What does it matter? Debate is just another extreme sport, like kayak cliff-diving or memorizing lots of numbers. By taking human capabilities to their limit, w

What does it matter? Debate is just another extreme sport, like kayak cliff-diving or memorizing lots of numbers. By taking human capabilities to their limit, we've gone post-human and started failing the Turing test. Debate has become a worthless life skill. Members of the USA national legislature rarely give speeches to try to convince their fellow legislators of something; mostly the room is occupied by nobody but a couple of clerks and some automated CSPAN TV cameras. Aristotle might say we've abandoned pathos (understanding our audience) and ethos (personal integrity) in favor of logos (the bs that gets spewed at 300 words per minute). I'm glad this elite debater is calling bs.