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Know any college debaters?

As someone who did this many (15+) years ago...

It's fun and all for lawyer/politician wanna-bes, and it teaches you to think on your feet, but it is so utterly useless in developing rhetorical skills. Everybody tries (or at least they used to) win by simply saying so many things the other team wouldn't have time to respond to them all. ...simply just trying to get as many words in as you can in your allotted time frame (used to be 8 minutes, then 4 minutes for rebuttal).

Sad to see it apparently hasn't changed.


EDIT: add yes, before anyone asks, I was a Master Debater. 😀
 
The weird thing about it is that it doesn't resemble a normal argument or conversation in the slightest.

I can't imagine what an inane headache it must be to judge one of these things. Or go on a date with one of these debaters.
 
wabbitslayer said:
It's fun and all for lawyer/politician wanna-bes,
Click to expand...

Umm... as someone who regularly argues in court and is forced to think on his feet, I feel safe in saying that whatever the fuck this guy is doing would be absolutely useless in court, out of court, on planet Earth, or beyond. This is debate? I thought it was a Micro Machines commercial audition.
 
Jeeebus said:
Umm... as someone who regularly argues in court and is forced to think on his feet, I feel safe in saying that whatever the fuck this guy is doing would be absolutely useless in court, out of court, on planet Earth, or beyond. This is debate? I thought it was a Micro Machines commercial audition.
Click to expand...
The second guy did exactly the same thing. Seems like SOP for this event.
 
I can only imagine hearing him try to pick up women in a bar.

"You see, I'm a great...huh...talented...huh.....guy....huh.....that likes long walks...huh....on the...huh....beach...huh.....do you....come....huh....here.....huh....often?"
 
Winning that argument is as easy as walking over and kicking him in the stomach. Sounded like the nerd programmer from Grandmas Boy.
 
Legios said:
Winning that argument is as easy as walking over and kicking him in the stomach. Sounded like the nerd programmer from Grandmas Boy.
Click to expand...

Seriously. If they want viewers, they need to have argument + punching. That would be AWESOME.
 
wabbitslayer said:
As someone who did this many (15+) years ago...

It's fun and all for lawyer/politician wanna-bes, and it teaches you to think on your feet, but it is so utterly useless in developing rhetorical skills. Everybody tries (or at least they used to) win by simply saying so many things the other team wouldn't have time to respond to them all. ...simply just trying to get as many words in as you can in your allotted time frame (used to be 8 minutes, then 4 minutes for rebuttal).

Sad to see it apparently hasn't changed.


EDIT: add yes, before anyone asks, I was a Master Debater. 😀
Click to expand...

pretty much... my experience with debate clubs in high school/college was that it wasn't so much about what a reasonable person would consider debating/arguing over an issue, but rather, who can cram the most facts into the allotted time (not that I participated, but I had to attend them for various reasons on occasion like covering them for the school newspaper)
 
I did debate in high school, probably could have gotten good at it, but the "team policy" debate style was not my cup of tea.

There are many other parts of debate that are much more interesting and useful. The lincoln douglas ones are fun and I always participated in the individual speeches - I was particularly good at the impromptu ones where you pick a subject out of a hat and then talk about it - but that's not really debate.
 
Back when I went to college in 98 I knew like the top 5 debaters in the country. A few were at Dartmouth at the time. I also did policy debate in high school and passed out during one of my speeches 🙂 Most if not all of those friends are now millionaires.
 
Dude in the video needs to know two things:
1. You don't win by speaking more words a minute than the other person
2. Breathe
 
My debate team improved argument formulation and research skills. This is back when we "cut cards" by doing research at the library, copied articles, and taped them to paper with various argument notes before sorting them in the appropriate bin.
 
Sho'Nuff said:
That guy is an idiot. And a pretty shitty debater.

Source - While in college I dated one of the top college level Lincoln Douglas debaters in the country. Man she was a PITA. She never let me win any arguments.
Click to expand...

How are Lincoln-Douglas debates different?

Actually on the videos they look somewhat decent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O3ppc-UC2s

It's the breathless regurgitating of facts that is ridiculous. Why don't they change the rules to get rid of it?
 
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