I’ve long despised debate — if you’ve been here long you know how opposed I am to debate — and the recent debacles with the Jubilee channel, which invites one person to engage 20 people with an opposing ideology, has demonstrated how terrible this format is. It’s simply an opportunity to give idiots a platform and to promote bad ideas unfettered by constraints. I’m a broken record on this topic, but fortunately, Rebecca Watson can articulate why these people, and this concept, are awful.
One thing that annoyed me is that Rebecca got a copyright strike and had to edit out a segment showing the one apparently honest attempt at communication within the debate. So much for Jubilee just encouraging the free expression of ideas! They’re a machine using controversy to generate clicks.
If debate had any use, then after the debate with Mehdi Hasan there would be 20 far-right conservatives less than there were before.
I have not watched this video yet but I am pretty sure based on what I have heard that Jubilee did a bit of switcheroo and billed a different debate to Mehdi Hasan; I watched the whole thing and there is no way Mehdi would have participated if he had known that Jubilee would have had actual fascists. Mehdi even stopped talking to the fascist at the end of it.
Jubilee did: they told Mehdi that he would be debating “conservatives” and never mentioned that it would be actual fascists until the start of the “debate.”
Jubilee makes Springer look classy. I’d like to think that if he were still alive, he’d fix that.
I read Mehdi Hasan said afterwards
“I don’t debate people to change the other person’s mind. I debate people to change the watching audience’s mind.”
Which I think is a fair point? However, 20 shouty voices against one, whose minds will be changed, or which preconceptions confirmed, in the audience?
Drew @ 4
“Springer” makes me think of the German Springer Press, whose flagship is Bild-Zeitung, the most Murdochian non-Murdoch newspaper in the world. It is whatever the German word for “gutter press” is. Very apt namesake.
-’20 shouty voices against one’ is the way islamic propagandists organise debates with non-muslim or just non-fundamentalist debaters. Funny how similar it is to fundie Christians.
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Crossposted with the infinite thread.
Going off on a tangent, but the internal MAGA debate emerging from the cognitive dissonance cracking up is brautiful to behod.
I mention it, because you deserve a bit of schadenfreude going into the weekend. Trump has lost the qAnon Shaman! 😀
“Trump’s Epstein Furor Grows as MAGA Karens MTG and Boebert Demand Answers”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=uRfhbJbgvbI
Ozempstein!
True debate was conceptually designed to be an academic exercise in presenting facts and honest supportable opinion points in favor of two opposing viewpoints on a subject, in order to educate the audience.
Debate today is almost always just a brawl of people spewing incoherent opinions trying to overwhelm any participant that tries to be controlled and rational. I refer you to the example of tRUMP talking over other candidates, endlessly spewing gish gallop bullshit in the out-of-control presidential ‘debates’ while the moderator is usually rolling over and peeing on themselves like a submissive puppy.
Debate is also built on a presumption of good faith and honesty. Modern debate has neither.
#6 birgerjohansson
Apparently it’s: Skandalpresse
I’m with Rebeccca Watson here – I think its subjective anbd depends on the debate and I do like watching some debates that are done well or focus on raising points and arguments and ideas rather than personal attacks and insults. They can be good if done well. Intelligence Squared and Oxford Uni have some good formal debates on youtube FWIW in my view.
OTOH, yeah, platforming and promoting outright fascists is evil.
Also how representative views are vs the science is a point that is done really well by John Oliver here – Climate Change Debate: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (under 5 mins long) with a truly represenative debate on Global Overheating – experts vs Deniers..
So pro’s and cons and depends how they are done and moderated and on the debaters.
^ Huh. Link fail take II : John Oliver Climate Debate
@1. rietpluim : “If debate had any use, then after the debate with Mehdi Hasan there would be 20 far-right conservatives less than there were before.”
If Rebecca Watson is right about one of the participants there may well be one less fascist or conservative now due to Mehdi’s debate. Perhaps. At least that we know of.
“I’m with Rebeccca Watson here – I think its subjective”
Welcome to this concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersubjectivity
@ ^ John Morales : Thanks.
Mehdi Hasan discussses his debate & answers questions here –
Surrounded by ‘FREAKS’ and ‘LOONS’ – Mehdi on His Viral Jubilee Debate 35 mins long on his Zeteo channel.
Mehdi Hasan comes across really well and makes some very good points as usual.
Plus see
Mehdi Hasan Breaks Down His JAW-DROPPING MAGA Debate 15 mins.
There’s also Kyle Kulinski’s clip on this here (12 mins length) and also Novara media’s video here (12 mins 55 secs long) too. Some covering of same ground natch but still.
Yeah, the Overton Window sure has shifted for the worse – fallen right into an overflowing sewer now it has – and then sunk.
A lot of people seem to think debate is two old, white guys standing behind podiums talking at each other. It’s the discussion and testing of ideas and it can take place over a myriad of platforms and media. Two old guys, (one of whom is often babbling nonsense) talking behind lecterns is a performance, not a debate.