Shoresy wrote:
Im a flawed asshole
I used to spend all night drinking and playing SC2 Mafia. So there.
Yeah, SC2 was perfect for that. Anyone that played a solid 500+ games got an insane understanding of mech that carries over to forum mafia very well.
We use to call drunk Mafia 'Playing mafia on hard mode'
When people could not challenge you just get waisted as you try to deceive and manipulate for giggles.
I think what we have today is more of the result of how the system is built than some grand conspiracy by an entire generation. Corporations being given personhood and the lobbying structure is probably more to blame for the debt model than a generation. When a corporation gets to argue against its own checks and balances obviously they move towards whats profitable. Then there is the removal of taxation on estate inheritance which was a control on the consolidation of wealth. Big surprise that when you have rich people in power they set the system in their favor.
Although I also strongly disagree with the whole 'equality in application' arguments that follow wealth redistribution through most social programs. And the sad truth is that being in poverty in America is still being very wealthy globally speaking and even being homeless in America you get a quality of life thats better than the majority of the global population. Americans do not recognize how well they have it.
There is a difference between blindly following a side and providing support for a side while also acknowledging their faults. I feel the ladder is a healthy way to look at political positions. When someone looses that ability to say "Yes my side did wrong here" and instead cuts to excusing that behavior when its brought up in conversation by arguing "But the other side did this" you have a very unhealthy and blindly biased position.
And the more sides focus on only holding the opposing side accountable the less power the people have. Politicians care more about what their voters think about them than what people who do not vote for them think. I believe if both sides were more critical of their own politicians and their own sides actions the interests of the citizens would actually be followed. And the reverse is true which I believe to be an intentional motive of both partys. To keep the public divided focusing on 'the other side' instead of trying to make productive change within their own side.
This is again why I describe this as an "unproductive pattern of discussing issue that favors some system and ignores the wishes of the public."
Degrees of wrong. Biden obviously pardoned people with conflicts of interest the same that Trump did.
Again, the argument of "But the other side did worse" justifying bad behavior is the problem. Between the diarrhea taco and the other being a vomit taco- I choose neither and call both of their behavior out instead of excusing either side.
I do not think its fair to say the big bang itself is some kinda faith thing.
Sure it can be debated about if it created life and a lot of the rest but its pretty objectively understandable that the thing did happen in some respect unless people want to argue against the basic understanding of physics.
I would generally recommend Max Tegmarks "Our Mathematical Unaversive" for skeptics. It walks through exactly how we know what we know from the size of the earth to it being round to its distance from the sun and how exactly we can measure the age of the unaversive and know that a big bang happened. Then it gets nerdy talking about the potentials of how the laws of physics could shift and how things could work in a multiverse.
But really regardless of creationism I see rejecting that there was some sort of big bang about on par with people arguing the Earth is flat. Possible ehhh.... sure... ish? But also kinda tin foil hat level of low brow takes.
RemyBrown wrote:
Then they are against human rights for certain humans.
Can you be more specific? Saying that Jews are against human rights for certain humans in response to my question is not very constructive to me understanding what your point is.
Double_R wrote:
Which is worse? That should not be what people ask when electing the leaders of a country. It should be flatly "Which is good."
This is perfectly fine if we’re talking about primary elections, but this ignores the reality of the dual party system we have in place. Once we’re down to our final two options, standards are irrelevant. You either vote for the lesser of two evils or you end up with the worst possible outcome.
This kind of thinking is exactly how we got Trump in the first place. Many on the left took issue with how the DNC pushed Hillary forward and decided to voice their discontent by abstaining from voting. The result is that Trump just barely won. As a result we lost the Supreme Court for decades, among many other things.
In 2024 a major segment of the Democratic Party was fiercely upset with the Biden administration over its handling of Gaza, so they decided that they would stay home or even vote for Donald Trump. They wanted to show the democrats that their vote wasn’t free, decision ended up costing them a candidate who at least pledged to fully support their cause and instead they ended up with a president whose philosophy here was that Israel needs to “finish the job”.
You can preach and even advocate for the world you wish you lived in, but you still have to live in the real one.
The funny thing here is that I am not preaching about a world I wish to live in. I am not taking a stance on Trump or Haris or Biden or Obama or anyone else.
I am simply voicing an unproductive pattern of discussing issue that favors some system and ignores the wishes of the public.
Odd take without reasoning. I am curious why you think this way.
Why are you specifically talking about Jewish people and why is it dehumanizing someone to abort them? Granted I do understand the abortion argument that 'they are not people' which is dehumanizing but there is a lot of pro abortion stances that maintain they are indeed human yet its ethical to abort them. I am unfamiliar with Jewish beliefs on abortion but I would also question if they have a consolidated position on the subject like the Catholic church who has a pope giving declarations on moral reasoning.
linate wrote:
If you like like vomit tacos the least and you choose neither, you basically end up eating vomit tacos, the ones you like the least.
