Instigator / Pro
16
1499
rating
52
debates
35.58%
won
Topic
#5488
It is a Poor Debating Habit to Accept instead of Instigate
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 4 votes and with 12 points ahead, the winner is...
Intelligence_06
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Rated
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- One week
- Max argument characters
- 3,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
- Minimal rating
- None
Contender / Con
28
1737
rating
172
debates
73.26%
won
Description
I notice a lot of the leaderboard is filled with people who Accept much more than they Instigate debates. I argue to help real life debating skills this is a poor practice to make.
Burden of proof is shared
Con must argue that Accepting debates instead of Instigating debates is a good practice
Round 1
welcome to the debate. Now what is debating about? Debating is increasing your ability to communicate in various topics, and in essence improving your research, persuasive, and rational analytic abilities. However, I argue that Accepting rather than Instigating has multiple flaws.
1. Real Life Surprises You
Look at it this way, in real life, no matter if you are wronged or you have wronged, you would be forced into the "instigator" position. On debateArt, nobody is forced to accept. But when you instigate, you basically force yourself into that specific topic you have chosen, regardless of the enemy. You could face anyone. And that's how real life works. You don't choose when someone might murder someone else, you don't choose when someone steals something, and you don't choose when someone violates the civil court cases. The "Accept" position certainly cannot implicate the murder of someone. I'd have to be used to the Instigator position in order to propose: This man has killed someone. Therefore, Instigation puts you in a more versatile position to real life, since real life, people will rarely give the chance for you to accept or decline the debate.
Even if someone was accusing you in real life, you could not refuse to "accept" and would likely attend it anyways. Since Debate Art is not a legal system, there is no consequence of refusing the debate "the contender has killed a man". However, the Instigator position puts more pressure on you to adapt to the real life issues. If someone accepts the debate I could potentially lose my rating, thus I put my hands into my skill versus the enemy skill. There are many issues in real life you simply cannot run away from. Con would basically be trying to say that any legal consequences can be escaped no matter what. And that just doesn't make sense.
2. A good Debater should be able to argue anything
Think about it this way, if you only accept debates, that implies you handpick among what other people think they can argue. You can select the weakest opponent, or a strong opponent at their weakest, and refuse to think of any topics of your own. You know what that's similar to? Cherry picking fallacy, or maybe even Strawman fallacy. You can always look for the weakest version of a debate topic, or the weakest member. But Cherry picking is one of the worst ways to debate. In data, one cannot simply pick the most profitable or seemingly enticing arguments, without looking at the whole picture. By Instigating, you essentially allow the whole community to come and pick apart your argument. You allow yourself to steelman by essentially saying "look, I can accept anyone in the topic!" Indeed, imagine if instead of researching a dozen articles to fill your argument, you only picked the first result on Google Scholar. It's much easier to refute one single article rather than a dozen all contributing to the same conclusion. Therefore, the instigation also allows you to see a variety of potential arguments.
Restating my very purpose,
argue that Accepting debates instead of Instigating debates is a good practice.
Which is basically "accepting, as dissociated with instigating, debates, is good practice". All I need to show is that accepting, which isn't instigating, is good practice.
Trivial Fact 1: If something is poor habit, it is undesirable and we should stop doing it ideally.
This makes sense. Drinking a glass of wine per dinner isn't really poor habit because it doesn't kill you like downing 2 packs of iced beer at once, and usually only the latter is bad habit.
Trivial Fact 2: Just because something is "better" does not make the other inherently bad even when it is "worse". Both can be "good".
Proof by induction(loosely, but I ain't no math major): If we consider bad habit relatively to proximal actions, donating by any amount is bad practice if we assume more => better for the recipient because you can always donate a penny more than you did, which is better, making your current amount look worse. Following the logic, there would be no satisfactory amount for you to donate, as long as that amount is finite. We can't not donate either, as zero is even worse for trivial reasons. I think this case alone demonstrates how ridiculous a purely relative reference system is.
Similarly, just because getting 1st worldwide is better than 2nd does not mean being 2nd at anything is bad at it.
