 Aloha, and welcome to Hawaii Together on the Think Tech Hawaii broadcast network. I'm Kaley Akinna, and I'm delighted to be able to live in a state where there is beauty and all kinds of resources people don't often get to know about. And today we've got some of the finest of these resources, a couple examples of our young people. Hawaii's young people are keeping up with students across the world in their skills and their abilities, whether it's in robotics or sports. Today I'm pleased to have two of Hawaii's top debaters with us, the winners of the state tournament in public forum debate. They've just come back from the national tournament representing Hawaii. And I'm a bit prejudiced. I think they're outstanding young people, but that has nothing to do with the fact that one of them is my son, and another is a good friend. I hope you'll welcome to the show today, and we can pick the brains of Michelle Murata and Maoloa Akinna. Welcome to the program. Thanks for having us on the show. Great to have you, Michelle. Thanks for having us. This is Maoloa. Well, first of all, congratulations. You've just come back from Florida where you competed on behalf of Hawaii representing our state in the national tournament. Michelle, how was that? That was really fun. It was a super unique experience, and it was our first time competing at nationals in debates. So it was really fun. Yeah. It was really interesting to see the different styles of debate, but probably the most outstanding thing that we saw was that debaters on the national circuit, they go really in depth when it comes to their arguments or their style. Well, that's something. You know, from observing the debate tournament, I came away realizing that we have these young people here, including yourselves who are smart, who are polished, who are speakers, a lot of excellence, and who can argue like lawyers. What's it like to be a debater? I think people know what it's like sometimes to be on a sports team or to be in the band and so forth. Is there a culture of its own in high school, in debate? I think there definitely is a culture, especially because we have this community where we're getting together like on a regular basis to research and write cases. So it's definitely influenced our friend group a lot, I think, and just, yeah, in general. What are some of the things you talk about with each other? I'm sure you talk about boyfriends and girlfriends and movies and so forth. But beyond that, what are some unique conversations that debaters have when they're out having fun? When it comes to having fun, you know, we'll talk about things, whether it's trade policy or health care or like building a wall. Anything that's a hot topic in the news, yeah, that pretty much sparks our interest. And you've spent your four years in high school working very hard academically. You're both students of Kamehameha or graduates of Kamehameha schools. You've had advanced placement courses. You've been involved in sports. But you've also been spending hours upon hours every week studying debate. But what's it like to have that intensity for four years? It's definitely difficult because it's something massive that's added to our plate and to our schedule in general. But I think it's really helped us vote because it really forces you to practice time management regularly and triage and all of those skills I think are really applicable in general. So I'm really grateful for it. Malo, what are some of the skills you developed being a debater? Just public speaking, essentially. Learning how to persuade, learning how to connect with an audience. Those are things that you wouldn't get in a normal club, normal sport. And so that's one of the things that makes debate, speech and debate so profound that you get to use these skills not just while you're in the round, in the competition, while you're in the suit, but you can take those skills and apply it to anything else, any other subject. Now, Michelle, when you do debate, you have to learn how to be on both sides, right? Yeah. What does that do to you when you have to round after round change sides on a given position? I think that would freak a lot of people out. It's really difficult and I think a lot of people don't understand that about debate because a lot of people ask me, like, okay, what side are you on? But what they don't understand is we have to prep both sides. And so it's hard because sometimes we go in between rounds and we debate pro the first round and we're calm the second round. And you go up and sometimes you get confused with which argument you're stating. So it can be difficult, but it definitely helps in terms of being mentally organized, I think. So how do you think that helps you in forming your opinions as a citizen? It definitely helps a lot in that I make sure I'm informed on both sides because I think a lot, especially with our media nowadays, it can be really partisan or biased. So it's important to contrast every source you have on one side of the spectrum with another source. And I think that that's something Mo and I both do because we're in the practice of doing it thanks to debate. Now, Malo, you have debated on a broad variety of issues ranging from the capital gains tax to immigration policy and so forth. I'm going to put you on the spot here. Try to explain to non-debaters what some of these things are about. For example, what is the capital gains tax? OK, so capital gains tax is actually really easy to grasp. So if you have a capital asset that can be things whether it can be a broad