Socratic Trolling

Of course, this does sound a lot like trolling. But it’s trolling of a multi-millennia vintage — the ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates, did a lot of it. Socrates would sit on some public bench and talk to whoever happened to sit next to him. He’d often open his dialogues by presenting a false or deeply flawed argument and go from there. He would ironically agree with whatever his partner would say, but then raise a seemingly innocuous question to challenge that position.