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While online debate culture fetishizes formal debate, there are vast differences. One is that tournament debate is scored by judges, making it harder to fool yourself about how you are doing. 1/7
Because of this, it's easy for an online debater who mostly performs for their own audience to fool themselves and their fan base about their effectiveness. They have to succeed by their audience's standards, not persuade outsiders. 2/7
Occasionally an outsider *will* be persuaded to become a disciple of the streamer, offering testimony of their "conversion" to reaffirm the effectiveness of the streamer's rhetoric to the group. 3/7
This is precisely the way in which fake martial arts develop. Students really come to believe the master can knock them over with a wave of mental energy, and unconsciously play along. Even the master comes to really believe it. 4/7
The mass delusion is further reinforced when new students come to the dojo. Only the "marks" willing to play along will stay, perfecting the illusion that the techniques work on the general population. 5/7
Such a master may eventually enter a contest with a skilled outsider and get his ass handed to him when his techniques "suddenly" don't work. He will rationalize his loss rather than admit to himself he's a fraud. 6/7
So, for the most part, the students and master remain locked in a cycle of self-deception until the master self-destructs in some more spectacular way. (c.f. James Hydrick) 7/7
