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But what if these moments of revelation aren’t real? As you say, you’re mind reading. What I dislike about verbal confrontation is that it’s easy for the whole thing to go off the rails, not because you’re wrong, but because you didn’t think quickly enough in response to being attacked from an unexpected direction, or you failed to notice a sly trap being inserted into the conversation three responses ago. It’s why Schopenhauer argued for never admitting defeat in an argument - just because you don’t have a response this second doesn’t mean you’re wrong, you might think of a counter argument in another couple of seconds.
Personally, I think there are benefits to verbal interchange - it’s much easier to pick up on confusions and misunderstandings - but if you’re going to use it for serious enquiry then it has to be relaxed, slow and capable of taking a break at any time. In the majority of cases I would rather have duelling essays.
Yes, of course this is a risk, and in picking out my examples I tried to avoid instances that could plausibly be interpreted as what you describe. I never claimed that verbal confrontation is better than everything! My praise was fairly limited to just a few aspects.
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Agreed. This is the basis for Nominal Group Technique in which decisions are made by people writing down their ideas and then having them read anonymously.
A person who is charismastic, quick-witted, or intimidating can win a debate even if their ideas are poor. Winning debates in real life is mostly just about busting the frame anyway. That's why political candidates never actual answer the questions given to them, but just grandstand. And it's why they go over their time to deprive their opponents the chance to grandstand.
Imagine Ben Shapiro vs. Scott Alexander. Ben would destroy Scott in a debate, but Scott is the far better thinker. Heck, even Donald Trump could probably "beat" Scott in a debate.
I dont get people's obsession with Ben Shapiro. He's a savage culture warrior for sure, but claiming he's dumb is just kinda outright insane. He's clearly brilliant in his own sort of way. And I think his performance in a debate with Scott, setting aside his machine gun style, would highly depend on the topic. Some of Scott's positions are more well reasoned than others. Some of Ben's are more or less.
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Yes, but why have them debate when you saw how good Scott's questions for the 2016 candidates were? I want to hear Bush address whether Barbara Bush was a genius or if there were many better candidates than him.
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Donald Trump would steamroll Ben Shapiro in a debate with no contest. Charisma and presence matter a lot more when it comes to debates than written essays, (I'd honestly rather read an essay by Trump than Shapiro to be honest), and Trump is far better at that than Ben Shapiro could ever be.
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This would really depend on the moderation style. It's like with interviewing, there are interviewers whose style is to keep the guest talking, so they lob softball questions when the guest starts to run dry. There are interviewers whose style is about putting the guest on the spot, so they keep cycling back to the same question if the guest is evasive.
If the debate was led by a hardball moderator, busting the frame would no longer be a winning tactic.
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