Recent speaking events

I listened to Tom Nides recently. Very humorous guy. I don't think it's common to get really smart intense students to lighten up so easily, especially being in his shoes. I wonder to what extent his personality has helped him achieve what he has. However, I also thought he would ramble a bit as soon as someone asked even a slightly unsettling question. He would flip into expressing his emotions, narrating a story and largely provided a non-response. Then, just as doubts would begin to creep into your mind, he'd rope you back in with a quip.

I also went to my first ever (retarded-ly enough) YPU debate at the Progressive Party. It was a great feeling as always to pick apart what people were saying but at the moment I find the vibe a bit too casual for my liking. Too much interruption, a lot of informality and in my opinion just a blatant lack of objectivity. I mean, I acknowledge that debates can never be objective, but I do think the most valuable discussions happen when we make an attempt to set aside our personality whilst positing reasons to do something. That is to say, at the Progressive Party, citing one's personal experience and lack of talents, to be general, is perfectly acceptable and not critiqued rigorously enough. I also don't think there is a strong feedback mechanism to help individuals improve. The people seem chill, but I am of course concerned that my pursuit of argument doesn't lead to me deteriorating in valuable practices I have naturalised over time. This includes those of respect, structure, succinctness, specificity and ferocity. Ultimately, I want to argue in order to sharpen my brain and so if this ends up being the place I choose, there will seemingly be a tradeoff. However, it is very unlikely that I will be brought to wear a suit every Thursday for the Conservative Party. That is pretentious and not in the spirit of encouraging debate ("barrier to entry" as economists might call it), although I suspect the rigour of arguments will be stronger there.