I have a slight concern that this would contribute to the vague celebrity/elitist culture that EA has. Sure, I'd find it fun/enjoyable to see people who are EA-famous on stage, but that plays into my vague perception of the haves and the have nots, elitism, and other poorly defined/not well thought-out ideas.
I'm not sure how to avoid that. Maybe design it so that none of the debaters are well-known people?
This sounds great! I love the idea of experimenting with new formats.
I like the idea of the debate trying to be judged on different goals e.g. How truth seeking the person is trying to be, how well presented the evidence is etc rather than being right.
(Also potentially bringing back some old ones e.g. poster presentations?)
Debate topics:
Critiques of givewell methodology ( e.g. Wellbys etc) Different ai research agendas (e.g prosaic alignment vs nonprosaic alignment) Economic development vs RCT (pull in non EAs here) Maybe the case for GiveDirectly type interventions (many EAs give to them despite GW trying to find 10x more effective interventions) Maybe debates on more fringe EA causes and the case for and against them? Person affecting views Moral offsetting When to explore vs exploit in your career (maybe focused on uni students)