range of things, whether it's like you're buying an office space for your own business, basically if that office space appreciates in value over a set amount of years, you'll be taxed upon that appreciation. And that tax is called the capital gains tax. Michelle, well, what's the debate here over the capital gains tax on whether to abolish it or whether to increase it? So the issue with the capital gains tax is some people see it as a hindrance to the economy and some people see it as actually something that's really helpful. So one of our arguments was that by removing the capital gains tax, which is what the resolution was calling for, we would exacerbate market volatility, which would cause these really rapid exchanges of assets. And that would be something that would destabilize the economy. But on the other end of the spectrum, what happens when you get rid of the taxes, you free up businesses from this lock-in effect to exchange their assets, which can be a positive thing as well, because it stimulates the economy. What did you find was the most persuasive argument for repealing the capital gains tax? For repealing the capital gains tax, what was that? I feel like the primary argument, yeah, the argument that we ran, I know it's so long ago. But I think that the argument we ran for the capital gains tax was to say that even though there would be some destabilization occurring, overall, businesses would be investing more. And that would just help the economy so much that the positives would outweigh the negatives. That was essentially our argument. How do you defend the capital gains tax? You see, use it as a market checker, essentially. Something to help stabilize the economy, stabilize volatility, because it incentivizes investors, businesses, to actually create these and invest in well-thought-out assets, rather than just these short-term one-year assets. And so when you have a lot of more thoughtful investments, the market tends to be a little less volatile. It sounds like debate involves a lot of economics. It can, at times, yeah. And so having that we were both in the same economics class is really helpful this year, because we did have more economics resolutions than I've ever seen. That seems to be an important part of public policy. Now there are political issues that you deal with as well. I remember shortly after 9-1-1, we authorized in the United States a policy called Authorized Use of Military Force. And that's become hotly debated in terms of whether there's too much or too little. That was one of the topics you debated, isn't it? What exactly is authorized use of military force? So the authorized use of military force was essentially it was in response to 9-11. And what it did was it authorized the president to send out troops to deploy military forces in a time of emergency when we were being directly threatened by forces related to the forces responsible for 9-11. I can see the purpose of that. Malo, what was the debate resolution? What did you debate about it? If the AUMF, or the Authorized Use of Military Force, grants the president too much power. Whether it grants the president too much power. Now that's a hot topic, given the administration's that. Definitely. Yeah. Our opponents love to. Particularly President Obama's. What are your thoughts, either of you, on whether the AUMF authorizes the president too much power? Does it grant too much power? I don't think so, because if we're looking at the scope of the presidential duties, he's the commander-in-chief. He's the one, or he or she's the one that's supposed to be protecting our country. And so when you're in this position of power, you need to make those decisions real fast. And the AUMF allows the president to make these decisions. Michelle, what would be the counter-argument? The counter-argument is, especially given our current commander-in-chief seems rash at times. I mean, you just have to look at his trodden veins. I think that a lot of arguments were, you're giving this man the ability to essentially deploy weapons of mass destruction. And given that that's a decision that can be made within a few seconds, it's kind of crazy to fathom that someone can have that much power. But at the same time, we need to realize that it's not the president making these decisions alone. He does have checks and balances. Well, talking about the current president, immigration has certainly been in the news in terms of issues that he's weighed in on significantly. And one of your topics was debating the H1B visa. What exactly is the H1B visa program? Either of you. So the H1B visa program is a worker visa program. And so what companies will do is they'll file for these, they'll file for H1B application spots. And so what will happen is that there's a system that will match everyone that's applying for it that's not in the country that wants to work. And it'll just match up the companies to the other people that want to work. Essentially, yeah. So Michelle, what was the debate resolution on this? What were you debating? So we were debating whether or not we should increase our current quota of H1B visas. And what's the major argument for increasing the quota? The major argument for increasing the quota is, well, you kind of have to look to the purpose of the program, which is to bring in specialized foreign workers that fill some kind of need. So the argument was we need to bring in these workers because we don't have Americans who can fulfill these tasks themselves. And that was the primary argument on pro. And what was the con