I want to lose every debate • Hacker News Board

Re: I want to lose every debate

#41

Post by atoav » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 8:58 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #24

tsuujin wrote: post #21

I’d like to offer an alternative framing: don’t debate at all, just listen. While high school debate did teach me many positive lessons and I am thankful that I spent four years of my life doing it, many years later I have come to understand that it also taught me something truly negative: that the point of a conversation is to win. I have put a lot of time in my adult life unlearning that trait, and reflecting on th…

I recently read a similar point phrased in a way that really resonated: “if you’re right, you’ll still be right in five minutes” (so you might as well listen carefully in case you’re wrong).

While this is good advice, it is still in a debate-mindset where, ultimately, it is about "winning" a conversation. But if you argue with someone who holds factually wrong opinions is it truly winning "if you showed them" and they think "what an asshole" and move on? That type of person is practised at brushing off a debate loss. That means if you enjoy winning such a debate it tells more about you than about the person opposite.

The best conversations I had with the worst people stemmed from me not even telling them my opinion at all. I just asked them to explain theirs to me and asked the questions that occured to me in a respectful manner. Leaving them in healthy confusion and doubt afterwards (and learning a thing or two about them on the way) is more rewarding than winning a debate with them. Sometimes those people really surprise you as well, because they hold a combination of opinions that seem incompatible to you.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#42

Post by noud » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 8:58 AM UTC

tsuujin wrote: post #21

I’d like to offer an alternative framing: don’t debate at all, just listen. While high school debate did teach me many positive lessons and I am thankful that I spent four years of my life doing it, many years later I have come to understand that it also taught me something truly negative: that the point of a conversation is to win. I have put a lot of time in my adult life unlearning that trait, and reflecting on th…

When someone tries explaining something to me, I try to summarize what this person said when they are finished. E.g., "So you're saying that " or "It seems like ". This forces me to actively listen and remember what the other person has said. Afterwards, I'm looking for a response in the lines of "That's correct!" or "That's right!", or a correction and explanation that I haven't heard it correctly. Even if I don't agree with the other persons believes, this seems to build good relationships.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#43

Post by mandmandam » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 8:59 AM UTC

_cenw wrote: post #23

Understanding perspectives is a useful skill. But it's not where having an educated opinion ends. I understand the desire of US fossil fuel companies to do fracking. They're not stupid or comically evil. But they can be greedy, misguided, selfish and too focused on short term gains (if you want to be extra accustory, "within their lifetime"). If you then move over to how much astroturfing is involved in pushing throu…

Fracking is textbook comic evil.

Say there's a comic book where fossil fuel co's worked to permanently ruin the groundwater and increase earthquakes in a region - bribing lawmakers and fucking over the people who lived there, gagging scientists, etc - all just for a resource that is literally burning the planet... So they can upgrade their megayacht/private jet... I'd find it hard to believe that others could allow it to happen.

"Following the incentives of our economic system", so your actions are indistinguishable or worse than those of a comic book villain, *is* comically evil. Literally. The fact that so much of our economic system defends this behavior says a lot.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#44

Post by quickthrower2 » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 8:59 AM UTC

acatnamedjoe wrote: post #31

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…

Perhaps we should credit OP with enough intelligence to assume that their debate with the sex worker didn't happen in a context where OP was their client. Also the fact that sex work can be linked with human trafficking doesn't necessarily mean that sex work is bad. Working on a construction site can be a meaningful and rewarding career, but could also be utterly miserable if you've been trafficked there and are work…

I totally assumed it was a friend of his, for some reason. Having read his stuff I get the impression he spent a portion of his life being highly social and trying to meet a lot of people. In an intentional way. His life is a bit like a lab!

Re: I want to lose every debate

#45

Post by quickthrower2 » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 9:01 AM UTC

glogla wrote: post #32

aflag wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that some prodtitutes are victims of human trafficking doesn't mean that all are. In fact, there are countries where sex work is legal but not human trafficking. So it's possible to even have a legal distinction there. I don't know how things are in Spain, but in the US there's a huge stigma associated with being a sex worker besides it being illegal and actively enforced. In these conditions it would be ver…

I'd like to believe that the people who are against sex work are actually thinking of the good of the sex workers and because of human trafficking. Yet there is a lot of human trafficking in other areas, like farmwork or maids in the Western world, and the non-Western world is filled with sweatshops and literal slaves. And you never hear them mention it. Which makes me convinced these people are just anti-sex work fo…

Good test of the OP’s point, hope you both lost this one :-)

Re: I want to lose every debate

#46

Post by Cthulhu_ » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 9:02 AM UTC

tsuujin wrote: post #21

I’d like to offer an alternative framing: don’t debate at all, just listen. While high school debate did teach me many positive lessons and I am thankful that I spent four years of my life doing it, many years later I have come to understand that it also taught me something truly negative: that the point of a conversation is to win. I have put a lot of time in my adult life unlearning that trait, and reflecting on th…

That sounds like the public debates which seem to be more of a thing in the US in general, but go back to e.g. the Greek and Roman traditions; two people debating with an audience taking in both sides.

