High School Debate at 350 wpm - Wired

A nerdy high school competition has morphed into a nonsensical exercise in high-speed talking.

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High School Debate at 350 wpm - Wired

[Sifar_Secure]

For the first 60 seconds I was convinced this was an Onion parody.

[maximiliang.]

I find the gasping for breath really off-putting and distracting.

[room]

Wow is this why we need to build more trees to obtain more oxygen

[stormixgaming]

For anyone thinking that this is what debate really is. You must realize this is a facet of debate not an entirety of what it is there are various styles and most don’t include talking at crazy rates it’s about finding what style you prefer as debate encompasses a variety of styles

[kevinwagner]

it doesn't even sound very fast the just making themselves look dorky

[neanderslob]

I did debate in high school and loved it but this is something entirely different. We were always taught to deliberately slow our cadence to give weight to what we were saying. Nobody (outside of high school apparently) ever wins a policy argument by speaking like a hyperventilating auctioneer. To my mind, this competition formalizes every bad habit that young people have in public speaking and turns it up to an eleven.

[Aftermost]

Imagine carrying crates of documents into a policy debate, spreading, and thinking what you're doing is at all beneficial to anyone or anything

[todayiglowup]

how do u even refute someones argument when u dont even understand what theyre saying

[xian]

I think it's great that you're crafting a skill that will be applicable in the real world. Oh wait.

[rupertdenton]

Ben Lerner bought me here.

I declare this is not debating, just reading a typed essay very quickly.

[cfgp]

how is this debating? it's a speed-talking competition.
a debate is people that disagree with each other explaining their idea to try to persuade the other side and/or a neutral audience to agree with them, not this unintelligible gibberish that no regular person would try to make sense of.

[dicktan]

For anyone who wants to join debate don’t try this if a judge can’t understand you he will vote against you on the ballot

[gamewasabi]

in the southeast any judge will drop for spreading instantly

[army]

It seems like this style of competitive debate has taken something that could be both informative and entertaining and turned it into a side show to take advantage of an ill-conceived point system. I guess it qualifies as a skill, but it's about as useful as being able to speak Klingon. With either ability, the most they can accomplish is impressing the handful of other people capable of understanding their babble. They certainly aren’t going to win arguments in the real world like that.

[guynewman]

Spreading is not allowed in my circuit

[owen_mgo]

If you slow it down to 0.5x it just sounds like slurred speech

[francaellerman]

I was researching policy debate for my high school and then I found this video and realized it’s literally about my high school 😅

[Mandraquex]

Oh, I can understand the speed bubba, it's the occasional stuttering (which isn't that big of an issue) and constant gasping for air (which is a MAJOR issue)... trying to listen to one of your debates with the gasping for air is like trying to do research on a computer that has a problem with the screen flickering on and off.

[ChefBrokeardee]

I’m in Lincoln-Douglas, and Policy is pretty much just LD on steroids

[Folsomdsf]

Honestly, they aren't speaking very fast. Their natural cadence is super slow and they're forcing it. You can hear it especially when they are trying to breath. Somewhat poor, they can't enunciate their words at all.