Ever since its inception Crossfire/Ted Turner/Public forum debate (or however you knew it at one point in time) was created to counter the increasingly technically-based rounds that were being seen in its predecessors LD and CX.
A debate forum in which the issue would change every month in attempt to prevent huge evidence blocks while at the same time delving into a myriad of current and controversial issues.
A debate forum where the rebuttals are one minute each in order to promote conclusive and summarizing statements over extensions of prior speeches and impact calculus.
But is it working? In the last couple of years, I have seen more and more former LD and Policy debaters switching to PF because it's shorter, requires less consistent research, their coaches have come to prefer it, etc.
For whatever the reason, their bringing a few of their respective lessons with them and its leading to what I have come to recognize as the Theory of Escalation.
In a world where more and more people are entering a form of debate with preconceived notions of either needing to fill certain criterion or an impact calculus to a hypothetical situation, the event will eventually shift to prioritizing these types of arguments.
Why? Because PuF does not currently have any objective means of evaluating a winner so naturally criterion and some sort of argument-weighing will become that means.
This is where the escalation begins.
There will always be a team who is faster, more concise, and willing to go bigger so to keep up teams have to become faster, memorize stock theory arguments, and be able to come up with a bigger or more specific scenario to gain the edge.
Competition of this kind drives speed.
It's what has happened to high school Lincoln-Douglas and now we're seeing it in PF.
Do you think a check against this is necessary or even possible? Or is it so horrible that PuF morph?