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I want to lose every debate

sive.rs

21–30 of 386 posts

Re: I want to lose every debate

#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 the harm it did to my relationships with other people.

If you want to grow like OP here suggests—which I think is a valuable, worthwhile goal—you will do yourself a great service in learning to listen. I know we all think that we do this, but I don’t think many of us actually do.

When you talk to others, take note of how much of the time you spend formulating a response. I know that for me, I find that frequently I’m already generating my rebuttal before they finish speaking. I am effectively listening to respond, not to hear what they have to say. I’m much much better at listening to hear today than I was a decade ago, but I still have to correct myself on this routinely.

It’s important to note that you can listen to hear and still be free to respond; if you want to have an interesting conversation you will definitely need to put in some effort too. Just make sure that you’re internalizing what they’ve said before you form a response to it. It will almost certainly slow down the pace of a conversation but stands a decent chance of making each exchange a lot more interesting for both of you.

I really believe that the most profound realizations of my life have come when I shut up and put in the effort to internalize what other people around me were doing and saying.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#22
Every debate you lose is one where someone else won (and by the author’s logic, was deprived of the chance to lose).

Some debates I want to win, for the simple joy of teaching someone something new.

While it would be an optimal use of my time (from an information-theory point of view) for me to lose every debate I participate in, some debates are worth taking up for the chance to share.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#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 through a viewpoint you may even call it evil. Though not comically, because everything here is still just following the forces and inventives of our economic system - profit at every non-monetary expense. If you want change, your solution needs to address systemic issues (not neccessarily abolishing capitalism, but focusing on different inventives and making other alternatives viable/profitable though taxes)

(I hope the point I picked is uncontroversial enough, but you can probably apply it to your least favorite policies of your least favorite flavor of political party, organization, movement or institution)

Re: I want to lose every debate

#24
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).

Re: I want to lose every debate

#26
post #17
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I didn't write the article, I'm just joining the discussion.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#27
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…

In Manufacturing Consent, Herman and Chomsky write that (I’m paraphrasing) “nobody wakes up and thinks, ‘how will I ruin the world today?’”.

Our world is full of perverse incentives which are embedded into society itself. It’s been one of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned.

Truly evil people are rare. Selfish people not so much. But selfish people nevertheless will generally follow the law and social convention.

Unfortunately it’s hard to change either of these things.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#28

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.

Why post this comment? Asking out of curiosity, trying to listen to view your point.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#29
post #13

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.

hmm...but just listening is not a debate though. it's part of a debate, but the debate is the back and forth process. I have found the 1-10 ratio to hold up and this is as being as polite as possible.

Re: I want to lose every debate

#30
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…

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 very difficult to have sex workers who are not somehow a product of sex trafficking. However, in societies where it's not really a taboo, some people will pick that profession, at least for a while.

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