Debates SHOULD be about 2 parties seeking truth. In reality, it's about brining people over to your viewpoint and garnering support.

There's many ways to do that, but centuries of debate etiquette describe bad form and dishonest means to "win a debate". Despite the events here, it is generally bad form in an exchange of words to incite violence against an opponent. And that's often what Kirk does, or did.

>Facially, they're theater. But a system's purpose is what it does, and these performances serve as a venue/foundation to hone/push messaging

Yes. Before we sigsrcoated it, we just called this propaganda. Propaganda is not a debate. The most dangerous discovery in early social media was that a spewing of propaganda (aka, arguments not all based on reason nor a goal to further humanity) will still get you a following, no matter how badly you use. Becsuse saying those words rouse the thoughts of those who are either prone to propaganda, or simply embolden those who already had those thoughts but werre too scared to admit it.

A decade of refinement later, and look where we are.