I'm here to give my brain a workout, debating with and against people of intelligence about topics I find interesting. I hone my debate skills so that I am better in real-world arguments, and I learn a lot about the subjects of debate.
Honing the debate skills indeed. Someone work-related made the mistake of trying to argue some claim of mine over email. I replied in a manner like we do here, point by point, and totally demolished their argument (complete with weblinks for sources).... they got all pissed off
On the other hand, I complaind to an airline and they replied via email to which I replied, debate-style, and they ended up giving me a $300 voucher
(their original email reply denied any compensation but I argued my way to some...score!)
My debating is so much better than the average person I run across and I believe I owe it all to this site.
I thought of another example, but this one was verbal and not written. I was arguing with a guy in a gun shop about what we can and cannot do and we end up talking about the actual gun laws. He goes on to tell me what the law says and I told him that I think that he might be wrong about some of the particulars but since we can't really look up that actual laws here standing in the store then we were at an impasse and there's really no point in debating further. He said that I was being a smart ass
I went to the state gun law website and looked up the actual legislation and it turns out that there was an exception he was unaware of and that he was wrong in his argument. I never went back to tell him though. Had we been online it would have been settled.
Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.
Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.