Friday, April 10, 2009

Secret message....

... to the kid who is a pretty good debater, but thinks he knows more than he does...

You can choose to ignore my argument all you want.

You can rant and rave on the debate board until your fingers fall off.

You aren't being persuasive and you're kind of making me wonder how you've done so well... good partners, your coach program you well perhaps? I can see how you could fail to win that important round because even with time to think about the argument I'm making, you still can't get beyond your own ideas long enough to see mine and respond. From most accounts, that's kind of what did you in a while back.

I have some news for you -- I have an actual vote on this -- you just have access to the discussion board and a big mouth.

I've stopped responding to you because you're going in a circle -- see, this isn't a debate round and I don't have to continue in an exchange that isn't productive. If you wonder why more people don't use that board, I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.

The thing is, you might have persuaded me if you'd taken the time to think about my argument and make responses to it -- I may have come to see things your way. As it is, I'm ignoring the thread... sorry, I have other things to do... and they're more fun that talking to you....

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Funny, this is exactly what I have been thinking! The debater in question seems to be just generally suffering from an inability to cope with new arguments--and not only in conversations with you. Since this is normally a very sweet person, I'm hoping it's a temporary aberration brought on by too much success too early, followed by the sudden loss of success.