Just my personal opinion here, I think this is an acceptable rhetorical device normally, but specifically in covid discussions this is an off-putting approach. "Just asking questions" is a common strategy among covid deniers and anti-vax folks who are also often pro-lab leak hypothesis.
When I see a comment like the top most one in this thread, I can't tell if the author is actually coming to this discussion in good faith with a fact based approach or they are a nut job "just asking questions". Is the author meaning for the audience to infer actual confirmed facts or are they trying to imply guilt without any actual evidence? In this situation it is better to actually write out the facts with sources verifying them. Without that, the author risks being lumped in with the crazies.
Where did I say you can't ask questions? I said asking questions is a bad rhetorical device to use on this topic. OP isn't an inquisitive mind looking for answers to those questions. They are trying to convince us of a particular viewpoint due to the implied answers to those questions.
Please give us a comprehensive list of topics for which asking questions is a bad rhetorical device. I'd like to understand the basis for your claim, and how you presume to know what's in OP's mind?
>Please give us a comprehensive list of topics for which asking questions is a bad rhetorical device.
There is no complete list. Topics exist on a spectrum and some are completely poisoned by conspiracy thinking. If some anonymous person on the internet asks "how many people really died during the Holocaust?" I am going to assume bad faith before I assume honest knowledge seeking. Covid deniers aren't that extreme, but they have certainly gotten to a point in which I view rhetorical questions with skepticism.
>I'd like to understand the basis for your claim, and how you presume to know what's in OP's mind?
I don't have to "presume to know what's in OP's mind" in terms of those questions. They told us. They said "If you don't admit these (now-obvious) facts". They are obviously using the questions rhetorically.
My underlying point is in fact that I can't read OP's mind in regard to their motivation. That is what makes this a bad rhetorical device. It is guilty of bad faith through association. If OP's intent is for a good faith discussion, they should have used a different rhetorical style to avoid that association.
And once again, this is not an argument about whether OP's original point was correct or not. That isn't what the comments I was replying to were discussing and it isn't what I said in any of my comments.
"Just asking questions" is also a common strategy among people who would like answers to their questions. I spent a long time in 2006 asking questions online about USA's actions in the Middle East, and what I found was that there was indeed an incredible amount of coverup and half-truths from both sides of the political aisle. Despite this, I was naturally called a "9/11 truther" or whatever insult could be applied to someone who wanted honesty from the world's most powerful government.
It's not in bad-faith or manipulative; there are people on this site who have a full and total belief that the Wuhan lab leak is entirely a conspiracy, so earnestly asking for clarification on how they came to that decision seems perfectly reasonable to me.
In 2003 if someone was "just asking questions" about climate change and its future effects, I don't doubt skeptics online would try to unfairly lump them in with conspiracy theorists claiming the world would be on fire by 2010. It seems to me that the best way to convince people that the lab leak is not a reality would just be to answer their earnest questions, rather than lumping them in with anti-vaxers.
>"Just asking questions" is also a common strategy among people who would like answers to their questions.
OP specifically said "If you don't admit these (now-obvious) facts". They aren't looking for answers. They believe the answers are obvious facts. They are using the questions as a rhetorical device. I pointed out this is a bad rhetorical device to use in this instance. It was not a dismissal of their underlying point. It was saying their argument about their underlying point was unconvincing.
When I see a comment like the top most one in this thread, I can't tell if the author is actually coming to this discussion in good faith with a fact based approach or they are a nut job "just asking questions". Is the author meaning for the audience to infer actual confirmed facts or are they trying to imply guilt without any actual evidence? In this situation it is better to actually write out the facts with sources verifying them. Without that, the author risks being lumped in with the crazies.