How about:

"We need to introduce the no-touch icing rule in the NHL."

Heh. Perhaps that's too mundane. Alternately, how about:

"We should give free heroin to drug addicts, to prevent them from committing crimes to raise money to feed their addiction."

Or that classic of high school debate:

"Keeping animals in activity is cruel. Discuss."

As a lifelong hockey fan on both the corporate and international levels, I'm fully credentialed for the first option. As a resident of a city with a bunch of heroin addicts, and a provocative mayor, I'm partially credentialed for the second.

As for the third, going to the aquarium bums me out.

I'd like to argue about the rules :-)

In particular, for the abolition of the naively unworkable rule 3.

My proposition is that you cannot think of a single topic (apart from a mere dispute over facts) which isn't ultimately political as soon as you start to anaylse the disagreement and set it in context.

‘It’s one pound for a five minute argument, but only eight pounds for a course of ten.’ I would choose to argue about television, perhaps on whether it is better to read Spinoza than watch Big Brother. I would be interested to argue the apparently indefensible contrary, even though I lack credentials: being neither a philosopher nor a reality TV fan.

1. I would like to argue that arguing just isn't the way forwards
2. I'm not very good at it at all, thus my choice of topic
3. I think I meet 2 here
4. That sounds fine to me
5. Very suitable
6. A week is fine with me
7. Peachy.
8. I'm not sure about this, but I am prepared to go along with it

Flotsky's argument (1) is deliberately self defeating. If, by some miracle he were to win, then that accomplishment alone would disprove his premise. A logical paradox, therefore disqualified.

Andy, on consideration, I agree with you.

Isn't there a Monty Python skit about this? ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Argument_Skit

Asking for an argument is perhaps dangerous, but since you asked... I'd like to argue that your employer, Caterina, that is, namely Yahoo, is wrong to help the Chinese government jail dissidents. I would argue too that you are complicit in the jailings of dissidents because you have kept silent on the issue.

Karma check? I haven't jailed any Chinese dissidents lately. How about you, Caterina?

Angry man:
DON'T GIVE ME THAT, YOU SNOTTY-FACED HEAP OF PARROT DROPPINGS!

Man:
What?

Angry man:
SHUT YOUR FESTERING GOB, YOU TIT! YOUR TYPE MAKES ME PUKE! YOU VACUOUS TOFFEE-NOSED MALODOROUS PERVERT!

Man:
Yes, but I came here for an argument!!

Angry man:
OH! Oh! I'm sorry! This is Abuse!

Man:
Oh! Oh I see!

Pete Rose deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

The only reason he is not in the HOF is that they say he broke the rules of Baseball.

He should be banned from baseball,, however this has never been a criteria for other sport's Halls of Fame (FOH).

1) He started breaking unwritten rules by running to first base on a walk. This routinely turned into doubles now everybody hustles to first.

2) He was thrown out of baseball and put in jail for is illegal actions. This is justified punishment, but the HOF is about on field performance and his stats speak for themselves.

3) Lawrence Tailor broke the rules in Football, was coked up for many games, but he's in the Football Hall of Fame.

4) Gretzky gambled on sports -- he'll be in the hall of fame.

-Craig

Hey Craig, don't be besmirching our national idol. What's wrong with gambling on sports other than your own? If I'm an Irish hurling player, should I not be permitted on, say, the Mexican soccer league?

No besmiriching intended, Gretzky deserves to be 'THE HALL OF FAME'.

In re-reading your post, Ms. Fake, I think my first suggested topic is too political in light of Rule #3. I will reframe and broaden the proposed argument as "The Moral Equivocation of Yahoo, Google, and MSN as they seek to expand their markets into China and Beyond." Regardless though of whether it is framed as a political argument or one of business ethics, it should interest a fairly wide readership. I await your reply.

Dutifully Yours,
Daniel Stout

Daniel, one of the rules was credentials. From your tone alone I'd happily wager $100 that you've never been to China, know anyone well who grew up in the PRC or have even read a history of modern China.

However, if you're getting your in-depth political news from BoingBoing, getting credentials might just mean reading the whole Shi Tao verdict** yourself and spending five minutes really thinking about what actually might have happened.