Assume the topic is true, as a statement after TF1, the syllogism therefore yields: ideally, nobody should accept debates because it is bad habit.
This is comically absurd, because there would be no debates if nobody accepts debates, which is a logical conclusion from if accepting debates is "bad habit". I would rather argue that accepting debates is good practice solely because it keeps experience gaining possible. You wanna get good? You debate. You debate? There is bound for someone to accept for that to take place. If an act is an integral part of the very procedure keeping a desirable quality attainable, it should be done, which means it is good practice.
Again, when something is tied to a societal niche where society would worsen without it, we shut up. Smoking and inhaling toxic gas? Bad habit. Oh, you are a minor? I-nevermined. Living outside in the rain with barely any food? Bad routine. Oh, you are a soldier? Thank you for your service. Bad habits are no longer bad when it is needed.
In this case, when one accepts a debate, one perpetuates the debating ecosystem by filling in this necessary role for its prosperity, meaning this is good practice. Even if instigating is a more meritorious thing to do, merely the comparison does not guarantee that accepting debates is actually "bad habit" due to the example in TF2. I think both are good. I do not need to(and by character count cannot) refute anything Pro addressed, and I will use leftover space for such purpose if the next round opens up.
Either way, thanks for reading this. Nya~!
Round 2
welcome back to the debate, round two!
Con tries to argue that a "poor habit" means it should not be done at all. Well, just as getting drunken every day is a poor habit, does not mean one cannot get drunk at all. I do not really follow through with his syllogism. His wine analogy just proves that even "bad habits" when done in moderation can become good habits. Due to the patterns in the top debaters, from Oromagi to Barney, it's clear the "habit" innately just means that they do it very very often. So when they get into the "habit" of accepting instead of instigating, that inherently means your instinct is to only accept debates and refuse to Instigate debates. And that might result in not accepting any at all. In fact, the very idea of being the Accepter means you can keep dragging on and on... taking forever, and not take any debates for years in advance. So long as you eventually find the one perfect noob to snipe, you'd get into the habit of "accepting" even if it takes you years to find the perfect opponent.
Anyways, Con does also argue that Some benefit is better than No benefit at all, but it's difficult to say for certain that accepting a weak debater offers you any benefits. In fact, it might actually cause detriments. A one round noob sniping encourages you to prey on the weak. A poorly worded topic encourages you to kritik semantics and argue about "Oh look, he should have said *almost* always instead of always!" Thus, your debating skills may very well weaken if you only Accept. The instigation part forces you to define rules, words very carefully, set out the context surrounding the whole thing, and strongman your argument as best as possible. Since people do want to win, the Accepter/Contender position puts such an immense benefit to you, that it will be likely one used to such generous conditions will suddenly be surprised when accused of theft or murder in real life. And thus they would have wasted time and suffered detriments instead of gaining benefits. I will admit that the Instigator does need an Accepter to accept the debates, but that's not to say you couldn't just take turns. Accept one debate for every debate you instigate. You give and I take. That seems reasonable to me.
In any case, bad habit does not mean immoral action, and is not an absolute to mean that the action cannot be done at all. I just mean especially when it is formed as the habit, it is a poor habit indeed. Accept in moderation! That is my motto I say.
Restating my purpose:
All I need to show is that accepting, which isn't instigating, is good practice.
This is not being contested or mentioned from Pro so it, by normal practice, stands still.
TF3: If an act results consistently in net good even though it roots from an act consistently of net evil, it is still good.
What this means is, when a bad habit consistently results in net goodness, it ceases to be a bad habit. When one drinks a health-boosting amount of wine daily, it is simply not a bad habit, even if the average drinker indulges in an unhealthy dose which is. Then again, you do not consider miners breathing coal dust every day a bad habit even it results in lung cancer for them, simply because it is net beneficial to wider society.
To Pro's description, the act of accepting is harmful to one's own intellectual enrichment. Pro does not deny that the very debating ecosystem of here depends on people accepting, so this sounds like a sacrifice on behalf of the environment just like a coal miner sacrifices his health for running electricity. Considering this a bad habit would be disrespectful to said environment, both the coal plants and this site.
