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.
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.
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.
As someone who did high school debate competitively for four years and still judges competitions nearly every weekend... I really don't think this tracks in reality. It really sounds like you're describing a caricature, and maybe it's based on someone you know, but I don't think it's really the normal outcome for people who debate.
There are surely former debaters who still feel the need to prove themselves to their friends and colleagues and will go out of their way to seek an argument. It is a competitive activity and so it attracts competitive types. But part of the process of becoming a well-adjusted adult, and yes, debaters all go through that process too in time, is recognizing where and when their skills are welcome.
> What a lot of people failed to learn from debates club, is that a formal "win" is a net loss of a relationship.
In US competitive debate, debaters learn very quickly that whether you "win" or "lose" is not decided by themselves or their opponent but by the judge. You don't measure your success by whether being argumentative made you feel good or whether you felt like you won but by whether the judge evaluated what you said and what the other person said and signed a ballot in your favor. That actually involves a lot of "reading the room" and self-awareness about how other people will hear you when you talk. Good debaters solicit feedback from their judges and coaches to ask them how they can do better. And good judges look past the bluster, penalize debaters who use bad faith tactics, and reward debaters who succeed on substance. Judges are accountable for their decisions too - they have to explain to the debaters why they voted the way they did, which encourages judges to evaluate debaters carefully and give good feedback.
Again I think it is a caricature to say that a person who does debate structures their personality around it and tries to turn everything into an argument. I concede as a high schooler I went through a phase like this; then I went through college, matured a bit, got other hobbies and priorities and came to understand how to use the skills I learned as a debater in a positive-sum way.
That whole wall of text completely ignoring my point. Not only that, I now have a very negative opinion of you... simply because you completely ignored what I wrote.
What I learned from your response, is that debates in US teach you - ignore the principles of the argument, fail to follow up and say(or write) a lot of words. (to "win")
Funny, that to me you've become the caricature that you're complaining about.
The irony of someone arguing about high school debate being bad and then making piss poor arguments of zero substance is not at all lost upon me although it looks like it whizzed past you. I think someone like you would've benefited more debate than anyone else.
I wrote what I wrote because I thought you had some sense of curiosity about the people you complained about and I thought this was an appropriate space to talk about each other's beliefs and experiences. I did not expect your hostility!
What do you talk about if not these issues? What is a conversation to you? It feels like you've successfully eliminated any disagreement from your conversations. Or is that just relevant to "shooting the shit with the lads down the pub once or twice a year"? When can we have discussions that might show disagreement?
It's entirely possible to have a conversation about all those topics but gets increasingly difficult when your friends fall in the cliche 80/20 category. 80% great people 20% not so much. I think parent poster has more of a problem with those types. You can chill and have fun but certain taboos open a can of worms that nobody wants to deal with especially when you just wanna decompress and have a few beers.
There's a time and place for everything and friendship dynamics get...complicated.
It feels to me that's the crux of it. Friendship dynamics are not universal even within a friendship group. It might be the desire not to "debate" makes the GP author the 20% outlier. It feels a bit like "well that's just like your opinion man".
one can disagree in open mode (socrates) and disagree in closed mode (Ben Shapiro). If both people are looking forward to learning from the disagreement I find that a lot more fun than if both people are looking forward to appearing smarter than the other person.
There is still usually some disagreement, but in many social settings (eg, having a few pints at the pub with people you rarely see), topics of discussion usually are what people have been up to, and other "light topics".
In most social situations "heavy" discussion or "debating" is entirely unwarranted and brings the overall mood down.
There are plenty of discussion groups and meetups if you want to hotly debate politics or suchlike!
There are also "third ways", so to speak, ways to have people feel comfortable without resorting only to least-common-denominator "harmless" topics.
I have been a regular at several places (sometimes coffee shops) across the country where I can sense very real substantive conversations. Sometimes people just need a little nudge to get out of their comfort zone.
Such interactions can help bring people even closer. It takes intention and some experimentation.
I enjoy watching the occasional political twitch/youtube streamer or speaker. I couldn't tell you why; I don't feel that most of them leave me feeling any wiser after the conversations end. But the times I come across positions that I haven't traditionally considered or agreed with being well-stated and expounded upon is really enjoyable and usually makes it worth the minutes or hours burned having it playing lightly in the background. Very much in the spirit of this post, like the author I too enjoy being "wrong" or losing debates. The rush of new insight is thrilling. Vaush and Douglas Murray come to mind as some of the recent ones that have said things I find very compelling.
Not long ago as I was exploring those circles I kept hearing this name repeated. A streamer named Destiny. So I started consuming some of his material. And it was absolutely insufferable. This person treated every single statement as a drawn battle line that is to be defended by every last ounce of mustered anger and blood. No matter how infinitesmal or semantical the focal point of discussion was it was torn apart to shreds. There was no intent to learn, no hoping for new perspectives. It was solely a sport about feeling correct. It was awful to listen to.
