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Bad Debaters Suck
Someone on my friends list posted a list of sorry refutations and sloppy debate moves he's had to deal with when arguing politics with people, and it occurred to me that I've got some things that annoy me as well. This isn't really a direct response to his entry, since I feel safe assuming he's been in plenty of awful debates that had nothing to do with me, and I've been in plenty of awful ones that didn't involve him. So let me head off that, "you're being a passive aggressive whore" comment if I can, just in case anybody worried.
Most of these come from the perspective of a liberal who frequently debates with conservatives, but rest assured. Liberals are people, and people are likely to come to irrational conclusions that are counter to their own self-interests and all logic on this earth just because their "gut impulse" is to decide one way, facts or organization be damned.
THINGS THAT SUCK
U Can Has Burden of Proof?
If you're making a claim, the burden of proof is on you. Basic debate as I understand it. If you fail to fulfill this burden, you fail to make your claim effectively and in my opinion no one should believe you. You shouldn't be afraid of this, because obviously whatever convinced you of your opinion was good enough for you. Why worry that it won't be good enough for me?
I try to cite sources for just about everything I can, and if I'm wrong and someone shoots me down with a source (and I miss things as often as anybody else), it's important to me to readjust and apologize for not researching more carefully. I would rather use new information to become right than continue to look like an ass.
Not everyone I talk to cites sources. They say things that somebody somewhere should have proven as though they were obvious facts, but as Sherlock Holmes stated, "There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." This is the internet, so citation is easy. It's just a link. I'm not asking for American Anthropological Association or Chicago citations here. Link me to where you found what you're saying, and I'm a happy camper. People who read thoroughly-cited arguments and reply with unsourced statements annoy me because they are asking me to do the legwork that they should (ideally) have already done before they opened their digital mouths.
If I can't see your source, I assume you are spewing unsubstantiated trash and I may begin to treat you like someone who spouts unsubstantiated trash. If I post something without a source, you should assume that I am being lazy and should treat me like I'm spouting unsubstantiated trash as punishment so that I (hopefully) won't do it again.
Staying on Topic
If you cannot tie everything you are saying back to the topic we were initially discussing, I will ignore it if you're lucky. Being on topic is about more than continuing to talk about things along similar general lines, because that leaves people meandering all over the place and never resolving any of the specific questions they touch on. If I'm in a debate it's because I want to talk primarily about whatever the topic is, not other tangential shit that's only semi-related.
I'm still working on this myself, but I think I do okay. Some people enjoy the meandering, but when I'm writing replies to something online that can be easily organized into topical threads, I want that to happen. When posting, there's more to whether it should be there than whether you feel it should be said. Sometimes you need to ask whether it should be said here.
tl;dr
"Too Long; Didn't Read. But here's what I think anyway." People who don't read what I type before replying annoy me. I don't care if it's long. I don't speak in ridiculous academic language that you aren't capable of understanding. I don't like debating with people who reply to what they think they saw somewhere in my post, but neither they nor I can seem to find what it is they're actually responding to. This connects on many levels with the need to stay on topic, because if even one person in a debate is firing blindly in the general direction of his/her opponent's argument, staying directed and topical is very difficult.
Who're You Citing?
There are lots of biased sources out there, because all sources are biased if they're written by people. There are two ways to deal with this. The first way to is to completely spaz and assume that all sources are untrustworthy and anybody who cites them is placing their trust in a conspiracy of lies (either liberal or conservative). The second way is to see who wrote it and figure out if publishing these particular facts plays into some agenda that should make you suspicious. From this point of view, there are more sites with an unacceptable bias than Fox News (you get a gold star if you can tell me why we shouldn't believe anything these people say when it comes to abortion).
Many people I've debated with like to think they're very good at "following the money," but this is usually just a way to point out the ties of finance that all media entities have to one another and using it as an excuse to toss out the ones they don't like. "This paper has a reporter who made a campaign contribution to McCain. Clearly the paper is in the tank for McCain and they print nothing but his manufactured lies," or "Global warming is a sham because this guy I've decided is its spokesman invested in green technology and that's why he's pushing it." (Seriously, Al Gore pops up in global warming discussions more often than Hitler pops up in Expelled.)
Logical Fallacies
I've looked them up. Anyone who "knows how to do a Google" can do the same. As a result I expect you not to commit them, and I reserve the right to treat you like an incompetent boob when you do it. Generally I'll just link to the fallacy you're committing and hope that me saying you should stop is a clear enough cue that you're debating poorly.
Insulting Your Debate Partners
Seriously, guys. This isn't hard. Each of us may think the other is wrong, but if I'm not calling you a fascist xenophobic anti-intellectual O'Reillybot, please don't imply that I am incapable of supporting my beliefs because I'm an idealistic elitist babykilling Obamabot. Okay? We can disagree without calling each other names. We can even argue vehemently without calling each other names.
Conflict resolution goes well when people use lots of "I" statements. Okay? "I feel something you said came across as very racist/homophobic/sexist" is different from "you're a racist/homophobe/misogynist." Not only do I expect you not to conflate these and call me names instead of evaluating what I've said, I expect you not to conflate these and take evaluations of what you say as personal attacks when they are not. When/if I violate this rule, I suck. Tell me so, and I will endeavor to suck less.
Anti-Intellectualism
Seriously, guys. If I hear even once we shouldn't trust people who invoke their credentials without suggesting some reasonable criteria for whom we can trust, I need to step out of a debate. If you don't believe economists, evolutionary biologists, meteorologists, physicists, and anthropologists have some special expertise in their respective fields, what credentials are you looking for? Who is an expert? Do you even know?
This seems like it'd never come up. But it does. Most people want to seem intelligent and competent, but some people feel inadequate in the face of someone who knows more about Topic X than they do. As a result they seem to need to tear that "elitist" expert down at any cost to level the playing field so that they won't feel so ignorant by comparison.
Know What You're Valuing
If you haven't thought about your own view enough to puzzle out whether you're advocating something because it's pragmatic or because it's morally right, you don't even know what you want. More precisely, you decided what you want and don't actually think it's important why.
To use a conservative example, let's say I believe that children should not be taught comprehensive sex-ed in school. Do I want this because I believe children should not (moral statement!) be thinking about sex, or do I want this because I think it will do a better job of keeping them from getting diseases or experiencing life-disrupting pregnancies (which is itself grounded in a separate value, like "we are responsible for the quality of life of our children")? The end is the same, but the difference tells you a lot about where I'm coming from, doesn't it?
It's very different for us to disagree on when children should be aware of sex, and for us to disagree on what will accomplish X or Y goal (such as reducing teen pregnancy or STD rates). Generally the latter is easier to debate, because you can bring facts in. A discussion that is ostensibly about goals and is actually about morals will be very muddled and annoying until both parties have stopped trying to link research like it matters.
Here's what I want to do in a debate. I know that when I disagree with someone it's either because one of us is working from faulty information or because we're upholding different values and are therefore working toward different ultimate goals. The latter is much more common than the former. Generally when I'm debating someone and we disagree it's not because they're a complete moron. It's because at least one of the core values we're each building on differs between us. Finding out just what this value is? Awesomesauce. It's the whole point.
Unfortunately, I have had many discussions in which I'm thinking harder about the other person's values than they are. This means that I have to do all the legwork for finding out just what is at the bottom of a position they haven't thought much about, in addition to trying to make them understand my own. There's more sport in this, but it also gets super tiring.
I've ranted enough though, for now, and all without really giving you anything to comment with if you're so inclined. So I'll end with a question. What pisses you guys off in a debate? I am opening this up to public ranting. Go, my beauties! Post comments and tell me what kinds of bad debaters make you growl.
Most of these come from the perspective of a liberal who frequently debates with conservatives, but rest assured. Liberals are people, and people are likely to come to irrational conclusions that are counter to their own self-interests and all logic on this earth just because their "gut impulse" is to decide one way, facts or organization be damned.
THINGS THAT SUCK
U Can Has Burden of Proof?
If you're making a claim, the burden of proof is on you. Basic debate as I understand it. If you fail to fulfill this burden, you fail to make your claim effectively and in my opinion no one should believe you. You shouldn't be afraid of this, because obviously whatever convinced you of your opinion was good enough for you. Why worry that it won't be good enough for me?
I try to cite sources for just about everything I can, and if I'm wrong and someone shoots me down with a source (and I miss things as often as anybody else), it's important to me to readjust and apologize for not researching more carefully. I would rather use new information to become right than continue to look like an ass.
Not everyone I talk to cites sources. They say things that somebody somewhere should have proven as though they were obvious facts, but as Sherlock Holmes stated, "There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." This is the internet, so citation is easy. It's just a link. I'm not asking for American Anthropological Association or Chicago citations here. Link me to where you found what you're saying, and I'm a happy camper. People who read thoroughly-cited arguments and reply with unsourced statements annoy me because they are asking me to do the legwork that they should (ideally) have already done before they opened their digital mouths.
If I can't see your source, I assume you are spewing unsubstantiated trash and I may begin to treat you like someone who spouts unsubstantiated trash. If I post something without a source, you should assume that I am being lazy and should treat me like I'm spouting unsubstantiated trash as punishment so that I (hopefully) won't do it again.
Staying on Topic
If you cannot tie everything you are saying back to the topic we were initially discussing, I will ignore it if you're lucky. Being on topic is about more than continuing to talk about things along similar general lines, because that leaves people meandering all over the place and never resolving any of the specific questions they touch on. If I'm in a debate it's because I want to talk primarily about whatever the topic is, not other tangential shit that's only semi-related.
I'm still working on this myself, but I think I do okay. Some people enjoy the meandering, but when I'm writing replies to something online that can be easily organized into topical threads, I want that to happen. When posting, there's more to whether it should be there than whether you feel it should be said. Sometimes you need to ask whether it should be said here.
tl;dr
"Too Long; Didn't Read. But here's what I think anyway." People who don't read what I type before replying annoy me. I don't care if it's long. I don't speak in ridiculous academic language that you aren't capable of understanding. I don't like debating with people who reply to what they think they saw somewhere in my post, but neither they nor I can seem to find what it is they're actually responding to. This connects on many levels with the need to stay on topic, because if even one person in a debate is firing blindly in the general direction of his/her opponent's argument, staying directed and topical is very difficult.
Who're You Citing?
There are lots of biased sources out there, because all sources are biased if they're written by people. There are two ways to deal with this. The first way to is to completely spaz and assume that all sources are untrustworthy and anybody who cites them is placing their trust in a conspiracy of lies (either liberal or conservative). The second way is to see who wrote it and figure out if publishing these particular facts plays into some agenda that should make you suspicious. From this point of view, there are more sites with an unacceptable bias than Fox News (you get a gold star if you can tell me why we shouldn't believe anything these people say when it comes to abortion).
Many people I've debated with like to think they're very good at "following the money," but this is usually just a way to point out the ties of finance that all media entities have to one another and using it as an excuse to toss out the ones they don't like. "This paper has a reporter who made a campaign contribution to McCain. Clearly the paper is in the tank for McCain and they print nothing but his manufactured lies," or "Global warming is a sham because this guy I've decided is its spokesman invested in green technology and that's why he's pushing it." (Seriously, Al Gore pops up in global warming discussions more often than Hitler pops up in Expelled.)
Logical Fallacies
I've looked them up. Anyone who "knows how to do a Google" can do the same. As a result I expect you not to commit them, and I reserve the right to treat you like an incompetent boob when you do it. Generally I'll just link to the fallacy you're committing and hope that me saying you should stop is a clear enough cue that you're debating poorly.
Insulting Your Debate Partners
Seriously, guys. This isn't hard. Each of us may think the other is wrong, but if I'm not calling you a fascist xenophobic anti-intellectual O'Reillybot, please don't imply that I am incapable of supporting my beliefs because I'm an idealistic elitist babykilling Obamabot. Okay? We can disagree without calling each other names. We can even argue vehemently without calling each other names.
Conflict resolution goes well when people use lots of "I" statements. Okay? "I feel something you said came across as very racist/homophobic/sexist" is different from "you're a racist/homophobe/misogynist." Not only do I expect you not to conflate these and call me names instead of evaluating what I've said, I expect you not to conflate these and take evaluations of what you say as personal attacks when they are not. When/if I violate this rule, I suck. Tell me so, and I will endeavor to suck less.
Anti-Intellectualism
Seriously, guys. If I hear even once we shouldn't trust people who invoke their credentials without suggesting some reasonable criteria for whom we can trust, I need to step out of a debate. If you don't believe economists, evolutionary biologists, meteorologists, physicists, and anthropologists have some special expertise in their respective fields, what credentials are you looking for? Who is an expert? Do you even know?
This seems like it'd never come up. But it does. Most people want to seem intelligent and competent, but some people feel inadequate in the face of someone who knows more about Topic X than they do. As a result they seem to need to tear that "elitist" expert down at any cost to level the playing field so that they won't feel so ignorant by comparison.
Know What You're Valuing
If you haven't thought about your own view enough to puzzle out whether you're advocating something because it's pragmatic or because it's morally right, you don't even know what you want. More precisely, you decided what you want and don't actually think it's important why.
