Effective Dialog?

[CapnAwesome]

Lol. Some people sure seem to think so. Same with pointing out logical fallacies, it's actually just a sneaky way of people trying to feel smug and be smarter than the other person, not a dialog tool at all.

It also is something that has sprung almost entirely from the internet, internet forum people seem to think that philosophy and debate consists the of memorizing a list of logical fallacies and then pointing them out as frequently as possible and declaring victory, preferably with a really snarky meme.

I can certainly see where you are coming from, but also think that part of a good dialogue can be to point out where someone is thinking wrongly.  And hopefully it should add to the dialogue by either acknowledging or addressing the perceived mistake.  I do agree with your assessment, that it is not about pointing out every fallacy, and declaring gotcha!  Everyone makes mistakes, and it's not really about one argument, but the idea.

In theory you are right. In reality people just point them out to insult and feel superior. I'm not sure I've ever seen people point out logical fallacies productively in 10 years of being on the internet.