Again, because Pro's false meddling results in an inadequate understanding of the properties of good habits originating from what could be considered bad, the claim that "good practice ought to be done whereas bad practice ought not to be done" stands still as well.
TF4: Accepting is more practice than none.
You actually get to practice when accepting, and debates are no longer ever accepted, no intellectual clashes occur and everyone's skills deteriorate more than if acceptors willingly sacrifice.
Per TF3, all acts predictably resulting in detriment is bad and should not be done, vice versa. Accepting debates is not only an integral driver of activity in this platform and the debate scene in general, making it existing at all, but also decreases the debating skills of one to a lesser extent as accepting is at least some practice whereas the lack of said integral driver would halt all future practice.
If we consider more skill & more productive activity on this platform or generally the debating scene a net good, then accepting debates is simply a good practice because it net promotes both as opposed to its absense. Even if what Pro said was entirely true, accepting debates is a necessary sacrifice for the environment that can be easily fulfilled by anyone in the community with ease and with amusement. All of these do not point to that it is bad unless solely to one aspect of self, which would be less holistic than to consider the greater good of society or any community in question.
I am done. Nya.
Round 3
well played Con, well played. I think I established the topic poorly, but I'm surprised Barney didn't catch the potential weakness in the setup. I concede the debate.
I accept the concession.
gg.
gg.
I made too many mistakes in the second round due to it being written in the 30 minutes prior to my last podcast appearance on my school's broadcast station as I am graduating next week.
"Again, because Pro's false meddling results in an inadequate understanding of the properties"
Pro's "false meddling" (which I only phrased such pungent words because I am unable to think of more elegant and precise phrases within the same etymological niche) should be the EFFECT rather than the cause. It is caused by the inadequate understanding, rather than causing it.
"which would be less holistic than to consider the greater good of society or any community in question."
The entire sentence of which this excerpt was contained within is entirely redundant as individual deterioriation was already implied when such acts on a macro-scale would ideally result in the total collapse of the environment, which guess what, contains all the individuals.
"TF4: Accepting is more practice than none."
I would argue that writing "TF" then proceed to not use it in even a nominal syllogism is comically as blaphemous as the Chinese boy band TFBOYS. Good one from me, mate.
Also, bolding only one phrase from the last productive paragraph brings as many cackles from my within as the last one is capable of. What was I thinking.
I do accept the concession. Although I have genuinely rushed and compromised this debate, the man said it himself and I should not exceed my mannerisms to lose my ratings over one of the rare sights on this website in its current habitat, that is, rated debates with people actually willing to talk back.
I am too tired to read calculus at this moment so I am here to fresh my noggins. Don't blame me, blame Stewart and Axler.
And that is why you are losing some of the battles.
Yeah, like when I write 5 rounds in advance and just copy paste.
Battles are decided before they are even fought, pal.
Sorry, I dont know what that means.
If you are relying on the version of yourself on the last round (or even the second last round) then you are not being consistent enough.
Accepting gives you the last word, which means you can make points the other guy cant respond to.
I mean no one starts their own debates anymore so u gotta start your own and wait for people to accept.
Meh I was mostly being cheeky. Even white flame could propose 100 debates to you and you could probably find the one that would be hardest for him and make it difficult for you to lose. In that term you’d be S tier. It’s just real life doesn’t allow for that a lot of times. If someone wrongs you, you have to instigate the court case personally and defeat them. You can’t pick your fights all the time.
I take no offense at that. My debating skills are good, but far from great.
Someone like RationalMadman who loses quite a bit, has slowly but steadily grown to become better than me.
IMO, I'd be in the lower range of A tier, so like an A-. Not even an A+, and certainly not S tier.
Pro may have a point, but I find it ironic that you of all people agree, given that you're third on the leaderboards, have never lost a debate, and yet have hardly instigated any debates on this site. No shade, I just think that's kinda funny.
One can do both.
Wholly agreed.
There are tactical advantages to it, but for growing in skill being at a disadvantage is better.
On the other hand, instigating a debate without any easily exploitable loopholes is a lot of work. Then there’s no assurance anyone accepts the challenge.
Thoughts?