The Attic Greeks prized debate – rhetoric – but seemed not to suffer from these problems to quite the same degree. (Their problems were different and retained their interest, I suspect, rather longer than those of North America will. Read Plato's Phaedrus for a contemporary critique.)

We're a long way from vanished Hellas, but we do know a few tricks they didn't. For instance, we know that the elderly, while suffering a certain decline in the fluid intelligence necessary to react rapidly to novelty, can do well in crystallized intelligence – that factor which employs skills, knowledge, life experience, and, in short, wisdom.

I therefore propose a "Legacy" debate category, to be judged only by those above the age of, say, 70. A pace of 300 words per minute, while impressive, will not be much good when assessed by those whose brains are no longer physically capable of processing that hypersyllabification.