To use a conservative example, let's say I believe that children should not be taught comprehensive sex-ed in school. Do I want this because I believe children should not (moral statement!) be thinking about sex, or do I want this because I think it will do a better job of keeping them from getting diseases or experiencing life-disrupting pregnancies (which is itself grounded in a separate value, like "we are responsible for the quality of life of our children")? The end is the same, but the difference tells you a lot about where I'm coming from, doesn't it?
It's very different for us to disagree on when children should be aware of sex, and for us to disagree on what will accomplish X or Y goal (such as reducing teen pregnancy or STD rates). Generally the latter is easier to debate, because you can bring facts in. A discussion that is ostensibly about goals and is actually about morals will be very muddled and annoying until both parties have stopped trying to link research like it matters.
Here's what I want to do in a debate. I know that when I disagree with someone it's either because one of us is working from faulty information or because we're upholding different values and are therefore working toward different ultimate goals. The latter is much more common than the former. Generally when I'm debating someone and we disagree it's not because they're a complete moron. It's because at least one of the core values we're each building on differs between us. Finding out just what this value is? Awesomesauce. It's the whole point.
Unfortunately, I have had many discussions in which I'm thinking harder about the other person's values than they are. This means that I have to do all the legwork for finding out just what is at the bottom of a position they haven't thought much about, in addition to trying to make them understand my own. There's more sport in this, but it also gets super tiring.
I've ranted enough though, for now, and all without really giving you anything to comment with if you're so inclined. So I'll end with a question. What pisses you guys off in a debate? I am opening this up to public ranting. Go, my beauties! Post comments and tell me what kinds of bad debaters make you growl.
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Seriously, though, I came across an interesting comment earlier yesterday about biases in interpreting results; Freakonomics posted a bit about the "truth only reinforces previously believed lies" bit and there was some banter in the comments that I thought was kind of interesting, particularly a note by one poster:
"Faith-based conservatives" will never be swayed by research, data, or logic. Conversely, fiscal conservatives, who probably don't give a damn about social issues except for how they will impact the economy, tend to have much less resistance to changing their minds (and much better-supported arguments, because they actually believe good arguments have value).
Someone else pointed out that liberals have their biases too (no really?) but I admittedly couldn't think of any myself when it came to hard research until someone suggested genetic research. Liberals have a strong tendency to discount genetics as predictive of "the way a person will turn out," no matter how strong the research is in a particular area; they prefer environmental explanations even when the data is weaker. Granted, most psychologists and social scientists know that the nature vs. nurture argument is long-dead (it's both) but the supposition behind this bit of bias is that "deep down, liberals really want everyone to be equal." I personally found that all very interesting, though I can't speak to the validity of any of it since I'm just citing blog comment chatter.
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Everyone has the capacity to be irrational. The best we can do is try to do our best not to fool ourselves into thinking we're being perfectly reasonable when in fact everything we're saying (or thinking) is positively absurd.
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Personally, I'd like to see people engaging in more "smart" challenges of people who invoke their credentials. When there are other experts who think that expert is wrong (as is the case with global warming denying scientists), it makes sense to analyze experts' actual arguments and evidence. If the expert is making a claim that's actually outside the realm of their expertise, it also makes sense to challenge them, even if they're talking about something in their general field (such as physicists who don't believe in evolution - yes, they are "scientists," but they're not scientists who necessarily know much about this particular subject). So I guess I find saying "look! a scientist! I'm right!" almost as annoying in some situations as "I don't listen to those elitist scientists."
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I personally think the most fun example of this is Chomsky. His actual education and primary accomplishments (depending on who you ask) are in linguistics. But for the past 40 years he's spent more time railing against the American political system than he has studying language. It's totally acceptable to branch out from one field into another, but this is also the sort of thing that gives academics their reputation as eggheads who assume that just because they have a degree in something that they're automatically smarter than everyone else. Which, in some cases, they might be. But try telling that to your average person.
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That said, I don't necessarily feel that Chomsky and Dershowitz are themselves committing the same error that a lot of their followers are. They're just famous people with strong opinions, and they decided for one reason or another to start championing one cause or another instead of doing what they originally had careers in. They used their academic skills to become "experts" in their new field, to the extent that gathering information and forming arguments makes you an "expert," so they're certainly no less qualified to discuss these issues than most pundits. It's just when people try to support their views on Palestine with the views of "Noam Chomsky, PhD" that it starts getting stupid.
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Apologies for not giving super well thought out responses to any of your amazing posts lately, but I've enjoyed reading all of them and I especially think this is spot on.
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