Mindmade Debatable - A hilarious party game for people who love to argue

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Who were the last three people to survive in the balloon, and why were they considered so important? How can we augment humans so that they can effectively supervise advanced AI systems? One way is to take advantage of the AI itself to help with the supervision, asking the AI (or a separate AI) to point out flaws in any proposed action. To achieve this, we reframe the learning problem as a game played between two agents, where the agents have an argument with each other and the human judges the exchange. Even if the agents have a more advanced understanding of the problem than the human, the human may be able to judge which agent has the better argument (similar to expert witnesses arguing to convince a jury). That’s a lot of thought given to a simple statement. In any of those cases, we would’ve kind of played the game, but haven’t accomplished anything. So, what should we say instead? How about something we truly believe in. Something we’ve already given a lot of thought to. The good news is that this helps us to choose our words more carefully, too. We want our suggestion to be as well-received as possible, so being able to tailor our wording accordingly will have a positive impact on our audience.

Practice giving warrants and reasons for your arguments. For more difficulty, you can increase the number of reasons you have to give.In the first lesson, each student needs to choose (or will be allocated) a character relating to the topic of study (for example, eminent Victorians). Each student should then be given a copy of the PowerPoint Template which they can use to frame their research:

Not everyone is as argumentative as the late Hitch himself. But everyone has to make a convincing case at some point in their lives. As useful as mastering the skills of the debate are, as much there’s often not the time, place, let alone motivation to practice something so seemingly basic as talking. Not to mention the image that comes with debate clubs and all the rest of it. That makes debating perhaps one of the most overused and undertrained skills. What better way to practice these skills than with debate games?On the board, put up a debate topic or a resolution. Students must raise their hand and cash in the appropriate card to make a comment or question. When each group has a winner, you can have a further round in front of the class to find an overall winning object. 8) Balloon Debate

The great thing about those voices is that we’ll never have to think about how to say something again. As soon as we’ve found our personal interpretations of those two tones, it’s either playful or soothing. That’s it. Debate Game Progressions This is a hard activity by yourself, but you can put statements on index cards and draw them out of a hat. Now, give students in the inner circle 10-15 minutes to discuss the topic. For this duration, all other students focus their attention on the students in the inner circle. Other students are not allowed to speak. Had an impact on many areas of life – for example: politics, economics, society, religion…it is a good idea to define these in discussion with students.This activity can be done easily in pairs, but can also be in a whole group. By yourself, you can do the same thing by taking notes on a podcast, newscast, or YouTube video. Assemble the students of Group 1 in a circle and sit on chairs facing outward, away from the circle. Arrange students in Group 2 into a circle of chairs around Group 1, facing the students in Group 1. Groups 3 and 4 gather around the perimeter of the circle, facing the circle. The first finalist should explain why the person to their left does NOT deserve to stay in the balloon. The person criticised in this way should be given a chance to respond before they in turn criticise the person to their left. The person at the end of the line should criticise the person who started the discussion. Speed Debating capitalises on people’s preference to just have a go at each other verbally. In my experience, the rules of engagement in a formalised debate are what puts many people off. In this debate game, pretty much the only rule is to engage. (Which of course we can do most effectively if we’ve mastered If I ruled the world… and the Why Game). But let’s be honest, there’s a reason why Hitchens is famous for the Hitchslap, not the Hitch-Rules-of-Engagement.

The ‘Two hands / One hand” voting system works well here: in this format, students raise two hands (=two votes against) their least favourite character, and one hand against the second least-favoured. This makes for a slightly more sophisticated voting outcome. The beauty of these kinds of debate games lies in the realisation that we’re entirely in control of where the argument goes and what we’re going to say next. We always know what the other side is going to reply to. As Mill’s Trident suggests, in an argument, we can only be wrong, partially correct or 100% accurate. But at this point, nobody is even contradicting us, let alone attempting to refute our arguments. So in a way, we can only defeat ourselves. The game should then proceed around the circle until all the students have had a turn. This is one of the best debating games for beginners. 2) Cross the Circle if… Whatever the issue is for debate in your classroom, decide in advance or ask students to help you identify the stakeholders in the debate.Set the scene: all these people are in a balloon, but it is leaking. To save themselves, they will have to throw someone overboard! Various topics for students should be posed in the classroom. Decide on a topic based on the students’ age group and level of interest. For instance, in the elementary school, invite students to debate on statements such as, “It is important to eat from all the four food groups daily.” High school students might prefer a debate on “Should schools adopt a dress code?”