FE Debating 201

[Progenitus]

Hello everyone, and welcome to FE Debating 201; debating for casuals. Unlike 101 which taught you how to mimic a professional FE debater, this class will tell you about how to debate with casuals.

Here was the first class...

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=17377

Without further ado, here is today's lesson: chance of winning the argument in a casual debate. Remember this well; it'll be on your final!

If you recall from FE Debating 101, there are two factors in determining whether you won the argument or not; getting the last word, a factor related to stubbornness or elitism, and making friends with the other debaters. However, even in casual debates, intelligence also plays a role. It was too complicated for 101 to consider, but in a higher level class, it's time to introduce this factor. The following formula, known as Nephenee's Formula, will combine elitism, number of friends, and intelligence.

p = (1 - E)^a

p = percent chance of winning the argument. This is a number between 0 and 1.

E = elitism value of your opponent. This is a value between 0 and 1. As the value approaches 0, your opponent is extremely compliant, and as the value approaches 1, your opponent is extremely elitist.

a = the debating factor variable, which is given as...

a = (w/x)*(y/z)*n

where....

w = your opponent's IQ value

x = your IQ value

y = number of debaters supporting your opponent's side

z = number of debaters supporting your side

n = number of exchanges you and your opponent have made. When you and your opponent both make a post, n increases by 1.

Remember to include yourself and your opponent for the variables y and z.

Now, here is an explanation for all the factors, so they make logical sense.

E: the more elitist your opponent is, the less likely he'll give up on the argument. Clearly, as E approaches 1, your chances of winning the argument decrease.

a: Since (1-E) will always produce a number between 0 and 1, as long as a is greater than 1, the larger it becomes, the lower your chances of winning a debate. Remember, exponentially increasing a number less than 1 will actually decrease that number. It is possible for a to be between 0 and 1, which in that case your chances to win will be greater than (1-E).

w: The smarter your opponent is, the lower your chances of winning the debate. As you can see, the larger w becomes, the larger a becomes, and the lower p becomes.

x: Likewise, the smarter you are, the smaller a becomes.

y: The more debaters that you have to convince, the lower your chances that not only will you convince all of them, but the more arguments or comments they can make that can help your opponent's side or hurt yours.

z: Likewise, the opposite.

n: The longer the debate drags on, the lower your chances of your opponent conceding. Obviously, anyone is much more likely to give up after 1 exchange, as opposed to 5 exchanges. No one likes to lose, especially after you poured your time and pride into an argument.

Nephenee's formula makes two assumptions.

1) The debate exchange is between two people, with everyone else simply on the side, making a few comments, but don't partake in the debate. If more than two people are creating long arguments, the formula cannot be used. In those cases, you'll have to use Mia's formula, which is not covered in this class.

2) This is a casual debate and not one with judges.

Why to use Nephenee's formula? It's quite obvious. If you want to enter a debate, but want to make sure you can win, determine who your likely opponent would be, find his or her elitism and IQ values from a table, estimate how many people will be supporting your side and your opponent's side, and plug it into the formula.

If you want to determine your chances of losing the argument, simply reverse all the values. Put in your elitism value for E rather than your opponent's, etc. Then subtract both p values from 1 and you'll get your chances of a tie.

Refer to this table when finding values for E and w.

TABLE 1.1 - Common elitism and IQ values for various debaters
Name               Elitism value      IQ value
Interceptor        1.00               225
Inui               0.999              130
smash fanatic      0.956              125
Berserker Blader   0.933              111
Red Fox of Fire    0.914              104
Colonel M          0.897              101
narga_rocks        0.892              218
Paperblade         0.690              144
grandjackal        0.511              98
WJC                0.284              200
Reikken            0.269              201
Solid Sense        0.256              204

note: values are rounded to three significant digits, some errors due to rounding may occur

Class is dismissed.

Edited March 26, 2010 by Andrew W.K.

[Integrity]

Hang on.

Come again?

[Florete]

Don't worry, it's just smash trolling again.

I lol'd. And I'm flattered to have made it onto the list as well.

[Junkhead]

Are the IQs really precise...?

[WeaponsofMassConstruction]

Wait, what if no one supports your side/your IQ is 0?

ERR

[Narga_Rocks]

Are the IQs really precise...?

Ask yourself how smash could possibly know the IQs of the various common debaters. Also, keep in mind that ~140 and over are considered genius or near genius. Having 5 people with 200+ IQs on this one board? Unlikely.

(If we could get along, maybe with our extremely high IQs we could figure out how to travel faster than light or make portable quantuum computers or something.)

[Progenitus]

Are the IQs really precise...?

of course.

Wait, what if no one supports your side/your IQ is 0?

ERR

You count yourself as someone supporting your side, vice versa for your opponent, so those numbers will always be at least 1.

