Tangent, but: this reminds me of many philosophical debates, e.g. "do we have free will?".
What I've found is that usually what's happening is that the "debaters" assume different definitions of the thing they're debating about, which means they're really debating about two entirely different things, with the same name, and that's the real reason why they've come to different conclusions.
(We detached this comment from https://qht.co/item?id=41701678. There's nothing wrong with a good tangent now and then, but it's probably better as a top-level subthread, plus lower down on the page.)
One recommendation I've read is that in such cases you should treat the single label you and your opponent have attached to two different ideas as forbidden. Describe it in more detail to reveal the difference (don't just swap words in the starting combination with their synonyms).
That's fine for discussions between experts but when a hundred noobs enter the discussion it's just unpaid tutoring. These threads are bringing out a lot of "I've discovered something all the distributed systems experts missed" energy.
For me "do we have free will" debate is useless because if the answer is "no" then that implies the result of the debate is predetermined and all involved lack any agency to change the outcome.
Therefore any adult arguing the "no free will" side is either
1. Disingenuous
2. Purposefully playing Candyland as an adult.
Either of which is so damaging to the Ethos that I lack any desire to continue the debate.
> that implies the result of the debate is predetermined and all involved lack any agency to change the outcome.
In a superdeterministic world, the presence of an illusion of free will is baked into everything humans do anyways. If the world is superdeterministic, but you can't actually predict what's about to happen with any additional certainty, then it doesn't really change anything anyway. So, there's no reason to change the way you argue based on the answer to the question in my opinion.
Of course, now I'm arguing about whether arguing about free will makes any sense, which is perhaps even more silly, but alas.
I feel similarly, but for a different reason: even if I don't have free will, I'm not going to change anything about how I live my life. My life is still important to me, either way. Free will vs. determinism might be a fascinating academic question to some, but I just don't find it all that interesting.
Same when it comes to arguments about whether or not our reality is a simulation, because, again, I'm not going to live any differently either way. My life is still important to me, even if it's just the result of an algorithm run on some computer built by an advanced civilization.
Not sure why you’re downvoted. I think this is completely true. To add more examples, I’ve seen a lot of debates about async IO and “non-blocking” where people talk over each other because they clearly mean different things. I tend to avoid ambiguous terms, but it’s an uphill battle.
What I've found is that usually what's happening is that the "debaters" assume different definitions of the thing they're debating about, which means they're really debating about two entirely different things, with the same name, and that's the real reason why they've come to different conclusions.