Post: #1

Apparently prisoners have bested a Harvard Debate team, which won the national championships a year prior.

Quote:Three men currently incarcerated at the Eastern New York Correctional Facility in Ulster County beat Harvard University in a recent debate.

How they did it, though, is as inspiring as it is heartbreaking. Almost everywhere in the United States, time spent in prison is at best wasted, at worst spent in a swirl of violence and humiliation. But prisoners fortunate enough to be situated near Bard College have a chance to participate in a program founded on a radical insight: Prison need not be only about punishment, but can also be a place where people grow and blossom into the educated, responsible citizens they will need to be when they're released.

The men who stomped Harvard were part of the Bard Prison Initiative. "The most important thing that our students' success symbolizes is how much better we can do in education in the U.S. for all people," BPI founder Max Kenner told The Huffington Post. "Our program is successful because we operate on a genuinely human level."

Beating Harvard wasn't the first time the Bard team had tasted success. Their first debate victory came last year, when they defeated the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

So from what I read, there's an initiative to provide prisoners with degrees by taking classes, allowing them to learn from college materials and not the internet.

Given the what I've seen of the American education system (hello common core!), I'm unsurprised.

G

Post: #2

Any footage?

this thread /thread-50916.html would make me question anyone's victory.

Post: #3

Could indicate the low quality of education in modern universities.

Could indicate that men that are both highly intellectual and high testosterone have trouble integrating in this sissified society that requests conformism and mediocrity and end up in prison.

Could indicate that someone had an agenda to promote the prisoners (are they all black???) for some political agenda. Judging debating is highly subjective after all.

Seriously this could be interpreted in a million ways. And maybe it's just a fluke.

Post: #4

Ok, so if I can't afford to send my kids to college I should encourage them to go to prison instead where they can get free tuition, free residence and a free meal plan!

Post: #5

Huck Farvard

Post: #6

Did someone say Harvard debate team?

Post: #7

(10-07-2015 08:06 AM)Mage Wrote:  Seriously this could be interpreted in a million ways. And maybe it's just a fluke.

It probably has more to do with how modern debate is more about throwing more arguments at your opponent than he can possibly refute. Both teams probably babbled, inward wheezed, and auction chanted at their opponents for eight hours.

Post: #8

I'll have to see a video, but this smells like propaganda of the highest order. As others have mentioned, the debates since the seventies have meant nothing because of the format change.

Post: #9

This isn't debating the way a normal person thinks of debating when they hear or read that word.

Instead it's a weird word game that involves talking fast, spewing nonsense, and acting like a complete faggot.

Post: #10

(10-07-2015 09:34 AM)iop890 Wrote:  Did someone say Harvard debate team?

What the fuck did I just watch!?

Thats "debating?" Barking while talking like the micro machines man? What the hell is this supposed to prepare someone for in life?

Wastelander is completely right...that was not at all what I expected. Watch and be amazed at the bullshit and anti-testosterone black hole in that room.

Post: #11

Maybe the smartest dudes at school were like debate team? Fuck debate team.

Post: #12

(10-07-2015 12:56 PM)Dr. Howard Wrote:  

(10-07-2015 09:34 AM)iop890 Wrote:  Did someone say Harvard debate team?

What the fuck did I just watch!?

Thats "debating?" Barking while talking like the micro machines man? What the hell is this supposed to prepare someone for in life?

Wastelander is completely right...that was not at all what I expected. Watch and be amazed at the bullshit and anti-testosterone black hole in that room.

From another thread:





So I guess all these college debate competitions are basically just aspergers and other mental illness attention whoring showcases.

Post: #13

(10-07-2015 12:56 PM)Dr. Howard Wrote:  What the fuck did I just watch!?

Thats "debating?" Barking while talking like the micro machines man? What the hell is this supposed to prepare someone for in life?

Wastelander is completely right...that was not at all what I expected. Watch and be amazed at the bullshit and anti-testosterone black hole in that room.

The way these debates are staged means that you basically get points for countering every single argument the opponent makes in a short span of time, hence the retarded speed reading. They're just throwing out as many arguments as they possibly can. They can't even understand each other, they just read the opponent's argument on a paper. It's a "debate" where no one can understand each other.

"But iop, if they can't even understand each other, why don't they skip the spastic speed-talking and just write their arguments back and forth?"

Because they're lefty faggots, and faggots love pageantry

Post: #14

(10-07-2015 08:06 AM)Dr. Howard Wrote:  Ok, so if I can't afford to send my kids to college I should encourage them to go to prison instead where they can get free tuition, free residence and a free meal plan!

Narrative building. Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio:

Quote:“A ‘liberal paradise’ would be a place where everybody has guaranteed employment, free comprehensive health care, free education, free food, free housing, free clothing, free utilities and only law enforcement personnel have guns. And, believe it or not, such a liberal utopia does indeed exist. ... It’s called prison.”

