Tournament Update Due to the conclusion of the season, LD and PF debaters did not compete at bid tournaments this past weekend. Best of luck to everyone preparing for NDCA and the TOC, and stay tuned for future tournament results! VBI 2024 Staff Announcement
This misses a critical consideration. There was a committee of coaches with the honor and responsibility of crafting the options. At best, if the topic choices are poor, the voters are a check against poor work by their colleagues. If the committee crafted poor topics, then there is an interest being expressed by those coaches to guide the form of PF debate in a certain direction.
I'd agree that the UN topic doesn't quite fit current trends, as there isn't as much direct literature, instead offering a more out of the box suggestion for SC/P5 reform where there is literature. That, however, does push the debate into a "is reform good" debate. I suspect that the nationals topic will be worse given the real world developments that have killed the suggested trade agreements making the actual substance of the debate all theoretical.
This misses a critical consideration. There was a committee of coaches with the honor and responsibility of crafting the options. At best, if the topic choices are poor, the voters are a check against poor work by their colleagues. If the committee crafted poor topics, then there is an interest being expressed by those coaches to guide the form of PF debate in a certain direction.
I'd agree that the UN topic doesn't quite fit current trends, as there isn't as much direct literature, instead offering a more out of the box suggestion for SC/P5 reform where there is literature. That, however, does push the debate into a "is reform good" debate. I suspect that the nationals topic will be worse given the real world developments that have killed the suggested trade agreements making the actual substance of the debate all theoretical.