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ren546
Joined: 17 Dec 2010
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 Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 5:24 am Post subject: |
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| SpiralStaircase wrote: |
| Also, it seems Bill is not without a sense of comedic timing. See his reference to Stewart's "alzheimers pandemic' in the question round. |
Yeah I was actually impressed with the way he handled himself. He actually said a few things that were funny. He's still an ass, as illustrated by his treatment of the host, but not as bad as he usually is on Fox. |
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SpiralStaircase
Joined: 14 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 2:55 pm Post subject: |
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| My concern is that it symptomatic of a national character that is other than and inferior to what I would prefer. |
�When you are born you are given a ticket to the freak show. When you are born in America, you get a front row seat.�
-George Carlin |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
The entire concept of "winning" a debate is lost on the television viewership. To genuinely win a debate is a technical achievement: your arguments must genuinely and effectively refute those of your opponents while advancing your own positions, using only data which can itself be defended as legitimate. That's not really what happens in modern political debates, though, which are largely just softball Q&A sessions with very little real back-and-forth argumentation, and no real boundaries on telling outrageous lies. TV viewers tend to judge who "won" based on charisma, not substance.
A real debate -- one where vigorous standards of evidence are applied to claims made, and actual persuasive reasoning is employed in refuting your opponent's position -- is almost the antithesis of modern American politics. These "debates" are not debates at all, they're the verbal equivalent of beauty shows, and I'm being generous in applying the "verbal" descriptor, because I strongly suspect a large portion of the audience could make up their mind regarding who "won" with the volume turned off, so fixated are they on the non-verbal cues being displayed, and when what is said is actually taken into account, the greatest weight is most often put not on substance, but on zingy, "There you go again," style one-liners. |
True. That's why I use it as opportunity to grade the lying and deception skills of the respective candidates. Those are essential skills for a politician and world leader and I want to make sure that whoever I vote for is up to snuff. I guess that's one reason I liked Cheney so much in the VP debates. That's exactly the type of guy I would want at my right hand if I was dealing with some of the world's ne'er-doers.
I say that only partly in jest. Once in 50 years you just might lucky enough to get a human being who is both honest and moral enough to lead a nation and manage to successfully rise to the top, other than that you're stuck with some lying scumbag. And in that case I want my scumbag to better than the scumbag they have next door.
As for deciding who 'wins' debates, I again lean towards the "Persuasion" is more important than facts side of things. As a politician being right and stating facts correctly is useless if you can't persuade people to follow or take action.
Of course the flaw in this is that the most persuasive person is not necessarily the best leader or the most able to effectively govern (and not just in making the right decisions, but in handling the ruthless aspects of the job). That's one thing I sorta envy with the Chinese/Russian system, whoever rises to the top must be competent to some extent because if they aren't, they end up dead or jailed.
as for Stewart-O'Reilly, "winning" carried different objectives. O'Reilly's "winning" goal was more strategic- make himself more appealing to a demographic that wasn't very sympathetic to him and project a more genial image while scoring some points that would make people at least consider him. He could narrowly "lose" on some points and even the debate overall, but if he still accomplished those things it would be a strategic "win". Stewart's "win" would be in maintaining that appeal to his demographic and having a single strong performance to maintain credible and in promoting events and raising his profile. It would appear that both "won" the debate for what they were trying to accomplish. |
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SpiralStaircase
Joined: 14 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 6:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
as for Stewart-O'Reilly, "winning" carried different objectives. O'Reilly's "winning" goal was more strategic- make himself more appealing to a demographic that wasn't very sympathetic to him and project a more genial image while scoring some points that would make people at least consider him. He could narrowly "lose" on some points and even the debate overall, but if he still accomplished those things it would be a strategic "win". Stewart's "win" would be in maintaining that appeal to his demographic and having a single strong performance to maintain credible and in promoting events and raising his profile. It would appear that both "won" the debate for what they were trying to accomplish. |
I don't want to speak for Fox but I doubt he was referring to the Jon/Bill shindig. The only clear winner in the Auditorium gig was the audience and charities. There was no winning this 'debate' because there was nothing to be won (or more importantly, nothing to be lost.) |
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fosterman
Joined: 16 Nov 2011
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| Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 11:18 pm Post subject: |
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| anyone got the torrent? |
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actionjackson
Joined: 30 Dec 2007
Location: Any place I'm at
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 12:21 am Post subject: |
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| fosterman wrote: |
| anyone got the torrent? |
You can watch it on YouTube. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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