argument? Why we should not increase the quota of H1B visas? Yes, you can get this specialized labor from abroad, but we have to recognize that it comes at a cost. And that cost is putting our own American citizens out of jobs. And what we saw is that a lot of companies have to offshore their processes to places that aren't even in their own state. And so we would see, in some industries, there would be a nine to one onset off-site ratio, where there would be nine Americans displaced for every one H1B applicant that was brought in. Having researched both sides and having debated both sides, did you come to a conclusion yourself personally? I think we both came to the same conclusion, which was that the H1B visa system right now is really corrupt, where we give out 85,000 worker visas. But as we found, there are double or triple the amount of visas that are filed for. So there's this really large demand. And that has caused us to shift toward this lottery system. So now we're not necessarily pulling the best and brightest from other countries. We're just pulling randomly from this pool that meets this baseline requirement. No, I can imagine you getting into a conversation about immigration and visas with the other teenagers who are not here and so forth. There are other members of your generation, especially here in Hawaii. Do you ever encounter people saying, how cruel and heartless you are? America should be open with open arms to all people. Don't you have compassion? And why do you want to restrict people from having the freedom that your parents had as they came here as immigrants and so forth? Is that a typical reaction on this issue? Oh, yeah. It's pretty typical. Not just within people we see at school, but also on the media. We'll see a lot of these pathos emotionally appealing arguments where they'll show some compassion or why are you so heartless. But we have to recognize that there's a pragmatic side to that and that there's a cost for all of this. And if that cost is greater than the benefits, then it's not something that's worth it. Well, that's very interesting, because people generally decide their position on these issues based upon some feeling that they have or some ideology. What I hear you're saying is you try to base it upon the research involved. We're going to come back in just a moment. I'll ask you about some other issues, but I hope you've been having fun. I've enjoyed listening to you. Definitely. And I'm going to come back and ask you why you are not millennials and don't like to be called millennials. My two guests today, Michelle Murata and Mauloa Akina are Hawaii's two top debaters, having one the public forum debate contest here and having represented us nationally. In just a moment, we'll be back with them to talk more about some of the topics they debate, as well as their perceptions of their generation and why it's different from other generations. I'm Kili Akina on Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Together. Don't Go Away. Hi, everyone. I'm Andrea Gabriele. The host for Young Talent's Making Way here on Think Tech Hawaii. We talk every Tuesday at 11 AM about things that matters to tech, matter to science, to the people of Hawaii with some extraordinary guests, the students of our schools who are participating in science fair. So Young Talent's Making Way every Tuesday at 11 AM only on Think Tech Hawaii. Mahalo. Hey, Stan Energyman here on Think Tech Hawaii. And they won't let me do political commentary. So I'm stuck doing energy stuff. But I really like energy stuff. So I'm going to keep on doing it. So join me every Friday on Stan Energyman at lunchtime, at noon on my lunch hour. We're going to talk about everything energy, especially if it begins with the word hydrogen. We're going to definitely be talking about it. We'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner, how we can make the world a better place, just basically save the planet. Even Miss America can't even talk about stuff like that anymore. We got it nailed down here. So we'll see you on Friday at noon with Stan Energyman. Aloha. Welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Together. I'm Kili Akina. And again, you're watching this on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network, where we produce about 30 hours of content every week that goes across the world on every issue from politics and government to the economy, to the arts, and to culture, society, and religion. Today, we're talking with two of Hawaii's brightest young people, if I say so myself, two debaters who have won their championship here in the state and represented us nationally. And they're going to share a little more about their insights into topics and their generation. Maloa Akina and Michelle Morata. Well, Maloa, I take it that I've committed a full par when I referred to both of you as millennials a little bit earlier. Well, what is the exception taken to that? Yeah, people mistake us for millennials all the time, but they don't realize that. We're actually generation Z. So I believe the cutoff is 1995 to 2012. OK, so Michelle, what's the demographic of millennials and what's the demographic of generation Z? You mean in terms of culture? Who they are. Oh, who they are. Well, generation, we have some teachers actually that refer to us as millennials, which is ironic, because our teachers themselves, a lot of them are millennials. And so a lot of the younger folk are generation Z, whereas kids in high school still, people still up and coming, whereas those who are sort of