With Logosive, you propose a debate topic and debaters. We then handle outreach, ticket sales, and logistics. After the debate, ticket revenue is split between everyone involved, including the person that proposed the debate, the debaters, and the host.
Logosive is built with Django, htmx, and Alpine.js. Claude generates the debate launch pages, including suggesting debaters or debate topics, all from a single prompt (but the debates happen between real debaters).
I’m now looking for help launching new debates, so if you have any topics or people you really want to see debate, please submit them at https://logosive.com.
Thanks!
Selling (even pre-selling) tickets to debates between people who haven't agreed to participate in your debate is insanely misleading marketing.
Less charitably, however, as soon as Logosive takes off a bit, the existing debating venues (news channels, big podcasts, etc.) can just look at what debate ideas are popular and make them happen, with the promise of a bigger paycheck and a bigger audience.
Can't really find a moat for Logosive here.
You describe an interesting problem with the moat. I'm hoping we can be the choice venue for debates by providing the best debate creation and discovery experience and by also providing larger paychecks to debaters than news channels and podcasts could ever hope to provide to debaters, hosts, and debate promoters, through Logosive's funding mechanism and a large revenue share for all parties involved in the debate.
I think I get the idea of a kind of bounty on debate participation, but the logistics need more work.
When I initially read your comment, I agreed with it. But, on second thought, if the site is presented as a sort of Kickstarter for debates where people are funding something they hope will happen, I think it might work. It is important that this is clearly communicated though.
Then again I may be biased because I'm a terrible debater. On the other hand, my mom used to show off her debate medals from high school.
One debate format I'd like to see on Logosive is asynchronous debate, similar to the Federalist Papers, where the debaters submit their positions and rebuttals to each other as written statements, over the course of weeks. I think this format could align with more of a truth-seeking type of debate, and Logosive can already support this format.
That said, the level of respect and orderliness of the debates below is something I'd like to see more of.
* Russell v. Copleston on God https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMsbD1L5IlQ
* Buckley v. Baldwin on if the american dream is at the expense of the american negro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin%E2%80%93Buckley_debate
The last debate that changed my mind on anything was about 20 years ago. It was a structured debate regarding marriage equality. The negative team, included a wildcard, a poly bisexual woman, whose relationship would still be ignored by the government after the change. She argued, very successfully in my opinion, that moving the bar one step made no sense, and the government simply shouldnt have a favoured relationship status at all.
Since then I cant think of any. However, I also cant think of another proper structured debate I have seen.
For example, 99% of climate scientists agree that climate change is real and human-caused, but - oh! - we need to be fair and balanced so we'll give time to the other side that has tons of untested and unproven crackpot theories about maybe that's just what climates do and we just shouldn't bother trying to do better.
Likewise with 'vaccines cause autism'. There's no scientific evidence whatsoever to show any link whatsoever, but we need to be balanced so we have to give time to both sides.
The headline example on their site is 'are seed oils healthy?' Assuming an agreed-upon definition of 'healthy', this shouldn't be a debate. Are they good for you in moderation or not? Let's look at the science. Oh, they're fine? Great, debate over.
They also have "AGI in 5 years?" What's to debate there? Sure, it's possible, who knows? What's the point in debating whether or not something might happen?
If it were 'will AGI be beneficial for humanity?' then okay, that could be a debate, but none of these topics I'm seeing are good fodder for debate; just arguments or baseless assertions.
The problem is that in any contentious topic where the science isn't definitive, each side will latch onto whatever ambiguous studies that favors their position. For seed oils it's various studies showing "inflammation", and ad-hominem on how opposing studies are funded by big oil (or whatever). Or think about how during the pandemic, there was conflicting evidence on whether masks worked, or whether ivermectin cured covid. We now have a much better understanding, but at the start of the pandemic there was weak evidence both ways.
Debates are pure entertainment, often misunderstood as fact, and often purely to manipulate.
People love winners, not ideas. It's just more us-vs-them. Especially because the US population only ever sees the word "debate" when it comes to a political debate on a stage, and those are not debates.
Again, I love this idea in theory but I fear it's time has come and gone already.
I’ve also seen a surge of interest in debate outside just political debate, especially on platforms like Jubilee, podcasts, and X spaces.
