I want to lose every debate
I’d like to offer an alternative framing: don’t debate at all, just listen.<p>While high school debate did teach me many positive lessons and I am thankful that I spent four years of my life doing it, many years later I have come to understand that it also taught me something truly negative: that the point of a conversation is to win.<p>I have put a lot of time in my adult life unlearning that trait, and reflecting on the harm it did to my relationships with other people.<p>If you want to grow like OP here suggests—which I think is a valuable, worthwhile goal—you will do yourself a great service in learning to listen. I know we all think that we do this, but I don’t think many of us actually do.<p>When you talk to others, take note of how much of the time you spend formulating a response. I know that for me, I find that frequently I’m already generating my rebuttal before they finish speaking. I am effectively listening to respond, not to hear what they have to say. I’m much much better at listening to hear today than I was a decade ago, but I still have to correct myself on this routinely.<p>It’s important to note that you can listen to hear and still be free to respond; if you want to have an interesting conversation you will definitely need to put in some effort too. Just make sure that you’re internalizing what they’ve said before you form a response to it. It will almost certainly slow down the pace of a conversation but stands a decent chance of making each exchange a lot more interesting for both of you.<p>I really believe that the most profound realizations of my life have come when I shut up and put in the effort to internalize what other people around me were doing and saying.