ITT I will talk a bunch of shit on whatever you direct my attentions to

you may have one implement for defense.

Duels, knife-flytes, and fisticuffs are for nerds and poseurs; 90% of people who would only semi-ironically support reinstating dueling as conflict resolution can't even use a knife to peel an apple, probably, much less doing something actually worthwhile with the piece of shit. like making apple rabbits

And that's probably a good thing! Not the fact most people can't make fruit look adorable moments before their craft is summarily devoured, but: that for all the internet et al's falchion fetishism, gladius-geekery and glaring-at of daggers with the heart eyes emoji (and do not tell me this is cudgel weapon erasure because I will (probably) get to that) next to nobody can use the damn things in mortal combat. Which, again, totally for the best. I have no personal evidence to bring to the table to support the argument that Stabs Are Bads, beyond getting bitten by the ass-end of a dirt bike when I was a Teen (which did teach me that "metal fucks up flesh good" and "confidence and cultural osmosis doesn't actually render you immune to metal-implement-based fuckups of the Midnight Dash To The 60-Kilometer Away Hospital variety"). Literally, the last fucking thing we need is the general populace improving at using murder-implements. This includes guns. I'm not asking for a nuanced counterargument about when a gun has a situational use because this is comedic hyperbole hour. No guns. No weapons. Pocket knives as a tool yes ok but every year you have to go to knife school and learn to carve a new animal out of fruit. It's for the betterment of mankind or something

Violence is not the answer. Perhaps gently mocking the concept of violence being the answer as a means to shame listeners out of the mindset that violence is the answer? If you want to be more to-the-point then Talking Shit Out is but oh god no. no not like that. do not codify wordmake of the successful convince-rhetoric tonic variant. Oh fuck I was too late and now we have debate.

Structured debate is a game like fencing or dueling, and rather like repainting a pedestrian crossing into a hopscotch board. The game and its rules only bring something worthwhile to the situation if a) the rules are easy for everyone and anyone to follow, b) refusal or inability to engage does not ban you from "crossing the street", and c) whatever pileup might result is considerate to the wellbeing of participants and bystanders alike. Few people leave the house jonesing to see some minds blown all across the tarmac, y'dig?

If as a society we all agree to play this fuckening game every time we fundamentally disagree with which side of the street wild circumstance has emplaced us on, that's weird but acceptable. (I mean, we've got precedent for agreeing to play along with games that have dumb+unfair bugs in the game design.) Formal Debate (much like, uuuuuuuh fuck, I dunno, Dwarf Fortress) is conceptually cool and good, except for the part where the actual people who think it's cool and good rarely have patience or accommodations or even the time of day for those who can't keep up. Then, even if they haven't succeed in convincing this Homo Strawpiens to take their side in the argument, they'll consider it a job well done because they're the one person who played by the rules in this I'm-gonna-blow-a-fuckening-gasketball match.

I can get especially season'd (salty, bitter, even umami if you substitute a consonant) over this whole topic because using empathy/appeals to emotion is cheap and Bad Debate Form so I guess I'm just mad about this because we're playing Smash Bros and my main is considered cheap and for noobs? Cuz The kind of shit I've half a mind to correct/convince people about are the kind of topics where my main argument comes from personal experience, including but not limited to destroying gender/divorcing (for specific contexts) the experience of the diaspora from the motherland/destroying monogamy/destroying capitalism/taking women's health seriously/being better as a society about mental health/consent culture/pizza discourse/the preponderance of masculine behaviours given greater value in debate/debate meta, basically, welcome to my rabbit hole hope you brought a fuckening parachute, Alice/the ethics of education/living in Japan/living in Japan and being foreign/living in Japan and being foreign but Japanese-"passing"/Fuckening Japan, man, none of that was actually an invitation for anyone to ask me to rant about this unless you yourself are Japanese or half-Japanese, in which case please honestly PM me instead and we can jam about it there. thanks in advance you gawkward sons of fucks