Disputation and The Straight Dope Message Board

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Kobal2 and Jragon - messaging, selling, requires knowing the room you are in, who is in it, and who your actual target is. And success or failure is not measured by whose voices you hear loudest in return, or even by one election cycle.

THIS room contains a good bunch of those slightly left of center and those much farther left, some slightly right of center, and a few left who are conservatives. The target of any pitch here pitch should not that conservative demographic.

This gets into hijack territory reality is that the more liberal side IS winning the battle in the marketplace of ideas. On economic matters the mood is “the most liberal ever recorded” (and the graph is also notable for the long term trend showing the lows less low and the highs higher). “Since 1992, the percentage of Americans identifying as liberal has risen from 17% then to 26% today.” Conservative views are not more popular over time, even if they gotten louder and more strident. And overall generationally liberal views are increasing.

(Silents are currently 71 to 91 years old, and to put it nicely, their numbers won’t be exactly increasing over the next years.)

Reality is that the West Wing bit you cite as something factual is a fiction.
(Kobal2, I am not ignoring your King quote, but it is completely irrelevant to the discussion which is not about incrementalism vs more revolutionary changes. Find me the quote in which Dr. King advocated not listening to those with opposing views, and advocated for demonizing those who disagree with you, and it will be on point.)

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When faced with several walls of text posts and right of the gate what is written is an implication of my having taken a position that I have not taken, I don’t spend too much effort or time on what follows.

I will simply state yet again that constraining speech here to some degree is very justifiable. Some speech causes harms. And constraining speech also imposes harms. There are balances are different fora are set to different points on the scale.

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You mean that because the poster wasn’t sanctioned what he did was sanctioned? :slight_smile: (“Sanction” is such a great contronym!)

Allowing something ≠ approving or endorsing something btw.

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You don’t think saying “moderates are actually worse than the KKK” demonizes moderates at least a little bit ? :smiley:

You’re missing the point. **Jragon **and I weren’t really talking about the WW but more about another show which used a WW bit to illustrate a point : a tendency among intellectuals (mostly on the left) to somewhat self-indulgently revel in scathing, well-cited, eloquent takedowns of snippy, ignorant or generally shitty arguments. Which is fine, as far as that goes (I don’t have anything against masturbation myself).
But in the real world those intellectually satisfying longform arguments/comprehensive pwnages don’t necessarily, or even often, actually win debates nor change the minds of people who aren’t already liberal intellectuals who enjoy a good, thorough takedown to begin with. It misses the salient point : bad faith debaters (or journalists) aren’t trying to convince you, and they know full well their house of cards are full of shit. They’re playing meta tricks on the silent crowd. Because people don’t really read past headlines, people self-insulate against views contrary to their own with artifices like “fake news !” or “virtue signalling !” or “liberal bias !”. People TL;DR. People don’t really remember long arguments, but salient nuggets can stick to minds. Dishonest or bad faith actors revel in this gap of understanding.

Take evolution for example : in the US, in order to appear “fair” or “giving every side of the issue a voice”, numerous public debates were held on TV, in campuses and so on. Those public debates have more or less always involved one (or a few) creationists and one (or a few) people who actually knew what the fuck they were talking about. And the creationists were consistently dunked on - either straight up losing the debate, or resorting to shit tactics (like Gish).
Yet the US is still one of the only Western countries where doubting evolution is still even a Thing at all.
Because the simple fact that a big “fair” public TV debate takes place implicitly legitimizes the creationists’ side as being of equal value (even, or especially, to those who didn’t actually watch the debate) and the impression of who won a TV debate among viewers has a lot less to do with the content of the arguments themselves and appearances, tones of voice, confidence, theatrics.

In other countries, creationists demanding debates were either laughed out the room ; or prompted one sided documentaries on evolution that didn’t involve creationist bullshit at all. And so creationists remained a tiny, ridiculed fringe.

The same thing happens on message boards. I recently re-visited an old Holocaust denial thread in which the entire thread repeatedly dunked on the one denier. Who nevertheless kept posting long screeds with dodgy-ass cites (or even cites running directly against their position but they pretended supported them) for page after page, entirely ignoring the points of the opposition unless he could cherry pick one argument he had an answer to.
Now, the rational take on that was that **Chen019 **was a blithering liar and obviously dishonest… to people who actually took the time to read through the barrage of cites, or look up who the people he was citing were. Which takes effort. To people who didn’t make the effort, or only skimmed through the thread he might have appeared to be holding his ground, since he kept having so much to say. I, like you, would like to believe that Dopers, hell, that *people *are smarter than that in general.
And yet Holocaust deniers are coming out of the woodwork. Because they don’t care that their arguments are shit, and the people they convince don’t really care either - they’ve just been given a reason to consider their latent prejudices confirmed. And by debating **Chen **instead of booting his ass right out, he was given a platform to expose the entire board to a whole bunch of shit sites. If only one Doper went from “Holocaust denial is complete and utter skinhead bullshit” to “Hmm, maybe there’s something there… ?” at the end of that shitshow, **Chen019 **conclusively won.

And if a single Doper went from her to there thanks to my putting that old thread back in the limelight,* I’m* the asshole now. But there you go.

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But that’s the thing ! It **can **be taken to be. Or seem to be. As the French saying goes, “he who says nothing, consents”. In a formal debate, choosing not to rebut an argument and leaving it on the table is generally taken as conceding the point, isn’t it ?

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I do not believe I am coming from this too idealistically at all.

Many on each side of the spectrum have become very used to only having discussions with those who agree with them. And shouting matches at those who disagree with them. In the real world and more so in the social media space there are fewer and fewer rooms in which people have actual conversations with people of very different perspectives.

This board has not suddenly developed more of a “‘anything goes, as long as it’s civil’ mentality” … if anything it has (and correctly so I believe) put more and more limits on speech that offends certain groups over time. What has changed is that fewer and fewer have any skill set or tolerance for tolerating being in the same space in actual conversation with those who they disagree with. The ability to listen, or at least the interest in listening, is decreased. Too many think they already know what the other actually thinks and why and are done there. And that makes it an unwelcoming place for everyone.
margin there is some (loud but smallish I think) group of “the same people” who do what you say. And there are many, really the majority here, who accused Ford’s detractors and Kavanaugh of lying, to use your example. Most here would endorse that the vast majority of the time someone who reports something as sexual assault is being truthful and that a denial by an alleged perpetrator is a lie

At the same time, declaring that anyone who ever doubts any specific report of assault is a textbook misogynist, end of discussion unless you want to be so labelled, as IvoryTowerDenizan would apparently have us do, is … problematic.

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You’re 100% right that it is! Tacit approval is absolutely a thing.

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Did you click the big red button?

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No, that is, in fact, how it works. Silence is approval.

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Allowing something very much is approving it (but I agree, is not endorsing it)

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Again Kobal2 you miss the context of the room. Those intellectuals writing those longform bits are not succeeding in changing anyone’s minds but they also are not trying to. They are aware that they are preaching to others who already think like they do and have escounced themselves safely in that room. They are playing for likes among their peer group.

Meanwhile you ignore the clear evidence I have presented that liberal views are in fact actually making steady gains in the marketplace of ideas.

To both you and MrDibble - I do not believe that this board allowing me to say something means that the board approves of what I say. I don’t believe you really do either. They approve my being allowed to say it, yes.

I think I have shared this before. I grew up near Skokie and was 18 when the American Nazis wanted to march there. My take then (and it would be the same today) was that they should be given approval to march. No, that was not approval of their ideas.

IF they marched and no one watched them or to responded to them, preferring instead (as I was advocated for at the time) to go to a circus set up as an alternate activity, to mock them, would the community had been approving of their ideas?

When you refuse to feed a troll are you approving of what they say?
Back to the point of this thread - the issue is not either or for this board or any of its individual fora. Pretty much everyone agrees that there are some constraints that should be placed and different ones in different fora. And no one thinks that we should make this a safe place where there is no risk that anyone will ever be offended and no potentially sensitive subjects can be discussed. Really the question is just about where the sweet spot for the line is.

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The reason I’m still around and haven’t been driven away by the transphobia on display: I just don’t open threads where a transphobic agenda is at work. It’s easy to identify which ones those are from the typical insinuations used by transphobes. Even when they think they’ve worded those insinuations innocuously—I’ve heard it all already and I’m sick to death of it.

As I’ve posted before in transphobia threads that were emotionally harrowing for me: Threads where people debate whether I’m a woman or not, or what level of slur they feel justified in directing against us, are really painful for me to read. Don’t give me any “debate” about people’s right to exist who were born this way. To even set up such a “debate” is dehumanizing and vile. I won’t debate anyone who believes I ought not to exist, I just scorn their evil bigotry. Logical contradictions run all through transphobia, and the fact is that those making such transphobic arguments have no coherent answers at all when you point out their logical flaws. They don’t want to debate the answers to these questions. All they want is for us to stop existing. That’s their entire program. We’re not going to stop existing. That’s why they will ultimately lose. All they can do is harass, harass, harass until our continued existence and fight for our equal rights will make them get tired eventually and give up harassing.

I’ve been immediately putting the worst offenders on ignore. That’s the only thing I’ve ever used the ignore button for. That’s how I’ve stuck it out this long. I’m grateful to all the SDMB cis people who have done good work in strongly refuting transphobia around here. It just gets too raw on the nerves for me to participate.

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Hey I made a bunch of driveby jokes, that counts for something! (I mean technically I’m agender but the politics of woman/agender are… complicated at best in these contexts).

But yeah, this board is largely cishet white dudes jerking each other off.

Anyway, if you want an analysis of the use of debate I recommend

Why Debating Sucks (According To A Competitive Debater) by Sarah Z and Is “Civil Debate” Actually Useful? by T1J. Both of them have more nuanced opinions than you’d expect from the titles that yes, striking down bad arguments and actually bringing up ideas the opposition has instead of letting them stand is important, BUT calls for civility are ultimately a tactic that’s unevenly applied and assumes everyone is coming to the table in good faith. Once example T1J gives is that if someone misgenders a trans person to their face, and the trans person threatens to beat them up, and you only condemn the trans person that’s unevenly applied because they’re both uncivil acts. He points out in general that civility unfairly favors bigots because if bigots are talking shit about your rights, your race, your gender/ID or sexuality or whatever, then it’s legitimately difficult to have a “civil” conversation because that’s a very personal and emotional topic for you. Trying to tear down peoples’ rights, even through debate, is a form of violence in itself, no matter how calmly and civilly it’s phrased. As the saying goes, “there is no such thing as peacefully advocating genocide.”

I also recommend PhilosophyTube’s videos on Antifa and Transphobia to varying degrees, they both address “civil” debate in small pieces. The transphobia one explores how transphobes inhabit a viewpoint of complete metaphysical skepticism (i.e. they can keep asking “why” like a toddler forever) that can make it impossible to make a cogent argument against. The Antifa video talks about how fascists abuse the “marketplace of ideas” concept to spread propaganda and gain followers regardless of their actual technical correctness. It (or another video, but I think it’s that one) points out that, well, everyone has their own facts. That doesn’t mean “all facts are relative”, but peoples’ ideology dictates which facts they feel are correct or biased or best supported. A lot of values are axiomatic. I made a big post about medical justifications for transgender rights in the “Gender is a Social Construct” thread going on now, but it bears repeating that medical/scientific evidence simply cannot support some arguments. It’s a matter of your personal philosophy about the world, and not something the body of medical or social science can solve aside from basic statistical questions (and even then in issues such as trans research the number of studies needed to give weight to some arguments simply doesn’t exist, or a lot of research is done by already biased people). A lot of arguments about rights are axiomatic not factual.

(Though note, both of those videos are long and only a small portion are about this topic, so watching them isn’t as important).

Finally, I find value in udiences and Echo Chambers, A Look at The Rubin Report by Jose, which gives a case study on how the “marketplace of ideas” concept can create a feedback loop that can drive somebody (in this case Rubin) to a specific ideology (in this case, the right) absent any facts due to community self-reinforcement more than actual debate.

There’s also the Alt-Right playbook, as mentioned above, which gives a series of videos about different tactics the right (and sometimes people in general) use to abuse the marketplace of ideas concept to spread their message.

My point on all this isn’t “watch a bunch of almost hour long videos (except T1J’s which is shorter) and get back to me”, though if you have to pick one I’d recommend Sarah Z’s followed by Jose’s, my point is there is a very reasoned, thought out, nuanced, body of work about why debate is not uniformly useful, and why it is not the right option in many contexts and for many viewpoints. Note that none of these are saying that we shouldn’t address the arguments or concerns of the bigoted, merely that debate is not always, and in some cases may be an actively counterproductive way, to do so. If you enjoy debating bigots, I mean… that’s fine I guess, but don’t convince yourself you’re some paragon of virtue fighting the good fight. If you want to abuse the boards dumb tagline “fighting ignorance” note that there are often better ways of fighting ignorance by bypassing the bigots altogether instead of trying to debate them. And don’t be surprised when minorities don’t want to play your game and have to “civilly” have life or death discussions with people politely phrasing their denial of others’ humanity, intelligence, sanity, or rights.

Finally, I leave you with this video, only 30 seconds! :slight_smile:

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I disagree. While good debate is enjoyable, taking down a *real *fucking idiot and Putting Him In His Place is enjoyable in and of itself. That’s why libs keep feeding trolls on their own boards. Compare and contrast with conservative forums/communities who will absolutely boot you if you show the slightest sign of not being hardcore conservative.

Also, the notion that liberal intellectuals only preach to their choir runs contrary to the prevalent discourse (or lamentation) that we don’t get enough cogent conservative voices up in here. On the one hand, I’d agree that bouncing off ideas against someone who deffo doesn’t share them but isn’t some tool can be productive in and of itself, let one explore; refine, sharpen one’s own ideas.
On the other hand, at the end of the refining process I can’t come until my opponent reluctantly concedes that I might have some semblance of a point :p.

I don’t really ignore it, in fact the growing popularity of marxist/anti-capitalist discourse among millenials and zoomers gives me some measure of hope ; but at the same time far-right views are *also *on the sharp rise all over the globe. And I’m not sure you’ve noticed, but um… they keep getting elected, too. And get to enact quite a lot of their shit ideas, thanks to the support (and signal boosting) of cynical neolibs… and “useful idiot” centrists who keep giving them platforms.

In a way that makes me feel pretty dirty, and in this specific case, I think I might gulp agree with Ben Shapiro (or at least, mirror one of his arguments). The only point in letting Nazis speak is to be able to humiliate them. The only point in allowing them to march is to follow them with a sousaphone.

But because humiliating Nazis doesn’t *actually *work to prevent more Nazis from showing up, then from an utilitarian standpoint, just don’t let them talk at all.

And, yes, letting them march and speak unopposed is de facto condoning their speech. In doing that, you’re allowing your town to become a platform for the spread of their speech, both at the expense of vulnerable members of your community who might get swayed and for the benefit of out-of-community people who might have come to see the show/hear the speech. What have your noble principles gained you, your community and your own ideas ?

Me ? No. When the mods let them troll, and keep letting them troll however ? Different story, innit ? Hell, I’ve tried recently to both refuse to engage someone speaking in bad faith yet make said refusal explicit and got modslapped for my sins. The bad faith arguer didn’t. And keeps doing it.

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There’s a large difference between making accusations of sexual misconduct in a Senate confirmation hearing, and making accusations of lying on a message board, in terms of real life consequences.

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Actually, I believe that is taken from an old Klingon proverb.

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Yeah but we made it jazz, man.

(still, point taken :))

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What do you mean by “substantial contributions”? Are you referring to quantity or quality? And how are you determining whether posters are women or people of color? I’ve posted here. I’ve also deleted posts I thought about making because I knew all too well how they’d be either ignored or attacked, and I’m tired of both. The real tipping point came awhile back when someone said my views as a sexual assault survivor weren’t to be considered because my experience must have biased me.

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I meant substantial contributions TO THIS THREAD, as measured by number of posts. In this thread, I am pretty sure I am the only woman in the top ten. This isn’t an insult to women . . My point is that most women don’t even bother with these discussions because they’ve been driven off, because they know they aren’t heard. That the damage to the board is real.

As for how I know, most of that top ten has been posting 10-15 years. At this point, we all oughta know each other’s shoe sizes and zodiac signs.

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Moderator Note

Let’s try to avoid sexual locker-room style comments against either sex. If you feel a need to make comments like this, do it in the Pit.

Also, treat others with respect in this forum. You can make your point without insulting the majority of SDMB users.