About Policon

What it is

Most political argument online happens between people who already agree, or between people with no reason to listen. Policon is built for the opposite case: a live, one-on-one voice debate with a stranger who holds the other position, structured tightly enough that both of you have to make a case rather than talk over each other.

You describe where you stand by answering twenty-four policy statements across eight areas: economy and taxation, social and cultural issues, immigration, climate and energy, healthcare and welfare, policing and security, foreign policy, and technology and civil liberties. That gives you a political profile. The matchmaker then pairs you with someone whose profile is far from yours, weighted towards the issues you both care about most, so the disagreement is real and not incidental.

How a debate works

1. 01You are matched with your oppositePaired by ideological distance and by debating skill, so the argument is even on both counts.
2. 02You choose the questions togetherBoth debaters vote on a shortlist drawn from where you disagree most. Only questions you actually dispute get debated: if you agree on everything offered, there is no match.
3. 03Each question gets openings and an open floorA timed opening from each side, then a free exchange. Two or three questions per match, depending on the length you pick: five, ten, or fifteen minutes.
4. 04The argument is scored, not the positionSpeech is transcribed per speaker and graded by an AI judge on the strength of the reasoning. Holding an unpopular view costs you nothing; failing to support it does.

Afterwards you get a report: a transcript, a question-by-question breakdown of where the argument turned, and a rating. Ratings work like chess ratings, so beating someone stronger gains you more, and there is a reason to keep debating people who are better than you rather than people who are easier.

There are team debates too: up to seven a side, with a shared questionnaire deciding the sides and a raised-hand floor, for arguing as a bench rather than alone. And you can invite a friend directly; friendly matches are judged and reported but never move anyone's rating.

Who it is for

People who want to practise arguing out loud: debaters, students, anyone who has noticed that they can win an argument in their head and lose it in a room. It is also for people who simply want to hear a real version of the other side, said by someone who believes it, instead of the worst version quoted by someone who does not.

You need an account and about twenty minutes. Policon is free to use right now; paid subscriptions are planned. Every account has a fair-use allowance covering the transcription and judging its debates use, measured over a rolling thirty days. You can see yours on the usage page once you are signed in.

What it is not

It is not a forum, a comment section, or a place to post. It is also not a private conversation: any one-on-one debate in progress can be watched live on Policon TV, tuned into at random or by a code a debater shares, with the debaters seen and heard under their own handles, as in the finished report. It is a debate on the record: your voice is transcribed and then deleted, never kept, and the transcript becomes a match report that anyone with its link can read. The Privacy Policy is the precise version of all of that, including what is retained and who else processes it.

Who makes it

Policon is designed, built, and run by one person, not a company. The contact address is contact@policon.net: it is for reaching a person, not a ticket system, and it is the right place for anything broken, wrong, or unfair, and for account or data requests.

Start

Create an account, answer the survey, and you can be in a debate with someone who disagrees with you a few minutes later. If you already have an account, sign in.