Your statement is correct but misses the point
That's the problem with being pedantic. Pedants are correct, but they're not curious, and they don't care about learning something because they lack humility (humility is difficult to learn and rarely encouraged).<p>A discussion, an argument or a debate is not meant to be some sort of confrontation quiz, where people who demonstrate they're right can win an audience. A real debate, argument or discussion is when an audience can listen, and ask questions to better understand what everybody is trying to say. A debate is a distributed way of thinking. Human thought only exists through language, un-worded ideas always die.<p>This mentality stems from how people views how democracy works. The Socratic method thoroughly shows that having an argument is about helping each other communicate their point of view. And this is exactly how states like Russia are able to undermine democracy, by sowing confrontation and polarization.<p>What is horrible is when this sort of polarization happens in your daily life, or in science or at work.