I don’t know what we were arguing about, but it had to do with philosophy and knowledge. He was saying that something would be the case (true) under a certain set of hypothetical circumstances and I was saying I didn’t know if it would be true.

The implication was that he also didn’t know, which I think is what he was arguing against. He repeated his example to try to make me understand his point, but I didn’t think it was that I didn’t understand it; just that I wasn’t agreeing with it.

He seemed to be talking over the phone or some type of internet voice connection like Discord, Skype or Zoom, but I was actually there in some kind of room, perhaps a classroom in a school or a small auditorium, full of people listening to us.

I don’t know what the situation was. It didn’t seem to be a scheduled debate, but just as we began to talk over each other a little louder than before, the moderator or teacher or whoever it was that seemed to be in charge on my end butted in to stop us.

If it was an actual debate, that part is a shame. It’s one of the reasons I prefer casual back-and-forth debates over formal ones. The moderators, many of which abuse the power of the role, tend to cut in just when things are getting interesting.

Besides, it’s not like we were calling each other insulting names, yelling or getting upset in any serious way. We were simply arguing our points not even particularly vehemently. He was arguing his rather. I was more or less questioning or challenging it.

If it sounded hostile, it probably sounded even worse when I talked over the person intervening. “I just want to say one last thing,” I might’ve phrased it in my calm but naturally dominant voice before telling Alex he was one of the smartest people I’d met.

I was about to say “people I know” before changing it because, though it seems we’d met in person, we weren’t friends or anything. “You’re one of the smartest people I ever met,” I might’ve continued, “but I think you’re in over your head on this one.”

I don’t remember what he was saying; just that he continued to argue his point in a voice that’s naturally a lot more polite-sounding than mine, which makes sense because I was listening to audio of him arguing points in real life as I slept.

2020 [ May 18 ]