I agree with whay you say about how to maximize what you get out of an interview. I also agree about that discussion vs. debate distinction you make, and I wasn’t specifically trying to go there when I used the word “debate”, I was just sloppy with words.
I guess you agree that it is friction to create a social norm that you should do a read up of the other person material before engaging in public. I expect less discussions would happen. There is not a clear threshold at how much you should be prepared.
I guess we disagree about how much value do we lose due to eliminating discussions that could have happaned, vs. how much value we gain by eliminating some lower quality discussions.
Another angle I have in mind that sidesteps this direct compromise, is that maybe what we value out of such discussions is not just doing an optimal play in terms of information transmitted between the parties. A public discussion has many different viewers. In the case at hand, I expect many people get more out of the discussion if they can see Wolfram think through the thing for the first time in real time, rather than having two informed people start discussing finer points in medias res.
I agree with whay you say about how to maximize what you get out of an interview. I also agree about that discussion vs. debate distinction you make, and I wasn’t specifically trying to go there when I used the word “debate”, I was just sloppy with words.
I guess you agree that it is friction to create a social norm that you should do a read up of the other person material before engaging in public. I expect less discussions would happen. There is not a clear threshold at how much you should be prepared.
I guess we disagree about how much value do we lose due to eliminating discussions that could have happaned, vs. how much value we gain by eliminating some lower quality discussions.
Another angle I have in mind that sidesteps this direct compromise, is that maybe what we value out of such discussions is not just doing an optimal play in terms of information transmitted between the parties. A public discussion has many different viewers. In the case at hand, I expect many people get more out of the discussion if they can see Wolfram think through the thing for the first time in real time, rather than having two informed people start discussing finer points in medias res.
That’s a good point about public discussions. It’s not how I absorb information, but I can definitely see that.