In this video, we are going to start discussing seven terms. These are terms that basically should be looked upon as working terms. And the definition that we give for each one of these terms should be looked at as working definitions or operational definitions. You know, there are a lot of words that have more than one definition to them.
So I'm going to talk about some terms in a way. that puts us all on the same page. And every time these terms are used in the course, we'll all be referring to the same thing. Those four terms are discussion, disagreement, argument, and fight. Discussion, disagreement, argument, and fight.
In our next video, we'll talk about the last three terms, but in this one, these four go together. Discussion, disagreement, argument, and fight. So let's talk about discussion first. that people are discussing something or two people are having a discussion what that means simply is that they are just talking about something that's it if two people are talking about something regardless of whether they agree or disagree doesn't matter We call it discussion.
Somebody says, boy, I can't wait for the Super Bowl this year. The other one says, oh, I can't wait either. That's discussion. Usually discussions last a lot longer than that, but that's discussion.
It doesn't matter if they agree or disagree. But disagreement's a little different. Let's talk about disagreement for a second. Disagreement, if we say that people disagree with each other or that they're having a disagreement, what that's going to mean is that they have been talking to one another. They have been having a discussion, but now each...
party thinks that the other side is wrong. They've been talking, but now they think each other is wrong. Oh, I can't wait for the Super Bowl this year.
I can't wait for it either. Yeah, I think the Niners are going to take it. No, I think it's going to be the Broncos. That's it.
That's disagreement. Now they're talking about something. They're having a discussion, and now they think that they're right and the other party is wrong.
That's all there is to it. The argument, on the other hand, is a little different. different. When we say that two people are arguing with each other or that they are having an argument, we're saying they're discussing something, they disagree with each other, but now each side is trying to convince the other side that he or she is right.
Now we're moving into something a little bit more complex. Each side, each party is trying to convince the other that he or she is right. You know, I can't wait for the Super Bowl.
I can't either. Yeah, I think the Niners are going to take it. No, I think it's going to be the the Broncos. No, I think the Niners.
They're a little bit more knowledgeable in their quarterback situation, and they've gone back to the West Coast offense that they originated back in the 1980s. Yeah, I think it's going to be the Broncos because they cleaned up the sloppiness in their defensive backfield. They've got a lot stronger, faster, younger players.
That was the only thing that went missing. No, I think it's going to be the Broncos. No, I think it's going to be the Niners. Now, there's persuasion going on. Each side's trying to convince the other.
that he or she is right so my question to you is do you think argument is a good thing or a bad thing you think argument is good or bad the answer academically speaking is that argument is a wonderful thing many people say the opposable thumb is what separates us from the animals I would argue that argument is what does that see argument by its true definition and its truest intent is one of the most valuable tools known to humankind. Argument is the ultimate problem solver. It's our willingness and ability to exchange ideas with one one another without getting offended, without getting bothered by it, to reach a mutually desired outcome.
One of my favorite movies is about one of my favorite moments in the history of the human race. And the movie is Apollo 13. And my favorite moment in time was the mission of Apollo 13. I hope some of you that don't know what I'm referring to take an opportunity to go look some of this stuff up. It was the essence. of what it was to be American. That mission was incredible.
What happened was, in the early days of space exploration, just a few short months after landing our first human beings on the moon, we went out for our third mission to the moon. 11 was successful, 12 was successful. Now 13 was headed to the moon. We had three men inside a little capsule, the tip of a missile, heading toward that rock.
at 12. 24,000 miles per hour, that's the speed of a bullet. A lot of people don't realize these guys were traveling the speed of a bullet away from home, away from planet Earth, and something went wrong. Back in those early days of SpaceX, exploration. You couldn't predict anything that went wrong. And they barely had a plan for getting pointed in the right direction and getting on the moon and miraculously getting off of that thing and heading back home.
They barely had a plan for that. They didn't have a plan for the... 2.7 billion things that could have gone wrong to put these astronauts'lives in jeopardy.
