Your fundamental thesis -- that perverse incentives have created an activity that few would explicitly design or choose -- in not correct. People -- mostly adult human volunteers -- do choose this style, of their own free will, thousands of times every weekend.

BTW, the article's fundamental thesis is also factually incorrect. Speed only wins rounds at the lowest level of competition; you'll never win an important tournament by being faster than your opponents.

> This is a failure of the "game" rules, provided the intended outcome is something other than this (as it surely was/is

Debate has never had a single, fixed purpose. Especially as an educational activity, debate is a victim of its own versatility. A debate activity optimized to teach logical analysis and research skills might be detrimental to the development of rhetoric and persuasion skills. And vice-versa.

When I go to debate tournaments, what I see are teenagers discussing "amicus briefs and economic analyses" "early on a Saturday morning", as the article puts it. Who the hell cares how fast they talk?

I mean, really, are America's political problems the result of too many people debating "amicus briefs and economic analyses"? Or is our problem too many used car salesman who prefer rhetoric to evidence? Because the latter is the common failure mode you get when debate is judged according to more subjective standards.

In fact, the article contains an exemplar of the sort of argument common in more rhetoric-oriented forms of debate. If you read the article, you get the sense that the author himself once excelled at the speed reading activity he's critiquing, and in fact even won a national championship in it (if you make it to the bio). Wow, if he was so good, he must really know what he's talking about and be making an honest, self-reflective critique (you can even find comments here stating exactly that!)

But in fact that national championship he won was in a very different type of debate that was imported to the US as a reaction to speed reading, among other practices that -- as far as I can tell -- the author never competed in (at least a varsity level). This sort of "technically true very clever" rhetorical bullshit is what turns me off on more persuasion-oriented debate styles. Technical debating styles -- even when slowed down -- emphasize evidence over this sort of rhetoric.

> until it no longer resembles what you wanted it to.

Debate is the way it is because the people judging the rounds do want it to be that way. Given the choice, they prefer an esoteric activity with substantive content over a vacuous duel between competing real estate salesmen. Every single round, someone chooses -- completely of their own free will -- a winner. And the state of the activity is a direct reflection of those choices.

Debate is not the way you want it to be because you and/or people who agree with you are not volunteering enough hours to provide the reward signals that would create the activity and environment that you want.

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(It's also worth noting that 99% of high school debate rounds are terrible, and that this has more to do with the "high school" part of the sentence and less to do with the particular style of debate -- or even debate itself. 99% of high school football is also crap.)