Misused (rename crowner 9/11/13): Cavemen Vs Astronauts Debate

Now that Hypothetical Fight Debate has been launched, there are three tropes that seem to be getting misuse.

-Hypothetical Fight Debate: basically, it's when characters in a show discuss about fictional characters and discuss about who of them would win if they had to fight between them.

-Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: it's when a crossover is done to have fictional characters fight between them. To be clear: the former is when it's discussed, this is when it actually happens.

-"Cavemen vs. Astronauts" Debate: According to the description (be sure to read it carefully), it's when a trivial discussion gets out of hand and becomes a serious discussion. Completely unrelated to the other two, but its horrible title makes people (who haven't read the description, apparently) think it's one of them.

Which should be the appropiate action? I would say renaming Cavemen (for example, to Seinfeldian Confrontation), and make that old name a redirect to the newly launched trope.

Seeing the Cavemen YKTTW (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=0urtahyjy1y1z8sgo7mh65hz), it seems that it was prematurely launched on its moment. It's weird that nobody has complained until now, however.

I also add a link to The Hypothetical Fight Debate YKTTW, where there was some discussion about this:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=xzb8encu96fd839qxtyaqf4s

edited 29th Mar '13 4:45:16 PM by morenohijazo

I just opened the Comic Book section on this page. Of the four entries there, two seem right, and two already are more properly sorted into one of the two tropes mentioned above.

Something needs to be done.

I also see that some of the examples there are Zero Content Examples.

BTW, now we're here, we should make clear the differences bewteen the two first tropes, to avoid future misuse. It may not be clear enough at the momento, and I think there are examples in both pages which aren't properly placed.

edited 29th Mar '13 6:06:28 PM by morenohijazo

Definitely rename "Cavemen vs. Astronauts" Debate (Though not to a snowclone of Seinfeldian Conversation, which we should also rename.)

Oh, and it looks like Seinfeldian Conversation's description misdefines Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny as Hypothetical Fight Debate.

edited 29th Mar '13 6:07:01 PM by AmyGdala

Did someone recently do a wick cleanup or something? 'Cause I'm looking through the wicks for "Cavemen vs. Astronauts" Debate, and I'm not seeing the misuse.

Like I said, there's misuse right on the main page. I predict an uptick in misuse (if indeed it's been cleaned away) if left alone.

I'm not sure I see the misuse. I see a lot of not-enough-context examples, but no clear misuse.

Also, the tropes aren't unrelated. Who Would Win is a very common discussion topic (if not the most common) that often spirals out of control. This isn't exactly a supertrope, but there's a lot of overlap.

Now, Hypothetical Fight Debate, on the other hand, seems to be a direct subtrope of "Cavemen vs. Astronauts" Debate, in that it's specifically about fights. It's really The Same But More Specific, though there is a pattern for that exact type of topic being common enough for its own pattern. This also means all fight discussion examples on "Cavemen vs. Astronauts" Debate should be moved to the subtrope.

It's not misuse to list things on the supertrope, but it's standard practice to only list things in the subtrope, unless (and this is my opinion) the same work also features several subtropes to the same trope. I'm guessing there just was a failure to move those examples when the subtrope was launched, rather than this trope gathering misuse since that.

Hypothetical Fight Debate is a subtrope (The Same But More Specific?) of the poorly named Seinfeldian Conversation. "Cavemen vs. Astronauts" Debate is a Senfeldian Conversation that escalates absurdly into a fight.

Right, so they're sister tropes, then. In that case I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

Here, we should pin down the differences between the tropes and bring their description in line with each other.

"Cavemen vs. Astronauts" Debate is where people get into a really heated, passionate argument about something unimportant. Hypothetical Fight Debate is where people argue about which fictional character/team would win in a fight with another fictional character/team.

They're not related, strictly speaking, except that they're both about debating. However, since a Hypothetical Fight Debate is, 99.999% of the time, completely pointless, any example of that trope that becomes sufficiently intense will become an example of "Cavemen vs. Astronauts" Debate as well.

I guess the question is, if something listed as an example of Cavemen Vs Astronauts debate doesn't specifically mention the intensity of the argument (just what the subject of debate was), should we consider that an incorrect or insufficient context example?

Definitely.

I sort of want to nuke most of the Real Life folder, add a folder called Fandom, and have a single example saying "Yes."

Anyway, assuming examples are incorrent because they lack sufficient context is the wrong approach, in particular as the word argument is frequently used as a synonym for a discussion or debate that has escalated too far, which may lead to a lot of people thinking it is sufficient context.

edited 31st Mar '13 7:11:18 AM by AnotherDuck

Some randomly chosen examples of misuse: the third example under comics is Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, as is the Deadliest Warrior example. The main Futurama example is Serious Business (another trope this might be mistaken for).

edited 31st Mar '13 2:31:47 PM by Leaper

The Deadliest Warrior example isn't misuse; while it's talking about Hypothetical Fight Debates, it also mentions that the people on the show take the debates really seriously and get really hostile towards each other over it, making it an example of "Cavemen vs. Astronauts" Debate as well. As for the Futurama example, that's borderline; if they go straight from disagreeing about Scrabble rules to fighting, it's just Serious Business; if the fight is the end result of an escalating argument, then it's a "Cavemen vs. Astronauts" Debate taken to its ultimate conclusion.

edited 31st Mar '13 2:45:28 PM by RavenWilder

And the third comic example just lacks sufficient context. To claim misuse would mean claiming that "these kinds of arguments" does not refer to the type of arguments the trope is about. It's impossible to know what the example is speaking about, but people do get rather hostile in arguments like that.

Wait, I thought Deadliest Warrior had the experts making their cases individually, and not actually interacting with each other? (I mean apart from the simulated battles?)

That's not the way the example portrays it (though I suppose it is possible for people in different rooms to argue with each other, so long as what the others are saying is relayed to them). The example even refers to them being "hostile" and that they "hate each other" (though chalking that up partly to Manipulative Editing).

Basically, if that example is wrong, it's wrong because someone misunderstood the show, not the trope.

I remember them getting rather animated and mocking in their arguments, though it was some time since I saw it. Whether or not it's because of Manipulative Editing or not doesn't matter, since the show presents it that way. I'd believe it's mostly scripted anyway. And that's nothing to say about the flame wars of the viewers' discussions about all the faults they had in their reasoning and proofs...

Here, I would just comment out the examples without sufficient context to qualify for this trope.

Did the commenting out. Assuming that the fixing of the trope relationships hasn't been done, we'll have to pin down them exactly.

So if I understand correctly, Caveman Vs Astronaut Debate is simply Hypothetical Fight Debate but with more shouting? That basically falls under Serious Business and Fandom Berserk Button; I don't see a reason for having CVA as a separate trope.

(and I don't get the name Ultimate Showdown; it's awkward and apparently unrelated to the trope, so I suppose that's a meme of some sort? Perhaps that's for another thread though)

To me, "Cavemen vs. Astronauts" Debate sounds more like what Serious Business is supposed to be.

Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny is the trope about "which character from which show would win against another".

Cavemen Vs Astronauts debate has nothing to do with hypothetical fights. It could be about hypothetical fights, or it could be about fruit, or laundry or geography or hair. It has a bad name.

The core Of the "Cavemen vs. Astronauts" Debate is that it is a heated discussion over something unimportant. How I Met Your Mother has a brilliant example with "Ducks vs. Rabbits" and how it was the most intense argument the group ever got into. Heated Meaningless Fight would be a good redirect if not rename.

edited 12th May '13 10:40:19 AM by KJMackley