Total Freedom of Speech is Bad

@TheEmperorAugustus
I'm going to be gone for a lot of today, so my response might be done either late tonight, or tomorrow.

@Warburg
Every argument is constructive, or at least educational. While I much prefer and am better suited to oration, I participate in text debates regularly enough to know that above all else, they're endurance matches. Both sides have infinite prep time and infinite research, which means debates will almost always go on until someone tires of responding. "Winning" usually amounts to "being the last man standing". This isn't really a function of the debater's intent, so much as it is the inevitability of the medium. As time goes on, posts will increase in size, and the scope of the debate will expand without limit. Pretty much all text-based debates, even if they're about simple "yes or no" policy questions, will come down to values debates. It's the nature of the medium to force its participants to respond to everything and constantly add new arguments. Debates like this are terribly suited for spectators, as even that which is plainly said usually has a true intent or meaning only discernible by the participants, but they're unavoidable and offer much higher levels of education than simpler, more concise debates.

Of course, even knowing all of this, I can't escape the situation. While it is a match of endurance, it's also a platform to talk about pretty much anything at all. On top of that, it's only extremely rarely that anyone will engage in a debate like this, and it's equally rare that I get to use so many fun words. Most of all, though, there's the matter of reputation to consider. While there will be no absolute victory for either side, as the conflict is actually an unresolvable conflict of basic worldviews, at the end, one of us will part on our own terms and the other will get the last word in. And getting the last word in is always valuable, even without considering that is means "victory" over your opponent.

Everyone is being so polite that's almost scary.

I have to say, I'm a little bit scared right now.

No problem, I'll probably be asleep for most of your "day".

And I agree completely with what you said regarding the nature of text-based debating.

I would hardly call Kali's obsession with poetic insult or mine with pretentious insinuations polite but yeah, its not like the good old days with Che.

To be honest, I've only read like 4% of what you guys wrote

I've read maybe like 70% of the posts, and skimmed over the rest. At least they only come like once every few hours.

Hehehe this is funny and weird. it looks like the people in the forums are fighting a cold war (against each other), while back when che was here the forum was facing a ww2 situation.
Its kinda scary to see how history repeats itself even in the smallest of things.

Well I should probably not begin discussing this, but while a debate is an exchange of ideas, it's goal in the end is to provide an answer to the question or problem that was raised.(or to make your argument "win," if you want to nurse your ego) As you moved further and further away from the original element of the thread, you also moved further and further away from a satisfying conclusion and a summation of the different sides. Responding to everything is and should not be the goal for a reply, because once a point in the debate has been exhausted and both sides have nothing new to add, they should move on to the next point of conflict.

Well I actually enjoyed reading it,(otherwise I wouldn't have read it...) but I was somewhat frustrated at the lack of a centralizing point in your debate. The important stuff and gems in the posts were being obscured by the massive amounts of nitpicking and the somewhat odd need for correcting typos.(typoes?)

True, though I disagree with your last sentence, but we've already talked about that.

Kali and Warburg are having a debate about debates getting too long. Yet somehow, I fear the debate about debates getting too long will only grow until it gets too long.

I believe you are 7 hours ahead of him, so yeah.

Oh yeah...sorry.

Yeah I think that's going to happen too, but it would be rude not to respond to Kali's reply, though he doesn't seem to care about manners all that much. I'm probably going to concede to Kali at some point, but I'm interested to hear his reply on what the goal of a debate really is.

Personally, I don't see any problem with having debates about debates. Surely in a forum like this, how people understand the debating system and what it means is very important in our communications and how we operate as a community.

In fact, I find it disgusting that you disagree with me. You filthy, communist, scummy, rebublican, libertarian Nazi.

Well it was more of the fact that they were having a debate about why or why not debates shouldn't get too long, that seems to be expanding in that direction.

I know, it gets far too complicated and hollow an argument for me at that point.

We kind of did that; we both agree that what happened in the OP should be restricted. We just differ on whether that is tantamount to a restriction of freedom of speech/expression. And then the other stuff... which is relevant to the OP because... um... well. As Kali said eventually these things will devolve into clashes of massive chunks of world view vs world view. The only real way to stop that is time-limitations and well, actual judges. Otherwise we can pick up on everything and address it.

Typos.

And I'm glad to hear that, the goal, in my opinion of these is to educate people and I am of the persuasion that if its enjoyable, as much as it can be, then it will be more educating. Sometimes this works against me, as humour is quite subjective and often translates poorly without intonation etcetera. The typos thing is kind of relevant to that. Really there should just be a thread called "The most Effective way of Affecting an Increase in the Quality of Grammar and Spelling through Correction," I imagine it to be an excruciatingly boring thread.

edit - I'm sticking with affect.

Pretty much agree with the rest, so I'm only going to adress this:

While educating people might be the goal of this debate, I wouldn't say that it's the goal of debates in general. Humour* can and should be used in debates, but it can of course be overused and lead to confusion and anger, which sould be avoided.

*I'm still not sure whether I like British or American spelling here, but flavor(example) just looks wrong to me, and one thing I know is that you have to be consistent

I find it funny we have a whole page pretty much just of the aftermath of Kali and Augustus' first part of the debate.

Debate about debates, debateception?

I heard you like interpreting debates. So me and war put a debate about debates in your debate, so you can interpret while you interpret.

This thread has been home to some interesting debates, I think we should restrict this ability.

Wait, did someone delete my post while I was sleeping?
YOU BASTARDS!