You're listening to a special archive presentation of TED Talks daily.

This TED Talk features business strategist and champion debater, Julia Da.

Recorded live at TED at BCG 2018.

Some days it feels like the only thing we can agree on is that we can't agree on anything. Public discourse is broken.

And we feel that everywhere. Panelists on TV are screaming at each other. We go online to find

community and connection and we end up leaving, feeling angry and alienated. In everyday life, probably because everyone else is

yelling, we are so scared to get into an argument that we're willing not to engage at all.

Contempt has replaced conversation. My mission in life is to help us disagree productively, to find ways to bring truth to light, to bring new ideas to life.

I think, I hope that there is a model for structured disagreement that's kinder, mutually respectful,

and assumes a genuine desire to persuade and be persuaded.

And to uncover it, let me take you back a little bit.

So when I was 10 years old, I loved arguing.

This tantalizing possibility that you could convince someone of your point of view just with the power of your words.

And perhaps unsurprisingly, my parents and teachers love this somewhat less.

And in much the same way as they decided that four-year-old Julia might benefit from gymnastics to burn off some energy.

They decided that I might benefit from joining a debate team. That is, kind of go somewhere to

argue where they were not. For the uninitiated, the premises of formal debate are really

straightforward. There's a big idea on the table that we support civil

disobedience, that we favour free trade. And one group of people who speaks in favor of that

idea and one against. My first debate in the Cavernous Auditorium of Canberra Girls Grammar

School was kind of a bundle of all of the worst mistakes that you see

on cable news. It felt easier to me to attack the person making the argument rather than the

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