onfocus

The fundamental issue with “debate me bro” culture isn’t just that it’s obnoxious, it’s that it creates a false equivalence between good-faith expertise and bad-faith trolling. When you agree to debate someone pushing long-debunked conspiracy theories or openly hateful ideologies, you’re implicitly suggesting that their position deserves equal consideration alongside established facts and expert analysis.

We are basically living in GamerGate culture now. The trolls won. All the tired tactics: just asking questions, sealioning, whataboutism, gish gallop, strawmanning, slippery sloping, or just joking gaslighting is what people mean when they say debating, blarg.