First let me say that I have never ever done this. With that out of the way let me expatiate on my question.
This occurred to me when I was reading of the homeless man in Portland charged with stealing the wedding ring and backpack from one of the slain victims of the Nazi dirtbag. Now my first thought (and still my firm belief) was that this was a despicable act and should be punished to the full extent of the law.
But I have a cantankerous spirit inside me which delights in exploring the opposing view to even the most seemingly obvious of positions. I’m sure it’s a leftover from my Debating Society at university where you were sometimes tasked with arguing the opposite of what you believed in order to make you a better debater (and actually I think it does).
So this adverse spirit starts thinking, he’s a homeless guy, shouldn’t the widow and family if they are Christians welcome the fact that the possessions of their loved one, now useless to him, will give comfort to a homeless man, for however brief a time? Remember, I don’t buy this for a second. But could it be argued here? And bear in mind you couldn’t actually say you didn’t believe it as this would fatally undermine the power of the argument that you wish to convey. “What sort of argument is that? Even he doesn’t believe it!”
Of course the fly in the ointment here is trolling. How could you differentiate between the genuine debater trying to win an argument and the troll interested only in raising a shitstorm? I suspect the answer is that it would not be easy and that therefore this would not be admissible on the board. Which is a shame because sometimes the best debates are between those arguing for the love of debate and rhetoric and not simply because they believe what they are saying.
But I thought I’d ask. (And let me underline that I wouldn’t dream of debating thus without prior mod permission.)
I think it’s perfectly possible to play ‘devil’s advocate’ on the SDMB. It allows for the exploration of opposing sides and for a greater understanding as a whole. Frankly, it would benefit most of our debaters to be forced to try to justify their traditional opposition every now and again.
What is NOT permitted, however, is the choosing of sides and arguments solely for the purposes of stirring up trouble and causing hard feelings. That would be trolling. Making an argument just to cause commotion is strongly contraindicated here.
So…best practices? When one is playing devil’s advocate it’s best to label it as such. “I’m not sure I agree with this but I can see an argument…” and so forth. Make sure that all involved know the reason you’re taking your position and use it as a means to examine all sides of an issue.
An important distinction between a troll and someone playing Devil’s Advocate is that, like JC said, the troll is only interested in stirring up crap. He won’t be engaged in any kind of honest debate, will ignore or dismiss any evidence that refutes his argument, and usually repeats the same old nonsense over and over again. A troll will not acknowledge that his position or his argument is wrong. If you are honestly playing Devil’s Advocate, you might want to be careful debating honestly. It’s easy to slip from DA to T because of our inmate desire not to lose an argument. And anyone who disagrees with that is just wrong. Period.
Thanks for stating the board’s position. I do think it something of a handicap to make clear one’s position at the outset but I see the necessity of it and such a handicap could well serve to sharpen debating skills.
An interesting question implicit in the OP is how many people participate in threads (GD, Elections, Pit, or IMHO) who are debating as a skill exercise in itself versus pushing their stated position as a persuasive effort?
To be sure, there are some people here who do the formal debate team thing. But not many.
As evidence, consider that we used to have a thing for threads titled “Resolved: blah blah blah”. That lasted until there was a hue and cry that many people misunderstood that debate team jargon to mean “It has been utterly proven that blah blah blah is true. Just *try *to undermine *that *fact you contrarian losers!”
The most recent “Resolved:” thread is 6 months old now. The immediately previous threads are 15 months earlier and 9 months earlier yet. Prior to then (late 2015) they came up about every 6 weeks or so.
It seems our days as a debating society as opposed to an argument clinic may have passed.
I would argue you must label it as such. And, even then, you may find that people don’t believe that it’s what you are doing, since claiming “devil’s advocate” is often just a smokescreen.
To do it right, you need to flat out say what you actually believe, and then say you want to try to find the arguments against what you are going to say. And then stay consistent with that. Don’t start getting all defensive or insulting. Stick with debating.
And then don’t do that on the same topic over and over.
Are you arguing that from a Devil’s Advocate position?
I think people are being overly sensitive to debate topics. If someone is exploring a line of thought and wants to see weaknesses and strengths in a position and is behaving in a civil fashion what does it matter what that person believes at that instant?
I don’t think there needs to be or should be a purity test in order to discuss a topic.
I find that I will sometimes argue on a subject that I am ambivalent about or not particularly interested in, because something else in the thread sets me off.
For instance, I get into FB discussions about Muslims fairly often, not because I have an interest in that faith but because someone has posted an obviously fake meme and vicious fakery really gets under my skin. So, I end up posting, not to defend Muslims but to expose the lies.
I guess that comes under “Devils Advocate” but it doesn’t quite apply either.
At least I do try to back my posts with as much reasearch as I can and I never knowingly post something that isn’t true. I think as long as you stay honest, you can post from any angle.
The problem I see, on this board anyway, with playing Devil’s Advocate is that too many people don’t read a thread without jumping in with denunciations and vituperations and name-calling because they believe that you hold those opinions sincerely. If the debate goes beyond 3 posts or so, you almost have to repeat the DA disclaimer in every post.
That said, I wish we could do more honest DA-style debating on this board, there is a huge echo-chamber here and not enough quality dissent.
Maybe we should create a forum dedicated to actual debate club style debates. One where the basic ground rules are that nobody is assumed or expected to believe (or to disbelieve) whatever position they’re advocating for.
I don’t know, maybe we could put the word “debate” in the forum title or something as a signal to everyone else?
To build on that, one of the best ways to win an argument is to build the best case that you honestly can for the other side, and then knock it down. If you can’t do that, your side is potentially in trouble.
I’m quite confused by the OP (and some of the answers). What right does someone have to know what my “real” position is regarding some argument I make here in an OP? And by what right would they be entitled to request my thread be ended simply because I’m making an argument contrary to my past tendencies? Are we so incapable of recognizing trolling behavior that we are worried about even the perception of trolling? A troll’s sin isn’t the argument he/she/it picks per se, but rather the way that he/she/it goes about attempting to discuss the subject.
Let’s use an example: Suppose tomorrow, Bricker*, who is known to be somewhat “conservative” around here, starts a thread arguing in favor of a Basic Living Stipend. He presents a fairly cogent, logical argument in favor of paying such a benefit nationally. Several “liberal” posters are shocked, since of course, this is not viewed as a particularly “conservative” concept (actually, there are a lot of libertarians who argue in favor of the idea, but I digress, or, to use my new favorite word from the OP, I expatiate ). Some of them suspect Bricker of trolling them in some unknown way.
Let us go further and suppose that, in actuality, Bricker opposes the concept (please note, I have no idea what position he holds on the actual idea). His thread is designed to help him understand the “liberal” position for such a concept, and to find valid logical attacks on the position. In short, he’s “debating” the position for edification and elucidation, not for any nefarious purpose (like trolling).
Is there someone here who thinks that this would be “wrong”? That he needs to get permission? That he needs to identify that he’s not truly supportive of his arguments? Why? What particular aspect of our basic rule, “Don’t Be A Jerk” is he violating?
And let’s suppose just for kicks and giggles that he starts the thread and advances the argument, but that he deliberately hamstrings his arguments. That is, that he’s engaging in a time-honored debating tactic of arguing his “real” position by showing the inherent weaknesses of the alternate position in how he frames that alternate position. Is this somehow wrong? Are we so incapable of spotting this sort of argument that we worry we’ll be shown up somehow? Would Jonathan Swift be warned and banned here?
I certainly hope not. I think we are made of sterner stuff.
I chose Bricker because he and I go WAY back here. I am not in any way making fun of him with this post. Indeed, I consider him one of the posters here most capable of engaging in such debating techniques. It’s an admiration on my part. I hope he doesn’t mind.
Well, the moderators here place a pretty high bar for banning (or even warning) a long-time poster for trolling, so I wouldn’t worry about that at all. Trolling is about intent-- taking a position or posting about an issue mainly to get a rise out of people. That’s not always obvious, and so it seems like the mods tend to err on the cautious side. Generally, I think that make sense.
Unless one is a psychic how does one discern intent? And if it’s not the position being advocated but the person advocating the position that gives readers the vapors I say the problem is inherent in the readers not the writer.
No one is being forced to read and with thousands of alternative threads I don’t see any issue with people debating a point.
Of course. He would be lying about his position. He would be misleading people into thinking his opinion had changed. Lying is one version of trolling. It’s why umkay’s stuff was trolling, even before the death claim. There’s also people from before my time, like Wally or some fake trans person. Or some other poster I don’t remember who pretended to have some disability but turned out not to. All trolls, and all banned.
Allowing this sort of thing makes honest debate impossible. Because you can always claim that’s what you were doing when called on it. That’s why you have to make it clear up front.
In a normal debating context, there is an assumption that you may be required to argue something you don’t believe. That’s fine. There’s also satire, where you make it clear that you are being facetious in your arguments from the get go. That’s Jonathan Swift. (Or how we sometimes snark.)
Demanding integrity in debates, making them honest and not dishonest, is not about weakness. The desire to do so without telling people shows the weakness in your arguments. You must think that they wouldn’t work if people knew you didn’t actually believe them.
I actually resent that anyone would try to characterize requiring honesty in that way.
Are you trying to intimate that there’s a difference between the desires of people who are inmates and those who are not? I suppose, given that they are kept under confinement, such a person would often be more frustrated in their ability to express their more intimate desires. On the other hand, I wouldn’t expect to find any innate difference between inmates and non-inmates.
