I am arguing in favour of a loose confederacy of city states against a big ol’ federation or a republic. I didn’t take it to full Anarcho Capitalism because I doubt I could get many people to take it that far if they start in support of a republic. (I am U.N Owen BTW)
On the topic of that particular site, it looks pretty interesting actually. Found another good debate:
“And yet all of these random anarchists who only signed up a week or 2 ago are coming out of the woodwork to vote on this random, extremely lengthy debate that’s not even featured anywhere near the home page lol… got it.”
That’s what bothers me about the site. The winner is determined by the reader’s original position. If more statists end up on the debate page, statists are going to win and vice versa.
From most of my browsing, it would appear that AnCaps or other Libertarians almost always win their debates. If Ron Paul is even mentioned, his supporter will win by an outrageous number.
Sieben, I understand your concerns, but I feel it would have been dishonest of me not to vote. It matters not where I am from, nor how I discovered the debate; these things do not change the contents of the arguments presented. The only relevant question is: “Did I read the entire debate, and was I impartial in my decision making process”.
I can assure you; the answer to both these questions is " absolutely, yes".
With that being said, great job on your win (hopefully)!
Here is the irony (and NonAntiAnarchist pointed this out on that website), she (a democratic statist) is complaining about the majority voting system, while the anarchists are advocating an impartial arbitrator. LOL.
This is the system she wants, and those are the rules of the game, so she has nothing to complain about.
I think the votes should count for more if the voter’s position changed. So far, every voter agrees afterwards with the same side they agreed with before.
Reflecting on how rubbish and embarrassing the comments to Sieben’s debate have become (I can understand being passionate/interested enough about a subject to want to continue discussing it after the formal debate is over, but it’s not just that), maybe it would be best to avoid arguments with such a wide scope in the future. There are far, far too many points to cover. That’s how both Sieben and theLwerd end up accusing each other of being confused, whether about the other’s points, defitions, or what have you. It’s just too much ground to cover, especially with the apparently strict character limits. Furthermore, it’s probably too optimistic to hope that anyone who’s willing to debate on a subject like anarchism vs statism who comes down on the statist side has actually extensively read Rothbard, Murphy, Hoppe, etc. As such, the bigger the scope of the debate, the more they will resort to the usual fallacies and superficial criticisms of anarchism that would be much better answered through an exploration of the literature than a constricted debate such as this one. The more specific the topic of the argument, the more in-depth knowledge of the subject will be required of both sides.
Well it is a broad topic, but you’re supposed to pick some core issues and stick with them. If you pick random arguments, drop half of them during the round, and then make up some new ones and introduce new evidence in the very last rounds, then it gets chaotic.
But isn’t that inevitable with such a massive topic and with relatively little time to prepare, especially for one who probably doesn’t often debate anarchism?
sigh yes you are right. On a website like that with all these informal, ego-driven debaters it is not a good idea.
With judges who will vote down abuse, it would be a good idea.
Abuse is introducing new evidence and new arguments later in the round. The whole point of a debate is that people have chosen what they think are the best arguments to begin with, articulate them in the beginning, and spend the rest of the time arguing about them and only them.
So, its a broad topic, but if she had opened with “somalia sux in anarchy here’s why” and stuck with that, it would have been a much better debate. Instead she just jumped around… apparently not even understanding the difference between anarchy/states.
in debates, I try to be as aggressive and dickish as possible. I never try to convert the person I’m debating with as they are a lost cause, I just use them as a tool, much like a sparring dummy, to demolish and make a demonstration for observors whose interest might be piqued by the whole debacle.
You should at least start off with the high road… particularly in terms of being fair. You don’t want to unfairly win a debate. An example might be if your opponent is confused and doesn’t understand something, instead of laughing at them, you should try to explain it to them. If people feel like you’ve won fairly, they’ll have a lot easier time sympathizing with you.
No one on the comments section was accusing me of delusion or dishonesty. Can’t say the same for my vitriolic opponent.
Earlier I mentioned a possible website enhancement (for debate.org) that would allow debate participants (pro and con) to mutually decide on a judge or a panel or judges, and restrict voting exclusively to them in a “closed vote”, instead of an “open vote” where presently anybody can vote.
In such a system, all debates would be an open vote by default, unless the debate instigator should chose the the proposed closed vote option, which the debate contender would agree to by accepting the challenge.
But until then, an alternative would be an “American Idol” system, such that mutually agreed upon judges could provide guidance on how others should vote. Then at the end of the debate, the judges would provide feedback and cast a vote.
Informally, these judges would declare a winner, even though everyone else may vote with them, and affirm the decision, or not, and thus nullify. Presumably, these judges would be listed in the debate challenge itself, which both parties would agree upon.
Because nothing has changed in the actual system itself, the official scoring would still be with the majority voting in open vote.
But anyways, the voting gap on this debate is closing up, so act appropriately:
(hopefully)!