisis situation, and have ties with a wealthy lender who will financially stabilize the country through a tough period. The idea being that hopefully they can become stable and regain the wealth they had earlier, and then pay off the central bankers. However this money that is given all at once and seems like a strength, ends up being the means by which the government is controlled and/or destroyed, if governmental income doesn't recover, or when there is inflation/deflation cycles controlled by the central bank, or when the central bank's lending rate increases. In this way the billionaires can give the "gift" of supporting the country and government to keep it stable and financially solvent, while using that same money to control it, as the Rothschilds did repeatedly in European countries throughout the 1860s-1870s, and as many have done since.

So the lesson is to be mindful of your power. Just because something is a strength, doesn't mean it cannot be used against you. So we must tread somewhat carefully, even when we think we have the home-field advantage, lest we be hoisted on our own petard.

25 comments

n/a  _Ph03niX 2017-05-25

Sometimes I wish my sub had things like this. OP hates us, though.

n/a  magnora7 2017-05-25

Oh are you talking about /r/ConspiracyII? It's on my radar, I haven't really formed an opinion about it yet though. I can post this there if you like, no problem!

n/a  _Ph03niX 2017-05-25

We're going big, homie. I don't come out of the woodwork for nothing.

n/a  hung_kwan 2017-05-25

Oh are you talking about /r/ConspiracyII? It's on my radar, I haven't really formed an opinion about it yet though.

/r/conspiracyii is a place where one can be banned in just over an hour, with the subreddit owner deleting his bizzare, ego fuelled ranting and replies to an innocent thread in order to make the OP look foolish (in his "mind" - mental state notwithstanding).

n/a  Bruuus 2017-05-25

Great post tbh

n/a  magnora7 2017-05-25

Thank you, glad you enjoyed it.

n/a  podcastman 2017-05-25

I enjoyed it more the first time when it was on voat.

https://voat.co/v/Conspiracy/1887463

n/a  magnora7 2017-05-25

Then why didn't you upvote it??

n/a  podcastman 2017-05-25

Because it was just as retarded over there.

If you are sarcasm impaired, "liked it better the first time when it was called" is sarcasm.

I just saw Benjamin Button. I liked it better the first time when it was called Forrest Gump.

n/a  magnora7 2017-05-25

So now it's retarded? This is the 4th weird post you've made toward me in just a few hours. Have a good night

n/a  S_words4_500 2017-05-25

Sun Tzu would be proud amigo

n/a  magnora7 2017-05-25

I've read Art of War more than once, apparently some of it stuck

n/a  magnora7 2017-05-25

Oh I just thought of another one. When Palestine fires some RPG in to Israel that lands in a field or kills 1 person, and then the Israeli army gives itself the moral justification to invade and kill hundreds of Palestinians. "They asked for it! They need to stop attacking Israel if they don't want us to defend ourselves!" is the common refrain.

n/a  Loose-ends 2017-05-25

Whenever an Israeli is killed by a Palestinian the IDF go out and kill ten Palestinians in return. Doesn't matter who they are or what they're doing, women hanging out their laundry, little kids playing, or some old man snoozing under a tree. It's a policy and the random and unpredictable nature of who gets to die is also part of the intimidation.

n/a  magnora7 2017-05-25

Pretty much. And then they destroy 300 buildings, and give them 5 minutes warning, if that. And then they widen the buffer zone in the Gaza Strip, shrinking down the usable space the Gazans have, and then building a few walled settlements in the west bank... escort some refugees to Jordan... rinse and repeat for 50 years and that's basically where we are. What a world.

n/a  Dogetor_Doge 2017-05-25

More of this political stuff here, has nothing to do with conspiracy, shouln't pollute this forum.

The "Palestinians" started loosing when they made the war with Israel an islamic conflict (Jihad) instead of a just battle for homeland that the semtic Arabians, regardless of religion, had before 1948.

It's propagated so openly by the islamic terroists that they want to kill all Jews and especially murder unarmed civilians with rocket artillery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxCFf_avJBw

It's no suprise that he israeli Jews hate the islamic "Palestinians" and will use every excuse to retalliate.

This total war will not end until both the Israeli and arabian Palestinians fuse into one nation again, otherwise the israeli Jews will eventually kill everyone else.

n/a  magnora7 2017-05-25

A 2-state solution would work if Israel would stop building settlements and attacking Palestine regularly.

n/a  magnora7 2017-05-25

If you liked this article please check out this sub

n/a  Sabremesh 2017-05-25

It means to take the strengths of the enemy, and use those strengths against them. Set up scenarios where their own approach is the very thing that ruins them.

Modern analogies of how Shakespeare originally used the term "hoist with his own petard" (in Hamlet) would be to say that somebody's scheme "backfired" or "blew up in their face", or "came back and bit them on the arse".

n/a  podcastman 2017-05-25

I know, he doesn't know what his thesis means. The mind boggles.

n/a  podcastman 2017-05-25

It means to take the strengths of the enemy, and use those strengths against them.

What the hell? It actually means to get blown up by your own petard.

Lots of people have heard this before, it's by Shakespeare:

Shakespeare's phrase, "hoist with his own petard," is an idiom that means "to be harmed by one's own plan to harm someone else" or "to fall into one's own trap", implying that one could be lifted (blown) upward by one's own bomb, or in other words, be foiled by one's own plan.

Hope you didn't waste a lot of time on your essay. Anyone who isn't ignorant won't make it past the second sentence.

https://voat.co/v/Conspiracy/1887463

n/a  magnora7 2017-05-25

Yes, their strength is their petard, and using it against them is when they get blown up by their own petard instead of it being used as intended. We're in agreement, I think you may have misread what I wrote. Perhaps I could've worded it better

n/a  podcastman 2017-05-25

It would help if you would learn what a petard is:

A petard is a small bomb used for blowing up gates and walls when breaching fortifications. It is of French origin and dates back to the 16th century. A typical petard was a conical or rectangular metal device containing 2–3 kg of gunpowder, with a slow match for a fuse.

n/a  magnora7 2017-05-25

I already looked that up long ago, but thank you

n/a  Dippy_Egg 2017-05-25

So the lesson is to be mindful of your power. Just because something is a strength, doesn't mean it cannot be used against you.

So what you're saying is, never go full petard?

n/a  magnora7 2017-05-25

Nailed it

n/a  johnysmote 2017-05-25

Britta knows what it means...https://youtu.be/KuuafUtVte0

n/a  magnora7 2017-05-25

Oh are you talking about /r/ConspiracyII? It's on my radar, I haven't really formed an opinion about it yet though. I can post this there if you like, no problem!

n/a  magnora7 2017-05-25

Yes, their strength is their petard, and using it against them is when they get blown up by their own petard instead of it being used as intended. We're in agreement, I think you may have misread what I wrote. Perhaps I could've worded it better

n/a  podcastman 2017-05-25

I know, he doesn't know what his thesis means. The mind boggles.