Raw_Power

You've been on Less Wrong for a while. You've become very good at a lot of stuff. Specifically, arguing. You win arguments. All the time. Effortlessly. And the worst part is, you often win for the wrong reasons. Perhaps there were counters to your propositions. Perhaps you failed to mention a very important, non trivial premise, and your public accepted your shaky proposition with as much enthusiasm as if it had been rock-solid, if not more. They have failed you. You now know that, if you want to remain objective, to keep your grip on reality, to keep your mind sharp and your guard high, you need a Worthy Opponent, someone who's on the same level as you, who's as different in ideology and character from you as possible, who will not hesitate to point out any and every flaw your propositions would have, and would in fact go out of their way to contradict you, just for fun. This intellectual sparring will strengthen you both, and make you more careful in actual debate, on the public arena, whether you choose to use the Dark Arts or not. Quoth JoshuaZ: In many forms of Judaisms one often studies with a chavruta, with whom one will debate and engage the same texts. Such individuals are generally chosen to be about the same background level and intelligence, often for precisely the sort of reason you touch upon [I paraphrased that in the two first paragraphs] (as well as it helping encourage them to each try their hardest). A couple of interesting excerpts from the wikipedia artilce: Unlike conventional classroom learning, in which a teacher lectures to the student and the student memorizes and repeats the information back in tests, and unlike an academic academy, where students do individual research,[5] chavruta learning challenges the student to analyze and explain the material, point out the errors in his partner's reasoning, and question and sharpen each other's ideas, often arriving at entirely new insights into the meaning of the text.[1][6] A chavruta helps