I don't think IQ can even be 0.

[Anouleth]

Wait, what if no one supports your side/your IQ is 0?

ERR

Obviously, at least one person supports your side - you. As for IQ, it's a horrible way to measure intelligence.

You count yourself as someone supporting your side, vice versa for your opponent, so those numbers will always be at least 1.

I don't think IQ can even be 0.

IQ is on a bell or normal curve with 100 being the arithmetic mean, so an IQ of zero is equally likely as an IQ of 200.

Edited March 26, 2010 by Anouleth

[Narga_Rocks]

You count yourself as someone supporting your side, vice versa for your opponent, so those numbers will always be at least 1.

I don't think IQ can even be 0.

I don't really know anything much about IQ either, however the wikipedia thing on IQ has a normal curve shown, and 60 was around 4 standard deviations away from a mean of 100. 0 would be 10 standard deviations off, and I think you can search online to get how likely that is to happen. Besides, there was some ratio thing in there that I don't think can result in 0 anyway.

[Junkhead]

I didn't even know Andrew was Smash.

[WeaponsofMassConstruction]

I think I've found a way to insta-win any debate then. If the exponent is 0, unless (1-E) is also 0, p will come out to be 1. The easiest value then to get 0 in the exponent is n, as to do this, you simply make no posts. Therefore, by not arguing, you instantly win any debate ever, unless you're against Int, which causes a black hole.

This formula is genius.

[Florete]

I think I've found a way to insta-win any debate then. If the exponent is 0, unless (1-E) is also 0, p will come out to be 1. The easiest value then to get 0 in the exponent is n, as to do this, you simply make no posts. Therefore, by not arguing, you instantly win any debate ever, unless you're against Int, which causes a black hole.

This formula is genius.

Holy shit. I wonder if smash planned that out. If he did, I might actually have some respect for him.

[CATS]

Therefore, by not arguing, you instantly win any debate ever, unless you're against Int, which causes a black hole.

I laughed pretty hard at this line, especially the second half.

This is a very informative read, Professor Smash. Excellent contribution to the community, as always. However there are a few things which I have to add:

1. I think Interceptor's IQ value is too low. 225 is an underestimation--the value is closer to 250 or perhaps even higher, I believe. It's safe to say that attempting to debate against Interceptor is pretty much always a futile endeavor, unless of course you want to make yourself look like a pathetic, driveling idiot and end up crying yourself to sleep, in which case it's a great idea.

2. You forgot the IRC factor. If a debater is logged into IRC chat, his/her chance of winning the debate approximately doubles. Exception to this rule: it does not apply if the debater is named smash_fanatic or Paperblade.

3. You also forgot to account for the effectiveness of a debater's past arguments. A debater's track record, even though there is no official record of such a thing, still affects his performance. Those who have made successful arguments in the past will be more likely to win current arguments, and vice versa. Take note that this factor is also affected by number of friends; namely, the more friends you have, the better your track record is. If a debater has many friends among the other debaters, his successful arguments will be highlighted and his failed arguments glossed over, and vice versa.

4. Last but not least, you forgot the Tier List OP value. When measuring # of people who support each side, a Tier List OP carries the same weight as at least 2-3 normal debaters. In certain extreme cases, a Tier List OP may override all others supporting one side of a debate or the other, and cause the debate to instantly end in victory for whichever side the Tier List OP is supporting. This is especially likely if both the Tier List OP and a majority of the normal debaters are supporting the same side.

[Progenitus]

*blown back completely*

I can't believe that, as a professor of FE Debating, a student has pointed out something incredibly obvious to me that I didn't realized in my entire life.

EDIT: Those factors are too complicated to consider for this level. In FE Debating 301, they will be covered in greater detail.

Also, it is very possible that Interceptor's IQ value is too low. When he took the IQ test, the test imploded when Interceptor handed it in, perhaps because it could not handle Interceptor's sheer genius. In any case, we could not get a completely accurate value and instead had to make do with an approximation.

Edited March 26, 2010 by Andrew W.K.

[Junkhead]

Why does sarcasm play such a great role on debating at times?

[CATS]

Are you referring to me? I am not being sarcastic at all. Professor Smash doesn't appear to be sarcastic in his work here, either. Though I do agree that a greater level of sarcasm can make other debaters perceive the opponent's IQ value to be lower than it actually is, and therefore increase your chances of winning the debate.

Edited March 26, 2010 by CATS

[Narga_Rocks]

I think I've found a way to insta-win any debate then. If the exponent is 0, unless (1-E) is also 0, p will come out to be 1. The easiest value then to get 0 in the exponent is n, as to do this, you simply make no posts. Therefore, by not arguing, you instantly win any debate ever, unless you're against Int, which causes a black hole.

