Re: how arguing more will make you smarter
Good article and it's right in may ways.
A key part of life's journey, at least imho, is learning and developing the skill to be able to present one's views and opinions in a structured and cohesive way. That often requires that we have previously thought through our views and beliefs, questioned them objectively and reserached and gathered the facts and evidence related to the subject matter.
Alongside the ability to present one's views cohesively, is the skill to be able to conduct oneself in a debate/discussion. It really IS a skill to be learned and those that enter a debate without that skill find themselves floundering very quickly. It's not that their viewpoints are invalid or wrong, it's simply that they don't know how to use them, how to defend their views, how to assess other people's views and typically they react very badly and emotionally to anyone who challenges their views.
In a sense these people are like duellists walking into the arena armed with their views, which are the fencing swords and head gear, but they have absolutely no idea how to use them. They have not practiced fencing and thus get repeatedly jabbed and beaten by others who DO know the art and skill of debating.
I can honestly say that despite my 50+ years of life, I have learned the most in the past 10 of those where I started to engage in debates (mostly on the internet) and realised how better others were at presenting and defending/supporting their views and ideas. It is a skill to be learned.
There are numerous posters on this forum who lack even the basic skills in this respect. They are 100% emotional amateurs who want to splurt out their beliefs without a single shred of factual evidence, and then when presented with real irrefutable data from people able to present their case well, they degenerate into personal insults or frustrated outbursts.
The greatest advances we make in our own education and understanding of the world come from being able to be humble, to challenge what we think we might know, to challenge our social conditioning and brainwashing and to start to objectively and honestly assess the available facts.
You can do that with personal research, lots of reading and studying, AND you can do it by engaging on different internet forums where discussions and debates are occurring and listen to what others are saying. This gives you lots of new views and opinions to consider and follow up with research if you are interested.
Regardless there are always going to be emotional and egotistical people who can't swim and yet who continually wade in to the deep end of debates and discussions and who thus start to flounder very quickly.