How big of an impact would cleaner political debates have on society?

For some reason this is a preferred mode of political dialogue.

The reason is pretty obvious. The goal of the participants in a political dialogue is to become more liked and to make competitors less liked. It has nothing to do with "raising the level of discourse and understanding on that topic" -- that's just NOT the point of the exercise.

That's a great point! So what if someone held a "written debate"? Where the candidates outlined a dependency tree of their claims, and went through each of them logically?

It's not really expected for people to base their opinions on major issues just on what they hear in a debate. But as a source of information for citizens to use to help them improve their decision-making process about which candidate to vote for, it seems reasonably effective to me. Both candidate give their stances on all the major issues, and it communicates to the voters where the candidates stand on them all, a little bit about why they think that and what some major arguments are, and also what the major issues are thought to be in the upcoming election.

Offhand I can't think of a more cost-efficient and time-efficient way to learn a little bit about the political stances of all the candidates on all the major issues then watching a 90 minute debate. That shouldn't be your only source of information, of course, but I think it a very useful starting point for a voter to then do more research on their own.

Good point. I think, though, that even in the academia there is too much focus on oral communication. It's often easier to get away with vague ideas in seminars (if you're confident and respected) than in written communication. Of course there is a place for talks and debates in the academia but I think what I'm pointing to is too often neglected. So what you say holds true of academic oral discussions as well, though to a lesser degree. For this reason I've sometimes played with the idea of replacing the seminars with online written texts on chats or fora. I think, though, that most academics would find that less fun - for much the same reasons people would find written political debates less fun. People are very social and like to interact irl, and see others interact irl.

In science you are primarily trying to figure out what is true.

In politics, you are primarily trying to gain support for preferences which are neither true nor false. It is a much harder problem. At least in science, there is a single standard for truth external to the participants. In politics, pretty clearly different people have different preferences.

I, too, have heard that "undecided" voters tend to be those who have no idea what's going on.

Seems reasonable for general elections but what about primaries? A lot of people changed their mind about Rick Perry after his debate performances in the 2012 republican primaries. If better debates during the primaries produced better candidates from both parties, that seems like it would be a win.

Not that I disagree, but in the interest of playing devil's advocate, where's this coming from? Is the reasoning evidence-based, or is it just stuff that "everyone knows"?

It's not too surprising to me that established political orgs like the DNC believe almost all the available leverage to be found in rallying the base or theatrics targeted at uninformed voters; that is after all what we observe them doing. But beliefs like that often turn out to have more to do with culture than the outside world. If the DNC is basing them on data that hasn't been widely disseminated, on the other hand, that could be surprising and useful.

But among the people who care and who have a favorite before the campaigning period, would not some change their minds if they saw their favorite being intellectually humiliated on TV? (For the first time ever, that is.)

I think BBC's "Hardtalk" is doing something like this, thought it is just doing interviews (I think).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HARDtalk

Basically, he's not letting politicians get away with all their usual BS. However, one could go much further than this - be more systematic, even tougher, etc. Moderating debates using the same principle is a logical next step (perhaps it has been done).

My understanding is that HARDtalk is quite succesful.

I think the idea of this post is very good (indeed I have similar ideas myself which I'll probably write something on later) and have a hard time understanding why it's being voted down.

It says in passage X:YZ of the Bible that homosexuality is a sin.

Well, passage X+1:YZ+6 says the same thing about tattoos.

(Which is particularly hilarious when people get a tattoo of the former passage.)

Many of the bullshit explanations politicians give are perceived as perfectly acceptable to the wider public.

Some of them are, but a lot of the them aren't. Opposing gay marriage because you think it's violates a your religion is a straightfoward thing. There no lying or deception involved if the politician fulfills his promise and votes against gay marriage after the election. If you don't like those politicans you can elect other ones. The debate did it's job of accurately informing the voters about the politicians.

On the other hand a lot of things politicians evade questions and don't accurately inform the voters about their positions.

to identify those with genes predisposing them to being sociopaths.

I continue not to understand this. A high-functioning sociopath is not the same thing as a sadist. The sociopath's objective is amassing power and aggrandizement, not making people suffer. There's no reason to assume the policies they support would be different from those of any other office-holder who wants to keep getting elected.

I think you focus to much on the individual candidate themselves. When trying to understand what a president will do after an election, look at the kind of people who he picks as his advisers.

If president takes mainstream economists as his economy advisers instead of a bunch of bankers, that says something that might be more important than a quiz on economic knowledge. A president isn't going to write his own economic policy anyway. It's the job of the president to pick the right expert to write the economic policy.

I doubt an IQ test would be useful at all. One has to be quite intelligent to be a real candidate for presidency.

I would much rather have candidates take IQ and general knowledge tests than participate in honest debates

Sure you would. And if even a significant minority of the electorate agreed with you, you might see something like that happen.

what I would like to see is a DNA analysis of Presidential candidates to identify those with genes predisposing them to being sociopaths.

Would you vote for the more sociopathic or the less? I'm pretty sure in a competition between societies the last thing you want in a leader is someone who constrains how your team competes, especially if the other team is not so constrained. And given the competitive nature of the world, there will be teams out there that are barely or unconstrained.

First consider the reasons why the primary debates are not like that

Things are the way they are for reasons. It's not magic. It's not quantum fluctuation.

Here's a comparison case, the general public has had far greater access to statistics and other data relevant to elections since the advent of the internet, has there been any corresponding change in behaviour?*

I think there are a lot of systematic changes that happened in the last 20 years politics.

Newspaper have less money that they can spend on investigative reporters. The cold war ended. 9/11 happened. I think there more political distrust of the main parties.

In Germany there are a bunch of smaller parties such as the pirate party who take a bigger share of the vote than they did 20 years ago. A new party with an age of less than a year got got 4.9% of the vote at the last election (the need 5% to enter parliament). There seems to be room for a new party to arise. The last real new party that did arise in Germany was the Green party that was born out of the environmentalist movement decades ago.

In my country, I doubt this many people would have voted for this party if the Internet hadn't existed.

If the people in power had the desire to enforce honesty and and goodwill in politics the problem would be solved already.

How do you know that it's not some sort of prison dilemma situation, where everyone would want to be more honest but it just doesn't pay off for any player to move in that direction?

Only if they got elected. People who would like to enforce honesty and goodwill in politics simply don't get pushed forward by the electorate in to higher offices.

Or, prediction markets.

Same thing really, just cleaner and more elegant.

I believe a moderator tried to do this in a debate for the last election, except the "obvious falsehood" turned out to actually be true.

Which "obvious falsehood" are you referring to?

the way to do better at that game is deciding whose policy is better, supporting that side, and leaning on both to make better choices.

Once you've given your support, it's only the threat of stopping that support which provides pressure. Instead, you could support a minor party, or agitate for a particular issue, which may put pressure on both parties to move in your direction, seeking your vote.

The hours of thought should have occurred before the debate. Its not like the debater has been chosen at random from the audience.

The New York Times has published many articles where they have a comment from one and state they could get no comment from the other. There is nothing new here and any change that was going to happen because the NYT was going to do this has already occurred.

ALL political debate and interview is presentation of ideas, not the place where ideas are born and develop in real time. Any candidate who is evolving his response in real time is unprepared, and if she is any good at all, will be prepared every time after that that she is asked about this same issue.

Hmm. What if the candidates were given the questions in advance, so they only needed to present their answers?

And their answers are given to the opponents before airing so the rebuttals can be prepared at length as well?