The awfull truth.

[Cronos Impera]

I just saw a new Creationism vs. Evolutionism thread and I was asking myself.
Was Orwell right when he claimed in 1984 that the past is alterable by those who keep their hold over the present?
Isn't a debate a duel of idelologies a duel of strangth rather than a duel of right vs. wrong?
The winner is always the righteous and the loser is always the villan.
Can't we all for the sake of Orwell to admit for just a telewrite moment, beyond Gunbortions, Gallotricity and TediUs that being the loser is tentamount to being wrong in an argument?

And shouldn't people focus more on natural sciences/industrial sciences rather than philosophy/social sciences? Is your control over matter the ultimate decisive factor in winning a debate?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

What ideologies that lost in the past do you think were right? It would be easier if you had some examples.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Not convincing everyone doesn't make you the loser in an argument, although it can be used as a guideline generally speaking. Obviously the competence of the debaters on each side will determine who comes away looking as the victor, but that doesn't actually make them right.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Eppur si muove.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Galileo was forced to recant his assertion, backed by observational evidence, of Copernicus' theory that the earth indeed moved round the sun. The Inquisition won the argument, and the dominant theory of the day, widely accepted by theologians, philosophers and the general populace, was reasserted.

Galileo's public apology would have delighted the conservative powers and the heliocentrists comprehensively lost.

Apocryphally, Galileo was supposed to have muttered "Eppur si muove" ("Yet it moves") after his recantation.

Because no matter what is said or argued by humans, who wins the argument and for whatever time, the universe is as it is.

[Ironside]

I just saw a new Creationism vs. Evolutionism thread and I was asking myself.
Was Orwell right when he claimed in 1984 that the past is alterable by those who keep their hold over the present?
Isn't a debate a duel of idelologies a duel of strangth rather than a duel of right vs. wrong?
The winner is always the righteous and the loser is always the villan.
Can't we all for the sake of Orwell to admit for just a telewrite moment, beyond Gunbortions, Gallotricity and TediUs that being the loser is tentamount to being wrong in an argument?

And shouldn't people focus more on natural sciences/industrial sciences rather than philosophy/social sciences? Is your control over matter the ultimate decisive factor in winning a debate?

It depends on what you mean. Scientific information on how the world works are the same no matter the theory.
But I guess you talk about the more relative meassures like gunbortions, where both positions are possible (while the argument is on the views on what works best) or the big one when it comes to Orwell (or rather Stalin's Soviet) history destruction and modification.

There, a former ally could be branded as the enemy of the state and all signs of that you cooperated with him "disappeared" (photoshop a la 1935). The good news is that we know about it, there's simply too much information there to destroy it all (even if it might be outside public knowledge), the bad news is that the image can be blurred by this destruction, showing that it might be possible to succeed. That is why book burnings or other information reduction measurements are such a crime.

The present is the sum of the past, if you control the past, well then...

[rory_20_uk]

The past does not exist. We only have fragments of it. We try to get an accurate picture, but most information comes from what is left... and this tends to be from the victors.

It amazes me that George Orwell thinks of himself as some sort of Deiphic seer with that pronouncement.

Aside from Maths (even in this there are disagreements - like is infinity always the same size?) there are no "right" or "wrong" answers. There is only a point of view.

1. Alexander the Great (Greece)/ Alexander the Devil (middle East)
2. Walter Reighleigh - National Hero (England)/ Pirate (Spain)
3. Mary I / Bloody Mary - killed far less than Elizabeth.
4. King Richard III - utter bastard as he lost to Henry VII - who won by in essence bribing half of Richard's army.
5. Founding of America - Thanksgiving (how touching!) / Rape of a Continent (a view the ex-locals probably have)

A more current example is that many people will not vote Tory as they will cut services. That the country has been borrowing money for over 2 decades to pay for them isn't considered. If I were referring to someone living on credit cards and overdrafts people would say "live within your means" but apprently when a country does this it's fine.

[Justiciar]

1. Mary Queen of Scots / Bloody Mary - killed far less than Elizabeth.

Are you sure?

[rory_20_uk]

Typing in the middle of a clinic isn't the best idea for 100% accuracy is it?