Been kinda work-shopping a mild efforpost on debating in my head so I think I’ll post it here.
Debates between people who share some common ground with each other can be productive.
Debates between people who are diametrically opposed to one another on the issue being debates generally aren’t.
In other words, a debate between two people who agree that climate change is a major issue but disagree on how best to address it: PRODUCTIVE (potentially). A debate between a person who thinks climate change is a major issue and a climate change denier: NOT PRODUCTIVE (usually).
In the latter the two people in the debate view each other as adversaries are enter the debate with the intention of defeating the other. Such an environment makes people defensive and if anything encourages people to double down on their own opinions.
I’ve heard it said a lot, “the point of debate isn’t the convince the guy you’re debating, it’s to sway the people watching the debate”. That’s LESS-untrue but I still think generally untrue. Most people watching a debate already agree with one of the two parties in the debate and I attending to see their view confirmed by the guy they agree with “owning” the other guy. In the event neither side really decisively OWNS the other, they will usually just rationalize an explanation on how their guy won. In the event the other guy really OWNS the fuck out of their guy, usually the response is to either accuse the other guy of some dirty underhanded debate trickery, or to just shrug it off as their guy “not being on his A game that day” or something along those lines.
The best way to convince people of something is to trick them into thinking they convinced themselves of it. People are mostly little egotistical fucks who think they are very smart boys with big brains. Trying to be their personal guide to convince them of something they just flat out disagree with usually triggers a defensive response, cuz then they’d have to admit they were wrong and stupid if you manage to convince them. But, if instead, you just leave resources to educate themselves at their feet, and subtly bully them into reading them, then they’ll think it was them and their big smart boy brain that “figured out the truth”.
oh yeah: main
I don’t get this post!
Dumb f-ck
this is the internet sweaty, you can use cuss words here
main
DUMB FUCK!
“the point of debate isn’t the convince the guy you’re debating, it’s to sway the people watching the debate”.
people who don’t understand how social media algorithms work say this. Debating idiots on social media MAINly just gets more views to the idiot’s viewpoint. The ideas of fascist apologists and their like don’t deserve being challenged in the marketplace of ideas, they need to be in the tucked safely away from the sort of folks who think they believe what they believe through facts and reason rather than having been exposed to those ideas through a lifetime of propaganda.
Mainly gets more views to the idiots viewpoints sure but it still gets more views to those who may be sympathetic to your opinion
Many people have admitted that GZD and CTH were the ones that made them sympathetic to communism
Any visibility is good visibility if you’re going to be posting propaganda
this needs some deep frying. I can see entirely too many pixels.
The main point of online debate is to bait your opponent into wasting their time. If they spend 1 hour to epically own your 5-second shitpost, you’ve won because they’ve wasted 1 hour of their time compared with your 5 second. You can make them waste even more time by insisting that they sound mad in the hopes that they’ll take the bait and continue to epically own you.
yeah, this is mainly my theory on why the old sub was so effective at convincing libs. bullying but with a side of theory. makes people feel smart for figuring stuff out on their own.
It’s funny, mainly, but I think it’s on to something too.
An explanation that has a preface like “sigh” or “um,” may feel good for the poster to say but it drastically reduces the chance that the explanation part will be received well.
Any correction or contradiction on this website, regardless of how it’s phrased, is going be to accused of pendantic reddit debate-broism if it carries on long enough.
TFW I very recently said “omission” instead of “revision” in a recent post, mainly contrary to another poster’s preferred usage of the words.
One of those flammable, inflammable sorts of things I suppose.