Nausicaa Scapetello
September 10, 2023 9:25 PM
Speech and Debate Club by Nausicaa Scapetello
Nausicaa was doing an excellent job at continuing on the speech and debate club if she did say so herself. She entered the music MARS room to find it had configured itself to her wishes, as it should. It was the same configuration that the club had been using, and while it wasn't perfect, it worked well enough. It was a rather grandiose room, marble and mahogany wood in a classical style. There was a heavy, wooden rectangular table in the middle of the room with ornately carved wooden chairs along the long sides. These were where the opposing groups would sit to debate each other across the table. At the head of the table was a podium where she would stand to begin the meeting. There was also, unfortunately, an antique looking Victrola in the far corner of the room quietly playing some classical music. She found it something of a distraction while they were talking, but it was the music room and she hadn't found a way to make the room work without some form of music involved in it's configuration. Still this room worked for their purposes better than the others.The Aladren stepped to the podium and opened her notebook to review her notes while she waited for everyone to arrive. Nausicaa had been slowly edging the group into slightly more 'controversial' topics. She still hadn't had any luck in finding a kindred soul at this horrific school, or even suitable minions. Honestly she wasn't terribly surprised, this isn't the sort of place her type of people would even think about attending. She certainly hadn't. Still, Father had his plan and she would not fail him.
As the members arrived, she greeted them and reminded them that the left side of the table was those arguing for the topic of the day, and the right was for those arguing against the topic. As usual, she allowed them to decide which side to sit on without telling them what the actual topic was. That came once everyone was seated and ready to begin. Being able to argue either side of a topic was imperative to being a good debater, whether or not you actually agreed with your side.
Once everyone had arrived, she called the meeting to order. "Welcome everyone, I'm glad that you could all make it today. There are no new announcements that need to be addressed, so we will start with our first topic." Nausicaa unnecessarily looked down at her notebook just to add a little bit of suspense. "As you all know, the government controls access to the Prophesy Orbs that they have collected. There are some that think the contents of these orbs should be accessible by anyone." She looked at the left side of the table, "As usual, your side is for this idea," she turned her attention to the right, "While your side is opposed to it." She was careful as always not to interject any of her own thoughts into the topic while introducing it.
"You have the standard ten minutes to converse among your sides to decide upon your talking points and construct your arguments. Then we will begin the debate." Nausicaa typically didn't take part in the debates themselves, but preferred to act as moderator. It gave her an excellent chance to watch the minds of her classmates at work.
OOC: Feel free to create which ever threads you would prefer, just make sure to label which side you are on [For/Against] and whether it is a planning thread or debating thread. Have fun!
Subthreads: Against - Planning by Quillan Arcadius with Alexander Pierce
2
Nausicaa Scapetello
Speech and Debate Club
1561
1
5
Quillan Arcadius
September 22, 2023 10:47 PM
Against - Planning by Quillan Arcadius
Quillan had been very excited to see there was a speech and debate club. It was run by Nausicaa - a fact which made him filter their previous interactions through a slightly different lens. He always felt, when talking to her, that there were a million different thoughts running through her head, expressed in tiny little tilts of her chin or furrowings of her brow. Initially, he had taken this as potential judgement or disapproval, but he had now decided she was rolling every remark over her palate as a connoisseur, weighing up the possible responses. It was… interesting.And speech and debate had been one of the clubs he wanted to join before even coming here. So far, it had been very stimulating. Even when they argued something he didn’t much care about, the act of arguing it was engaging, especially given that he didn’t always get to align his arguments with his actual opinions seeing as they chose a side without knowing the topic. It was a fun mental workout, and he enjoyed the chance to flex his intelligence in front of his peers, slowly building credit against the probably inevitable discovery of his challenges with the written word.
He decided to be against whatever the issue of the day was, as he had been arguing ‘for’ a lot of things lately. When the topic was announced, several arguments sprung immediately to mind, whereas the counters that the other side might come up with were harder to dredge up. Annoyingly, that meant he’d potentially chosen the easier side for himself, though that meant he would hopefully argue it articulately, and he would have the challenge of being genuinely surprised by what his opponents had to say.
“The most obvious argument I can think of is that knowing the future can change people’s behaviour. Which, in the case of prophecies, might either force them to come true or render them null and void. If the act of knowing them damages their integrity then what’s the point of having access to them?”
13
Quillan Arcadius
Against - Planning
1570
0
5
Alexander Pierce
October 01, 2023 10:12 PM
Considering all of the angles by Alexander Pierce
Alexander enjoyed Speech and Debate Club very much. The only club he might have enjoyed more, had it existed, was a Chess Club, but luckily he had several friends who were happy to play it with him, and a brother he could coerce into it with just a sad look, so he had a sort of unofficial one anyway. He also enjoyed Dueling Club, both as an extension of DADA as well as a chance to actually engage in combat, if under very unrealistic and structured circumstances that would not occur in real life unless actually challenged to a duel.Sadly, real battle was rare these days, and Alexander doubted he would ever get to command armies as his namesake had. As someone who ran a very extensive Empire, however, Alexander the Great had also engaged in politics, and that was certainly something Alexander Pierce could get into during this era. Debating was an essential political skill.
