Debate Glossary

Browse 9 debate terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

9 Debate Terms

10x Engineer
10x Engineer is a term describing a software developer who is supposedly ten times more productive than an average engineer. The concept originates from...
AGI
Artificial General Intelligence — a hypothetical AI system that matches or exceeds human cognitive abilities across all domains, not just narrow tasks. Whether...
AI Skeptic
A person who questions AI claims, timelines, product value, safety narratives, or business hype rather than assuming optimistic outcomes. In healthy teams, AI...
Bikeshed
Bikeshed is shorthand for an unimportant or trivial topic that receives disproportionate attention in group discussions, derived from Parkinson's Law of...
Bike Shed Color
Bike Shed Color, derived from Parkinson's Law of Triviality, refers to the specific type of low-stakes decision that groups tend to argue about at...
Binary Thinking
The habit of treating situations as if there are only two opposing outcomes or categories when reality is more nuanced. In tech culture binary thinking often...
Godwin's law
An internet adage asserting that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. Originally...
sealioning
A harassment tactic disguised as civil discourse, in which a person persistently and politely asks questions or requests evidence in bad faith, feigning...
Tabs vs. Spaces
The oldest and most pointless debate in programming: whether to use tab characters or space characters for indentation. Silicon Valley dedicated an entire...

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