Contrarianism and Nay-saying
Different than mere dissent and authentic disagreement in various settings such as academic, policy making, personal, social and more; sometimes a contrarian position is taken to gainsay and nay-say another person's statement, and as is evidenced in the word "gainsay" the motivation is not to give an accurate counter point, but rather a misguided attempt to appear "better" by using a contrarian argument, which are often weak and rely only on rhetoric as they reflect as the nay-sayer's pessimism. Some have said it is an attempt to deny clear evidence merely for political gain, as is done by certain industries when it comes to important evidence of public safety and medical concerns that could effect the sales of the companies in the industry. Another form of this can be seen on some Internet forums where comments aren't responded to logically but with rhetoric, flaming or worse, defamatory statements.
Such naysayers tend to be disagreeable and frequently start sentences with the word "but" in response to another persons statement. Such sentences that are started with the conjunction "but" are often filled with rhetoric and little to no content in such contexts. It is said that one shouldn't start a sentence with a conjunction, that is, one shouldn't start a sentence with the word "but." Some technical controversy about the use of conjunctions at the beginning of a sentence exists, however, in practice, the word "gainsay" can be seen as connoting the social violation of putting down others for selfish gain, for example the tragedy of the commons shows how selfish action in society can lead to its degradation and thus similarly why it is inappropriate to gainsay others.
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