Without knowing the topic beforehand, however, Alexander always had to fall back on the people present to determine which side he would be joining on any given debate. He did not care to lose, and having his side win was far more important to him than having the correct side win (yes, many of the topics were controversial and both sides had some fair points, but usually there was a correct side that aligned more closely with his own values and priorities). And so, lacking any idea which side started with the stronger moral and legal position, he picked for or against based on who the opposition and co-debaters were.
Quillan had chosen Against. Quillan was his friend, but Quillan was also a strong debater, so it wasn't friendship alone that led Alexander to go sit beside him. That Rosalynn had chose For was also a factor. Rosalynn was an Aladren and a Seventh year, and she could marshal some strong logical arguments based on fact, so going against her was rarely in his favor, but she was a California Pierce, and California and New Hampshire Pierces were nearly always diametrically opposed on any issue, so it felt natural to sit across from her whenever possible. Which was to say, whenever she was on the same team as Lenny; avoiding Lenny was always the highest priority goal, but Lenny hadn't arrived yet so unfortunately whether they got stuck together was Lenny's choice today. Luckily, the ambiguously gendered fourth year did generally preferentially lean towards Rosalynn's team just as Alexander leaned toward Quillan's or Desmond's, so that often worked out. It was surreal, though, when the Californians needed to argue conservative beliefs and he had to argue theirs.
When Nausicaa announced the topic, he didn't think it was one that either Pierce clan had an especially strong view on, but he guessed his own probably favored the government control since most of the government was favorable toward purebloods, and the Californians would favor free access for the same reason. Alexander wasn't sure he aligned with the party line this time, though. Prophesy orbs were dubious sources of knowledge, prone to misinterpretation, and frankly he wasn't sure he trusted the government to handle them correctly. Now, if it had been a specific academic agency with a proven record of handling prophesy well, that would be different, and he'd be able to understand why not just any old plebe ought to be given access and the opportunity to bumble around messing up their important work, but the government?
Unless, of course, it was him running the government, but that was still a few decades off, and the current batch of politicians were not ones he thought capable of making those kinds of calls.
So he had to put himself into the mindset that he was the one in charge, rather than those buffoons, and that made it much easier to argue against opening up access to such prophesy orbs to the equally untrustworthy public.
Quillan opened with another good point, and Alexander nodded slowly. A small agency then, once he was President, to handle the Orbs, with only two-person teams knowing each orb's contents. Maybe a superior coordinator as well, who would assign them out based on the teams' strengths.
"Also, most of the public does not know how to correctly interpret prophesy, and the more people who know, the more wrong interpretations will be made, and all of them will be trying to fulfill or avoid the future they read into it, and it will just be an ugly mess. Better for the government to assign them to small teams of specialists." He did not know know if that was what the government actually did with them now, but in his government, that would be the ideal, he thought.
OOC: Rosalynn is also mine, so I can declare which side she had chosen.
1
Alexander Pierce
Considering all of the angles
1566
0
5
Quillan Arcadius
October 09, 2023 6:47 PM
I'd prefer right to obtuse by Quillan Arcadius
Quillan wasn't totally sure that it was in the spirit of debate club that he ended up working with his friend quite as often as he did. Some might have said the point of the club was to stretch himself and be exposed to other viewpoints. However, he still was exposed to them by hearing them across the table. The club was, in part, a social activity, so why shouldn't he use it to bond with a friend, especially as there was no rule about switching up partners? There was only one about choosing without knowing the topic, which they did, meaning that they sometimes had to exercise their brains in order to argue the opposite of their beliefs, as per the point of the club. Besides which, they made a good team - and having a quality debate provided value to the club. All in all, he thought he could make a convincing argument for his choices if he ever needed to.Today though, something else was on the agenda. Alexander backed him up with several more good points.
"Right. And if they happen to make the argument that it's currently mismanaged, that's not a reason to throw the whole system out and go over to chaos - quite the opposite, in fact. It's just a normal part of being a government to have information that isn't available to the public." He pondered for a moment, trying to think of an example that would appeal to his opposition. "For example, they have the addresses of every Muggleborn, and information on who has activated their trace with underage magic. None of that is public because it's personal and there would be dangers in letting the public have access to it. The same is true of prophecies. They're generally about specific people. No one would want to be judged by things they hadn't even done yet. Or there could be vigilante style attacks against people who are perceived as dangerous."
13
Quillan Arcadius
I'd prefer right to obtuse
1570
0
5