I was shocked to see how popular this person is (given their streams and subscribers). Not only because I felt that overall they were a garbage person to have a parasocial relationship with but because if I found him as awful to listen to as I did, surely a large amount of others would feel the same. And while no doubt others feel like me about him, on the other hand I must be neglecting something. There must be a cadre of people that find (arguably) well defended positions thrilling and almost narcotic. I do not associate with many of those types of people in meatspace and I suppose I had slowly forgotten that there's a significant number of them out there.
But yeah, I'm right there with you. I'm here to learn, and there's others that aren't and will knowingly or otherwise prey upon that willingness by digging their heels in on the most miniscule of points. Makes no sense to me. If the only purpose served by me opening my mouth was to convince the world of my correctness, I would just assume everyone else was as obsinate as myself and wouldn't bother to open my mouth in the first place. Save the calories.
Totally agree re. Destiny. Between him, Vaush, Hasan (ugh), and the rest of them, I feel like we’re intellectually stunting an entire generation of teenagers.
I had a friend in NYC who used to read a tonne load of books but now just watches the 3h Hasan stream every day and then parrots every take the video game streamer says as if it’s gospel. I ended up cutting him out of my life because he just grew so tiring to be around; any conversation had to be directed to how idiotic the other side (code for republicans) is. As a non-American, it grew really old hearing rant about how stupid 40% of their fellow countrymen are.
Listening to someone pretend to get angry and punching down on people less educated isn’t intellectually nourishing, it’s reddit prison slop.
What's interesting to me is how I've started to really dislike people in that mindset/space even when they offer points that I agree with. Take Hasan for example. He says a number of things I agree with when I hear them. But the delivery of them is awful, to the point that it corrodes the foundation on which he stands. It's hard for me to accept that you promote a position of shared empowerment and broad equality when you reject a large contingency of people (based solely on their beliefs no less) as borderline sub-human. Those two things don't mesh. I, like him, am often left bewildered by the positions his opponents sometimes take. But that bewilderment is a sign that I'm lacking information and context, not a sign that I'm dealing with a person who isn't to be treated with at least a modicum of respect.
It reminds me of an exchange between Neil Degrasee Tyson and Richard Dawkins in which Neil tells Dawkins that, while he makes good points, perhaps he should soften his delivery? Because it's hard for the realm of science to pull in new defenders when their staunchest proponents are telling its detractors they are imbeciles. And dawkins fires back with [...]"Science is interesting, and if you don't like it, you can fuck off". EDIT: This exchange must have been in the mid 00's? The birth of the Four-Horsemen-of-Atheism era. The absolutist cultural debate position has a rich history.
There's a time and place to cut ties and not waste time interacting with people that disagree with you. Sometimes the right move is to reject an ideology or group outright. But it seems like the modern concept of that time and place is very skewed.
Reads like these streamers are the left-wing equivalent of conservative AM radio and about half of Fox News' air time. Interesting. I didn't know we had those sorts on "our" side (Maddow and such are a bit similar, but the tone's still not quite like a Shapiro or a Levin or even a Limbaugh). But then, I've spent a grand total of maybe 15 minutes on Twitch, ever. I didn't even know there was political commentary on there.
Since those folks (the AM radio / unhinged Fox News guys) have been wildly successful at getting people to vote a certain way and swing rhetoric hard in the direction they promote, I'm torn on whether or not to be upset about this. If it eventually gets us a developed-world healthcare system and typical-in-most-of-the-rest-of-the-OECD worker protections and benefits, I guess I don't care if shitty psychological manipulation is what does it, if the alternative is that we continue not to manage to achieve those for several more decades. It'd be cool if my elementary-aged kids could have some nice things before they're middle-aged—I've only got 30-40 years left, probably, so have given up hope on any of this happening before I'm ancient, but maybe my kids' kids will fully reap the benefits, on the back half of this century.
This is quite interesting, because I find Vaush to be a perfect match for your description: absolutely insufferable debate bro and a hypocrite (the whole "living your values" discussion was very showing).
And Destiny to be a fairly reasonable mostly good-faith debater.
I don't hate debaters, but there is a particular dismissive type that doesn't want to give you an inch or agree to disagree and theirs has to be the last word.
I have an aunt who seems to have a need to disagree at all times. The most amusing example was while she was talking politics with my father and he said “I completely agree with everything you just said.” Her response - “Well you must not have understood me.”
I have your aunt's problem. Speculations like oppositional-defiance disorder and Narcissism have been thrown at me as possible explanations.
I'd argue (heh) that what this behavior boils down to is: I'm restating what you're saying, only in terms I can understand, which makes me come across as argumentative. You're "wrong" only in that what you're saying doesn't compute with me-- I'm really shouting down my own lack of comprehension, which presents as me arguing with you (if that makes any sense). Her response "Well you must not have understood me" is classic Me, but in reality that's textbook projection, which backs me into into a corner I try to get out of...with more arguing!
Even knowing I do this, I can't ever catch myself doing it early enough to stop it; dopamine rush from outrage trumps my ability to dial it back. So I just avoid in-person debates altogether. I'm not aiming to offend anybody and can express my position more clearly in written form.
I have the same issue with understanding code other people write. I don't "get" larger architectures unless I wrote the entire stack myself (again, understanding someone else's concept by reinventing it myself). If I didn't write every goddamn class in the framework, I don't remember they exist or how they work together. Once I realized this I pivoted away from software development; nobody has time or need for another TempleOS.
Unfortunately this behavior is commonly found on the #mentalhealthawareness Narcissistic personality disorder checklists so everyone calls it out as malicious. I suspect autism though, since (for me) this always stems from information-processing difficulties. Make of it what you will.
This describes passivity not social skills. I can't really say that doing nothing or walking away in the face of an unpleasant situation while privately declaring the other people involved "cringe" and "dickheads" and "weenies" really demonstrates great social skills honestly.
It might originate from brain physiology. Daniel Amen had done 5000 brain scans 20 years ago, no idea how many until now. From one of his books i learned that contrarian behaviour can come from a disfunction in the Cingulate cortex.
Whatever i say, the first thing my mother says 95% of the time is "No" or another dismissal. It was astounding to see my son acting the same way, answering "No, thats wrong" to things he doesn't even know!
I have been really contrarian for most part of my life. But i realized how annoying that behaviour is and made an active effort to change it. Through repetition it became a habit to respond positively or neutral.
there's a talk on persuasion - I believe Chris Voss is the presenter - where one of the techniques is to phrase your question so that the answer you want is 'no'. E.g. rather than say 'would you like to go to the movies' you'd say 'is there anything you'd rather do than go to the movies'. It's interesting that this works - he said that saying 'no' is a defensive mechanism that enforces boundaries, maybe more so with some people than others. Then again, his background was hostage negotiation so he probably trained on a skewed sample.
Voss' stuff would usually be pretty shitty to use on people you're friendly with (and I found a lot of the anecdotes in his book... strained credulity, let's say, to be polite) but in this case might actually be great for breaking those "nobody can decide what to do" sorts of situations. Make people actively choose what they'd rather do than what you suggested. Could work.
> 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.
This is a skill I've worked on for years. Not every conversation needs to be a teaching moment or life or death. Most are just people bullshitting around with each other. Constantly correcting or arguing doesn't help anyone.
Debate clubs have you argue points that you don't necessarily agree with, they compete in rhetorics, not proving they are right.
A wise man argues not to prove he's right, he's arguing to become right.
Assuming (or at least allowing) your "opponent" knows something you don't is about all it takes to take a casual debate from a nuisance to learning experience.
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.
Debate can be fun (for some) as a game, and force you to articulate your position well, and you can learn from it. But there are different modes of engagement which are often much more helpful.
What people often don't realize is that winning a debate doesn't necessarily mean you side with the truth. A debate is aimed at winning on your existing opinions and the other losing. It is not aimed at discovery, validation or learning. Victory is more important than truth, and a lot of 'good moves' in a debate actually bring you further away from the truth.
If you engage in a conversation where you are both curious and submit to what's true (whatever that means), this conversation will rarely be a debate.
If a debate is in public between skilled debaters who show sportsmanship, then I think the public can gain a lot because a debate forces you to be very on point.
> A debate is aimed at winning on your existing opinions and the other losing.
That's true of the sort of debate that's practiced competitively by "debating teams", but I don't think it's always true of debate as the word is used in an everyday context. A debate can also be more like a dialectic.
That's the problem with how we see a debate. It's just about that. There's no need to present your position in a compelling way or find common grounds with whoever you're debating.
If you read any books by professional negotiators - you'll notice that they conduct themselves very differently than you would in a debate.
Getting to Yes and Getting Past No have been eye opening to me. I no longer feel like I even need to "win an argument".
> the public can gain a lot because a debate forces you to be very on point
I recall reading some articles stating, that debates fail to convince anyone of anything. Public debates only encourage tribalism, IMO. If you watch a presidential debate - no amount of "winning" changed people's opinions.
I can even argue, that just hearing "X won the debate" will cause more impact; compared to listening to them.
"Winning" a debate can have value if there's an audience and where there's something important at stake, but people need to consider that if you get into "debate mode", there's virtually zero chance the other side will consider your viewpoint for a second, so it's a tradeoff with respect to whether convincing an audience matters or having a good conversation where both sides are open to learning something.
I absolutely agree with you that the best conversations tends to come from the latter approach you describe. Unfortunately, it can often be difficult and take some skill to avoid pushing the other person into "debate mode" by making them feel like they're losing. Especially if there's an audience, however small.
These sorts of mindsets are predicated on the assumption that two people "talking it out" or possibly appealing to google will arrive on "the right answer".
While in reality for many things there are judgement calls, trade-offs, unknowns and basically "it depends". In software, POCs, trial&error, R&D, etc help you test out the options.
Many would do better to frame a discussion as surfacing the risks, trade-offs, potential pitfalls, and benefits of different answers such that the "bad answer" is avoided, more than "the one right answer" is somehow discovered.
Yes, this is the real purpose of debate. It's an adversarial method of ensuring all important factors in a decision are brought up and heard by all involved, so they can go on to make the tradeoffs they think are right on their own. Nobody has to win or convince anyone of anything.
I think you need to be mindful if your "adversary" enjoys the "adversarial" method or, like many introverted software devs, is simply expediting the conversation to get away from you.
Very good advice. A classic debate tactic is to coerce the opponent to hastily misspeak and then force them to defend their poorly worded statements. Cooler heads usually prevail. The classic defense is to slow it down by asking them to clarify their position. You can take it from there if you want to debate or not.
Most people aren't debating you on purpose so there's no point as they continue to rubber duck (and maybe even thank you later). In case they really are in it for a debate, then by all means proceed.
I think the important thing is to be aware that there are several different types of debates or discussions with different purpose. School debate teams focus on combative debates - debates where the goal is to convince an audience, not the other side. The type politicians tends to engage in during campaigns.
But it'd be good if people got better training in "cooperative" debates, where the purpose is to learn and listen. I can't recall many instances where that was encouraged in school, but there were a few. All of them were focused on a subject, though, rather than actually teaching the skill of listening and debating constructively.
There's a space for both - sometimes you need to be combative -, but people switch to combative mode way too readily.
To your point on the time formulating a response: Online I find a good measure of whether I'm "listening" or gearing up to being combative is whether I end up significantly re-writing my reply while writing it as I process the comment I'm replying to, or if have it "ready and loaded" to fire back at someone by the time I hit the reply button.
Or one person takes charge and steamrollers everyone else, or one person ends up doing the work because the rest can't be bothered, etc. You're right there's often some implicit element of it, but how to do it well seems to be rarely taught. At least it wasn't made explicit at my schools, and I've heard little to indicate it's been made explicit at my sons schools either. It seems pretty arbitrary how well people pick up those skills.
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 <summary here>" or "It seems like <summary here>". 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.
Reminds me of the interview with Jordan Peterson, where the interviewer said "so you're saying that <some invented bullshit that J.P. never actually said>".
So I agree with you as long as you don't fall into that trap of putting false words in the other mouth.
In situations where someasks "so you're saying that..." followed by something they didn't say it might very well be on purpose, but in other cases being explicit about how you understood someone can allow them to elaborate and correct your understanding.
It's much better than just continuing the conversation under a false assumption.
Interviews, especially televised ones, are a performance. You're explicitly not trying to convince the interviewer of anything, you're trying to give a good interview, ostensibly for the benefit of whoever is watching. Politicians, for example, are famous for doing whatever they can, in more and less elegant ways, to talk about the things that they are interested in conveying (the "talking points") and not about whatever it is the interviewer is asking.
This is not the point of this technique. This technique is about actually talking to a person, one-on-one, and trying to understand what they mean. No one else is watching, or at least the interview isn't being recorded.
It is also useful if the other person won't accept any other phrasing that word-by-word quoting, even if in good faith, and accurate. It shows they are not willing to compromise.
I agree - especially in an interview situation where many of us still have a vestigial instinct that an interviewer is not biased and is informed, we can assume that what they say is an objective interpretation.
In that instance, doing that actually exposed it quite well. Jordan Peterson is able to respond off the cuff, so a reasonable percentage of the audience didn't walk away having assimilated the interviewer's version of his position.
The subsequent Joe Rogan interview of Jordan Peterson was illuminating. Joe Rogan is, against the odds, a good interviewer, because he listens and engages, and only occasionally challenges.
Always found it funny how admitting that Joe is a good interviewer is some type of a concession.
He’s probably the highest paid interviewer on the planet, of course he’s good at what he does! If he hadn’t found the ire of the online progressive crowd by letting on some unsavories, he’d probably be regarded super positively across the board. It’s crazy how many times I’ve seen web-activists go for blood with this guy and come up empty handed. Why is it hard for people to admit he’s just a really good podcaster?
I think that depends on how familiar they are with your perspective. You don't want to think of the interaction as unequal, with you taking the higher perspective of observing both their ideas and yours, appreciating and integrating them, while they only exist in their own point of view, the observed to your observer.
If they understand your perspective but you don't know theirs, it makes sense for them to do most of the talking. But if they don't understand where you're coming from, then a one-sided conversation is one-sided in a bad way. It's like looking at them through a telescope. You'll have your reactions to their ideas, but you won't have their reactions to yours, their reactions to your reactions.
> 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've always enjoyed arguing (in the sense of a polite dialogue between two who disagree). But for me, even though I enjoy arguing, being right is more important -- which includes trying to cultivate the discipline to recognise and acknowledge when my interlocutor makes a good point, and trying to understand why they think what they do.
At university, I checked out the debating club, thinking it might be a good fit for me, but I was wrong. There, the goal seemed to be purely to win, correctness be damned. I found the arguments they marshaled towards their goal to be dishonest and contrary to the goals of increasing understanding and getting to the heart of a matter.
I can see how that could be seen as a sport or competition of sorts, but I worried about the kind of habits it might form. It is too similar to the kind of arguing I enjoy that it would be easy to slip from one mode to the other if those debate club type skills were developed and honed.
Derek Sivers never listened to anything, he's a narcissistic maniac who floods the email boxes of everyone on every list he's ever had with self-help advice that's never more than the most thinly disguised self-promotion.
Please stop talking as if his writing is profound.
Even a broken clock is right once in a while. I can understand your reaction if that is your experience with him (first time I hear of the guy), but it at least seems to have created some constructive discussion here.
aw man, you're gonna force me to read this? fuck. ok. give me a minute.
...
Okay, I think that as expected the word salad doesn't do anything to expand on the subject; it's another grossly compact attempt at telling everyone what a crazy and interesting life he's had without going into detail beyond the barest mention that he was somewhere and talked to someone; serves yet again as a form of name-dropping; proves absolutely nothing about debate but somehow oddly inspires people here to go way out of their way debating what the author meant.
In general? I think debate is just a byword for civil discussion, and the concept of winning or losing one is stupid. Discussions are meant to elucidate and digress and open both people to one another's point of view, but that's no reason they shouldn't be contentious. To describe a contentious conversation as a debate in which someone has to win and someone has to lose is reductive and misses the point of conversation. To cast oneself as the ultimate martyr in such conversations by way of [losing one's ego on the road from Patpong to Nepal and] creating ranking click bait topics is pure Derek Sivers. There ya go.
Thanks for your comment. I thought I was going crazy with all the responses to what reads essentially like a self-help quality article.
Also, some of the examples are infuriating. So someone thinks poverty is not upsetting? Well, screw them. And the rest of those examples are so bland, how about "losing" every debate with these:
- Nazism is right.
- Rich people should become richer and poor people should become poorer.
- Women should not have equal rights or vote.
Go on, "listen and lose the debate", I'm sure it will be illuminating and productive.
Losing doesn't have to mean you 100% agree with another party at the end. Learning something new and changing your original position is good enough.
> someone thinks poverty is not upsetting
Someone was able to find happiness in non-material things. Good for them.
> Nazism is right
Ok, but was it absolutely wrong? Should we dismiss anything that even remotely resembles Nazism? Were there any good parts that Nazism had? E.g. patriotism or anti-communism? Short-term dictatorship can be better than alternatives (especially during wars). Eugenics on it's own is also not bad (e.g. most people are pro-abortion when fetus has a deadly disease, which is a form of eugenics).
> Rich people should become richer and poor people should become poorer
Poor in US are among most wealthy people in the world. Instead of fighting laws of nature (a battle you cannot win), maybe it's better to focus on improving well-being of "poor"? I.e. you should be able to live a good life even if you are poor.
> Women should not have equal rights or vote
Unequal rights doesn't necessarily mean someone is being taken advantage of. In theory, an optimal distribution of rights could very well be unequal. You can also do a thought experiment on how society would look like if only families are allowed to vote (with highest earner in the family voting, which essentially means "women cannot vote").
> Someone was able to find happiness in non-material things. Good for them.
Poverty is not having to eat. Poverty is a self-compounding problem: you cannot eat, you cannot work (or not enough), you get sick, so you cannot work, etc. Every accident impacts someone living in poverty way more than someone who is not. "Find happiness in non-material things" is something only those who have their basic necessities covered have the possibility to contemplate.
> Ok, but was it absolutely wrong? Should we dismiss anything that even remotely resembles Nazism? Were there any good parts that Nazism had? E.g. patriotism or anti-communism?
"Yes", "yes", "no", and "no".
> Poor in US are among most wealthy people in the world
That doesn't address the worldview I mentioned, it's complete misdirection. The view is that the rich should get richer and the poor should get poorer. Engage with that.
(Also, poverty is not "a law of nature" and it's not true that every poor person in the US is among the most wealthy people in the world).
> Unequal rights doesn't necessarily mean someone is being taken advantage of.
Yes it is. Your proposed experiment is bullshit.
PS: you also misunderstood my prompt, which was to debate with people who believe what I listed, not debate with me. I don't care to debate with you about those awful, made-up and purposefully stupid statements. I don't want you to "teach me" anything, either.
Poverty has many definitions, but generally it's not being able to meet a certain standard of living. It may include nutrition standards, but again, malnutrition in US is very different from malnutrition in Africa. Again, if someone is "poor" by US standards, but lives a happy life - good for them. I could learn a thing or two from them. You could too.
> "Yes", "yes", "no", and "no".
Absolutist views are rather boring and a clear indication of a closed mindset. The exact opposite of what the post is about.
> That doesn't address the worldview I mentioned, it's complete misdirection. The view is that the rich should get richer and the poor should get poorer.
But it does. Rich are getting richer is the natural effect of positive feedback loops. You are rewarded for the value you produce, which allows you to produce more value. Streamlining those loops allowed us to create enormous amount of wealth in the last century.
The only way to fight it is to create an artificial compensating negative feedback loop, i.e. punish people for creating value. Evidently, not a good idea if you look at famine in USSR (google for "Dekulakization").
People like you seem to focus on a few outliers without recognizing that "rich getting richer" has benefitted billions. If having a few billionaires is the cost of moving billions out of poverty, I'll gladly take it. So yeah, rich should be getting richer, because the only alternative is everybody being poor.
> Yes it is. Your proposed experiment is bullshit.
No, that's poverty. Poverty is a self-reinforcing loop, this is well studied. Malnutrition is malnutrition, you die from it in North America, Africa or whatever. I don't care for your new age "find happiness where you can" mumbo jumbo.
I don't live in the US nor anywhere close to the US, so stick your assumptions where the sun don't shine!
> Absolutist views are rather boring and a clear indication of a closed mindset
I'm sorry you find denouncing and rejecting Nazism is boring.
> "rich getting richer"
You conveniently forgot "the poor must get poorer".
> (google for "Dekulakization")
I'm puzzled, is "assuming people don't know a term I'm using and need googling it" part of your "just listen, do not try to win debates" strategy of TFA? Thanks for teaching me though, I didn't know anything about the history of the USSR!
It must be that I am not "producing value", haw haw haw!
I wrote a longer post to your bullshit reply, but I won't bother, since you decided to ignore this: "you also misunderstood my prompt, which was to debate with people who believe what I listed, not debate with me". Since you failed to engage with pretty simple instructions, and instead you chose to go your own way -- funnily enough, breaking the premise of TFA, which was "to listen"; instead of doing so you launched into an attempt to refute what you guessed were my objections -- I'll bid you adieu.
> I'm sorry you find denouncing and rejecting Nazism is boring.
Evidently, simply denouncing and rejecting does nothing to prevent it from emerging again. All the raping and murdering in Ukraine is currently done in the name of denouncing Nazism, yet it looks very much like Nazism.
> you also misunderstood my prompt, which was to debate with people who believe what I listed, not debate with me
Turns out debates don't always happen on your terms. Despite your best effort, you still learned something today.
> All the raping and murdering in Ukraine is currently done in the name of denouncing Nazism.
Ah, yes, I guess if we had debated the "good parts" of Nazism then the invasion of Ukraine wouldn't have happened.
> Despite your best effort, you still learned something today.
Do you really think that's an honest debate tactic? Do you think that, when reading your last line, I will think "gee, this guy truly taught me something!" or rather dismiss your remark entirely? And do you feel your way of debating is in line with what TFA proposes, or is it possible that you are trying to "win" here, therefore rejecting the whole article?
> Ah, yes, I guess if we had debated the "good parts" of Nazism then the invasion of Ukraine wouldn't have happened.
Kind of. If more time was spent deconstructing Nazism/Fascism, instead of simply repeating "Nazism bad" it would be much easier to notice it right under our (their) nose.
> I guess I learned this conversation is futile?
I'd suggest you to re-read your messages in this thread. Analyze their tone. You never attempted to have a conversation.
I'm not using debate tactics and not accusing others of doing it. I'm just debating.
If you do want to switch topic to debate tactics, you should first re-read your own comments: they are full of strawman arguments, deflections, condescension and are quite demeaning in general. Hopefully acting like a butthurt teenager is a debate tactic too, not your personality.
> Could you summarize what you think my initial comment was arguing?
In a lame "gotcha" attempt you took author's words extremely literally: "Let's see how you lose a debate against 2 x 2 = 5 believer. Haha, I'm so smart."
Now, which one do you think is more likely:
- Author meant to say that literally every debate is worth losing
- You (likely on purpose) misunderstood the point author is trying to make
What do you really think is the point author was trying to make? Can you explain in your own words?
> In a lame "gotcha" attempt you took author's words extremely literally: "Let's see how you lose a debate against 2 x 2 = 5 believer. Haha, I'm so smart."
Have you read the HN guidelines?
> You (likely on purpose) misunderstood
Ah, we have a mind reader!
> Can you explain in your own words?
I can, but I won't for you, because it would be fruitless.
No need to reply: you won. You won big time. Have a cookie.
I was told, by someone I was dating, many years ago, that they thought that when they were speaking, I was thinking about what I was going to say next. I didn't fully understand that comment for more than a decade.
This is a highly insightful take. Thanks. You nailed it.
Learning to listen may not come naturally for some of us. It's a skill that requires practice and reinforcement.
I’d like to offer an alternative framing: don’t debate at all, just listen.
There are two wanys of looking at this. Doing nothing means you lose the opportunity to possibly correct an innocent mistake or to set the record. But it's also possible you may have no clue what you are talking about.
Listening doesn't mean you say nothing, otherwise the other side will (eventually) just stop. Listening means asking the right questions.
Imagine someone has an out-there idea. Listening means you go along with them and have them explain it to you. And you play the nice, slightly curious, but not too curious person that has an open mind and ask the doubting questions. You know more Judo, less boxing, instead of punching and dodging you just make sure when they come at you, their own energy carries them into positions they have to deal with.
I tell you, a big fraction of the people's strongly held opinions completely fall apart when you just make them explain it in detail. And if they realized it is bullshit themselves that is a much more valuable thing than any fact you could ever provide.
Especially naive people with wrong opinions have a strong reactance. That means if you tell them they are wrong (something they are used to being told), they will now treat this as a fight and you as the enemy and they will proudly lie to themselves (1+1=3) just to one-up you.
That means the best way to get into productive territory with those people is to not swallow the bait and slowly go from where they are into a direction that is completely new to them.
That also means leaving arguments like "I studied $X" or "scientific journal $Y says $Z" at the door. Those basically trigger them back into learned talking points
One won't know, of course. I thought the whole point of saying "Imagine" is given such a situation, how to deal with it. Of course, while listening if it isn't an out-there idea, listen, converse and follow up.
It's a hypothetical, sure. Imagine a debater who feigns being open to your viewpoint, with the actual purpose of steering the conversation into territory you may be less familiar with so they can in their view "beat" you there. I'd refer to this as a debating tactic, not listening. Or maybe listening à la Ben Shapiro.
"Debate" and "listen" are not the only two options.
Debate, specifically, comes from a mode of communication called rhetoric, or persuasive argument.
There are other forms of communicating, including simply narrating or relating an event or position, entertainment, and others, one of which is dialectic.
As I've commented a few times over the years here, confusing dilectic and rhetorical conversation is one of the oldest confounding points of conversations in the book --- it's what Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle wrote on at length (particularly Plato railing against the Sophists, that is, rhetoriticians, and Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations, a/k/a "bullshit arguments that must die" to put a contemporary spin on it.
Derek's entire premise strikes me as ... extraordinarily blinkered here. If you find you want to impart your own wisdom, it's possible to do so other than through raw debate. In particular, the mode of simple discussion or Socratic Method, in which you ask questions which (might) lead your interlocutor to reach the conclusion you're suggesting on their own seems especially valid.
"Had you considered X" or "How would you address Y" being possible entry points for that.
There is a gradient of Advanced Conversational Techniques that nobody seems to ever discuss. If someone hasn't got a real grasp on the basics then just listening is certainly a great start and gets people about half way there. Life gets easier. Most people are so desperately instinctual at social tactics that anything which involves thinking about what other people think will yield great dividends.
But if the goal is self improvement, it can't be done with just listening. Like learning can't be done by just reading. It is far to slow finding the gaps in your own understanding; arguing is orders of magnitude quicker. People will explain an argument's flaws right quick, and often helpfully repeat themselves a few times.
Although what you're leading towards here might be persuasion, because it is a great tool for learning and people often don't realise the subtle way a persuasive argument pushes back. Those aren't as much fun as the hot flush of a robust debate but they are a lot more powerful (especially since many people may not realise that there is an argument going on).
Sorry, in hindsight I shouldn't have capitalised that. It isn't a recognised name for something that I'm aware of.
That said I found Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication quite eye opening because it articulated the idea that it is possible and sensible to approach conversation strategically. Then after getting a feel for a do-no-harm approach it is relatively easy to start categorising what people say into tactics and there are some things that work and others that really don't. It seems pretty obvious that effective people are very good at listening, asking questions and what sort of evidence they treat as persuasive or unpersuasive.
Charitably, I get what you and the author of the article are describing, but I would make at least this comment.
The point of listening is ultimately to know the truth. The fact that listening to others is ipso facto social means that we learn a great deal in community. But it's one thing to learn about what someone else believes. It's another to accept those beliefs as true. The person you are listening to could be in error. Listening is, therefore, a kind of data collection, and data need to be interpreted, after which some kind of verification generally ought to take place (of course, we cannot verify everything, hence for practical reasons, we often trust, e.g., the authority of tradition and its authoritative "keepers", at least until we have reason to doubt).
W.r.t. debating, there's a time and place for it. Classically, it is a formal and public affair reserved for certain circumstances. You don't debate during data collection.
I think Socratic dialogue is a better fit for exploration and discussion, though that, too, and trivially so, has a time and a place.
We listen to a great many things that we objectively know aren't true. Or which have no specific bearing on truth.
Listening is critical to all communication (there's at least one speaker and one listener to any conversation involving one or more sentiences). I'd suggest that the goal of listening is to understand the other party, at least within the universe of their story or experience. You don't have to believe, agree, sympathise, or even empathise. You may have entirely selfish reasons for doing so (is this person a threat / kook / messiah / ...?). If we choose to listen, though, the principle goal is only occasionally seeking truth.
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 apparently well polished is less interesting than people discussing, exchanging ideas and poking and exposing possible holes.
That's what debating should be: not a sport with "winners" and "losers" (what does that even mean in the realm of ideas??) but as a joint effort and journey in search of the truth.
an act or instance of discussing; consideration or examination by argument, comment, etc., especially to explore solutions; informal debate.
Discuss is first recorded in 1300–50; Middle English, either from Anglo-French discusser or directly from Latin discussus “struck asunder, shaken, scattered,” past participle of discutere, equivalent to dis- dis-1 + -cutere (combining form of quatere “to shake, strike”).
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.
Yes, it is. I quoted you and the source post is unmodified.
Ironically, my interpretation may not be what you meant, despite it's simplicity.
>> 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.
So I guess we just talk past each other. Sounds good.
I have a feeling that a lot of people think this. Coming to an 'agree to disagree' is really had for some people. Sometimes there's no other option though, because both people seem to know the same facts, they just have differing opinions on how to deal with those facts.
> take note of how much of the time you spend formulating a response
I've been paying attention to this for years now after hearing or reading something similar. I haven't been able to change this, but sometimes it's helped me move back to listening and not missing important details because of it.
The point is you don't even have to agree to disagree — it is not mandatory to tell the other person your opinion. You can also just listen to theirs and ask questions etc.
A conversation can be much, much more than a clash of opinions. Going into a conversation with the idea of "the other guy is wrong" is a sure way of never understanding how they arrived at that wrong opinion to begin with. Yet sometimes precisely this is the most valuable thing you could learn from them.
> Coming to an 'agree to disagree' is really hard for some people
In many cases the person you talk to don't really disagree, but pretends to due to ideologic or some BS reason. Maybe they don't want to say the real reason they think X.
The "agree to disagree" is often used as an escape hatch for hypocrisy.
> The "agree to disagree" is often used as an escape hatch for hypocrisy.
Sometimes. Other times it's a great way to point out that hypocrisy by pointing out you all have the same information, yet you come to different conclusions/opinions.
Sometimes it's a conscious decision to have all the facts and ignore them. It's not hypocritical in that case.
If you perceive there is sufficient trust and interest in engaging in some kind of debate, sure, consider it. Debate, in its many forms, can have many advantages, but it is not categorically preferable.
Also consider all your other options: pure listening, mutual bonding, offering emotional support, even walking away (from a no-win situation).
If / when debate falls apart, there are many options to reconnect.
Someone states their position, while you're expected to undermine their position with a retort. It is one of the least productive ways of resolving differences.
Every discussion is not a debate. Perhaps this is what Sivers was trying to communicate, in which case, he did so rather poorly.
The examples offered all revolve around lived experiences, lifestyle preference (taste), and articles of faith, for which there really isn't much of an objective truth, let alone one which can be demonstrated through evidence and reason.
There's something to be said for simply choosing to absorb a story, to bear witness, even to validate a person's view or choices (though that last isn't necessarily always appropriate).
From my experience, some years back I encountered a ... local character ... who was known for accosting strangers on the street and ranting about various topics, generally rather fantastical. I'd seen this happen several times over the years, and one day it was my turn. After the tirade slowed, and unsure how to respond, I simply said "thank you". The transformation was immediate and profound: they were immensely grateful and their entire demeanor changed.
I don't pretend that this is universally applicable. I do know that there was no point in rational argument with the person. The circumstances were such that there was no obvious danger to myself or those around me. But I've thought more than once over the years of how a simple acknowledgement might often be an excellent choice of response.
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 confidence rather than constantly attacks my ideas and, if those don't have any weak corners, my character and judgement. Nothing wrong with either preference, but the two shouldn't work together in my experience.
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.
There's a bit more to it than that. Identifying with my ideas makes challenging them stressful, yes, but debate changes a potential eustress into distress. A dialectic where we're trying to leverage different initial perspectives to both arrive at a better understanding of the truth feel like I'm risking something valuable to win something more valuable. It's stressful but exhilarating. A debate just feels like I'm protecting something of value from someone who brings nothing of value to the interaction. Because I assign value to ideas, debate feels inherently destructive and negative-sum.
1. Co-founder who clearly signals respect and self-reflection, and who much later reveals they have a penchant for the occasional debate and dis-attachment from their own ideas.
2. A co-founder who signals they like debates in a candidate meeting.
I rankly speculate here on HN that if OP always avoids #2, not only will nothing bad happen as a result, but they will also decrease the chance of choosing a bad candidate.
I further rankly speculate this for any founder.
HN debates are fun, but they hide the fact that debate is a low-effort tool. Like drinking alcohol, it can be useful. But if it moves from being a mere implementation detail to becoming part of the API in a candidate meeting: run!
debates, even though I prefer the term discussions, are held between at least two parties.
I might sometime be the part who listens, but we can't both be listening, there will be no discussion.
So if you have something to say, say it and don't let anyone interrupt you.
Listening to what other people are saying means donating your time and attention, not everybody deserve it, there's a reason why "professional listeners" such as psychologists charge a lot of money to do it.
Most of the time people don't want to discuss, they simply want to talk about themselves.
Yeah, it can work great one on one, sadly it's much harder to do as the number of interlocutors increases, as the time spent thinking things out instead of immediately answering is time that someone else can "hijack" the conversation (for bad or good reasons, nobody owes you a lot of time to formulate an answer), at which point it could be hard or sometimes even rude to come back to that point.
> 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.
Deliberately slowing conversations down to one 100th of their normal pace might produce some interesting results. In a sense, this is one of the techniques that science uses, and it seems to reliably produce excellent outcomes in fairly complicated problem spaces.
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.
Populists (e.g. Trump) are not good at all in debates.
Depends what you think the point of the TV debate actually is. Trump, for all his flaws, instinctively understood the actual point of the televised debate, and crushed all his primary opponents. He knew that his target audience didn't care if he was right or wrong on any of the facts or detail, they want someone who looked strong and confident and commanding, so that's what he focused on.
If it's a lecture and not a conversation, I will usually end up thinking of counterpoints to what they said. And I believe that they have a good response to any counterpoint I have, and I want to hear it.
Otherwise I'm left with my counterpoints and I'm less engaged and less convinced.
>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.
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.
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.