Food for Thought. Agree or Disagree?

Author: Sir.Lancelot

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#1
Sir.Lancelot
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  • The peak of any debate performance is knowing enough about the subject to be able to argue both sides competently. 
Do you believe that’s accurate? If not, what do you think drives the best quality of a debate? 

And I’ll throw out another question. 

  • Are polymaths technically savants over a variety of subjects or are they just jacks of all trades? 
#2
Best.Korea
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I think the best debating ability is the ability to reduce your opponent's case to pure absurdism.

That is, whatever principle your opponent uses, just use that principle against him.

If he argues that "X is harmful, therefore X should be banned", just argue "Banning X is impossible to enforce, therefore banning X wouldnt reduce harm" or "Banning X would cause even more harm".

I agree that knowing both sides of the topic is in great majority of cases the best.

Its like in chess. You must know your opponent's moves as well as yours, if you are facing strong competition.

Also, whats good in debates is using character limit to the fullest. 

Simple. If you used 10,000 characters, your opponent cannot refute them all with just 10,000 characters. He has to make his own case too. Therefore, he is forced to drop some arguments. Voters can then decide that those dropped arguments bring you victory, because opponent didnt refute them.
#3
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@Sir.Lancelot
  • The peak of any debate performance is knowing enough about the subject to be able to argue both sides competently. 
Do you believe that’s accurate? 

Yes. That’s accurate. 

Any good debater should know the opposing view and have rebuttals ready to fire off in anticipation of the other side putting forth the usual talking points. 
#4
FishChaser
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 Peak debate is always picking and framing your battles so that you have things to exploit and your opponent doesn't. 

There are different types of polymaths so maybe some are savants in a way.
#5
RationalMadman
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Do you believe that’s accurate? If not, what do you think drives the best quality of a debate? 
The highest quality debate can have 2 non apex debaters and apex debaters can participate in low quality debates.

One of the things I am most skilled at in debating is making both sides seem shitty, both sides seem absolutely dogshit rolling in the mud type stuff where I make my case clearer and some taboo techniques that border on gaslighting that are simply absolutely necessary arsenal and what even whiteflame and such do in debates regularly.

The way I debate is not that different to how I perform in high level strategy games that aren't chess-like but are more poker-like. What I do is begin safe and typical, stick to the fundamentals then as soon as I see ways to bait the opponent into wrong moves I basically make it so the right moves feel like the wrong ones, I am very skilled at getting inside most opponents' mindframe and I also have an aura about me (if it's an arena I'm known in) that adds to how effectively I do what I do. For instance, because I am RM alone, people expect me to make the debate some wild chaos by Round 2 already, so even if they go first, they somewhat panic and try to play it all very safe. What this means is whether they are prone to attack or defend when under pressure, either way there's a flaw to exploit (FishChaser is on point there).

I obviously don't win every time, I clearly am not this 'invincible' type of debater but you talk as if apex debating is linked absolutely directly to being an apex debater. You are wrong. I will especially against weaker opponents or opponents that both are newer to me and I am newer to, go for a medium-to-low quality debate, playing it safe myself and seeing how things go.

You will often find that the way I was able to pretty much 30-0 but I guess more like 28-2 the likes of Type1, Billbatard and Mall is that when I do such grinds, I think about ways to make it unclear to my opponent what the hell they need to clarify, defend, build on or attack in my case. The way I do this cannot be explained easily, it's very skilled but looks very trashy. I essentially leave weaker opponents shadowboxing for a lot of the debate, I am very very capable of seeing their flaws and understanding the low-tier way they interpret debates. Type1 actually began to improve on his Sparrow account. I began to up my own game then as I quickly realised he was understanding better when not to bother taking baits I laid and that is still fine, just meant I needed a more defensive approach than offensive onslaught.

I don't really know how to explain this but you basically can have very skilled debaters having medium quality to low quality debates especially if it's a generic topic. 
#6
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@RationalMadman
If I make enough forum posts will I be able to post topics or does it work some other way?
#7
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@Sir.Lancelot
  • Are polymaths technically savants over a variety of subjects or are they just jacks of all trades? 
It depends which polymath you refer to and how you are framing ingenuity and intelligence in the first place.

Some people measure by output only, so they'd always dismiss the genius that didn't achieve much or perform very well. Others only value words, others science skills etc.

I don't think a Savant is what that guy in the other thread said drove his own savantism of sorts; OCD. I think that a Savant is simply very naturally good at someone in some way and what they decide to dedicate their life or approach within that realm to is that specific way of doing it.

It is difficult to realise that savants are talented and refine it because it looks to many like they just obsessed over something enough to get that good at it, this is a fallacy. When you analyse savantism within games, suddenly it becomes far clearer.

