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I want to lose every debate

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Re: I want to lose every debate

#271

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #193
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…

thank you. If I'm ever in a position of choosing a co-founder again, I'll probably ask potential candidates their opinions on debate and treat any positive sentiment towards debate as a negative signal. Few things are more tiring in an already difficult slog than needing to go to war every time you'd like to introduce a change. I know some people are energized by debate, but I'd rather work with someone who builds my…

Your position/preference seems to arise from your identification with your own ideas, which is one of the most fundamental differences in the realm of people's response to "debate". There's absolutely nothing wrong with identifying with your own ideas, and indeed, it will naturally lead to a negative experience if you have to interact with someone who attacks those ideas.

However, there are people who don't experience as much, if any, attachment or identification with "their own ideas", and instead view "debate" (or indeed, any sort of exploration of ideas, truth, and so forth) as a chance to be, to use an over-used phrase, "less wrong". It doesn't bother me if someone demonstrates to me that what I thought is wrong (as long as they do it in a way that respects me as a person), and in fact I welcome the correction (though sometimes it may be difficult to process if it is a long-held idea with wide consequences).

As usual, there's a spectrum (or two) here: a spectrum of identifying with your own ideas, and a spectrum of levels of personal respect when "debating". Certainly a very bad combination is one person with a high level of self-identification with their own ideas being debated/attack by someone who (a) has no concept that this self-identification experience is real (b) cannot engage with the ideas without criticizing the other person.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#272

Post by qwertox »

I don't get it.

There are many sex workers which are forced to do this job, some even under threat.

I also don't see an issue using analogies to explain things.

Was the Hindu person poor itself? If so, how has this person dealt with sickness in the family?

Any religion is a perfect recipe for peace, it just depends on the fairness and good will of those practicing it.

Why should partying not be a good thing as long as it is done in a good balance, and why would an ugly tattoo require an explanation, unless a good story can be told about it?

What does any of the above have to do with stupidity? I certainly wouldn't want to lose a debate about why murdering someone can be considered a good thing.

I just don't understand the spirit in which that article has been written. But then again, "TED speaker" kind of explains it a bit.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#273

Post by Existenceblinks »

In english this seems to be called "debate bro culture"? In my language it's called like "debate horny". The gist of this thing is oppose to loseless context, so there's always part of context that is lost. Debate is close to talking in analogy. It will leads you to something but not the thing as a whole.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#274

Post by ameister14 »

iinnPP wrote: post #116
avaika wrote: post #103

This is all fun until you talk to someone who is absolutely brainwashed or alien to a peaceful behavior. Do you really want to lose the debate to flat earth advocate? Do you want to lose a debate to a war aggressor supporter? Do you want to lose a debate to a serial killer? I bet you don't. PS. Maybe I didn't get something right, but I suffered a lot in conversations with close relatives who are denying that killing…

>close relatives who are denying that killing other people is bad Nobody, except people with legitimate mental health issues, thinks killing is a "good" thing. Your close relatives believe Russia is on defense. Kind of like how the US was on defense in Iraq. So, from their perspective, the way to save lives is to negotiate an end to the war where Russia takes that tiny bit of land, and Ukraine stops being considered…

>Nobody, except people with legitimate mental health issues, thinks killing is a "good" thing.

I know a lot of people that believe killing can be justified and in that sense a "good."

Re: I want to lose every debate

#275

Post by rocknor »

> The Hindu explains why poverty doesn’t upset her.

So according to the author me and my community are not upset by poverty and hence are not doing anything to fix it.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/india-lifted...

https://gdc.unicef.org/resource/report-india-lifted-271-mill...

Who is this author again and why are people listening to a charlatan like him?

Re: I want to lose every debate

#276

Post by psychphysic »

badcppdev wrote: post #205
psychphysic wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're nicely applying the JRE method here. The problem is that the other definition of 'debate' is competitive and people have interests to appear correct more than to be correct.

To follow the spirit of the original linked article I will choose to accept that a debate can be defined as a conversation where one person presents their ideas and another person listens and asks clarifying questions in a generally non-argumentative manner. With the JRE you seem to be saying that the guest is arguing that their ideas are correct and JR is arguing the negative but only through the use of questions an…

It's not dissimilar from the socratic method.

But he leaves the direct criticism to the audience.

He will almost never use the phrases "I don't think that's correct" or similar.

Louis Theroux?

Re: I want to lose every debate

#277

Post by trgn »

jffhn wrote: post #259
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…

>high school debate [...] taught me something truly negative: that the point of a conversation is to win. The etymology of "debate" is "de-beat", i.e what you do to avoid beating each other, so in principle it's closer to negotiation than to mutual battering.

Huizinga argues that debating is essentially a human expression of our animal play instinct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Ludens

This would also be the reason in settings where debate is formalized, e.g. a courtroom, there are elements of pageantry and pantomime. All playful exaggerations, nonetheless serious (because play can be serious business, look at any child absorbed in a game).

Debating as a means to avoid combat then follows quite naturally. It's sublimation of a primal instinct, channeling dangerous antagonistic behaviors into the realm of harmless play.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#278

Post by russelldjimmy »

rocknor wrote: post #275

> The Hindu explains why poverty doesn’t upset her. So according to the author me and my community are not upset by poverty and hence are not doing anything to fix it. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/india-lifted... https://gdc.unicef.org/resource/report-india-lifted-271-mill... Who is this author again and why are people listening to a charlatan like him?

It seems to me that the author spoke about one particular Hindu they met who was not upset by their state of poverty. It’s not clear to me that they claimed that your community is not upset by it, and is not doing anything to fix it. Help me with clarity.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#279

Post by jvm___ »

nibbleshifter wrote: post #49
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…

This is a whole chapter in "How to win friends and influence people."

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

#280

Post by Supermancho »

etothepii wrote: post #223
bambax wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don’t debate at all, just listen This is what the OP says; while the title of the post is "I want to lose every debate" that's what he says in the end: > I never want to debate, but if I had to, I would hope to lose. And I get it, I think; but there is something to be said in favor of debating, not as a competition, but as a method of refining each other's ideas. Someone exposing a theory of theirs that's apparentl…

I think this is what I dislike most about Jordan Peterson. He appears to behave as if it's your fault if when you paraphrase what you think he's said back to him is not something he wants to agree with. IMHO, you haven't understood someone if you can't repeat it back to them in your own language, and there's a good probability that this is the fault of the explainer not the explainee.

> He appears to behave as if it's your fault if when you paraphrase what you think he's said back to him is not something he wants to agree with.

I don't think that's unique to JP. Most people are very bad at paraphrasing without veering into misrepresentation. I'm still working on getting better.

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