I always feel like I don't have the "necessary knowledge" to debate in general. May it be politics or not. Maybe it's my lower school education and/or it's cultural in my family.
I think I can talk a bit more than before on that kind of topic, but only with certain individuals I feel condifent enough to speak without feel being blamed. In the end, I'm mostly listening than talking. I believe that everything is more complicated than it looks like on the surface. So I keep observing and I don't speak a lot even if I don't agree. Some friends could have a more clear opinions (on the social and envrionment side, which I think is important as well) and I feel I stand less easily on their side than before, trying to dig deeper in my head about the subject. In my head, a lot of things are more related than we think, and there's unexpected consequences (which could be better and worse, not necessarily 'bad'...) . So, yes, it takes a lot of knowledge to take position and debate on it, I believe.
I appreciate now being surrounded by more different individuals because of the work and not staying in my 'bubble of affinities' all the time. I am not on 'social medias' except this forum, almost. I prefer real human contacts. And thanks for being my online bonus contacts as well, haha.
In the end, debates (including political ones) are very intimidating for me, to be honest.
Oh what a boon it seems to have been to grow up on the early uncensored internet with all its flamewars as opposed to today.
Debating will see you called all manner of rude words, harsh names, compared to historical groups that have not been around for a lifetime or (much) more. You can see it as an argument ender and that the person is unwilling or unable (usually the latter) to debate you further, more fool them really. It only really matters if it is someone you respect doing the deed, and you might have to evaluate what respect you afford them. Some would also say it is not necessarily your job to change their mind as much as present it to the undecided in the invisible audience where it can be assumed to be a matter of degree -- "we have 1 million in this town to do roads and fund schools, what split should it be?" multiplied by several hundred for all manner of different issues and you have politics in a nutshell, most of it being about picking the least worst option.
Three things to look up
Dunning Kruger. Broadly the name for a concept where someone thinks they know an awful lot more/possibly a totality of a subject when they really don't and have the unearned confidence in their abilities. Sadly all too common. You may also wish to look up the Peter Principle while you are at it (everybody ascends to the level of their incompetence).
True Believers. Usually brought up as an element of learning to spot liars, or indeed the failures you might encounter in doing it for this. Whether as a result of chemicals, upbringing, in group survival method (those that rock the boat get kicked out, easier to shut your mouth and just play along and a fairly decent survival strategy), survivor bias, sunk cost fallacy or something else then there will be people that also have the confidence that they are right despite being unable to back it up or have their belief withstand scrutiny. Intelligence also has little to do with it -- many a smart person joins cults.
Impostor syndrome. Covered a bit more shortly but you find yourself surrounded by people that have been doing it for decades, and might be able to do certain things far faster than you despite physical frailty... you then find yourself thinking you are unworthy of a spot at the table as it were. Certainly you can make a fool of yourself easily enough but for the most part if someone like that invites you in then you are in.
Complexity problems. Certainly -- there are however many billion individuals with more in the past, all with their own whims, resources, long tail effects, preferences (including time preferences as things change in value or you need the money quickly to buy something else), abilities and desires... it is then impossible to account for a price of an item other than "it is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it", and that is just pricing. Some go so far as to eschew numbers as the complexity is too great for humans or AI (AI as it is understood as of the rise of chat gpt is all about making interesting connections in data by means of massive computing power), see Austrian school of economics*, and instead go more with reasoning based on results.
Learn your fallacies
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ (click on the icons for more in depth).
School education. Lack of it might be a boon these days and for quite some time -- critical thinking hardly seems encouraged as a skill and many with it seem to have it in spite of such things. Fortunately there are books and the internet containing many more, all for free if you want. I do suggest reading it all -- echo chambers are not good things to be in.
We can get into some more advanced things -- human psychology is ever the fun one (not what you say but how you say it, tells someone is of a certain persuasion** and how to tailor accordingly, though that is also a sales/negotiation tactic), and that is without the human factor (tall people do better it seems, as do attractive people even without people assuming as they are pretty they can't have done the bad thing). Similarly you might be right and talking about something you know well but if you write like a 5 year old with the spelling and grammar mistakes of it then nobody will take you seriously, logically fallacies already covered (correlation and causation being a major one -- see banning of ice cream for polio) and more nebulously something called rhetoric which is where clear prose comes in. Rhetoric is one of my greater failures -- I can write all fancy like but if I write 15 paragraphs dense with points, potential flaws in the approach and options you tend to lose people***.
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/why-i-write/ might also be good in this.
*schools of economics is a good start, and is far from a settled debate either thus being a nice example microcosm of politics in general.
**fairly basic one being read what someone says. People tend to be split between visual thinkers, auditory thinkers and feelings based thinkers, in which case their words will tend to reflect that (I see, look at this, I heard, sounds like, I feel, that feels right...). Some go a lot further in the psychometric testing world but I will have to note the myers briggs thing is a popular one based on very little, certainly no underlying rules of psychology, that seems to enjoy an unearned level of popularity.
***related to a concept in an earlier post is literacy level.
https://literacytrust.org.uk/parents-and-families/adult-literacy/what-do-adult-literacy-levels-mean/ being a good overview, Americans tend to merge 4 and 5 I am going with as a means of making the low levels of 5 look less bad. If the person you are debating is stuck at a lower level (measurements of intelligence is a tricky subject but I will refute the blank slate for this -- intelligence is pretty heritable so barring fun with recessive genetics the child of two thick people is probably going to be thick as well even if you took them away at birth and gave them the finest education money can buy, indeed adoption studies do seem to reflect this) then complicated arguments won't win them over.
Anyway there is the internet debate/debate in general starter pack.