Post: #15

The question, I believe, is what Huffington Post's demographic wants to believe is true.

Quote:"Our program is successful because we operate on a genuinely human level."

Generally speaking, liberals of the HuffPo stripe believe the lack of opportunity, systemic oppression and the inability of governmental bodies to appropriately judge the "pool of talent" in a given population are the primary causes of violence. Men and women enter our prison system not because of their individual choices in life, but that their life was so void of opportunity and humanity, that they little or no alternate to violence.

However, HuffPo's demographic aren't anarchists, so instead of calling for the end of systems of oppression (government), they seek to "humanize" government -- in essence, to drain the relationship between citizen and lawgiver of its adversarial elements.

However, as I alluded to above, there is a massive fly in the ointment to these gauzy, pie-in-sky allusions about individuals:

Quote:Studies show that prisoners who enroll in educational programs behind bars are much less likely to return to prison than those who don't.

The key here -- as it is in any individual's life -- is motivation.

The study linked to in the article is typical of modern academia -- a dull exposé filled with throat-clearing language and little to no substantive conclusions beyond the the call for "more studies" to reaffirm the correlation between access to education in prison and the reduction of recidivism.

Motivation is the primary determinant for most things in life -- especially in a free world such as ours. Never before has any group of people had so much freedom to determine their own fate, and yet. . .

Quote:"There is so much talent in the U.S. that has no access, no opportunity, that is completely unengaged by leaders in higher education. But we know extraordinary talent can be found in the most unconventional places."

This cuts to the heart of the issue.

HuffPo's demographic is certainly diverse -- a collection of women, ethnic minorities, gay people, etc. -- but they all universally believe that their "true talents" are not being fully utilized in this modern world. They relate to this "travesty" of people not being fully recognized for their true potential. This lack of recognition prevents them from every being "fully human." Thus the demo of HuffPo can relate to the incarcerated: they are all fellow prisoners in a world lead by clueless buffoons that are too ignorant to recognize the true talent in the people around them.

The readers of Huffington Post simply can relate to people "sleeping on them" and "not recognizing their true potential." They want to believe they have a hidden reservoir of talent that is just waiting to be recognized by others. Actual prisoners just happen to be perfect proxies for this self-perception of social oppression.

Post: #16

I found some real footage from last year's runner ups.

Post: #17

Those first two videos made Boomhauer coherent. That is amazing.

Post: #18

Can we expect business and industry leaders to snap these brilliant debaters up for their negotiation teams?

No?

Racism!

Post: #19

This reminds me of the livestock auctioneers.

I never understood anything they said.






Harvard debate team's got nothing on these guys.

Post: #20

I use to think political debates for office were based on non-sense. Watching these debates have trumped that.

Post: #21

The style of debate most think of is called parliamentary debate, either British ( 4 teams, 2 pairs on each side of the argument) or American ( 2 teams and each team gets to speak 3 times).

The style above is policy debate, which obviously is stupid.

Parliamentary debate is better because during your time the other team is silent, it's your time. Typical SJW issues have become a problem though.

Post: #22

I really would like to see the debate.

Part of me wants to believe the prisoners simply one upped the Harvard guys, and that they were ill prepared.
But the article mentions nothing of the debate content.

Post: #23

(10-07-2015 09:34 AM)iop890 Wrote:  Did someone say Harvard debate team?

LOL!!

Thanks for posting this iop. I like to know a little something about almost anything, but I will confess that I never knew anything at all about what these "debate championships" were all about because I don't think there has ever been an idea that I was less interested in. Indeed, at times I saw here and there largish groups of debate geeks moving along a college campus path in a sort of pedestrian special olympics version of synchronized swimming, and squawking their mangina-voiced effusions into the bracing fall air. But I never once wondered what the terrible geek bacchanalia that they engaged in out of public view consisted of. And now, for better or worse, I know.

(10-07-2015 01:33 PM)iop890 Wrote:  The way these debates are staged means that you basically get points for countering every single argument the opponent makes in a short span of time, hence the retarded speed reading. They're just throwing out as many arguments as they possibly can. They can't even understand each other, they just read the opponent's argument on a paper. It's a "debate" where no one can understand each other.

"But iop, if they can't even understand each other, why don't they skip the spastic speed-talking and just write their arguments back and forth?"

Because they're lefty faggots, and faggots love pageantry

Ah man, it's just geeks at their geek apotheosis -- geeks at their Dionysian frenzy. Avert your eyes and leave them be.

Post: #24

Holy crap that is not the debate style I did in middle school '97. I did the parliamentary style. What a ducking joke. I was taught that you had to be intelligible, make good arguments and connect with he audience.

Post: #25

The prisoners have a huge advantage. They dont have cell phones. They have extremely limited internet access. There are no girls.

They have time to think.

They probably prepared like it was a war.

The teenage university students had no idea what they were getting themselves into.