2025-09-20

Debate Bros

Yesterday I saw a video analysis of a "debate" that Charlie Kirk had at Oxford with one of their students. A female student, which adds insult to the injury, by the way. But it's not about Charlie Kirk but debate practices he used.

But going back to the subject at hand.

My debating friend

I had a friend who would love to debate. That was the word he would always use. Not discuss, not talk about, no. He would debate absolutely every thing. As someone practising ataraxia and suspending judgement, I was a tough nut to crack. Whenever I would like to go into details, he would get upset and said he wants an opinion, not discuss "the shape of the water." Over years I got, alas, dragged into exchange of simplified opinions. There was a psychological aspect at play there, as in: these interactions were giving me something. I still cannot pinpoint what and I don't care that much, but I could experience strong anger-driven engagement. It's a powerful high for sure. I think I stayed so long in this relationship because I was hoping to get through my friend's thick skin and maybe not necessarily to talk some sense into him, but at least show him there are better ways to discuss stuff with people than coming with predefined outcome of that discussion to only prove his points. Looking back, it's crazy that it took my years to realise that's impossible, either due to his stubbornness or inability to do so.

But to the point. My friend would literally shout to me: "Debate me on this! Debate me!" and I would always reply that if he wants, we can have a discussion. Even if he agreed, though, he would still debate me. :D Sneaky bastard. Discussion would always mean that he's not really listening to what I say and only tries to fish out stuff he has a recourse prepared to. It can tire you over time. But there was no will to understand the arguments of the other side (me, in this case, but I saw it many times as a spectator, e.g., when we would lunch at work and someone would recklessly sit at our table).

If I tried going into nuances, he would cry out that he's not interested in semantics. But over time I started seeing it and started distancing myself. Our last exchange, in person, was about Gaza (shortly after the October 7th) and he didn't even let me finish making my point because he was so eager to basically repeat Israel's propaganda points. And that was it. So, the sad statement was, that he didn't even have any deeper insight about anything. And he didn't discuss. It was a waste of time.

Real point of debating

And this brings me to the second video, this time from Charlie Kirk's Turning Point's YouTube channel: British leftist student tells Charlie Kirk facts are unfair

In short, a young man tries to ask if manipulating facts is intentional or a form of incompetence. None of the "debators" actually tries to understand his point, instead they debate it. :D Oh, the memories. And they posted it believing that it shows how a leftist cannot make a coherent point.

At one point, Candace Owens asks the young man in question if he expects that Charlie Kirk should debate himself. In short, I would expect that. You should be the first to try to tear down your own arguments, so you can strengthen them. But that's not their point. Their point is to win the optics of the discussion in eyes of the audience. That's not an honest discussion. That's word fencing. And that's the thing with Debate Bros: they don't step up to search for any sort of truth. It's a stunt, a performance. Its purpose is to lure as many people into the simplified vision of the world for either political or financial reasons. But as I know from my friend, Debate Bros can do this also for the sake of the feeling.

On that one, Mike Masnick had a nice text recently: The “Debate Me Bro” Grift: How Trolls Weaponized The Marketplace Of Ideas. Basically what I said but more, and with examples.

Conclusion

So, if you ever meet a person who insists on "debating" you, don't. Just don't. Because most likely they're not after truth, they're either after proving their point for internal satisfaction or after some other gains (like influence or funny bit to use to lure even more people). They know all sorts of tricks and they have experience. If you're not armed to the teeth, you're better off spending time with someone genuinely looking for connection.

In short, as Dan O'Sullivan said this week:

"Fuck debate. Debate is stupid"