AFFIRMATIVE TEAM
○○ agrees with the statement & proves that using
emotions and appealing to them is a better persuasive
strategy than using facts
NEGATIVE TEAM
○○ disagrees with the statement & proves that facts
are more important than emotions, if you want to
prove your point
Debra AI Prediction
Post Argument Now Debate Details +
Arguments
  Considerate: 93%  
  Substantial: 36%  
  Spelling & Grammar: 95%  
  Sentiment: Positive  
  Avg. Grade Level: 12.8  
  Sources: 1  
  Entity Sentiment Detection: better persuasive technique    emotions   facts   point  
  Relevant (Beta): 95%  
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This statement of course requires a very important qualification, which is that facts are relevant when talking about objective things like reality. Denial is of course a very important factor in resistance to persuasion and it is sometimes so powerful that it can in fact overwhelm one's perception of reality, more on that later. However, much of what we do and think and say is not based on objective truth, which doesn't change no matter what we want. but rather on our subjective opinion of a given subject.
To put this simply, and the TL;DR of my argument, facts can tell you what IS, they can not tell you what OUGHT.
For example, consider these statements:
"Guns have been proven to kill people, therefore we should ban guns"
"Guns have been proven to kill people, therefore we can use guns to kill our enemies"
Both suffer from the same fallacy, they are an appeal to science. They both claim that science proves their stance, when the reality is that these stances was 100% based on what they already felt to be true, in other words, it was about emotion, not facts. This fallacy can be found all over the news, in debates, and especially from a certain unnamed pseudo-intellectual with the catch phrase: "Facts don't care about your feelings".
The most effective means to convince someone, and I don't mean debate, is simply to ask leading question that when deliberated will reveal holes in your interlocutor's reasoning. This is sort of hard to explain and it doesn't scale very well to more than two or three people at a time, and it isn't good for debates, but basically it works like this:
Person 1: ", did you know the earth is flat? I just found out all about it! It's a huge conspiracy!"
Person 2: "Umm... Okay, so how did you find out the earth is flat?"
1: "videos on the internet, you have to watch some of these so you can know the truth!"
2: "Wait, before I waste several hours watching these, didn't you say it was a conspiracy?"
1: "Yeah, I did. They are hiding the Truth from us!"
2: "Alright, so then why is it you can see these videos? Shouldn't they have been hidden?"
1: "I don't know, they can't suppress the truth forever!"
2: "What would they gain from hiding that from us? Does that make a lot of sense?"
1: "I'm not sure, but it must be nefarious whatever it it."
2: "I don't think that makes a lot of sense, what if you have it backwards and it is the people making these videos who are in conspiracy?"
1: "I hadn't thought of that, but what would they gain by doing this?"
2: "Do they sell stuff, like books, articles, or do the videos have ads?"
1: "Yes actually, they do."
2: "Does that feel like a good motivation then, to make money by selling this stuff with an inflated story?"
1: "I guess that adds up, but I still think the world is flat"
2: "If you find evidence the earth isn't flat, would you change your mind?"
1: "Yes I suppose I would"
2: "Have you looked for any evidence the earth is round and not flat?"
1: "No, but It still feels like the earth is flat, like when you are in an airplane the horizon doesn't rise..."
2: "I can't always trust my feelings, sometimes they get me into trouble. Can you trust your feelings all the time?"
1: "I don't know..."
There are a myriad of questions that go like this that are much more convincing to the person who is responding. When you give someone the power in a discussion, if those ideas don't hold up they will quickly fall apart if self-examined. Therefore emotions play a much bigger role in persuasion than facts ever can. If you don't think any of this is true, then perhaps I could ask why?
Stars formed, planets coalesced, and on at least one of them life took root.
Through a long process of evolution this life developed into the human race.
Humans conquered fire, built complex societies and advanced technology .
All of that so we can argue about nothing.
  Considerate: 79%  
  Substantial: 74%  
  Spelling & Grammar: 92%  
  Sentiment: Negative  
  Avg. Grade Level: 8.9  
  Sources: 0  
  Relevant (Beta): 44%  
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Stars formed, planets coalesced, and on at least one of them life took root.
Through a long process of evolution this life developed into the human race.
Humans conquered fire, built complex societies and advanced technology .
All of that so we can argue about nothing.
  Considerate: 92%  
  Substantial: 61%  
  Spelling & Grammar: 95%  
  Sentiment: Neutral  
  Avg. Grade Level: 11.34  
  Sources: 0  
  Entity Sentiment Detection: larger role    evidence   emotions   persuasion  
  Relevant (Beta): 100%  
  Learn More About Debra
If both participants are consciously trying to get to the bottom of an issue and are interested in hearing each other out, then facts are far more important than emotions.
However, if one or more of the participants, rather than trying to get to the truth, are using the discussion to get a positive emotional feedback (which happens most of the time, in my experience), then facts become fairly obsolete and hidden behind the sea of emotions. In that case, to persuade them, one needs to give them the emotional satisfaction while delivering their narrative, which is extremely challenging when they strongly disagree with this narrative. In such cases, it is helpful to find points of agreement and emphasise them in order to illicit a positive response, and then, from there, a more factual argument can be made. Making the person aligned with you emotionally is the key; without it nothing is going to work, and they will just dismiss everything you say as wrong, because their emotions tell them so.
In the end it all comes down to how the person you are trying to persuade sees you. If they see you as evil, narrowminded, intellectually deficient, etc., then every logical argument you can deliver is going to be filtered by those negative perceptions they have of you, and even when they understand that logically you are right, they still will be emotionally resistant to accept that. You have to first make them see you as a friend and a colleague, and only then is it possible to get anywhere.
  Considerate: 89%  
  Substantial: 99%  
  Spelling & Grammar: 98%  
  Sentiment: Positive  
  Avg. Grade Level: 13.12  
  Sources: 0  
  Entity Sentiment Detection: such cases    positive emotional feedback   positive response   factual argument  
  Relevant (Beta): 96%  
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  Considerate: 83%  
  Substantial: 23%  
  Spelling & Grammar: 100%  
  Sentiment: Neutral  
  Avg. Grade Level: 12.26  
  Sources: 0  
  Entity Sentiment Detection: Emotions    liberals      
  Relevant (Beta): 99%  
  Learn More About Debra
People will still get emotionally invested in arguments they shouldn't where it makes no logical sense to do so and then refuse to budge, but in large part the answer to this will depend on the nature of the debate.
  Considerate: 95%  
  Substantial: 97%  
  Spelling & Grammar: 98%  
  Sentiment: Negative  
  Avg. Grade Level: 10.1  
  Sources: 0  
  Entity Sentiment Detection: measurable assessment of reality    various replicable experiments   curvature of the earth.People   Questions  
  Relevant (Beta): 98%  
  Learn More About Debra