Debate is also inefficient: for example, if the “defense” in the court variant happens to find evidence or arguments that would benefit the “prosecution”, the defense has no incentive to report it to the court, and there’s no guarantee that the prosecution will independently find it themselves.
Reporting such evidence will make you exceptional among people who typically hold the defense position; it will no longer be fair for people to say of them “well of course the defense would say that either way”. And while you may care very much about the conclusion of the debate, you may also expect so strongly that reality will vindicate you that sharing such “harmful” information will bring you no harm.
If my faction is trying to get Society to adopt beliefs that benefit our faction onto the shared map, someone who comes to us role-playing being on our side, but who is actually trying to stop us from adding our beliefs to the shared map just because they think our beliefs don’t reflect the territory, isn’t a friend; they’re a double agent, an enemy pretending to be a friend, which is worse than the honest enemy we expect to face before the judge in the debate hall.
But you’d only want to be on the side that you’re on, I hope, because you believed it was The Good Side. Above all, the most important side I want to take over all conflicts is the good side. I think almost everyone would agree on that even if they had not been thinking of it in advance. Those who think they don’t want to be on the side of good are defining ‘good’ without respect for the reflective equilibrium of all their memories, I expect.
A good friend might in fact pretend to be on what you have designated as your nominal side so that they can bring you closer to the good side. If your sincerely joined nominal side is opposed to good then you are worse at being a friend to yourself than someone who is trying to bring you to the good side.
Reporting such evidence will make you exceptional among people who typically hold the defense position; it will no longer be fair for people to say of them “well of course the defense would say that either way”. And while you may care very much about the conclusion of the debate, you may also expect so strongly that reality will vindicate you that sharing such “harmful” information will bring you no harm.
But you’d only want to be on the side that you’re on, I hope, because you believed it was The Good Side. Above all, the most important side I want to take over all conflicts is the good side. I think almost everyone would agree on that even if they had not been thinking of it in advance. Those who think they don’t want to be on the side of good are defining ‘good’ without respect for the reflective equilibrium of all their memories, I expect.
A good friend might in fact pretend to be on what you have designated as your nominal side so that they can bring you closer to the good side. If your sincerely joined nominal side is opposed to good then you are worse at being a friend to yourself than someone who is trying to bring you to the good side.