Unfortunately, this is even more true in college. Policy debate teams are well funded at universities (the policy team at mine has a 6 figure budget) because they essentially conduct research writing cases on gun control, drug policy, healthcare, etc. I compete in British Parliamentary Debate in which no evidence packets are allowed in the round and the resolution is only revealed 15 minutes before the start. The consequence is that argumentation and persuasion take precedence over pretentious motermouthed screaming comparisons of Harvard studies vs Yale studies that only exclude minorities and women from the activity.
I agree with the article that debate competitions get gamed very quickly with age. I competed in Parli in both high school, where it was a new event in our circuit, and in college, where there was an established scene. The difference was night and day.
High school Parli was similar to what you described and was a joy to compete in; a more "pure" debate where clever argumentation and thinking on your feet really mattered. College Parli was a nightmare morass of arguments over rules technicalities in attempts to define the topic as something obviously favorable to your side - my team had a stock "farm subsidies are bad" speech we would try to guide every possible round towards. On average, 60% of each speech was spent on arguing over what the debate round should be about rather than anything of substance.
> I compete in British Parliamentary Debate in which no evidence packets are allowed in the round and the resolution is only revealed 15 minutes before the start. The consequence is that argumentation and persuasion take precedence over pretentious motermouthed screaming comparisons of Harvard studies vs Yale studies that only exclude minorities and women from the activity.
It's counter-intuitive to me that more preparation leads to worse discussion on the topic.
