# Playing Devil's Advocate **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [October 9, 2018, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playing-devils-advocate/822716 "2018-10-09T18:25:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 2
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2018, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playing-devils-advocate/822716/2 "2018-10-09T18:33:14Z")
To reply to **senoy** ’s message in the original thread: > [@endangered species](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/endangered-species/822559/61): > > See, that’s what confuses me. I’m just a guy on the other end of a computer. I happened to like where the OP was going and I just didn’t feel there was a voice for that side of things. I argued it in good faith and put forward what I hope were compelling arguments, so what difference does it make for the purpose of the ‘Great Debate’ whether I wrote those arguments or whether someone who was a ‘true believer’ wrote them. The substance of the debate wouldn’t have changed. The arguments used wouldn’t have changed, so really what’s the difference? I’m open-minded about such things. Maybe the arguments I was advancing were changing my mind and your arguments pulled me back. In this case probably not because I didn’t find either mine or yours particularly compelling, but the possibility certainly existed. You might be a random guy on the other end of a computer, but I’m debating you not because I want to practice my grammar or give my fingers a workout, but because I am genuinely interested in understanding why you believe whatever it is that you believe. If we disagree, I want to know why, because that understanding will either change my mind if I decide that your arguments make more sense than mine, or it will allow me to explain to you why I disagree with your logic. The problem is, if you are – let’s say – arguing against gay marriage, and I debate you, but later on I learn that you are actually FOR gay marriage, then everything I learned from debating you about the logic of the anti-gay-marriage position is not actually the logic that a gay marriage opponent used to arrive at their position. It is the logic that a gay marriage supporter believes that gay marriage opponents use. I’m sure you’d agree that a gay marriage opponent most likely disagrees with a gay marriage supporter’s assessment of the opposer’s position. If you have some special insight into the mind of a gay marriage opposer – for example, you used to be one until recently – then SAY SO, because that also effects what arguments you will be making. If you say nothing, then I will have a mistaken impression of what people who oppose gay marriage actually believe, which isn’t fair to them (and yes, despite strongly disagreeing with them, I still want to be FAIR to them), and isn’t helpful to me. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playing-devils-advocate/822716)._