CareFactorZero's recent activity
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~humanities
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Comment on Thoughts on Free And Open Source Software in ~talk
CareFactorZero Link ParentExactly. As long as the common user still needs to open a terminal or RTFM to get stuff to work adoption will be a very long way off I think. Even as a techie, the customisation and stuff is fun...Exactly. As long as the common user still needs to open a terminal or RTFM to get stuff to work adoption will be a very long way off I think. Even as a techie, the customisation and stuff is fun up until the point where I need to find a driver for a device that's not functioning when I just want to get on with being productive.
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Comment on I'm new to Tildes. What must I know ? in ~tildes
CareFactorZero Link ParentI think /r/gue had some great ideas for civilised debate before it went quiet.I think /r/gue had some great ideas for civilised debate before it went quiet.
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Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - why should we allow (or not allow) fluff content? in ~tildes.official
CareFactorZero Link ParentI also agree. Another factor to consider is that because fluff content can be consumed and voted on much faster than let's say an article or a text post, it skews voting in a significant way...I also agree. Another factor to consider is that because fluff content can be consumed and voted on much faster than let's say an article or a text post, it skews voting in a significant way unless you explicitly account for less score weight for fluff in your ranking algorithm.
I believe a few years ago someone did a statistical analysis of reddit on this topic to determine why there was such a drop in quality content on the front page. While the early days had a lot of posts from /r/technology for instance, there was a point where the entirety of the first 4-5 pages of /r/all were advice animals and aww posts.
EDIT: wow, only saw the 1 hour ago, missed the 122 days on your post.
There's a decent documentary following the mail correspondence between the late Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson. They wrote to each other debating for a few years, then decided to get together in person and have a few public debates. I definitely fall on the Hitchens side and thought he easily won the discussions, but it was nice seeing the discourse elevated a bit from the usual emotive crap.
It's called 'Collision' and you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcUSpVH0Kmw
Edit: Thought I'd add to this after some thought to your question - there are ultimately two ways to debate a point, you can debate a person with the goal of convincing a third party audience, or you can debate a person with the goal of convincing them.
The latter is somewhat un-intuitive and requires a different approach than what you see in most online arguments. You can't simply directly counter points with facts and statements. This will convince the audience but the person across from you will shut down and do mental gymnastics to try and 'win' the discussion. You need to use Socratic questioning and a gentler approach in examining the basis of their assumptions without denigrating in order to have the other person logic their way to those conclusions themselves. Likewise you have to be open to following the thread questioning the predicates that make up your own beliefs.
Oftentimes the best outcome you can hope for is planting a seed with an idea that leads them to their own exploration of ideas. This is not the immediate gratification of asserting your intelligence over a person and 'winning' a debate in the eyes of a crowd, and it's rare to see people taking this approach when discussing polar viewpoints.