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Yes absolutely, two can get a ton of laughter throwing arguments towards each other knowing the other keeps their position.

For example two sports fans which like different teams.

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Ah, yes. So, a precondition to meaningful debate is that all parties agree on the game (if not the rules of engagement?)

You cannot have a meaningful debate if the other party isn’t arguing in good faith. I think OP actually gave a good example with sports. I’ve seen people argue about sports for both fun and because they tossed back a too few many. Being exposed to sports fans in my 20s really helped me understand alot about what can drive people to do all sorts of things.

> You cannot have a meaningful debate if the other party isn’t arguing in good faith.

It depends on what you consider to be the point of the debate: to convince your opponent, or to convince the audience. If it's the audience, then all you have to do is point out the mistakes and bad faith of the rebuttals and then every debate is a meaningful debate.

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