I have believed you are not an idiot. We have been over this exact particular sentence before, even. You have a brain in your head, and I usually assume you can use it.
Since you have asked, I will be explicit in my explanation and treat you with less intelligence than I know you have for the moment.
In the fallacious sense, a straw man is when a debater’s argument is constructed against something that is not actually part of the opposing argument, but looks like it could or should be due to the way you present it.
The reason this is called a straw man is because it is easy to set up and to then fell a straw man. In the classical straw man situation, the debater creates an untrue thing that is easy to knock down, then does so.
As I have added the prefix sarcastic, I will next clarify how that modification is supposed to be read. First, we start with the definition: Sarcasm is when someone uses words that are not what they mean with those words. Whether sarcasm is in use is usually conveyed with tone or other indicators.
“Sarcastic straw man”, thusly: The debater is saying words that are not what they mean, such as pretending to agree with their opposition; and the specific words are intended to be a mockery of the argument of their opposition is using, presented as though it were a logical argument.
Except it’s just… usually not. These are most often used in rhetoric for “gotcha!” moments, where the point is to trap the opposition by equating their position to something ridiculous but carefully avoiding saying what that ridiculous thing is until after they agree.
You may remember, say, this post here:
Which is similarly a gotcha, so I know you have familiarity with this particular tactic.
As you also may remember, I called it nonsense and called it nonsense at the beginning - this is because it is the same type of argumentation.
Would you prefer I call it an appeal to emotion, specifically to ridicule, and an ad hominem? Because that also applies, since your language and tone makes it imminently obvious that you hold the opinion that Sentry and I hold laughable positions.
Which you do instead of actually rebutting the point. So it qualifies for all of those.
To, once again, rebut each point in brief:
Nobody reasonable - at any point - said that Showtime doesn’t have a clue what they’re talking about.
That the quote is six years old, that the comment you link in this post was in context of professional play, where things are brought to the extreme and therefore not necessarily relevant to other situations, that ShoWTimE’s personal feeling on what the most mechanically demanding race is is not an objective fact? Those all got said.
My rebuttal to this could be as simple as “Harstem thinks that Terran plays itself”. It’s… an opinion.
I don’t think anybody actually said this either. They obviously are not the only thing that matters. You know that.
Hang on, wait, let me just: