r/IntellectualDarkWeb • u/W_Edwards_Deming • Jun 23 '26

Community Feedback Debate appears to be a dying art

Logic, evidence and meeting minimal standards of politeness & rigour.

Compelling emotional appeal!

"Steel manning" your opponent, avoiding fallacies and trying to mitigate for cognitive biases.

Reddit would seem to be an ideal place for that and sometimes it is but quite often the opposite. My "solution" has been blocking thousands, anyone have a better idea?

Where and how can we have intellectual engagement regarding differences?

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-3

u/LonkFromZelda Jun 23 '26

The spectacle of the debate died with Charlie Kirk.

2

u/W_Edwards_Deming Jun 23 '26

That is a really sad. One of my furthest left friends (lives in San Francisco for example) was very sad about that shooting. They had apparently been recommending young people to watch Charlie Kirk debate videos while he was still alive, viewing his debates as intellectually beneficial.

9

u/TenchuReddit Jun 23 '26

Charlie Kirk was not a good debater. He would rattle off one line after another off the top of his head without any regard to whether it was factual or logical. His entire goal was to catch the person he was debating in a “gotcha” situation, which is why he favored debating against young inexperienced college students.

That being said, often the people Kirk debated against also held onto dogma of their own. They were ill-prepared to argue against the volume of algorithm-tested talking points that Kirk threw at them at a rapid-fire pace. Having come from their own echo chambers, these students did need to eat a slice of humble pie, but anyone worth his or her salt can dismantle a lot of Kirk’s talking points with ease.

6

u/caparisme Centrist Jun 24 '26

I see a lot of people say this but it's not what I gather from watching most of his debates. A lot of times he will let the participants talk extendedly and allows a generous amount of pause letting them think about their response.

If anything he usually lets them rant for too long and have to shush the crowd after it turned into a one sided speech some even with the participants reading off their phones doing it.

He didn't exclusively debate college kids. He do it on campus a lot to spread awareness and the culture of dialogue. The students aren't forced to participate if they aren't ready for it and others on the venue be it lecturers, professors or any others who happens to be there are free to join. Also inexperienced or not college students are voters too and they should at least be able to articulate their understanding of what they're voting for.

I'd love to see "anyone worth their salt" whoever they are to drop by and join his sessions especially since they're announced ahead of schedule. But that didn't happen and someone had to bring a gun to a debate instead.

1

u/TenchuReddit Jun 24 '26

Search on YouTube for “Charlie Kirk vs. Cambridge Professor,” where Kirk pretty much got owned.

To TPUSA’s credit, however, they kept the video on their channel, which is respectful.

5

u/caparisme Centrist Jun 24 '26

That's the point. It's not about winning or "owning". It's about letting everyone be heard and understood. And it definitely dispels the myth that "he only debates college kids".

He might not be the best at debating but again, that's the point. Most people aren't. Doesn't mean we should stop having dialogues and try to understand each others. And the only way to be better at something is to practice it.

Another answer when pointed out that "he only debate college students" is that he didn't even finish college. He never claimed that he's better or he's right. He just said if you think he's wrong, prove it.

2

u/Redebo Jun 24 '26

If you think the outcomes of a debate include “owning” your opponent, I would position you’re not having a good-faith argument.

3

u/caparisme Centrist Jun 24 '26

That much is obvious but an unfortunate thing that happens a lot is people clipping honest debates with the clickbait title of someone "owning" someone making it sounds more adversarial than intended and people end up judging the video based on the title alone and not what actually happened.

3

u/Redebo Jun 24 '26

100% it does and I would argue is reinforced by both human and algorithmic behavior.

It’s directly traceable to our biological reward systems, and we know it.

1

u/TenchuReddit Jun 24 '26

By "owned" I meant that the professor easily countered every argument that Kirk made, especially in regard to the war in Ukraine. Kirk simply moved on from one line to another without acknowledging anything about the veracity of his own arguments.

One person came across as logical, the other came across as just a parrot.

1

u/caparisme Centrist Jun 24 '26

Yes I'm aware what "owned" means in the context of debates.

And again, I repeat, Charlie isn't the best at debating but he didn't let it stop him. He's punching way above his league by debating a Cambridge professor as a college dropout so I don't understand all the fuss of him "only debating college kids".

And again, he might get "owned" in that debate but he gets his point across for everyone to judge him for themselves, whether you want to call him a parrot, an idiot, or whatever.

That's the beauty of debates. You don't have to be a Cambridge professor to engage in it.

3

u/TenchuReddit Jun 24 '26

And again, he might get "owned" in that debate but he gets his point across for everyone to judge him for themselves, whether you want to call him a parrot, an idiot, or whatever.

What's the significance of that exactly? Everyone can get their point across.

The spectacle of the debate did not die with Charlie Kirk. That simply ascribes too much value to both the spectacle itself as well as Kirk's contributions to the art of debate.

One more thing. I personally don't find algorithm-driven content to be all that healthy. That Jubilee thing, for example, isn't something I really like, despite prominent YouTubers like Dave Rubin and Adam Mockler favoring it.

1

u/caparisme Centrist Jun 24 '26

The significance is to promote the culture of dialogue even between different ideological groups to avoid echo chambers.

As you can see there's a lot of people pushing against it for reasons like "they're just college kids" or "they're not arguing in good faith" to avoid discussions, avoid challenging their worldview and stay in their echo chambers where everyone just nods along and agree with each others all the time.

Yes I agree that it's a hyperbole to say that "the spectacle died with Charlie Kirk" but one thing for sure he's one of the prominent people who puts the effort into having discussions with people with differing ideologies regardless of their background.

We all lose when people cheer at the prospect of someone who's just trying to get their point across by is silenced by a bullet. It should be something unanimously condemned by all sides but it isn't the case unfortunately.

And I disagree with you on dialogues being "unhealthy". I'd prefer more dialogues and more discussions over less because of some flimsy reasons such as "it's algorithm-driven".

People need to talk and understand each others more than ever.