[TeMPOraL]

Yeah. Debates are weird, and IMO poisonous to mind.

Taking a topic, splitting into two teams and fighting it out with words until the victor remains is the exact opposite of what you want to do to reach any useful conclusion on any topic.

[jackpark]

Perhaps an alternative is to split into guilds - many of them - and pose an Epic Quest; game moves are contributions to a dialogue (conversation) map which, first, responds to the quest (a deep question) with position/answer statements to be followed by evidence fields the guilds collect to support their position. Other guilds can come in and gain game points by adding support to the game moves of others, or, for that matter, challenging them with evidence to the contrary. Game moves include Questions, as well as answers and pro and con arguments. Thus, this is not a simple Pro-Con ecosystem, but, instead, a conversational one. This, in theory, can be viewed through several lenses, two of which are "debate" and "learning conversation". To the extent that the epic quest is one which, effectively, crowd sources the world views expressed by guilds, and to the extent that rules of engagement mean that the pugnacious arguments remain inside the guilds and what comes out forms valuable contributions to the conversation which is the quest, then "all boats rise". John Seely Brown did a 6 minute Youtube with the opening sentence: "I would rather hire a high-level World of Warcraft player than an MBA from Harvard", and that point is evidence to support the model I'm suggesting here, something like "World of Warcraft meets Global Sensemaking". JSB's point is that guilds perform magic on humans; less tendency to argue, more tendency to find ways to remain on truth seeking missions rather than "selling" personal versions of truth.

[jhbadger]

Yeah, I was in a debate team in high school. I suppose it is good training for people who end up becoming lawyers and have to defend people that they may or may not really believe are innocent, but as someone who ended up going into science I see how it is a bit grotesque -- the idea in competitive debates is that rhetoric matters more than actual factual information and that a good debater can argue either side with equal ease.

[Eugeleo]

I'm an European CS student, and I was a part of debate team in high school as well. You are certainly right that lawyers will get most of them, since they are closely related to actual lawyer work.

On the other hand, I don't think rhetoric matters more than facts. At least in my country, most of the arguments in the debate have to be based on some data/studies to be taken seriously. You still have to be a good speaker, of course, because you have to get the point across, but you can't win the debate without a prepared case just because you are charismatic.

Lots of times we had to argue for both sides during the tournament; the topics were chosen accordingly, as not to be "solvable". Of course in normal world you probably want to find some kind of compromise, but to be able to do that, you have to assess what each course of action will achieve. And debating helps you build the skillset to do just that.

[Eugeleo]

Sure. It helps if you can formulate the pros and cons of each course of action, though, because that's the first step of finding a proper compromise. From my experience, that is what debate teaches you.

For example, most of the debates we have done in high school we did from both sides; I don't think the general message was supposed to be "just argue loud enough and you'll be right", but rather "hey, look at this problem from these two sides. Crazy how both of them are partly true, isn't it?".

I think the human default is to stick to whatever your opinion is at the moment. Most of the people will never look from other POV. Maybe they won't even realise that the other POV can be right, when they are so sure they themselves are right.

[noxToken]

> Taking a topic, splitting into two teams and fighting it out with words until the victor remains is the exact opposite of what you want to do to reach any useful conclusion on any topic.

I agree only if the debate's intention is to declare a winner and a loser. Having a formal session to discuss topic with opposing sides allows for well-planned arguments. OFf-the-cuff discussion, while useful, can only get you so far.

[TeMPOraL]

Winner/loser mentality is one half of the problem; the other half is that pretty much nothing in real life can be productively split into exactly two opposing sides or views.