You are trying to sound high minded and principled but you actually end up sounding short sighted and silly
Well to be more specific- I think the most healthy thing for any large group be that a political party or a religion is to self police. To be critical of your own side. This is a connotation you touched on in your intro post. How a lot of Trump supporters do not seem to be capable of being critical of them.
The mechanism in which that happens is the finger pointing at the other side. Its the "Yeah he did this BUT THE OTHER GUY DID THAT!!" mentality to excuse and ignore flaws arguing that 'your side' is less shitty.
I think that is counter productive at scale and the more people play in to the 'which side sucks more' mentality the less power a society has to influence standards for their leadership and have their concerns addressed.
I am not a republicrat or a democran but I am critical of this pattern.
Personally I think question itself is a rather toxic and damaging line of thinking.
Which is worse? That should not be what people ask when electing the leaders of a country. It should be flatly "Which is good."
If you offer me 2 tacos- one being a diarrhea taco and the other being a vomit taco- I would never choose to eat one saying "Well this ones less awful than the other." The more we process political ideology with this "Which is worse" mentality we loose sight of actually asking our politicians to be good. It lowers the bar to just having to be a little less awful (or just appear less awful) than the opposing side which is toxic to society imo.
I lost a bet that he would be removed in his first term with similar thinking. And they really did try.
I think its very unlikely this time around. You have stronger party control this time and greater corruption with the citizens of the nation having less say in what happens. I simply do not think this will happen. At worst if Trump trys to hold onto power and go like FDR did thats when they will get blocked out. Democrats may allow that sort of behavior in their party but 100% Republicans will vote for the other side before they allow such consolidation of power.
So whats your take?
Eyh
Random dude that wants this community to succeed. Im a flawed asshole and thats all I have to say about me.
True, but I do not understand adding adding ranked debate stats on debates nobody voted on in concept.
It would make more sense for it to become unranked or something at that point
I disagree. Super simple proposal made of just not counting stats on debates nobody voteson
I'd like it if no vote debates didn't affect stats, that can be really annoying.
I strongly agree with this. It hurts when you feel like you totally dominated in a debate and get punished because nobody bothered voting.
Yeah, I think its kinda silly the standards for how a debate gets voted on are so inaccessible. Unless you have someone feed you the link you would never know its there and how many people will go hunting and digging for a post they do not even know exists?
Would be positive if such information was tagged into debate signups and such. (Also that rubric's feature of allowing people to move the goalposts mid debate is awful. If you do not have conditions established before starting a debate what you have is a trainwreck imo)
A few thoughts
1- Just because someone went to a 3AM after party where people are having orgys and doing cocaine does not mean they did either. Same goes for the Epstein Island bullshit. Im not saying Alec Baldwin is not a pedophile. He very well could be. But I do hesitate to place that label on people. Racist, Rapist and Pedophile are the absolute worst things you can say about someone.
2- Its also interesting how few fucks the left gave until it was politically convenient. There were little squeaks about the Epstein files but somehow some way the second Trump gets elected people started screaming about it? That is pretty disgusting and reflects exploiting children's suffering more than caring about it imo. Every politician beating their chest harping about the Epstein files now that did not give a fuck the 4 years Biden was in office should be viewed with this in mind. If child suffering only matters when it gives you power you are worse than the apathetic person that does not care about child suffering.
3- Cancel culture should not be the answer. If there is proof these pricks should be thrown in prison (and hopefully someone can ehh 'handle' them in there.) "Dude banged children so I am going to protest by... not watching their TV show" is not a great direction imo. If he did it we need torches and pitchforks imo. Call your local BACA and ask for some KAP boys. If you know you know~
Hell, I called one out because the debate was not even a debate and the winning conditions were not even diametrically opposed. By rules both could easy win without countering eithers arguments. Win, loose, or tie would not even apply.
Sense I have your ear I will say 3 bits here
1- Yes someone picking the topic and the side gives a tiny advantage
2- Yes someone picking the rules offers a huge advantage
3- If 1 and 2 are the case the person creating the thread should not be allowed to shift the burden of proof onto the contender
I have seen this in topics and its kind of a 'fucking what' sorta moment for debate. That a person gets that much advantage and then forces the challenger to instead of countering their position they have to prove a position?
Granted voting and analysis and such is not high in threads but that dynamic adds an extra level to slanting things.
And on a side note, you may get more engagement for the site if you shifted the default display of stats to the higher tiers as opposed to displaying the lowest tier stats by default.
Would be super cool if there was a more formal way to go about it though.
The person proposing the debate is already at a MASSIVE advantage picking their side but also being able to uncontested set all the rules kinda makes a loaded system. You gotta recognize thats a bit of a turn off for people just looking to come and debate or avoid contentious issues like someone abusing AI in their debate without saying it up front.
You can accept or reject this feedback but I am presenting issues that make people more hesitant to participate in your community and could be changed quite easily to make a more fun experience that would generate greater engagement.
How do you do that? I only saw a join button and no way to challenge and negotiate rules. That sounds like an excellent solution tbh that could cover a wide range of the manipulation of the system that exists
Yeah. Kamala was a record setting level of bad that let him in. Its pretty awful.
