Debates, Arguments, and Compromises

I never went in for formal debates either, for the same reason you gave. I think that a debate is just a competition to see who is the better arguer. Just because a guy wins a debate doesn't mean that he's right, or that he persuaded anyone to change their opinion, it just means that the judges ruled that he won on points. It's not so easy to determine who won an informal argument. Your opponent might pretend to agree with you just because he became tired of arguing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you really convinced him, or that he will conduct his affairs any different in the future. Some people who argue are sincerely interested in arriving at the truth of the matter, others are more interested in proving who's the better man, and others just like to argue.

I don't like to argue for it's own sake, but I do like to bring up points and counterpoints that the other guy has omitted for one reason nor another. I used to like to correct people's errors of fact but, over the years, I have become not as sure of my facts as I used to be. People like to call their own pronouncements "facts" and the other guy's pronouncements "opinions" but, truth be known, they're all opinions. Somebody quotes a fact from a source, but he really doesn't know for sure that the source is correct. He believes that that the source is correct, and "belief" is just another word for "opinion". Of course, the preceding statement is just my opinion.

What you said about compromises got me to thinking. You said that you try to get the best deal you can "and still make the deal". Well, what if I don't really want to make the deal? I remember one time when this guy was trying to sell me his pickup truck. My own pickup was pretty worn out, and I was thinking about getting a new one, but this guy's truck was one of those mini pickups, like the Chevy S-10. I didn't want one of those, I wanted another full size pickup like the one I already had. The guy asked me why I needed one that big, and I said that I used mine to haul firewood. He said, "You can haul just as much firewood in my truck as you can in yours, you just have to make more trips." Although I had to admit that statement was correct, I didn't want to have to make more trips to haul the same amount of firewood. Now a lot of guys would have tried to negotiate a price with him, just to see what they could get him down to. They might even have bought the truck if the price was right, hoping to resell it at a profit. I, on the other hand, was not interested in going into the used truck business, I was too busy trying to get my wood up for the season, and I saw no point in negotiating a price on something that I had no intention of buying. I know that a lot of guys like to dicker around like that, kind of like women do when they go window shopping, but I'm not like lot of other guys.

The stuff you and I talk about is different, no money or pickup trucks will ever change hands, and we know it. Some people might think that what we do here is just a waste of time, but I don't. If I wasn't doing this, I would be watching television. That's what I used to do in the evenings before I got a computer. This is more fun than television because it's interactive. They say that you're supposed to exercise your mind when you get old to keep it from withering away. While reading or watching TV can engage your mind, I don't think it's the same thing. Those things are passive, while this is active because you answer me back and I answer you back. I could get the same thing in a real life conversation, but then I'd have to put my pants on and go somewhere in the middle of the night, or somebody would come here and I'd still have to put my pants on. I've got nothing against pants, you understand, it's just that I've been wearing them all day, I've already had my shower, and I'm going to bed pretty soon. Who needs pants at a time like this?