Debate is stupid. Don't change my mind.

We like stories. We like anecdotal evidence that connects with us on a personal level more than we like data that shows general trends. We like people who seem like they know what they're talking about, we like people who make us laugh or engage with us on an emotional level. We see patterns where there aren't patterns, and we don't make connections where there might be some - this is just how the human brain seems to work. And debate plays into that a lot.

Writer Aisling McCrea argues with the internet about the merits of self-care and debate - from the grim entertainment spectacle of online debate that mostly serves to promote the careers of right wing confidence men and obscures real thinking and learning, to the ways self-care ideology papers over a mental healthcare crises in the neoliberal era.

Aisling wrote the articles Self-Care Won't Save Us for Current Affairs and Resolved: Debate Is Stupid for The Outline.