Jacob and I had a quick debate a little while ago about whether the ubiquity of smartphones has destroyed the bar bet. I didn't think so - I thought it made bar bets more efficient because you could actually settle them right away. Jacob's take was reasonable though, that people get squeamish and say no to the bet, then just look up the answer. That got me thinking - this is how debates happen all the time. The thing about bar bets, though, is that while indeterminacy over a fact (
e.g. whether Jerry Rice had more touchdowns than Randy Moss at this stage of his career) could end a larger debate (
i.e. the best receiver ever), the fact of putting something on the line gives you incentive to resume the argument several days later. Without the bar bet though, you often end up in a dead end, and no one ever really follows up. So if the bar bet's dead, is that a good or bad thing for public discourse?
Generally, when people get into debates or arguments, it's live and in real time, like at the dinner table, in the classroom, the break room, the water cooler, or at the bar. This is essential to the romanticized version of democracy, where people are well-informed and debate politics all the time. What happens, though, when people are debating over a policy and cannot agree on a fact that's central to the strength of either argument? In the past, the debate probably would have just ended. Today, though, this dynamic has largely changed due to the advent of the search engine and the smart phone. However, like the bar bet, it's not clear that the effects are all good.
