I like the article, but in practice he is not talking about 'debates'. On the contrary, all the stuff he says is bad for debating, is actually all the stuff tha

I like the article, but in practice he is not talking about 'debates'. On the contrary, all the stuff he says is bad for debating, is actually all the stuff that would help you 'win' in a debate. The key difference being, he seems to be talking not about debates, but about discussions. Or about dialogue. I.e. where the point is not 'to win', but to improve the state of knowledge in both groups, for the sake of making 'better' decisions more generally. In fact, the only way one can 'lose' at a discussion, is by treating it as a debate and 'winning', thereby ensuring no net benefit to either speaker. The whole point of a debate, on the other hand, is to be won. In the best case scenario, winning a debate is a means for effecting a decision. Whether they are honest or not is largely orthogonal to the process. I have come to loathe debates. I have honestly yet to see one that was actually useful.