I still don't understand anything that's going on when I watch one of these things, but I'm totally fascinated and impressed! (And my apologies, , for my inevitable butchery of what you described)
Conversation
I also find the policy debate community totally fascinating—my partner Lingxi is a recovering debater—but somehow argumentation games where you have to reach a predestined conclusion don't sit right with me.
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Then again, maybe participants end up with the tools required to understand arguments from multiple perspectives? I go back and forth on this. Probably in large part a matter of team culture and coaching.
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This seems more like "its own thing"—like its own game / art form—than like what I think of as argumentation? But maybe if I slow down all the words and listen carefully, these arguments are coherent, compelling, meaning-dense, etc? Maybe my sense of argumentation is broken?
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Interesting, I had never really thought about it in those terms; as a practice completely independent and apart from argumentation. Let me ask Lingxi about that...
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Lingxi insists that debate really is about making quality arguments, and that most of the time that's what you get. Which seems consistent with how most debaters I know talk about it.
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Curious to hear any other debaters weigh in on this. Do you think policy debate taught you to reason effectively and think critically? Would you describe it as 'quality argumentation', or 'its own thing'?
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It definitely taught me both of those things in spades, but it's very much its own discursive form. cc and others?
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But I found that in the very best debates “truth” ends up mattering more - the best debaters are those that can balance argumentation with accuracy and ground their ideas more realistically and less outlandishly. I have many debate thoughts ofc haha but 3 tweets is enough for now
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(this is fascinating; thank you for sharing, y'all!)
yesthishasbeeninformative,Iassertthatworthwhileknowledgehasbeentransferredbytheselastseveraltweetsthusprovingthe*HEEEEEEEEP*valueoftwitterasacommunicativemedium
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