The problem I have with modern-day debates (I mainly catch the political ones) is that they're not at all good or in good faith, there's a lot of "but YOU did this", a lot of dismissals, and no good structure; the moderator does not do their job very well in a lot of cases.

Mind you, that depends on the politician as well. Populists (e.g. Trump) are not good at all in debates.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#47

Post by concordDance » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 9:04 AM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #20

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 lik…

I've definitely had debates where I became a lot less sure of things I was reasonably informed on. A discussion that ends with "I'll have to go away and think about that" is a good one.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#48

Post by Cthulhu_ » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 9:04 AM UTC

The_Colonel wrote: post #37

somenameforme wrote: post #20

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 lik…

> but actually a meaningful swap from (X is bad) to (X is not bad). In my case, the answer is never. I think you did, otherwise you would never change your opinions, which I doubt. But I think it works more subtly. I've noticed that when I lose a debate, my immediate emotional response is rejection - the person is wrong, my opinion is right, even though I couldn't effectively justify it. But once the emotional hurt o…

> But once the emotional hurt of loss wears off, it will sometimes (not always) move my position, sometimes a little bit, sometimes completely. It can take days, months, sometimes years.

That's exactly it; I'm convinced people's opinions can and will change over time, but they take time.

This is used in subtle ways too with modern-day internet and social media (and before that, newspaper headlines); people will scan the internet's headlines and depending on what they see, form an opinion. If all you see is headlines about police brutality, you will be convinced that the police is corrupt and violent and shit. If all you see is headlines about a demographic being involved in crime, you'll form prejudices about them.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#49

Post by nibbleshifter » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 9:05 AM UTC

tsuujin wrote: post #21

I’d like to offer an alternative framing: don’t debate at all, just listen. While high school debate did teach me many positive lessons and I am thankful that I spent four years of my life doing it, many years later I have come to understand that it also taught me something truly negative: that the point of a conversation is to win. I have put a lot of time in my adult life unlearning that trait, and reflecting on th…

There is nothing more tedious in adult life than some debate club weenie trying to turn every random fucking conversation into a debate.

I strongly suspect debate club has a net negative impact on peoples social skills. It teaches a bunch of anti patterns to successful social interactions.

Like, you will be shooting the shit with the lads down pub the once or twice you see them per year when this dickhead (and every group has one) picks up on something and decides it's time to flex his master debater skills yet again.

Related absolutely cringe inducing behaviour includes the following:

- the "I am very smart" contrarian (so half of this website) - the "gonna then everything into politics" (liberal) one - the "gonna turn everything into politics" (conservative) one - that guy who says "let's not get political" (proceeds to get extremely political) - "uhm ackshually" overcorrecting guy - guy who doesn't know dick about a topic but will pontificate on it

Its entirely possible to unlearn these behaviours. The first thing is to realize you don't always have to respond.

Someone says something wrong in passing? Ignore it, move on.

Someone says something you disagree with? Evaluate if the inevitable unresolved and probably heated argument that will happen when you make it an issue is worth the time, effort, and awkwardness for everyone else present.

Someone says something exceptionally disagreeable? Just fucking leave it be and disengage as soon as possible. The fight isn't worth the time.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#50

Post by The_Colonel » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 9:06 AM UTC

nordsieck wrote: post #34

There's a sort of hidden weakness to "losing": it's extremely difficult for people to correctly filter out BS at scale. I'm not talking about on an individual encounter level - BS almost always loses to truth. But the percentage isn't so high that smart and/or successful people never fall for BS in their lifetime. Especially since BS is under evolutionary pressure to be extremely believable. That's a big part of the…

> But the mainstream is also exposed to the most criticism (at least the parts where criticism is acceptable), which means that BS tends to get filtered out more quickly as well.

This is what I worry in relation to ChatGPT. Producing quality, believable BS is currently expensive, and the price of exposing it is relatively manageable. But with ChatGPT, it will be possible to produce huge amounts of BS which will be extremely believable and simply uneconomical to critique and expose.

BS can be tailored to the audience, imagine a Wikipedia written by ChatGPT specifically for your which takes into account your own biases. It doesn't even have to be factually wrong, it can just modify the writing style, a word here and there to evoke a different sentiment, play on your personal preconceptions to move slightly your political position in a certain direction. People will claim they are immune to such subtle manipulations, but I don't believe that.