A debate policy is a public document, written and posted in advance, which provides information about what issues you will debate, with who, using what debate methods.
What if instead of intellectuals being expected to publish so much they were instead expected to engage in lots of debate?
It could lead to higher quality research by just not having to put out so much quantity. And the debates themselves would improve the research.
One way students get caught plagiarizing is their teacher asks them to define words or explain concepts from the paper they turned in. If they can’t talk intelligently about what they said in their paper, it’s suspicious.
Debate policies would also help catch plagiarists. People who plagiarize, who struggle to explain what “their” work says, would not perform well in debates.
What are different debate methods? Like the formats? Such as speech or text?
So, for example, if an intellectual has an outgroup they don’t like, they have to debate them if they meet their debate policy requirements even though they would usually ignore all debates with said group.
So this is not saying debate policies are some perfect solution to make dishonest people into honest ones just by having that on their website. That makes sense.
How would you do that? I guess if its someone individualized policy they can declare certain groups they disagree with idiots. Or have some requirements that weed out “actual” idiots who can’t meet those.
It’s many things including format. You can split a conversation in half and each lead one part simultaneously. You can disallow questions or allow only questions. You can allow or disallow meta discussion, ad hominem, or anything else. You can do 1 vs. 1 or let others participate. You can use heavy citations, use light citations, ban citations. You can continue until an impasse chain or require a concluding statement or let people leave at any moment with no explanation. You can incorporate intuitions into debates or not. You can focus on factual errors or focus on helping the other guy understand your point or focus on conceptual errors.
Examples: Talk to people who have written stuff. Set up ending conditions for debates so you can end quickly when someone turns out to be an idiot. But try to make it objective, which is hard, and maybe you shouldn’t be judging people as idiots and dismissing their ideas… Maybe you can only really know they’re wrong after you win the debate, and before that they might be wrong and it might actually be you who is the idiot, or either of you might be making reasonable mistakes.