As easy as it may be to imagine that Hu Jintao calls Terry Semel up personally threatening to kick Yahoo! out if they don't help nail some particular political target, how plausible is that? Chinese police serve subpoenas on local managers just like police do all over the world. They don't say who they're looking for or why. It's not optional on the Chinese employee's part. And, to quote Michael Callahan, Yahoo!'s Chief Counsel, "I don't think it would be appropriate for me to sit in my office in California and order a Chinese citizen in our Beijing operation not to follow a lawful command".***

If you actually wanted to have an argument about a substantive issue in this area, it'd be: should companies who disagree with Chinese policies operate in China, knowing that they will have to comply with local laws and that that may have consequences which they don't agree with. That's a legitimate and interesting question.

In contrast, your grade school reasoning (not to mention your Nigerian spammer rhetorical style) is not only not interesting, it leaves you incapable of engaging in any substantive debate.

Karma check: I have't trolled any random blogs today Mr. Stout. Have you?

** The only thing I've actually seen is the English one on RWB's site. I have no idea if it is real or not. The idea that people are able to obtain Chinese court documents -- particularly official ones which happen to be published in English (?) -- seems a little dubious and they don't explain, but who knows.

*** Quote from: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/13885725.htm

Perhaps the distinguished posters are proving Caterina's point about online arguments, rather than inspiring her to engage in one? :-)

We could do a bit of a meta-argument: regarding the old trope about the "quality/civility/tone of debate/discourse/discussion has declined/diminished/become shrill, etc." I'd argue, of course, that it was never that civilized to begin with: "Ma, ma, where's my pa?", anyone?

Nah, that's been done. (The history is really pretty clear. Most of the people still arguing that civility formerly existed are misty-eyed non-readers with a 'saving-remnant' fixation.)

So: how about something a bit more tangible and very right-now: "The debate over 'Net-Neutrality' is bogus. Commercial carriers should and must be able to decide their terms of service. The internet economy is mature enough to handle it, and perhaps in a very unexpected way."

As credentials, I can really offer only my hopefully obvious civility, my alleged impartiality (I do not work - and have not ever worked - for a carrier or for an entity that gets substantial money from a carrier), and the quality of the writing and thought in this comment.

Your other terms are all hunky-dory, although I realize I've proposed a semi-political issue. But I suggest that it's not political in the party-dividing, "baby-killer", epithet-hurling way you probably had in mind; rather, it's an issue of substantial public importance that is currently present in public debate, but without all the hypersensitivity of... other stuff. (Then again, I'm living out of the U.S. right now, so it's hard for me to say how hypersensitive it might be to people in The Valley and/or Industry...)

All that said: I'm short on other ideas, but I'm desperate for a 'good' argument as well. Perhaps we should start a Slash-ish site where you get modded based on your adherence to the site's 'Principles of Honorable Argument'? An interesting social experiment if you could gain adequate critical moderator mass to keep the trolls and neanderthals at bay...

(Of course, one of the principles might be: "Keep it short", and I'd - often - be lost. )

BTW, rockin' Franklin quote yesterday. That's a keeper.-CML

How 'bout tagging? Flickr really helped tags go mainstream. However, I think tags and tagging has already expanded beyond their basic utility.

How about smoking bans in restaurants and bars? I am opposed to them.

Nothing "too political"? I would argue that anything worth arguing (at least in a public space) is inherently political. Even an generically interesting high school debate topic might fail this test. For example, take the topic of immigration. One side: immigration into the United States is good, invigorates the society, economy and nation. The other: immigration is a devil's bargain that dilutes the national identity, inhibits the development of natives, and weakens us in the long run. A promising debate, albeit political.

Of course, two can always argue if Kirk or Picard is the better Starfleet cap'n. I guess that ain't political.

My credentials: I have a contrary mind and I like to argue, as well, and rarely get the chance to have a good one online. As far as immigration, my mother's immigrant side pulls me one way, and my father's "Grapes of Wrath" type of heritage pulls me another.

Pick your side and I will choose the other. By the way, the name I chose above is a childhood moniker and in no way a tribute, copycat, or ID theft.

I would be interested in arguing that authentic happiness is more important than money.

My credentials:

* 1st year graduate student at MIT researching happiness
* I argued this for 10 minutes with Om Malik, and neither of us raised our voices
* My dad is a senior corporate lawyer, I've learned a lot by osmosis

Hmmm... I think you'd have to spend your first three turns of 500 words just defining your terms. 'Authentic' happiness sounds like something you'd have to go to a doctor to have verified...

But, as a general rule, I'd say your thesis is inarguable. It's like saying 'Love is more important than sex.' Duh. The question is: can you be truly happy without *any* material goods (money, housing, clothing, good food, a guitar, etc. are all included), and can a truly sexual person have true love without any sex?

