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debate

Flow debate

Re: Gerry Lopez getting into flow state on big waves, I used to enter it in high school debate’s 1AR, the first affirmative rebuttal.

You’re at a 3:1 time disadvantage, 4 minutes to cover 12 by your opponent. In prep time you need to zoom out, think coolly and surgically. When speaking, you need absolute word economy.

A good 1AR sounds slow but covers the entire active argument ground. Someone bad at it speaks frantically, spins out and runs out of time, instant loss. Separates the adults from the kids. I loved it.

It’s the intense focus that comes when you’ve procrastinated something unpleasant but high stakes. You surprise yourself.

Debate 1AR has a time disadvantage so the affirmative side gets to both open and close the debate.

It’s aff / neg / neg / aff (simplified).

This levels the field because the negative side / status quo gets presumption. This debate rule reflects our loss aversion in reality.

Team debate felt more like football or “Missile Command” than basketball. More territory capture and defense, not dropping any arg undefended, than creative, improvisational Curry.

Defense is easier than offense, in nerd football and war.

High school debate judges

In this silly story by the B— Weiss derpsite, an interesting tidbit: high school debaters can now—

look up her judge’s name on Tabroom, a public database maintained by the NSDA… where judges post [their] “paradigms”… Debate judge Shubham Gupta’s paradigm reads, “If you are discussing immigrants in a round and describe the person as ‘illegal,’ I will immediately stop the round, give you the loss with low speaks”… Judge Kriti Sharma concurs: under her list of “Things That Will Cause You To Automatically Lose,” number three is “Referring to immigrants as ‘illegal.’”

Good! Better that you know and can cater to the judge’s beliefs than taking a silent loss, like in the old days. Always adapt to the judge.

After tarring this as safe space, guess what the OP did :D

I gave up on the NSDA and formed a new debate league, Incubate Debate. To judge debates, we recruit elected officials, members of the armed forces, business executives, faith-based leaders

Every attack a confession.

You don’t think we had to adapt to conservative mom judges back in the day? You get the judges you get, you have to adapt to win. This ex-debater is soft, essay’s an embarrassing bid for white-grievance wingnut welfare :D