Public debates strengthen society and public discourse. They spread truth by testing ideas and filtering out weaker arguments.
I think this is extremely not true, and am pretty disappointed with this sort of “debate me” communications policy. In my opinion, I think public debates very rarely converge towards truth. Lots of things sound good in a debate but break down under careful analysis, and the pressure of saying things that look good to a public audience creates a lot of pressure opposed to actual truth-seeking.
I understand and agree with the importance of good communications here, but imo this is really not the way. Some alternative possibilities:
Private discussions with experts that get summarized publicly afterward.
Adversarial collaborations with public writeups on tricky subjects.
Public talks where people can ask questions on confusions.
Panel discussions involving experts with different opinions.
I’m sure there’s a bunch more here; these are just some ideas off the top of my head. In general, I think there’s a lot of ways to do public communications on complex, controversial topics that don’t involve public debates, and I’d strongly encourage going in one of those alternative directions instead.
I think this is extremely not true, and am pretty disappointed with this sort of “debate me” communications policy. In my opinion, I think public debates very rarely converge towards truth. Lots of things sound good in a debate but break down under careful analysis, and the pressure of saying things that look good to a public audience creates a lot of pressure opposed to actual truth-seeking.
I understand and agree with the importance of good communications here, but imo this is really not the way. Some alternative possibilities:
Private discussions with experts that get summarized publicly afterward.
Adversarial collaborations with public writeups on tricky subjects.
Public talks where people can ask questions on confusions.
Panel discussions involving experts with different opinions.
I’m sure there’s a bunch more here; these are just some ideas off the top of my head. In general, I think there’s a lot of ways to do public communications on complex, controversial topics that don’t involve public debates, and I’d strongly encourage going in one of those alternative directions instead.
Cross-posted from LessWrong.