I don't wanna hear

A tactic that is common in political discussions in Skypeland, particularly poorly-managed political discussions, is to ask a question and then not give the respondent time to answer. People on all sides in a debate sometimes just pound the other side with questions, and never wait for an answer. It can be extremely frustrating, and often the person being queried will just give up in disgust.

The person from India who is always looking for an "argument" in Skypeland uses this technique. He talks extremely rapidly, asks many questions, never pauses for an answer, has a thick accent, stumbles over his poorly-pronounced words, spouts spurious statistics, peppers his comments with insults and abuse, talks over others, and jumps from topic to topic every few seconds while he is "arguing". It is mildly amusing to hear at first, but quickly becomes annoying.

In a discussion of the Palestinian situation, an interlocutor will typically ask, if they are allowed, a rapid sequence of questions, frequently repeated, and jumping all over. The questions might include:
*Who was in Palestine first?
*Why do the Israelis kill children?
*Why does Israel get so much aid from the United States?
*Why do Israelis hate Muslims?

These questions will typically be interlaced with questions about other topics, such as:
*Why did the US invade Iraq?
*Why is the US in an illegal war?
*Why did Bush lie?
*Why did the US have slavery?
*Why did the US slaughter the Indians when the Europeans arrived?
*Why did the US take the American Indian land?
*Why is Bush stealing the Muslim oil?

There might also be a few statements thrown in as well, with no particular response expected necessarily, such as:
*The US only is operating to benefit its commercial interests.
*The US is controlled by the Jews.
*The US people are fooled/lied to/tricked by the evil media conglomerates.

Someone in a poorly-managed room will be peppered by questions like this, jumping from topic to topic, with an occasional statement thrown in. The goal is to make the person being asked feel belittled, and make them look as though they have no answers at all. If a person attempts to answer a question, the person asking will jump to another question, on a completely different topic, often talking over the other people in the room. They will repeat their questions, over and over, in a chant, sometimes in a stilted form of English that is almost impossible to understand.

In many (if not most) cases, the person posing the queries has no interest in the answer at all. If they get answers, they do not listen to them or learn from them. Many will state things like "I do not care about facts" or "I do not care about the evidence, I am only interested in the 'truth'" (how they determine the 'truth' is not always clear) or "I just care about what feels right". I have often heard things like "If you are interested in data or facts, you have no common sense" or other meaningless justifications for ignoring the information or gratuitously refuting it.

However, the main goal in many cases is not to "convert" the opponent in one of these discussions, but to sway the audience. Only very rarely will one of these people with deeply-held beliefs ever change their opinion. However, sometimes you can get them to drop their efforts to influence others, or even get them to agree with you...Othertimes, you have to be satisfied with making them look foolish in front of everyone else. Often, they do not even realize that they look silly, I suspect.

Sometimes the person asking the questions will work in concert with the room host to squelch discussion effectively. For example, in the "argument rooms" run by the young Indian man, the host is the same person asking the questions, and he will move someone into the room for 30 seconds or so, and then without having heard a single word they have said (if they even try to answer), turning off their microphones or throwing them out of the room.

For example, in a "creationism" skypecast, the host will often turn off the microphone of the person trying to respond to the questions, or a person asking difficult questions. There is often no interest in a dialogue, but just in the delivery of a long lecture to a captive audience. The person who has been allowed to talk is just a foil, and a reason to draw people in to the cast so they can be preached at.

Other times, there might be several different people asking questions, sometimes including the host of the room. This can be very challenging if you are trying to answer questions being posed.