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Are there such 'discussions' on the Internet?

Heraclitusstudent says

Are there such 'discussions' on the Internet?

I will not talk to you about this topic.

This is why I don't do "debate" events.

The word "debate" used to mean a discourse where various ideas are compared by men of good faith in an attempt to get at the truth.

That's not what this is. This is the intellectual equivalent of "professional wrestling", a fake and gay spectacle which has nothing to do with any substantive idea.

I will this young man credit for quick wits, and he is entirely correct to point out Peterson's intellectual dishonesty, but nothing of substance was discussed here, and no new ideas were raised.

The format simply forbids it.

Even if this event were not being treated like an exhibition cage match, live debates are pretty much useless events that generate far more heat than light. Not only do they fail to allow the participants time to think about and formulate the best possible articulation of their thesis, they fail to allow the audience time to really digest what is being said.

Fights between men happen in the moment. Fights between ideas do not.

In a fight between ideas, the battleground, and the prize, is a large network of human minds, linked together by text and speech, which is slow to communicate and even slower to crystalize a consensus.

I'm not interested in standing in front of someone, talking over and interrupting each other, and producing nothing but a flashy spectacle, devoid of sense, reason, and evidence.

I have no patience for people who issue "challenges" to debate as if they were throwing a glove at my feet.

Fool, we are already debating. I have written an idea on the internet. You, too, can write an idea on the internet. And if your points and ideas are worth addressing, if they are likely to sway the thinking of readers, then I will write something else which responds to those ideas.

Valuable and enlightening debates happen between the platforms of two or more thinkers with audiences and the ability to command public attention, not in some farcical staged event with chess clocks, or in long comment chains that devolve into an internet slap fight.

The role of memes and quips is to puncture transparently bad ideas without wasted time or effort. Not to substitute for the long-form discussion of viable opposing positions.