Why I usually don't argue with YouTube videos

This isn't terribly important but I'm airing a minor grievance. People frequently email the TV crew to say "I saw this video on YouTube. Can you refute it?" Here's why I usually refuse.

Frankly, I hate dealing with videos. Text is an asynchronous mode of communication, whereas video is synchronous. ("Synchronous" is a fancy-schmancy computer science major's way of saying "dependent on time.") See, when you're arguing, the entire argument is part of an interconnected whole. Bits are presented that rely on other bits for validity. Grasping an argument is not like reading a story; you have you to bounce back and forth and cross reference things in order to understand them.

In a way, I think that's why members of the creationist movement are so much in love with live debates, while being such miserable failures at validating their stuff through rigorous scientific publication. A weak argument is much more easily exposed when you can scroll back to an earlier part and double check for inconsistencies. In live format, once a point whizzes past, the words are lost in time and you have to rely on your memory of what was said. Obviously we do this ourselves on the Atheist Experience, discussing issues with callers in real time, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. But it changes the viewer's experience, and you have to rely a little bit more on the claimed authority of the speakers since you can't fact-check effectively in real time.

So YouTube is not quite the same as a live presentation, because you can easily move the time slider backwards and forwards to review what was said. But I still hate doing that, because there's no effective search tool. There's no index. Also, it is much harder to accurately quote the passage you're responding to. Text is something I can copy and paste. With video, all I can do is hunt for approximately the right spot on the video, sit through parts of the monologue that I'm not using for a while, and then painstakingly transcribe the text while pausing frequently and scrolling back to make sure I got it right.

And finally, it's time consuming. In text, all the words exist simultaneously on the page, and you can flip through and skim to find what you need fairly quickly. If there are large passages of obvious nonsense that don't need to be addressed, it's easy to detect where they begin and end. With video, all you can do is... watch the video. In a real-time debate, you can at least respond and influence the direction of the conversation in real time. Video is a flat, dead expanse of time that doesn't listen to you.

Incidentally, this is yet another reason why I can't stand watching Zeitgeist. I don't so much mind responding to all those horrible arguments when they are laid out in text format. But I refuse to waste two hours of staring at a screen if there is no effective attempt to entertain.

What I'm saying is that movies are simply a terrible format for holding a serious argument, and the majority of the time if I get a link to a movie saying "Watch this" and nothing more, it's probably getting archived and ignored. Other people on the TV list might sometimes answer it. But if you want a response to a movie-based argument from me, all I can suggest is that you either find a written version of the argument and present that, or sum up the main points that you find difficult.

And don't even get me started on YouTube comments. Whoever tries to hold a serious discussion with people through short soundbites that are presented ten to a page and cycle off the front within minutes... all I can say is, may the FSM have mercy on your soul.

End of rant.