Comment by Fearthecabbage (evan-steinberg) on The Dark Arts · 2024-01-07T15:46:10.235Z · LW · GW

As a former public forum and college debater and current debate coach, I am not sure that completely agree with this analysis. While this may work with highly uneducated opponents or parents (lay judges), as I write this, I am watching a round between two teams in the top 16 at a relatively high-level tournament judged by a panel of 3 judges - all of whom are former debaters or current college debaters. In this round, both teams have been relentlessly preparing for this topic for 10s of hours per week and have full access to each other's evidence. Lying or misconstruing evidence is grounds for disqualification and an immediate loss in the round. Perhaps your experience in debate is predominantly on more lay circuits? Where opponents are inexperienced and judges are unqualified.