It is usually during periods when I am very productive (but not 'employed' and paid to do so) that I wonder about the real meaning/value of 'work'... especially when I work on projects that involve a lot of money and people but not much output in the end, and you wonder what the purpose of it was - but that's for another day/debate.

I think the closest thing I have seen to what you are talking about would be the kialo graphs/trees that I found out about from another steemit user. Personally I think debates are just a form of communication for people to exchange ideas, but in the online world it seems to get a lot more personal than it really needs to be. If you are interested, www.kialo.com is where you can go and see how some of those debates are constructed and dissected :)