Battle of Ideas
Where the best arguments win
Pick a contested claim. See the strongest case each side can make — steelmanned, red-teamed, sourced, and honestly labeled. No votes, no sides taken. The conclusion is yours.
- Remote work increases overall productivity7 against · 6 for · 13 total
- Social media does more harm than good to teenagers7 against · 8 for · 15 total
- Nuclear power should be the backbone of the clean-energy transition7 against · 7 for · 14 total
- Frontier AI development should be deliberately slowed8 against · 8 for · 16 total
- Immigration is a net economic benefit to the receiving country8 against · 7 for · 15 total
- Humans have free will7 against · 8 for · 15 total
How this is made
An experiment in serious arguments. Every argument is the strongest version an AI steelman advocate could construct, red-teamed by an independent adversarial pass, with Pass-1 spot-checks on load-bearing sources. Columns are never padded — where a side runs out of strong arguments, it says so and ends.
Part of Reigniting the Enlightenment: the public arena for contested claims (6 claims, 88 arguments).
Method vocabulary
These are the named patterns behind the apparatus — open them in Essential Concepts, or practice steelman in the Toolkit.
Concepts
SteelmanStrongest form of each argument before critique
Concepts
Red Team / Blue TeamIndependent adversarial pass on every case
Concepts
Epistemic humilityHonest labels for what was and wasn’t verified
Concepts
Critical thinkingThe discipline Battle is designed to exercise
Toolkit
Steelman builderPractice the move Battle applies to every argument