Consider Otherwise · Life Conversations
Bring me your argument.
This is a live conversation show. Guests, callers, and whatever the day put in front of all of us. Everybody gets time. When a claim comes up that we can check, we stop and check it on air with RhetoricalPoints.
Three rules hold the room. They're short, they're not negotiable, and reading them is how you get in.
- 01
No PhilBro’ing.
Arguing to win. Performing certainty you don’t have. Treating a conversation as a stage and the other person as the audience. If you came to be impressive, this is the wrong room.
- 02
This is a conversation with fact checking, not a debate.
Nobody is scoring you and nobody wins. When a claim comes up that we can check, we stop and check it on air. If a question needs the structure of a debate, it moves to the debate room instead.
- 03
If you reject truth in the face of evidence, you are kicked.
Changing your mind is welcome and so is disagreeing with the evidence on stated grounds. Looking straight at it and continuing anyway ends the call.
The same rules apply to the host
When Stephen makes a claim we can check, we check it the same way, with the same instrument, on air. That is not a courtesy extended to guests. It is the reason the show exists.
What we keep
The show is recorded and broadcast. Afterward we keep a short note: what we discussed and which claims we checked. If you come back, that note is what we read, so you don't have to start over. We keep it for 12 months. We don't keep a judgment about you, and on air you are only ever first name, your city if you agree to it, and your topic.
Questions before you commit to anything? Ask first. Nobody has to walk into a live room cold.