This formula is genius.

Actually, I'm pretty sure 0⁰ is defined to be 1 anyway (for most instances), so you can even beat Interceptor by not posting at all. There's actually a fair amount of debate involved in that, though, but the two most typical answers are either 1 or undefined. As a result, if you don't post in a "debate" against Interceptor, either you automatically win or the forum community crashes.

Of course, not posting can be seen in two ways:

1: you want to make a change but don't post about it.

2: your opponent wants to make a change and you never reply.

I'm not sure how you can possibly win in the first instance. In the second, if the tier list updater either doesn't see your opponent's argument or just doesn't like it or something, I suppose you could win.

Edited March 26, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Anouleth]

Actually, I'm pretty sure 0⁰ is defined to be 1 anyway (for most instances), so you can even beat Interceptor by not posting at all. There's actually a fair amount of debate involved in that, though, but the two most typical answers are either 1 or undefined. As a result, if you don't post in a "debate" against Interceptor, either you automatically win or the forum community crashes.

0^0 is indeed equal to one, according to Maple13 anyway.

Of course, not posting can be seen in two ways:

1: you want to make a change but don't post about it.

2: your opponent wants to make a change and you never reply.

I'm not sure how you can possibly win in the first instance. In the second, if the tier list updater either doesn't see your opponent's argument or just doesn't like it or something, I suppose you could win.

In the first instance, no debate occurs, so it's impossible to win.

[NinjaMonkey]

I'm surprised Smash didn't give himself the highest IQ value...

[Narga_Rocks]

I'm surprised Smash didn't give himself the highest IQ value...

I'm not.

When he does this type of thing he never toots his own horn like that. Pretty much every topic like it. Check out his topic where he named a bunch of us after the Arrancar in Bleach.

[Fayt Zelpher]

Ask yourself how smash could possibly know the IQs of the various common debaters. Also, keep in mind that ~140 and over are considered genius or near genius. Having 5 people with 200+ IQs on this one board? Unlikely.

(If we could get along, maybe with our extremely high IQs we could figure out how to travel faster than light or make portable quantuum computers or something.)

Well, about 1/2% (That's half of a percent, or 1 in 200) that have an IQ that exceeds 140, and about .01% will exceed 160. As for 175, it's about 3 in 10 million. I don't think that there is a single human, living or deceased, whose IQ exceeds 190 or so, so it's fair to say that whoever came up with those IQ values is either a troll, mining for attention, or doesn't know how IQ is calculated.

[BEST TRYNDAMERE PLAYER]

Well, about 1/2% (That's half of a percent, or 1 in 200) that have an IQ that exceeds 140, and about .01% will exceed 160. As for 175, it's about 3 in 10 million. I don't think that there is a single human, living or deceased, whose IQ exceeds 190 or so, so it's fair to say that whoever came up with those IQ values is either a troll, mining for attention, or doesn't know how IQ is calculated.

You thought the IQs he posted were serious even for a second?

[Fayt Zelpher]

You thought the IQs he posted were serious even for a second?

Of course not. But I thought it at least warranted a serious smack down with logic, which is something that, if what I hear from other members is correct, is completely devoid from any posts that the OP ever makes.

[CATS]

Of course not. But I thought it at least warranted a serious smack down with logic, which is something that, if what I hear from other members is correct, is completely devoid from any posts that the OP ever makes.

This should probably be archived as a perfect demonstration of the Track Record and # of Friends factors. smash_fanatic has a poor track record and few friends among the other debaters on the site, and as a result we have someone willing to dismiss him based simply on the word of others. To demonstrate further, compare with a user like Narga_Rocks; if I and a couple others told you that Narga_Rocks is an idiot and should be disregarded completely, would you listen? Obviously not.

Those factors are too complicated to consider for this level. In FE Debating 301, they will be covered in greater detail.

Yes, I'm very much looking forward to your next seminar, professor. I'm thinking about doing a class myself on the effects of unconventional arguments, and how an argument's likelihood of success is directly proportional to how conventional and predictable its logic is.

Edited March 26, 2010 by CATS

[Narga_Rocks]

This should probably be archived as a perfect demonstration of the Track Record and # of Friends factors. smash_fanatic has a poor track record and few friends among the other debaters on the site, and as a result we have someone willing to dismiss him based simply on the word of others. To demonstrate further, compare with a user like Narga_Rocks; if I and a couple others told you that Narga_Rocks is an idiot and should be disregarded completely, would you listen? Obviously not.

Well of course not. I have an IQ of 218. I'm clearly not an idiot.

As for the board v. smash, I'm not sure how many of us will immediately ignore anything he says simply because he is smash. I try to analyze his posts and if I disagree then I usually try to go through it step by step rather than say:

"Oh look, smash made a post. Let's ignore his points."