Hello, I’m Pang Ying. Welcome to the Q&A for Episode 7 of Think Like a Debater.

Let us begin with a riddle.

A person’s mother has three children. The eldest is called Big Strong and the second, Second Strong. What is the remaining child called?

You are clever enough to know the answer is “a person”—a rather cold joke.

Now a serious example. Suppose I say we should protect patients with occupational diseases such as pneumoconiosis, and someone replies that having a few occupational habits is perfectly normal.

Here, the Chinese term “occupational disease” has two meanings:

first, a serious illness caused by inadequate protection at work;

second, a minor professional habit. An accountant may compulsively calculate precisely; a presentation consultant may instantly notice two spaces between words.

The two meanings differ enormously in severity. Substituting one for the other trivializes a major issue.

Let us analyze a debate by Zhan Qingyun from Season 5 of I Can I BB, on whether to choose a well-paid job you dislike or a poorly paid job you love.

Li Siheng argued for the well-paid job one dislikes.

Zhan Qingyun argued for the poorly paid job one loves.

Consider Zhan’s first move.

She said: perhaps you have not yet found work you truly love, so you think you can sacrifice it for higher pay. No—an analogy will make it clear.

You may not have found work you love, but surely you have loved a person. The feelings are similar. Once Zhu Yingtai met someone as wonderful as Liang Shanbo, could even Ma Wencai’s wealth make her abandon Liang for money? Never. When you truly find work you love, you too will know that money cannot make you give it up.

This is an analogy used appropriately in form: a familiar, accessible example supports a more distant or difficult proposition.

But is the analogy sound?

To defend it, we could say the feeling of loving a person resembles loving an activity. Both release dopamine and make us want the person or activity to fill our time; giving either up causes similar pain.

Thus, if you would not give up a loved person for money, you would not give up loved work for money.