Short of the other person specifically saying “you win” or words to that effect, is it possible to honestly believe one has won an online argument? I tend to think no, because it’s never really possible even to know that the person you’re arguing with has even seen your final devastating argument demolishing their position. or maybe they saw it and considered it to be so worthless as to be unworthy of comment. Or that it’s not worth their time to keep bothering with you even though they are thoroughly unconvinced.
Someone said, somewhere that most of the time both ‘parties’ of arguments in the SDMB leave the argument believing they’ve won.
There are little arguments where someone states some statistic or fact, someone else corrects them, and then they say something along the lines of “I stand corrected”. You could say those arguments have a definate winner and definate loser.
Usually, no.
I’ve been engaged in a few debates(not here), where it usally devolved into ‘‘you’re gay!’’ 'no, you’re an idiot"! or just endlessly beating the crap out of the dead horse of a subject, likely by using semantics and mistakes to continue it further. That’s what a portion of pit threads devolve into flame wars after 3 or 4 pages of heated disussion.
As Lobsang said, chances are if the question is indeed factual in nature it will be answered and their would be no real discussion after that point. Only that would settle it, forever.
There are several factors involved of course. These include the nature of the argument, how strong each side feels, the evidence presented, how open-minded the two arguers are, and how ‘hot’ the argument is.
If the argument is over two deeply seated beliefs, then I’d say no amount of logic, evidence, or rhetoric is going to diswayed the other party.
Some subjects are just so complex that it’s almost impossible to address every single aspect to the satisfaction of the other party.
Some subjects, especially involving religion, cannot be conclusively “proved” to someone who has already entered the debate with firm, unshakable beliefs. Threads like these are excersises in futility. I have yet to see a person from either side say that their mnds have been changed.
It also greatly depends on with whom you are debating. Some people will never admit they’re wrong, even if piles of evidence stare them in the face. It’s never possible to “win” an argument with such a person.
I’d say it depends on how the parties approach it in the first place. People who go into discussions all hellbent they know what’s right and are by-gum, by-golly gonna wear down anybody who disagrees won’t ever achieve much beyond, well, lots of shouting. Might provide some aggressive jollies for them but that’s about it.
If changing minds can qualify as “winning”, then yeah, I KNOW it happens, and it’s happened here. Don’t have the time to do the searching right now, but there’ve been threads about things Dopers have changed their minds about because of discussions. I think it takes an open mind and mutual respect to pull it off though.
I know I’ve changed my mind on a few things here. None of my beliefs are so etched in stone that a convincing argument and reliable supporting evidence can’t change them.
Yep, I have to agree with Lissa here. I’ve changed my mind on a few issues while here, but almost never in a single thread.
I’d say it’s really hard to win a single debate online in terms of bringing someone over to your point of view, but over the course of time you certainly can.
You’ve usually won the argument when the other guy shuts up. It doesn’t happen often, though.
One time I remember was when someone was arguing that “Gone With the Wind” should have had an indication about the white on white violence in the ante-bellum South as put forth in a scholarly book on the subject. I pointed out that the book he was referring to was written in the 1950s, long after both the book and movie versions of GWTW were put out.
Interesting, I view my shutting up in a thread more the result of the argument degrading into a cyclical re-statement of views, rants, or ill-concieved and poorly stated questions (usually of dubious relevance to the topic). When it becomes clear that nothing further of any consequence is going to be discussed, I’m out of there. I hate to think now that others view my leaving as proof that they won the argument.
