• phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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    19 hours ago

    never with any actually serious debate clubs

    In my experience, many debate clubs have at least a few members who are wankers like Kirk.

    For example, Ted Cruz was a debate whiz kid in college. But outside that artificial, controlled environment, he still resorts to bullying and flooding the zone with bullshit. That’s because propaganda is a different game than debate, and debate skills have limited relevance to political discussions.

    • sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz
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      17 hours ago

      I didn’t know that. I always assumed people who argued like he did would quickly be shut down by the basic rules of the format and give up if they couldn’t learn to adapt

      • TheJesusaurus@sh.itjust.works
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        8 hours ago

        Know how everyone hates lawyers because they basically manipulate the meaning of the rules to serve themselves? It’s like that.

        If you’re an absolute killer at the kind of rules and admin of debate, you can rack up points with nonsense and keep your opponent from doing the same.

        It’s an insanely stupid use of people’s time