How Truth Destroys Fake Intellectuals (and Why They Block You for It)

What one online debate taught me about critical thinking, fallacies, and standing your ground

Photo by Miguel Henriques on Unsplash

Truth doesn’t just offend—it exposes.

In a world where fake intellectualism dominates online debates, standing firm on facts has become revolutionary.

Here’s how one honest conversation shattered a carefully crafted illusion—and led to a block.

TL;DR

• After exposing selective logic and challenging mainstream assumptions about vaccine injury and causality, my opponent blocked me mid-discussion.

• Fake intellectuals selectively apply “correlation ≠ causation” and other statistical tools only when it protects their narrative.

• True critical thinking—such as understanding our biases, using Socratic principles, and understanding key terms—dismantles these weak frameworks.

• This piece explores why truth inevitably collapses weak frameworks, why critical thinking is the rarest intellectual skill today, and how you can sharpen your ability to dismantle false narratives—whether online or in real life.

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The Block

This past week, I got blocked on the social media app Threads.

If you’ve been following my work, you’ll realize that I get blocked on these social media apps from time to time by individuals who display what I like to call fake intellectualism.

Now, this fake intellectualism is a concept that I’ve talked about a few times in my publications, particularly in my article The Rise of the Fake Intellectual and my podcast What Happened to Critical Thinking After COVID—which was banned from YouTube.

(For a deeper breakdown of how fake intellectualism rose after COVID—and how it weaponized “expert” authority—check out my article, The Rise of the Fake Intellectual—available exclusively for paid subscribers.)

Fake Intellectualism and the Pandemic Era

The ideas from that content are simple:

• Ever since the pandemic, individuals have been bombarded with information presented with the veneer of intellectualism.

• This fake intellectualism presents itself as all-knowing, “scientific,” and authoritative through mechanisms like scientism.

• However, when you begin to critique it and deep-dive into it, this intellectualism breaks under the false persona it has erected, and that’s what I’ve witnessed time and time again.

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Most recently, with RFK Jr. discussing the autism registry and his announcement about autism, the word “autism” returned to the public zeitgeist.

Seeing that I had just published my article Stop Calling It Autism. Start Calling It Vaccine-Induced Encephalopathy, I seized the opportunity to post my article whenever a chance presented itself.

My article started gaining traction, attracting people who aligned with my argument and those who were not.

One such individual, who was not aligned, engaged me by stating that it was a “myth” that vaccines cause encephalopathy or encephalitis.

He presented a study suggesting that genetic mutations or expressions might instead cause encephalopathy.

The Invitation To Debate

Now, if you know me, you know:

I’m not someone who backs down from a debate or an intellectual discussion.

Especially when I have the upper hand, I will try as hard as possible to make you see where I’m coming from.

I’ll ignore the jabs and personal shots—because I understand that when someone starts throwing those, it’s a sign they’re losing the argument.

In my article How to Have Disagreements During the Holidays, I laid out the foundation for respectful arguments. I look to apply those principles in every engagement—even online.

Circular Arguments and Dodged Truths

As the debate continued, it became clear that we were stuck in a circular argument.

This individual refused to admit a few key points:

• If Pharmaceutical funding were removed, government research would be negatively impacted. (They admitted this, but only in a roundabout way—and I called them out for it.)

• Correlation and causation were selectively applied depending on whether they helped their argument.

The conversation ultimately reached a standstill when I highlighted how he would reject correlation leading to causation when it came to vaccines causing encephalopathy—yet immediately accept correlation as causation when blaming genetic mutations for post-vaccine encephalopathy.

Once I called that out, the individual became flustered enough to block me.

And that was the end.

The Two Big Takeaways

I only engage online when I sense the other person might have a hint of scientific rigor. I never seek to “win” by making someone block me—but sometimes the truth shakes people to their core.

Two big takeaways emerged from this engagement:

1. Truth has the power to break all fallacies.

   • The amount of truth the individual was forced to confront was overwhelming.

   • Whether they admit it now or later, the cracks have already formed.

2. The core facts are undeniable:

   • Vaccines can cause encephalopathy.

   • Big Pharma funds clinical trials and influences outcomes.

   • There is a financial incentive to suppress this information because Pharma profits fund government research pipelines.

The Power of Truth and Critical Thinking

Being on the side of truth will get you criticized.

But when you hunker down and stand your ground, all the fallacies will eventually fall away — and that’s precisely what happened here.

I even fed our conversation to ChatGPT under a temporary unbiased mode:

At first, it sided with him because he cited mainstream sources.

But after I clarified the facts—such as the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program recognizing vaccine-induced encephalopathy—even ChatGPT flipped and agreed: I was correct.

This is the power of critical thinking.

This is the power of using truth properly.

Lessons from Socratic Thinking

I’ve written about critical thinking in several previous articles:

• In Critical Thinking Part 1, I talk about recognizing how information is weaponized against us through heuristics and biases.

• In Critical Thinking Part 2, I emphasize asking the right questions through Socratic methods — the six methods of Socratic questioning.

Socrates’ wisdom—and his connection to ancient African figures like Orunmila —still echoes today:

Take complex topics and break them down to their core principles.

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Want to sharpen your ability to spot logical fallacies and dismantle fake narratives?

I lay out my full framework for reclaiming critical thought — including the key heuristics used against us — in Critical Thinking and Action Taking, Part 1 and Part 2.

🔒 Available to paid subscribers inside Unorthodoxy.

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Weaponized Logic and the Importance of Mastery

In Weaponized Logic, I discuss why terms like correlation vs causation and confounding variables are essential tools.

If we understand these tools, we can cut through fallacies with surgical precision—online and, more importantly, in real life.

While online debates can waste time, they are good practice grounds.

The real battlefield is face-to-face with family, friends, and community—where truth, patience, and love must all work together.

Closing Thoughts

Thank you for letting me share this experience with you.

If this article resonated with you, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

I dive even deeper into how narrative warfare rewires our thinking — and how to reclaim true intellectual freedom—in my subscriber-only archives:

• What Happened To Critical Thinking After COVID

• Weaponized Logic—How ‘Correlation vs. Causation’ is Used to Dismiss inconvenient Truths

• The Power of First Principles

🔒 Unlock full access by becoming a paid member today. Truth deserves your commitment.

I’m excited to see what this coming week brings here at Unorthodoxy.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out or let me know in the comments below.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Until next time —

Ashe,

Franklin O’Kanu

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