I think the latter is the more worthwhile question, but is largely dependent on personal experience: if you've had the kind of soul-sustaining lovemaking with a partner that remaps your opiate receptors as effectively as heroin, you'll go one way; and if you haven't, you'll go the other.

I'd argue that you can have tons of money and no happiness, but that you can't have tons of happiness and no money. (Only enough money to buy food and shoes and housing, OK. But not *no* money.) And having a sugar-daddy/mommy with all the money does not count...

:-)

Well, there's really only two major kinds of philosophy. The normative variety is almost always about some kind of behavior that you can relate back to politics. But, the existential variety might actually get us somewhere...

Except I think most of it is bogus.

Hmmm... there's also the artistic/literary...

"Neal Stephenson is a mad genius but desperately needs an editor!"?

"Post-Modernism is, like, so yesterday!"?

"Color ruined film-making!"?

Hope everyone had a happy May-Day,
C

I just saw this and I love the idea... I'm not sure whetheer you've already selected your argument yet, but I do have one topic that I might be interested in "arguing," and that is the topic of whether bloggers should be considered "news-gatherers" under the law and afforded the same protections granted to professional journalists.

While there is no Federal shield law to protect journalists, many states have established strong shield laws which protect journalists privacy and insulate them against having to reveal sources and unpublished material under court order.

This issue has recently come up in the case of Apple Computer's suit against the publisher of Think Secret and another Mac rumor blog that I can't recall at this moment.

In a somewhat similar case, I was recently subpoenaed by the Federal Grand Jury and ordered to turn over my unedited footage from a protest I shot this past July. The story was recently covered in the SF Weekly.

Obviously, I contend that bloggers should be afforded the same protections as professional journalists, and if you feel differently, I would gladly engage in an argument.

Thanks

Josh
mail@joshwolf.net

Adding a small "A Yahoo! Company" beside the flickr logo on all flickr pages :)

-- amr

I suggest to discuss this: Arguing is pointless because for that you have to assume that you share enough context with the other person that resonable arguments will even be recognized.

You don't rethink everything in your mind all the time. You have to cache previous thoughts and those turn into prejudices. Reasonable people may have along the years developed different prejudices and a short argument will probably not find any common ground on anything that is complicated enough to matter.

How about that? My credentials: I am a reasonable person.

Christian,

I didn't want to get overly technical, but I meant Authentic Happiness in the sense of Positive Psychology (http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/). Philosohpy turns out to be a poor way to argue this... I talked to a philosopher and the context is all wrong.

You can argue the same point in economics, the rephrase would be along the lines of "Money is a poor approximation of utility."

Hope this makes my proposed arguement clear. Thanks for the counterpoints.

I think you should argue with Paul Graham about whether now is a good time to start a company or not. Of course, if he's unwilling/too busy, I'd be willing to argue about the same topic. I don't have anything resembling his qualifications, but I'm not bad at arguing. As an example, I'll respond to your point about talent being scarce:

Economists would say that talent is scarce; people generally aren't willing to give it away. In common speech, 'scarce' means hard to find or obtain. Talent is not scarce by that definition. I think the fact that you can't find talented people who want to program in PHP is an indication that talented programmers don't care for PHP, not that talented programmers are especially hard to find. My first thought when I read your side note was "I'd do it if it was Python, Ruby or Lisp"[0].

I recently spent a few days in Silicon Valley for Startup School. I had the good fortune to be invited to stay at the apartment headquarters of a self-funded startup. Despite operating on a shoestring budget for about 18 months, they have attracted several smart and motivated programmers and have a great product in public beta.

It's easy to find talent if you're offering people something interesting to work on, good tools to work with and talented coworkers. Good compensation or the potential for getting rich helps too, which might explain why all the people building yet another Myspace clone are having a hard time hiring talented programmers.

[0] My dislike of PHP shouldn't be taken as evidence that I'm a talented programmer.

How about something about the general notions of progress and technology? What is progress? Is it really what we think it is? Think of all of the people affected by "progress".

Machines replace People
-Bank tellers (ATMs)
-Garbage collectors (one-armed modernized trucks)
-Ticketing agents (check in kiosks)
-Checkout clerks (self service checkout machines)
-Teachers (distance learning)

Foreign People replace Domestic People
-Call Centers move to India
-Manufacturing jobs move to Mexico or China
-QA and Engineering resources outsourced to India

I suppose there are interesting intersections where capitalistic motivations (increasing profits) interfere with humanistic motivations (feeling useful, productive, loved, creative)

Perhaps we first define "progress." Then, we pick sides. Progress is good. Progress is bad.

