Not sure who came up with it first or why humans are wired this way, but the magic combination of anger, outrage, and the vicarious bullying satisfaction of seeing someone dunked on and made to look stupid/humiliated, is all grist for the mill that is the attention economy. The longer you watch, the better it is for the YouTubes and Twitters of the world. And nothing glues people to their screens quite like their own masochism. It’s like when you have a sore tooth and can’t help but prod it with your tongue. Makes no sense, but it’s what we do. The fact that this stuff is so effective is why the algorithms force it down our throats and why cunts like Ben Shapiro have made careers off of it. Society is being torn apart at the seams by this shit. That pent-up hateful energy gets co-opted by state actors and bot farms, and then we get Brexit and two terms of Donald fucking Trump.

I’ve been making a conscious effort to avoid any videos that have titles like that (and by extension, the creators of those videos), and my life and mental health has improved immeasurably as a result. I have literally no idea how to convince anyone else to do the same. It would probably be easier to get people to exercise and eat healthily (something I don’t fucking do either). People get as much of this content as they can consume for free and at any time and any place, thanks to the inherent portability of cellphones. If you’re into this shit, there is no time of day or room in your house where you won’t have it calling to you like a pocket version of the wee devil that sits on a cartoon character’s shoulder whispering evil commands into its ear. And in this scenario, there is no angel on the other shoulder, because that would cause people to maybe spend a bit less time on these platforms, which is no bueno to Silicon Valley sociopaths.

Debates are almost entirely pointless. Very few people in the audience are actually open to being swayed. It’s just verbal UFC, and the winner isn’t the one with the best ideas, but the one with the best tongue jiu-jitsu.

As for Plato et al., I think having something to fill one’s attention in those days was probably a good way to stop people from fucking their livestock. So debates were necessary to prevent sheepman monstrosities from polluting the gene pool with their woolly nutsacks.