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I want to lose every debate

sive.rs

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Re: I want to lose every debate

#11

Post by nicbou »

paulpauper wrote: post #5

Usually losing the debate means losing to the pig who has better experience. I prefer to just avoid debates. they tend to never be productive except maybe in academia. A common criticism you see online is people avoiding debate and blocking, but consider that usually this is from being tired of bad faith, obtuseness, etc. At some point, patience runs thin. You don't have time for the one or two good, productive debat…

It's not a debate but a conversation. Treat it like an exchange of information, not something you can win or lose. If the other person doesn't follow, then you can stop replying.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#12

Post by SilasX »

Clickbaity way to say it, but yes, I like to "lose debates" in the way Sivers describes here. For the same reason, I'm very tolerant of rudeness and disrespect if and when it comes with an insight that makes my understanding of something click.

Also for the same reason I like to say, "Don't tell me I'm wrong; instead, improve my worldmodel to the point that you no longer have to, because the wrongness will be obvious."

But I'm not sure that what Sivers describes here is coterminous with "losing a debate". Rather, it's just one way you might "lose a debate". In practice, losing a debate more often looks something more like:

1) The other side stubbornly refuses to engage with your point while effectively signaling you're a bad person despite endorsing the same tradeoffs you do. [B]

2) The other side points being so muddled that you can't untangle what they're disagreeing with or what makes your point wrong, but they speak with that confidence that everyone wants to agree with them. [A]

I don't like losing a debate those ways.

[A] Example of this kind of misdirection from Thank You For Smoking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuaHRN7UhRo

[B] Recent example from HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33900804

Re: I want to lose every debate

#13

Post by aflag »

paulpauper wrote: post #5

Usually losing the debate means losing to the pig who has better experience. I prefer to just avoid debates. they tend to never be productive except maybe in academia. A common criticism you see online is people avoiding debate and blocking, but consider that usually this is from being tired of bad faith, obtuseness, etc. At some point, patience runs thin. You don't have time for the one or two good, productive debat…

That's missing the point. The author is not taking about a heated exchange, but mostly just listening so closely to the point you actually get convinced you agree with someone else, at least from their perspective.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#14

Post by AstixAndBelix »

The article's title is about debates, but all he gives are examples of conversations (except maybe one). I don't think you can really compare debates with discussions, thus drawing this conclusion from unrelated lived experiences does not make much sense to me

Re: I want to lose every debate

#16

Post by temptemptemp111 »

paganel wrote: post #6

> The sex worker explains why she loves her job. I'm not going to comment on the other stuff, but we should stop with the sociopathic neo-liberal glorification of "sex work", which in the majority of cases is just human trafficking. I come from a town in Eastern Europe where one of the local mob guys has been caught with trafficking hundreds of (I guess mostly local) girls in Spain. I'm pretty sure many of those girl…

[dead]

Re: I want to lose every debate

#17

Post by croes »

nicbou wrote: post #11
paulpauper wrote: post #5

Usually losing the debate means losing to the pig who has better experience. I prefer to just avoid debates. they tend to never be productive except maybe in academia. A common criticism you see online is people avoiding debate and blocking, but consider that usually this is from being tired of bad faith, obtuseness, etc. At some point, patience runs thin. You don't have time for the one or two good, productive debat…

It's not a debate but a conversation. Treat it like an exchange of information, not something you can win or lose. If the other person doesn't follow, then you can stop replying.

So the articles title is misleading

Re: I want to lose every debate

#18

Post by groestl »

highland586 wrote: post #10

Listening and taking someone's point of view has nothing to do with debating. When you're actually listening, you're not debating anymore. It's a life skill.

That might be your preferred way of learning. As for myself, I can't take someone's POV without understanding. And I can't understand without exposing my current model to be shaped by someone's counterarguments. For me there's no better way to learn (apart from explaining and being met with unexpected questions, which I enjoy even more).

Re: I want to lose every debate

#19

Post by beebmam »

heleninboodler wrote: post #4

Derek's right here. Being willing to be wrong is one of the best ways to grow. I have a lot of strong opinions and a lot of knowledge, and I used to think that meant I had to be an absolute warrior defending my side of an argument. Turns out you're stronger if you're willing to consider that you don't know everything. Yet another Derek Sivers post that makes me think he's a freaking genius.

Even better yet: don't presume (virtually) any of your beliefs are 100% right in the first place.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#20

Post by somenameforme »

I believe I feel this way. I think many, if not the vast majority of us do. Now for a little test. When was the last time you lost a debate on a topic you felt strongly about? And not a debate that further reaffirmed your own biases (I used to believe X was bad, but wow I was wrong - it's WAY worse than bad) but actually a meaningful swap from (X is bad) to (X is not bad).

In my case, the answer is never. Now I'd like to imagine this is obviously because I'm the most intelligent, objective, and insightful individual to have ever lived. Of course I suspect the actual reason is because anything worth debating will always have reasonable arguments for both sides. And so long as your arguments are reasonably factually based, it's never really possible to lose a debate, unless you choose to. You can learn new things, expand your worldview, but losing will only happen if you want it to. Hence the reason I added that qualifier about swapping worldviews as opposed to enhancing a prior held one.

Of course this doesn't preclude major worldview shifting change from happening, but it happens over long periods of times for reasons that I don't think any of us can really pin down. It's going to be a butterfly effect of a million little factors.

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