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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9629769" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I find it extremely important to take seriously the opinions of people I disagree with (only so long as there is no moral component in the disagreement--and there is no such thing here, thank goodness!) It's often the only way to realize one is or has been barking up the wrong tree all along. Even if I end up sticking to my guns, to temper one's position in the fire of sincere rebuttal is perhaps the single best way to free it of flaws. No method is perfect, but adversarial methods have quite a bit of value that is easily forgotten in the naturally conciliatory bent of society-at-large.Vaguely reminds me of a project I did while I was a tutor at a local community college. Did a whole presentation on how competitive methods could be used to augment study group efforts. Wasn't easy to find literature on the subject (the vast majority of scholarship on study skills and tutoring focuses on the collaborative, as one might expect), but what I found proved fascinating. The TL;DR is that, if used very judiciously, competitive methods can actually be extremely effective--but that's a bit like saying "if fire is used extremely judiciously, it can be extremely effective". Use it right, you get cooked food and suddenly nutritional needs are WAY easier to meet; use it wrong and you've just become a free cooked lunch for whatever predator and/or carrion-eater wanders by.</blockquote>

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