Are you a great debater?

[Secret Chief]

Debate prowess seems like a quality that is best assessed by other people rather than by oneself.

Indeedy.

 

[Secret Chief]

Thanks. In typing, this is generally true. Face to face, it's a whole different story.

This is surely true of many aspects. For instance, in real life I'm a lot taller than this.

 

[Titanic]

I am a good debater in some subjects. Others not so much.

 

[Alceste]

I voted "rather skilled in many subjects." I don't bother even having an opinion until I know I can back it up with solid evidence, so I think I'm pretty good at explaining my reasoning and showing the evidence supporting it.

OTOH, I'm VERY bad at remembering specific things I've read or heard. Names, dates, numbers, etc. So a lot of my statements will come out "Some large amount of something-or-other indicates a phenomenon I can't recall the name of... but it proves my point!" Lol. It's odd. I can't remember birthdays, I have trouble with names, I sometimes can't remember how old I am, etc. I am sure I can play at least 2000 fiddle tunes, but I only know about 50 NAMES of fiddle tunes, and I can't ever seem to connect the one with the other. I just about flunked social studies because half of it was memorizing the names of capitals, rivers, mountain ranges, etc. and I couldn't blag the tests no matter how carefully I coloured the maps. Meanwhile I aced grade 12 math (98% on my grade 12 finals) despite hardly ever going to class and never studying.

So there's one part of my brain that's hogging everything, I think. The music part (same part as the math part). All the wordy-remembering and factoid-storage bits are sad, withered and depleted. But I still really enjoy learning. The up side of forgetting is that you get to learn fascinating things again and again.

I compensate for my memory shortcomings during a debate by looking every factual claim I make before I say it to make sure it's true.

 

[Sculelos]

I am a fairly good debate but as Odion said so many misuse your own comments because they have nothing to debate over it just turns into a petty squabble often.

Most good arguments are ignorance in exchange for lengthy posts to proof superiority and fakery of insults.

Indeed. For what it's worth I think your post seem more intelligent then most.

I said I'm ok at debating. Not great at it though because it's really difficult for me to express my ideas in a way that doesn't seem totally insane.

 

[Revoltingest]

I said I'm ok at debating. Not great at it though because it's really difficult for me to express my ideas in a way that doesn't seem totally insane.

Could it be that insane ideas cannot be made to look otherwise?


Oh, come on! No hitting!
You know I had to go there after you post a set up like that.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

I'm pretty crappy at it. I don't know a lot of stuff and I have a terrible memory for interesting factoids. I'm not witty, or pithy, nor brave in the face of intense onslaught.

Actually I consider you to be very good at it. You don't snarl quite enough and you sometimes forget to nip the other guy on the butt when he sticks it in your face, but generally your arguments are hard to counter.

 

[Aquitaine]

Assess yourself, please.

Can't. There's no option for "Mass debator".

 

[Sunstone]

I try (not always successfully) to pretty much avoid debating beyond merely stating my opinion. That's because I think debates seldom achieve their purpose of changing anyone's opinion and, consequently, are a waste of my time.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

I try (not always successfully) to pretty much avoid debating beyond merely stating my opinion. That's because I think debates seldom achieve their purpose of changing anyone's opinion and, consequently, are a waste of my time.

I debate in the hope of changing my opinion. It's the best way I've found to learn new ways of viewing things.

Plus, I just love to be challenged to explain myself. If I can't do that, well... I need to learn how.

 

[Sunstone]

I debate in the hope of changing my opinion. It's the best way I've found to learn new ways of viewing things.

Plus, I just love to be challenged to explain myself. If I can't do that, well... I need to learn how.

That's an interesting perspective! I hadn't thought of that.

 

[dust1n]

Bump!

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Bump!

I have a question:

How do you/we determine who has won/lost any particular debate?

Another question:

If we believe that we win all our debates (always beating the other guy), doesn't that point to a strong probability that we are deluded about ourselves?

 

[LuisDantas]

Sometimes I wish there was some way of gauging my debate ability. I fear this is a very difficult thing to measure with any objectivity, though.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Sometimes I wish there was some way of gauging my debate ability. I fear this is a very difficult thing to measure with any objectivity, though.

You do very well at debate, I think. My only minor suggestion is that you might want to try being a little weirder.

Weirdness is our only salvation. Otherwise the computers will take over religious debate just like they'll take over most everything else.

Unless weirdness can be programmed, in which case we should probably just relinquish the earth's future to the machines right now and be done with it.

 

[crossfire]

I have a question:

How do you/we determine who has won/lost any particular debate?

Another question:

If we believe that we win all our debates (always beating the other guy), doesn't that point to a strong probability that we are deluded about ourselves?

Well, yes. If you are after Victory rather than Truth, you are likely to become deluded.

 

[adi2d]

So far we have 2 who can beat anyone on this forum.
At least one of them is wrong.


Btw, I voted myself "terrible".

Maybe the powers that be here on RF could set up a debate for them
I'm sure they would be glad to prove their powers








:beach:

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Well, yes. If you are after Victory rather than Truth, you are likely to become deluded.

I don't know what debate victory might look like. I mean, surely it isn't an objective thing else we would all agree about who has won and who has lost. But that never happens. The Democrats all say JFK; the Republicans swear it was Nixon.

So the idea of chasing debate victory really doesn't make any sense to me. How would we know if we did win a debate?

 

[Falvlun]

From my experience on RF, most debates are never decisively won. They simply peter out due to boredom or sheer futility.

 

[Sunstone]

From my experience on RF, most debates are never decisively won. They simply peter out due to boredom or sheer futility.

I agree with you to a great extent. That is, the participants themselves seldom, if ever, seem to persuade each other to their points. And that is most alarmingly true in cases in which one or the other participant is stumped how to reply, pretends to drop the issue, and then raises the same now debunked issue in another thread -- as if it was never debunked at all!

But here's where we might disagree, Falv: I've learned so much from you and the other reasonably honest and informed debaters that I think you might be overlooking the value of debates to those who are lurking, rather than participating.