I have always loved having these inconclusive arguments. Especially with those I am quite sure I have no way of agreeing with on that particular topic or neither do they with me. For one I've always felt it tests you out when it comes to defending your thought process and gives you little time to do that as you need to be thinking as you speak and as you are listening to your opposite number fervently defend his/her point of view.
During one of such arguments lately with Agalya I had one of my Eureka moments. I felt all this while I have been going about these arguments in the wrong way. If I had not looked at simply defending my point of view but rather tried to bring a conclusion to the discussion in a rational and methodical way I would have learnt more out of the exercise. All I had to do was to have sat down with the person I was arguing with to build a framework or a scoresheet which could be used to mathematically conclude the argument in favour of one side or the other. But now that I think of it I was not ready to accept such a decision back then. I was not ready to relent and just hear but not listen to the other side's arguments.
For example there were many times when in IIM C we used to have arguments on who the best batsman was? Was it Sachin or Lara or Ganguly or Kallis? What we used to do was keep spewing statistics supporting one guy or the other. Instead what I now believe we should have done was to create a framework using the following steps
1. Decide on what were the key elements which defined a batsman. - Batting averages, strike rates, Man of the match awards and so on
2. Giving each of these elements a weightage and bringing the total to 100
3. And agreeing on scores for each of these contestants on the listed elements
4. Calculate the final scores and agreeing on the winner which the mathematical model throws at us (irrespective of whether our heart is with the decision or not)
Although we did come very close to such a framework once. Although calling it "we did come close" seems like an exaggeration, there was this one time when Vibin and Thala were having the Ganguly vs Sachin argument, Vibin suggested that there were 4 metrics to identify the better cricketer viz., Batting, Bowling, Fielding and Captaincy. And in his opinion sachin was a better bastman, while Ganguly was a better bowler and captain and the clincher was that fielding was something debatable. Thereby concluding that Ganguly was a better cricketer. On a side note, his point on fielding being a debatable metric left us in splits.
Similarly while I and Agalya were discussing the pros and cons of a placement committee in the IIMs we were making no headway with our arguments with neither of us actually listening to what the other had to say. So that was when (and I have to appreciate myself for this though :P) I told her let us not keep doing this because we can keep coming up with arguments all year round for one side or the other. So when we meet this december, let us take a paper and pen out, list down the pros and cons and see what we can come up with to improve the existing system.
And that is definitely a much better way to go about bringing to a close an inconclusive argument rather than keep throwing one random supporting statement after the other backing the side we are on.
During one of such arguments lately with Agalya I had one of my Eureka moments. I felt all this while I have been going about these arguments in the wrong way. If I had not looked at simply defending my point of view but rather tried to bring a conclusion to the discussion in a rational and methodical way I would have learnt more out of the exercise. All I had to do was to have sat down with the person I was arguing with to build a framework or a scoresheet which could be used to mathematically conclude the argument in favour of one side or the other. But now that I think of it I was not ready to accept such a decision back then. I was not ready to relent and just hear but not listen to the other side's arguments.
For example there were many times when in IIM C we used to have arguments on who the best batsman was? Was it Sachin or Lara or Ganguly or Kallis? What we used to do was keep spewing statistics supporting one guy or the other. Instead what I now believe we should have done was to create a framework using the following steps
1. Decide on what were the key elements which defined a batsman. - Batting averages, strike rates, Man of the match awards and so on
2. Giving each of these elements a weightage and bringing the total to 100
3. And agreeing on scores for each of these contestants on the listed elements
4. Calculate the final scores and agreeing on the winner which the mathematical model throws at us (irrespective of whether our heart is with the decision or not)
Although we did come very close to such a framework once. Although calling it "we did come close" seems like an exaggeration, there was this one time when Vibin and Thala were having the Ganguly vs Sachin argument, Vibin suggested that there were 4 metrics to identify the better cricketer viz., Batting, Bowling, Fielding and Captaincy. And in his opinion sachin was a better bastman, while Ganguly was a better bowler and captain and the clincher was that fielding was something debatable. Thereby concluding that Ganguly was a better cricketer. On a side note, his point on fielding being a debatable metric left us in splits.
Similarly while I and Agalya were discussing the pros and cons of a placement committee in the IIMs we were making no headway with our arguments with neither of us actually listening to what the other had to say. So that was when (and I have to appreciate myself for this though :P) I told her let us not keep doing this because we can keep coming up with arguments all year round for one side or the other. So when we meet this december, let us take a paper and pen out, list down the pros and cons and see what we can come up with to improve the existing system.
And that is definitely a much better way to go about bringing to a close an inconclusive argument rather than keep throwing one random supporting statement after the other backing the side we are on.
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