Devil's advocates are fine if they are advocating for something that matters and is relevant, like gently advocating for another friend or someone I had a confrontation with. I don't care for people who take the opposite side because they like toying with people who are emotionally invested in something.

In general, I do like setting your opinion aside and deciding to have an exploratory discussion without getting heated or making personal attacks. I like to team up with the person I disagree with and do some investigating about why we disagree. We might have an entirely different opinion about welfare, but that's because of other views. If we dig down to why we believe what we do about welfare, maybe we'll find out that we disagree about whether people are inherently good or bad.

Now that's interesting. We know a new thing about each other that is very personal. I can accept that we disagree on this fundamental opinion. I can agree to disagree and be glad to have had the conversation. I don't feel ill will towards you, we're actually better friends. Next time something comes up in the same vein, I think "Oh yeah, he has such and such perspective." and the new disagreement makes perfect sense and we don't even need to discuss it.

The problem with people playing devil's advocate is that we never get there, because you don't really believe it. Sometimes I feel like I'm treading water only to find out the person is doing something that feels an awful lot like trickery. I'm not an emotionally charged person, but my empathy does flare up when I see a perpetual devil's advocate toying with someone's emotions without throwing anything of their own into the ring.

I have spent upwards of 100 hours conversing with some people that have been around in my life, and each conversation I learn the same thing.

Man, this guy really likes to argue with people.