In League of Legends, you have basically got 3 types of highly skilled players and one is the savant. Yet all of them may be good at LoL to a point where they seem to only be a LoL savant.

There are people who are so insanely skilled at 1 or 2 characters (called Champions) or alternatively play quite a few champions but only really understand 1 role. They are so extremely good at that 1 role with the small champion pool that they make it work. These people tended to be naturally gifted at the playstyle required for their niche and then refined it.

Then you have the hybrids, the people who are good (maybe mindblowingly maybe not, usually just good) at a small champion pool but who easily are above average at most. They are also balanced between mechanics and macro, they have this innate 'voice' in their head that surpasses raw instinct, great map awareness etc they even outrank the third type often on the leaderboards and career output, they are natural talent meeting practise.

The third type are people who in some ways are terrible at LoL. They often think too much and have slower reaction times, they compensate a lot with studying the game, theory-crafting, using builds that will blow your mind yet unlike savants not only doing that for 1 character/champion. Rather than know and do so much with a few characters for 1-2 positions, they know so much about every single character and item in the game. Their brains are databases, they study the game like their life depends on it. These people can often make better coaches than players in the long run as often because they are such deep and long thinkers that they keep failing to perform at apex levels when the crunch times comes to 'pull off' their mechanical skill in a situation. They will do very well but not extremely brilliant, they lack the talent but have the brain.

Each of these is extremely phenomenal in their own way and flawed in their own way. While the hybrid instinctive type tends to perform best, as soon as they retire or need to help others get good, they realise where the issue is. They are the type that aced all their exams at school but couldn't teach anyone much at all and refused to help their buddies with revision.
#8
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@FishChaser
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#9
Sir.Lancelot
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One of the things I am most skilled at in debating is making both sides seem shitty, both sides seem absolutely dogshit rolling in the mud type stuff where I make my case clearer and some taboo techniques that border on gaslighting that are simply absolutely necessary arsenal and what even whiteflame and such do in debates regularly.
Does gaslighting normally entail confusing the opponent by misrepresenting their arguments, so it's unclear to them exactly what they are discussing?

I've seen it done before, I was just curious.
#10
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@Sir.Lancelot
well yeah it does. That's my point. You actually have to be emotionally abusive to your opponent in more ways than just gaslighting, to be an apex debater, it's actually very sadistic in it pure competitive form, which is why casual debating without the wins or ratings attached is much healthier.
#11
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@RationalMadman
Thank you my sweet little sugar puff
#12
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  • The peak of any debate performance is knowing enough about the subject to be able to argue both sides competently. 
Do you believe that’s accurate? If not, what do you think drives the best quality of a debate? 

And I’ll throw out another question. 

  • Are polymaths technically savants over a variety of subjects or are they just jacks of all trades? 
For the first question, I’d say that’s largely accurate. Part of effective debate preparation is understanding the strength of both sides’ arguments. If you don’t, you’re probably going to be blindsided by someone who knows their side better than you do. To some degree, it’s about being able to predict your opponent’s arguments, though I don’t think the goal in doing so is to present pre-rebuttal, but rather to have some preparation ready for what you expect is coming and, most importantly, to know where the holes are in your argument so that you’re ready to defend them.

As for the second question, either could be accurate, though I suspect most cases of people considered polymaths are savants across multiple subjects.
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#13
Sir.Lancelot
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@whiteflame
What roles do offense and defense play in a debate?

Do Constructives = Defense, Rebuttals = Offense?
#14
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@Sir.Lancelot
What roles do offense and defense play in a debate?

Do Constructives = Defense, Rebuttals = Offense?
Constructives and rebuttals should both have offense and defense in them. Usually, if you have an argument with an impact, it’s offense for your case or against your opponent’s case, usually depending on where it appears.

Constructives usually are a set of arguments that contain mainly offense with a little defense built in to protect against some of the more dangerous arguments your opponent might make (e.g. why you’ve chosen the USFG to implement your plan).

Rebuttals are more varied. Your goal can be to knock down an opposing argument or rebuttal (defense, e.g. this point doesn’t apply to my case or this point doesn’t matter), or to turn arguments/the opposing case (offense, e.g. this argument is actually bad because, or this point supports my point because). There’s also counter-rebuttals, which are largely defensive of your constructive but can include turns of their own. Usually, it’s best to emphasize offense in rebuttals, but that’s not always the best way to handle an argument, even though it would be a net positive for your case (whereas the best you could gain from defense is negating a harm). It’s all about understanding where a point is weakest.
#15
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@Sir.Lancelot
The best defense is to be the one on the offensive.