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High school debate will not be on the same level as Plato, not unless they are miraculously talented high schoolers involved. The techniques that are taught in

High school debate will not be on the same level as Plato, not unless they are miraculously talented high schoolers involved. The techniques that are taught in high school debate still make it far less resembling Plato's writings, or anything coherent. A high schooler taught to argue in a coherent way would produce something that is not drivel. The content of high school debates is drivel. It is a torrent of pre written, basic arguments designed to be quickly heard and given points by judges who already memorized all of those points. No one trying to persuade in the real world talks like a competitive high school debate. Not presidents, not angry college students, not smarmy news anchor talking heads. It's only worth is inside the academic setting where you win points for how many crappy arguments you can cram in a sentence. That's what makes it drivel.

ang_cire 3y ago
You keep saying "points", but rounds are not decided based on points. Do you actually have any idea how competitive debate works? Spreading arguments doesn't help you if they're bad arguments. If you think that just laying out more (bad) arguments will win against an experienced team, you're either delusional, or you've never actually watched high-level policy debate.
- c_crank 3y ago
  There are judges, and they incentive verbal diarrhea by making the winners the one who can produce the most 'correct' arguments in the least amount of time. This perverse incentive structure does not exist anywhere else except in competitive debate. >If you think that just laying out more (bad) arguments will win against an experienced team, you're either delusional, or you've never actually watched high-level policy debate. I think any argument that is spread is bad. Some are a worse kind of bad. But none are good.
  - ang_cire 3y ago
    > and they incentive verbal diarrhea by making the winners the one who can produce the most 'correct' arguments in the least amount of time No, this may happen at low-level tournaments which still have lay/'mommy' judges, but no actual high-preff'd tournament judges are giving out ballots based on the number of arguments run. Policy is a back-and-forth activity, and whatever arguments are made in the constructives have to actually hold up to the responses to them. If a team is running 9 T arguments, and the Aff team doesn't address their shitty "'The' means a specific singular entity, so using only one part of the USFG is a violation' T argument but covers 3 of the actual strong ones and runs a T-abuse argument as well, no judge is handing Neg the ballot for that. And none of that is even beginning to touch on Condo (conditionality), which is a whole area of theory arguments specifically addressing Neg running arguments that they don't extend (and why they shouldn't be allowed to). That's especially effective when they're doing some kind off-case abuse like T or competing CPs. Also, what do you mean "argument that is spread"? You either spread your speech or you don't. No one spreads arguments individually.

ang_cire 3y ago

You keep saying "points", but rounds are not decided based on points. Do you actually have any idea how competitive debate works? Spreading arguments doesn't help you if they're bad arguments. If you think that just laying out more (bad) arguments will win against an experienced team, you're either delusional, or you've never actually watched high-level policy debate.

c_crank 3y ago
There are judges, and they incentive verbal diarrhea by making the winners the one who can produce the most 'correct' arguments in the least amount of time. This perverse incentive structure does not exist anywhere else except in competitive debate. >If you think that just laying out more (bad) arguments will win against an experienced team, you're either delusional, or you've never actually watched high-level policy debate. I think any argument that is spread is bad. Some are a worse kind of bad. But none are good.
- ang_cire 3y ago
  > and they incentive verbal diarrhea by making the winners the one who can produce the most 'correct' arguments in the least amount of time No, this may happen at low-level tournaments which still have lay/'mommy' judges, but no actual high-preff'd tournament judges are giving out ballots based on the number of arguments run. Policy is a back-and-forth activity, and whatever arguments are made in the constructives have to actually hold up to the responses to them. If a team is running 9 T arguments, and the Aff team doesn't address their shitty "'The' means a specific singular entity, so using only one part of the USFG is a violation' T argument but covers 3 of the actual strong ones and runs a T-abuse argument as well, no judge is handing Neg the ballot for that. And none of that is even beginning to touch on Condo (conditionality), which is a whole area of theory arguments specifically addressing Neg running arguments that they don't extend (and why they shouldn't be allowed to). That's especially effective when they're doing some kind off-case abuse like T or competing CPs. Also, what do you mean "argument that is spread"? You either spread your speech or you don't. No one spreads arguments individually.