Lantzilla,

Your topic is something I think about daily. I think of the manipulations of a small group of people to coerce huge populations of people to take part in this description of what "progress" looks like has re-shaped human societies since trade was first invented. How different we would be as people, not to mention how different our physical, political and social landscapes would be, had "progress" been defined in humanistic ways. Since "progress" has often been achieved at the tip of a sword or butt of a rifle, how has the tenor of human psychology and intellect been formed, and what would it have looked like had this not happened?

I offer as my credentials the fact that I am a mother, I have artistic, intelligent, sensitive children and I dread the days to come when they enter the world to be fodder for manipulation which obliterates their value as living humans, only to earn currency to become compliant consumers in a worldwide society which now offers no real lifestyle alternatives.

Hello, Stewart --

Thank you for your quick reply. I have only just now seen it, hence my late response. Let me offer my congratulations on the selling of Ludicorp to Yahoo! As a progenitor of a web "directory" and free email, Yahoo! doesn't earn much credibility or respect in my book, but I'm sure the terms of the deal were lucrative.

You ask for my credentials, and by asking me that, I hope that you, Stewart, will be inclined to engage in the online argument proposed by your wife. It is easy to deride your critics, Stewart, as simple minded cretins, and perhaps that is how you get a good night's rest.

I offer my credentials as a citizen of the world and concerned American. The majority of my friends who speak Chinese are Taiwanese, and the most recent history of Modern China that I've read cover-to-cover is Jonathan Spence's "The Search for Modern China." I have traveled to 5 continents although not to China, and even spent a fruitful year once living on a Mediterranean island. Can you say the same?

So perhaps I am not an expert on China, and my view of it is colored through Taiwanese lenses. But as someone who sent his first email in 1992, I have followed the vicissitudes of the Internet and those who profit from it passionately. I am also a believer in human rights and in open societies.

I believe your company, or rather the company that bought your company, is doing harm in order to gain entry to the Chinese market. Who better to represent this argument than the poster children of those who made their fortune on the coattails of Yahoo?

I find it unfortunate that you feel that people who raise objections to the policies of your company are "Nigerian spammers" set to "troll." It is obvious that you don't want your wife (or yourself) to discuss this issue in public. I think it is you, Stewart, who is the one avoiding a substantive discussion. Nevertheless I still invite you or your wife to discuss this issue, if you can.

Best Wishes,

Daniel Stout

Mark, did you ever find anyone to argue the pro-smoking ban in bars and restaurants side? I'd be interested. I worked for the American Cancer Society while they were trying to pass such a law in the city of Chicago, although I was in fundraising and the people on the advocacy/lobbying side were more directly involved.

I'd argue that Daniel and Stewart are well on the way and I'd like to see this one continue ... without the snide shots on both sides. My guess is they both have something useful to say that we can learn from.

Hi Caterina -

i love a good, well-reasoned, well-argued argument -- particularly those where i lose & have someone change my mind. however i don't lose often [hubris].

my argument premise:

* Observation: as a side-effect of not being able to follow certain societal conventions, or choosing to ignore formal business rules, 'misfit' geeks & entrepreneurs can discover & exploit opportunities that other more traditional, politically-correct, or rule-bound individuals would likely miss or overlook.

* Hypothesis: while misfits are shunned or marginalized in the offline social world, in the online non-social world (code or corporations) these folks gain a distinct edge... they don't have to waste time following formalities, and can apply their full energy & insanity to the problem / opportunity at hand.

* Summary Statement: entrepreneurs & developers are most successful when they are [somewhat] socially dysfunctional (data points: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison).

my credentials: i'm a wacky, occasionally geeky, but not quite ruthless, entrepreneur and former developer with some 'social misfit' tendencies. however, i'm not nearly geeky or ruthless enough to become uber rich & famous. bummer.

rebuttal?

- dave mcclure
http://500hats.typepad.com/

Arguing is so much fun, especially if both people have no idea what they are talking about :)

I like my arguments custom-ordered, as if I could establish the parameters and get exactly what I'm asking for. If you'd care to oblige me, please go to my website, http://masterpenetrator.bravehost.com.

The topic I am interested in is: Why should gay marriage be illegal?

Thanks for your help!