I regret watching the recent Candace Owen vs andrew Wilson debate on whether Tyler Robinson assassinated Charlie Kirk [1].
The too long didn't read of it is that Candace came to debate facts, primarily to cast doubt on the footage/witness statements/fingerprints on the gun, but overclaimed the strength of the evidence in favor of Tyler being framed. Andrew came to just meta debate, didn't prepare any facts, and refused to defend his own position. Both watered down their claims and didn't stick to anything substantive.
The debate format would've allowed them to present evidence, so I was expecting footage and pictures within the limitations of what they could show and then a deep-dive, but instead they just presented clips of each other so they could attack random tweets each made, plus what some random dudes said about the shooting. PBD as the mod just let it become a train wreck. The YouTube comments are basically fanboy comments with even less substance about how Owen wrecked Wilson and vice versa, I'm guessing mostly bots or people who live in the matrix.
The reason its a train wreck is because these people are just podcast bros with no real knowledge and they get platformed. The whole thing is run on ads which makes the experience of watching one of these psychotic. They talk about the murder of Charlie Kirk and the podcast will have repercussions to the legal case and its just wild to hear ads about penile medicine or w/e in-between the breaks.
I think we need to get better at getting experts platformed in these debates. Theres a place for debate bros in the same way that Im supportive of high school students learning to discuss politics or to have scientific debate, but Ive seen a strange turn in the last 5 years where these debate bros have become _the_ people everyone listens to.
A cynical part of me thinks that they're doing it for the clicks but a more optimistic part of me feels like it's good that these sort of difficult topics have become a part of public discourse. However, I am fascinated that in the last 5 years there's been a loss of trust in the government institutions and in those people who've spent their entire lives working, say, prosecutors in criminal law, or working as police officers. Why are we apparentlu not promoting those people at all? Why is Candace Owen and Andrew Wilson the ones having "the big debate"?
...Do you think that the elitist "experts only" argument overused by the left to push their agenda has inadvertedly destroyed the public trust in... People who are genuinely informed on these topics?
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nPhCKwJ6ye8&pp=ygUdQ2FuZGFjZSBvd2VuIGFuZCBjaGFybG9lIGtpcms%3D
