I recently tried to analyze a debate

FAILED

• I kept losing track even though I had the log and took my time
• Several threads for seemingly same discussion
• Temporal distortions (Déjà-vu)
• Arguments were orbiting around an unidentifiable problem
• Some key arguments were seemingly
  ignored. I got curios - why? 

Reading / Listening

Books I've apparently read
according to the Internet

• Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain
• A Mind of Its Own
• Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills
• Consciousness and the Social Brain
• The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change
• The Science of Influence: How to Get Anyone to Say "Yes" in 8 Minutes or Less!  (Don't judge the book by its name)
• Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being
• Your Best Brain: The Science of Brain Improvement

Podcasts

• Brain Science with Ginger Campbell
• The Sceptics Guide
• The Psychology Podcast
• Naked Neuroscience
• Psychology in Everyday Life: The Psych Files
• Stuff You Should Know (a bit far fetched, but worth
  mentioning)

Selective attention test

Starting Point

Your thoughts are deceiving you. Apply scepticism also to your own ideas.

WATCH OUT!

Also, read Internet-memes with the grain of salt.

Distinguish these

• Problem / requirement vs solution
• If you have a requirement, you should have a
  • ​problem which you can describe the way your peers understand
• Only after that, a sensible solution can be presented
  • There rarely is perfect solution(?)
• Thus, at the end,
  • after rational debate (ha-ha),
  • alternatives can be weighted objectively (ha-ha)
  • and rational decision is made (ha-ha)

Be mindful with the "moving target"

• "the moving target" = confusing the discussion by spawning new problems and requirements to justify the solution
• The way the chat discussions are flowing, it is easy to ignore the fact that the previous topic was never handled.
  • Few debatees may be attempting to keep an logical construct of the debate in their head 
  • Rest just cram forward? -> Drives people to insanity

Try to align where you can

• Don't drop the ball if you don't understand the opposite argument
• Ask -> Answer -> Ask -> Ask -> Answer -> Align

"No ought from an is"

• E.g. The Hume's guilliotine
• Of course it is good to know how the rest of the world operates
• This, however, should not be the key argument
• We don't want to be the Angry Monkeys

!

Understanding the alternative

• Proposed solution might be outside my box
• I need to do the effort to figure out if it is a good solution
• Prerequisite for that is that I understand and see the solution
• Example from our previous debate: "one repo for a product" requirement 
  • If I haven't used pull requests up to their full potential, combining requests, issues, comments etc - how could I appreciate the argument? 
  • So now I understand that I need give up thing X I understand well, to get vague thing ? in return.
  • No thanks. <- I've may have made a bad decision.