So here they are, 24,000 miles away, heading that direction, away from home, and there's an explosion on board. Well, you can't like pull over to the side of the road, get out, kick the tires, see if there was a blowout or something like that. There's no getting out of that thing.
You can't look out a window, roll it down, and you know, look, you know, see what happened to the car, see if there's smoke coming out of the carburetor or something like that. They didn't know what was going on. The people on the ground in Houston, they didn't know what was going on.
The thing started shimmying and shaking and stuff. It was a bad situation. So they needed to figure out a way to get these guys home. This thing has blown up, and it's going that way.
The speed of a bullet. Every hour, they were going to be 24,000 miles further away from this planet. And they had a bunch of options.
One was... was to try to power up other devices, turn it around, come back to Earth, but they didn't know if they could do that because they didn't know if the very item that blew up was the thing that they would have to power up to do it. So they had to come up with a different plan.
It was pretty ingenious. I'll tell you what the plan was real quick, and then I'll get into the argumentative method that led them to that. They decided, okay, since they're already headed toward the moon, basically in the right direction, we're going to do a little course calculation to make sure...
they stay on track um let them get sucked up in the moon's gravity go around that thing and power up uh what would be the moon lander since they knew that was intact that was the part that two of the astronauts supposed to stay in on the surface of the moon that thing was good and uh escape moon's gravity and be coming back toward earth pretty good plan until you implement it because at every step of the way every time they solved one problem they created four or five more you problems. They didn't ever have to deal with this before. You know, okay, boom, they got around the moon. They're shooting back this way. Now they realize they're going to put all three of the men in the moon lander as a lifeboat on their way back to earth.
Now what they realize is now they've got three people sucking up only the oxygen that was designed to serve two people. So now they're breathing out more carbon monoxide than the oxygen they're taking in, and it was killing the astronauts. so they quickly had to come up with a plan for that and they ultimately what they did was they sent up a plan uh with a bunch of you know with directions about a bunch of things they had on the spacecraft like a sock and some duct tape and a piece of plastic that went around a service manual and uh all of this kind of stuff and they configured down in houston in a matter of seconds they designed nasa designed a garage or basement version of a carbon monoxide filter made out is just the things they had up on that crap sent it up the guys and they were about to pass out they're about to lose their lives and stuff barely had enough cognitive ability to follow the instructions they made this thing put it on boom they fix that problem but that problem will create ten more problems those solutions will create ten more took four or five days get these guys home it included things like freezing them at freezing temperature because they couldn't heat the thing up because they needed every ounce of energy they can conserve to get to dial back up and penetrate the Earth's atmosphere.
So what did they do? It's brilliant. Watch the movie. You want to know what argument, the value of argument is?
Watch the movie. The director at NASA, the director of the mission, he would, every time there was a problem, he'd take four or five people. He would divide the NASA teams up into several groups.
He'd put a mathematician and an engineer and a scientist in this team, a mathematician, an engineer, and a scientist. scientists on this team and this team and this team, they say, we've got to have this problem solved. Be back with a solution in 45 minutes.
And those teams would go boom. Ultimately they were all on the same team, NASA trying to get their men home, but they would all go. Do you think they ever came back with the same solution? No.
This team came up with a solution. This team came up with a different one. This one with a different one and a different one.
And that was the genius of the director's approach, the director of the mission. because what he would do He would have each team have a representative who would stand up and present the plan to everybody on the ground at NASA. And everybody in that room was supposed to try to shoot the plan down.
Find some holes in that plan to see if, you know, because if it didn't hold water, we didn't want to send that plan up. I'm going to defend my team's work and you're going to try to shoot holes in it. What if you shoot holes in it?
Am I supposed to be mad and offended because you didn't choose our plan? No. They were thankful. Thank goodness you didn't choose ours.
And always, one of the teams always had a foolproof plan. Do you think, what do you think would have happened if the director always would have tried to solve each problem with every member in the room? They would have always come up with one solution, and somewhere along the line it would have probably been failed. So what happened was, with each solution to each problem, they would argue its merit. They would argue its merit.
