University and stuff
May. 4th, 2012 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkI am procrastinating by making a list of Avengers reaction posts, because I love reading squee, and (more importantly, tbh) I really don't want to study for this exam. -.- I'm going to hate myself tomorrow.
Yesterday in Economic Policy we had an actual discussion in class, yay! And later one of the other guys sent me an apology because he felt he was too harsh and unfriendly. Which is nice of him, only I thought it was a rational discussion. When I was a teenager I often got into fights with my parents because they misinterpreted my tone, it took me ages to figure that out, and I'm still a bit afraid of it sometimes. This is not helping.
Most discussions I have these days are in debate club, and in BPS format the goal is to beat your opponents' arguments. Unlike in the German OPD format, you don't have to be polite, and nobody takes it personally. (Theoretically. It doesn't always work. There's a reason why there's a mandatory handshake after each debate.) Sometimes I have to remind myself that other people don't have the same training.
Debate mode was also useful when we were divided into small groups to prepare pro/contra statements. My partners were surprised that I asked the professor for definitions of the words used, said that our side was so obviously wrong that they couldn't think of anything, and in the end appeared very surprised that I had come up with all our arguments basically by myself. I didn't do it on purpose, people! More people should learn how to debate. (Which is why I'm currently coaching a class of 13-year-olds! More about that later.)
Speaking of, the topic of my presentation was (the history of) neoliberalism, and it was actually quite interesting. While researching I discovered dozens of blog posts from 2009 until now in which some of the world's leading economists accuse each other of having absolutely no idea what they're talking about. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad, and scary if you consider how much power and influence they have.
(I'd love to provide a link, but I haven't found a good write-up or starting point yet, and my own search path was very erratic. You could search for "Macro Wars" and start there, I guess.)
Yesterday in Economic Policy we had an actual discussion in class, yay! And later one of the other guys sent me an apology because he felt he was too harsh and unfriendly. Which is nice of him, only I thought it was a rational discussion. When I was a teenager I often got into fights with my parents because they misinterpreted my tone, it took me ages to figure that out, and I'm still a bit afraid of it sometimes. This is not helping.
Most discussions I have these days are in debate club, and in BPS format the goal is to beat your opponents' arguments. Unlike in the German OPD format, you don't have to be polite, and nobody takes it personally. (Theoretically. It doesn't always work. There's a reason why there's a mandatory handshake after each debate.) Sometimes I have to remind myself that other people don't have the same training.
Debate mode was also useful when we were divided into small groups to prepare pro/contra statements. My partners were surprised that I asked the professor for definitions of the words used, said that our side was so obviously wrong that they couldn't think of anything, and in the end appeared very surprised that I had come up with all our arguments basically by myself. I didn't do it on purpose, people! More people should learn how to debate. (Which is why I'm currently coaching a class of 13-year-olds! More about that later.)
Speaking of, the topic of my presentation was (the history of) neoliberalism, and it was actually quite interesting. While researching I discovered dozens of blog posts from 2009 until now in which some of the world's leading economists accuse each other of having absolutely no idea what they're talking about. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad, and scary if you consider how much power and influence they have.
(I'd love to provide a link, but I haven't found a good write-up or starting point yet, and my own search path was very erratic. You could search for "Macro Wars" and start there, I guess.)
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Date: 2012-05-06 12:37 am (UTC)Of course a 'live' debate is different than debating in a game, but there are lots of techniques you can use for both (clarifying the terms, identifying the most important principle, how to find a point to 'attack', how to structure your own arguments etc.) Many of these are best learned through practice, though. (There are some online learning resources that I could probably dig up for you if you're interested, or videos of tournaments, but I imagine it wouldn't be as much fun as in a debate club. Or I could post about it more, but most people in RL tell me to shut up about debating already *g*)