I am hoping that the Democratic party figures out how badly they lost touch with the American public that they not only let him in but gave Republicans a majority in every area.
But at the end of the day I do not think it was about how well Trump did getting elected and more about how awful the Democrats did in so very many respects.
Trying to keep Biden in was a mistake that blew up in their face. Trying to push Kamala was one of the worst choices they could have made. Shifting marketing to extremist social positions was a bad move and they have listened way too much to an over vocal minority that is out of touch with the greater population. Now we get Trump running around like a lunatic.
But he got here as the less shit option. Not because he was truly wanted. And that happened because the Democratic party had their head so far up their ass they lost everything.
Well as simply as I can say it- I like the site and would like to involve myself more but I see an issue here.
Yes- Community rules exist and AI use must be disclosed. Yet that does nothing for the person who wants to avoid debating with someone who uses it. They can only disclose their AI use after the debate already starts. That feels like a trap.
Would be a quality of life improvement to have that declared before someone starts debating and its going to alter tracked stats. Seems like user is forced to debate something they would not have consented to if they had known which is pretty anti-fun and something that makes me question how much I want to debate here with a 'gotcha' function existing.
Really cool to hear the other style exists. I will look into it. Although a less formal and gated format would also be pretty fun to exist.
Well to be blunt let me compare it to chess again. If I decide to train and learn new strategies and moves playing against an AI or using an AI to recommend better moves I am growing and learning and its a positive.
Now if I bring that exact same tool to a Chess tournament its a disgusting level of cheating. Make sense how these things are not the same?
@SatanLucy "I dont think that should be mandatory, because if it is, no point in me starting or accepting any debates. the best I could do is make unwinnable topics, and when someone accepts, I hope that I am not the one defending unwinnable position." (Regarding randomized positions)
Oh I absolutely 100% agree. I am just advocating for it to be an option. Like having 3
1- Player makes his own prompt with his own rules and picks his own side having a massive advantage off the bat
2- Player makes his own prompt with his own rules but challenger picks their side equaling things out
3- Player makes his own prompt with his own rules and positions are randomized equaling things out but with a slight advantage to the thread creator
Would open up some fun debate concepts and mitigate some issues I see personally in my short time here.
But yeah, very honestly at the very least there should be an acknowledgement prior to debate starting if AI is allowed. Or at the very least an option to null the debate if someone gets in and realizes thats what they have to deal with.
I do not care for him much but there was something that made me snicker a while back. Someone pointing out in a meme that the dude is a multiple time convicted felon who was shot and has zero regard for the law and its our president.
For being a generally bad person and having some very questionable moves the guy is a gangster of a president who is fucking with the system in a way nobody has ever seen before.
I can just again say that I have zero interest in debating people regurgitating AI arguments. It would be one thing if both partys decided they will equally use such absurd advantage in the same way that there are chess games pitting computers against etchother. Its quite another if I enter into a debate and expect to debate a person but instead I am left debating someone echoing AI talking points.
In the short time I have been on this site this has come up multiple times and I flatly feel its rather disingenuous to rate peoples skill in debate as equal while you include people abusing AI as the same as people debating themselves. At that point may as allow AI in chess tournaments and call someone a grand master because they can use AI tools well.
Well lets just say for example I am debating about wages. I have a talking point in my head that inflation translates to lower purchasing power with effectively means the laborer is paid less.
My opponent brings up a point of in 2011 people got paid X and in 2025 they got paid Y
Ok, Now there is an established data point on a specific date. I know inflation went up- but what human knows what that number is? Nobody. A search can determine that and I can reference exact numbers.
This is in no way the same as me dumping my opponents argument into a LLM and it spitting out the counter point of inflation that I had never thought of. One is using a tool to grab a source and say "CPI increased by 42.73%" vs me making a talking point I never would have made if I was not reagitating an argument from a clanker.
These two things are not the same. And if I was debating someone thats just regurgitating AI arguments at that point why would I not just go and debate that AI in the same way that I play a person in chess because I want to test my skill against a person- not against a computer.
I got my toes wet with a debate but I feel the site would benefit from 2 changes-
1- Rules on AI should be hard established. Someone agreeing to play a game of chess is not agreeing to play against you while you use AI to suggest moves for you. Just because you pick the move does not make it any less like cheating.
This dynamic exists in debate to the same level- there is a difference using tools to grab data for your arguments vs using tools that give you talking points. I would propose that individuals who use AI should absolutely be forced to declare as much before hand. This issue specifically makes me question debating here.
2- Open format should be allowed with options such as contender picking a side of the argument or having the positions randomized. This would also create incentive for individuals posting topics to do so more fairly and not rig in rules that will put someone in an untenable position.
Also a personal thing- I find it much more fun to debate any position as it demonstrates true ability in debating as opposed to having strong talking points on just one side. It would open up a much more free competition that would reflect who is actually better which makes sense if you are to track a leaderboard. Otherwise I can simply make loaded topics with sneaky rules and blow up my stats which takes away from the spirit of what the site is going for.