They wouldn't get mad at each other for disagreeing because they all... realize they were on the same team. I would state we've lost that a little bit these days in society, quite often in a courtroom. It's more important to the attorneys to win than to gain justice. That's a little sad, courtroom being the ultimate argumentative setting.
But argument, by design, is a wonderful thing. The question becomes, when is it silly to argue? And it's simple. If what you're arguing is a matter of public record, you should not be arguing. arguing it um it makes no sense you can't change history by arguing my you know it might be therapeutic to do that with a sibling my brother and i we like to get into it about everything but it's kind of fun all right i remember one night on thanksgiving the two families were together and one of us i don't even know who brought it up and i don't remember the number now one of us brought up barry bond's uh home run season i think he hit 73 home runs that one thought it was 74 uh one of us said, me maybe, oh man, remember the season when Bonds hit 73 home runs?
My brother says, dude, that was 74. I'm like, no, it wasn't. It was 73. We go back and forth. The families are rolling their eyes and stuff like that because we're having this dispute over how many home runs Barry Bonds hit that year.
Well, I won the argument. I'm pretty good at it. And everybody, all right, he hung his head and everybody's laughing and we're back to normal until the next day.
he gave me a call and said, guess what I just looked up? I was wrong. I won an argument about something I was wrong.
So who was the bigger goofball? Was it me for winning an argument and strutting around like a rooster for something I didn't know about that I was talking about? Or was it him for being right in the first place and giving in to something when both of us could adjust? Back then we didn't have the internet access like we do with our phones and stuff.
We looked it up in a book and there it was. So what you're arguing is... matter of public record, don't do it. It can only lead to one thing, which is our next term, fight. We'll get into that in a second.
If what you're arguing, though, is the accuracy of the record, like whether this was a misprint or not, that's a little different. But don't ever really get into heavy disputes about something that you can't change. It's something that exists out there. One of the parties is going to end up with egg on their face.
Um, the last of these first four terms is fight. And when we say that two people are fighting, with words of course, it means that they have been arguing with one another, but they have lost some control of themselves, probably to the point of insult. You know, I can't wait for the Super Bowl.
Oh, I can't either. I think the Niners are going to take it. No, I think it's going to be the Broncos.
No, it's going to be the Niners. They've gone back to the original West Coast offense that they coined, and they got smart. Their quarterback's a little more experienced this year.
And... No, I think it's going to be the Broncos because their defensive backfield is a lot stronger and a lot younger and a lot healthier. And that's what was missing last year. No, it's the Broncos.
No, it's the Niners. No, it's the Broncos. No, you're an idiot.
That's fighting. They have been arguing about something and it moves all the way up to the point of insult. Which is the reason you should not argue something that is a matter of public record.
By the way, I don't know if there's any validity to that argument. Also, arguing who's going to win the Super Bowl. is silly because if you win that argument in August, you're probably going to have egg on your face in February, if you know what I'm saying. So yeah, you want to make sure you understand the use of these four terms and how they come to play in the communication process.
I'll ask you four quick questions. I want you to ponder this. The question, first one would be, or the first statement, I should say, every argument is a disagreement.
What do you think? Yes or no? Answer is yes.
Every argument does include people trying to convince each other to take their side. Every disagreement is a discussion. Once again, the answer is yes. Anytime you have two people who disagree with each other, it's because they've been talking to one another. Every disagreement is an argument.
Answer is no. You can think one way, I can think another way, and we end it there without any persuasive effort involved. And every argument is a fight. And the answer there is no as well. I go back to NASA getting the men home.
on Apollo 13. Those arguments were designed for everybody, even on the two sides of the contentious nature of it, they were still shooting for the same goal. If I lose my argument because my plan is flawed, I'm the happiest person in the room. So yeah, not every argument leads to insult.
So I guess what you should take from that set of those series of questions is this. Every term houses all the terms prior to it. A fight is also an argument, a discussion, a disagreement. An argument is also a discussion, a disagreement, and a disagreement is also a discussion.
Every one of these terms houses the definitions of the one prior to it. And those are our four working definitions to put us all on the same page as we use these terms throughout the course.