settled in their careers early on in their careers, those are considered millennials. Now, there's been a lot of focus in the last decade on what millennials are and educating people about them and making movies about them and so forth. And what would you describe your generation, generation Z as being? What distinguishes you from millennials? I think that because our generation, we were pretty much thrown into this technologically advanced society. It's something that the millennial generation didn't have growing up. And so we were playing on iPads, growing up. We were watching TV. We were on laptops at such a young age. I'm in, I think, third or fourth grade. I was using I. And so what we see is that there's a lot more seeking or like, yeah, there's a lot more craving for knowledge and seeking out this knowledge, because we realize that it's at our fingertips. And so that's a really big distinguisher between generation Z and millennials. Michelle, are there any cultural differences? I think there definitely are some cultural differences. There are a lot of people who like to say, I guess actually this applies to millennials and generation Z. There are a lot of people who like to refer to us as snowflakes or people who are kind of hypersensitive to issues, which is true if you think about, as Malola was saying, you have to consider the context and the fact that we as generation Z grew up with everything at our fingertips, this world of information at our fingertips. And so I think there is a lot of sensitivity that's been stirred up because of that. Well, you have information at your fingertips. What do you think about the information that is fed to us through network television, news media, social media, and so forth? What are your thoughts? Is it all believable? Is that where you get your understanding of the world, or do you have some misgivings? I think that especially in the past, I'd say four or five years, we've seen a rise of biased media from very, very well-established of news sources. We'll see that they'll only be publishing articles in a certain type of way. They'll be having to, they're creating the same narrative that's only representative of one side and casting the other side as intolerant, or evil, or very unheartfelt. And so what we see is that there is this hypersensitive culture. It's really complicated to get into, but it's interesting, but also something. Michelle, what is the ideology that you see in the media coming through in terms of a kind of bias that I think Malo is talking about? So I think that we can all agree that liberal ideology tends to be sort of the agenda of the Democratic Party, tends to be more on the forefront of the media nowadays. And that's not something that would be necessarily bad if the other side got more coverage, but we see that oftentimes the narrative is skewed one way. And that can be detrimental, because especially considering the fact that Generation Z we're always on social media. We're always seeing what the mainstream is feeding us, and what the mainstream is feeding us is usually very tailored to one party. And yeah, that can be misleading. Well, give us, for example, how that may apply to some of our current issues. Like we were talking about President Trump earlier, and he's taken quite a rap with respect to immigration with regard to ICE and child separation. Is this an issue where the media has got it wrong? I don't think they got it wrong. It's more that they're portraying it in a way that made it seem like, oh, this is a new thing. This is something that only President Trump and his administration is doing. This is never seen before. But we have to recognize that we've seen these separation policies in terms of illegal immigration from the 1970s. It was used widely by the Obama administration, but it didn't get the same coverage as it's getting today. Your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, going off of that, these policies, this idea of family separation, it's not something that's specific to the Trump administration. There was a case that came up from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, I believe it was. And this was in the late 1990s. And essentially what they ruled was that accompanied illegal immigrant children couldn't be detained for more than 20 days. And so after those 20 days elapsed, what either happened was the family was released together or just the child was released. And so that's what we see is still happening. So as you said earlier, it's not so much that the media got it wrong on a factual basis, but there's a portrayal, a slant that introduces a political perspective on it. And what you're pointing out here is that we're really observing nothing that is new or unique to the Trump administration. So why do so many people and so many people of the younger generation believe that the media's portrayal is what's taking place? Is there just a lack of critical capacity? I feel like to say that would be to undercut the intellectual capacity of our generation. But I do think that it's easier sometimes to simply accept what the mainstream media is feeding us rather than to do some deeper digging. And I think that, especially given the New York Times and I mean these news sources are very credible and have very big reputations that precede them. So it's easy to just take that information and assume it's correct rather than doing more research. Said by a true debater who debates both sides. Well, let's shift to another issue in which there has been strong opining on the part of young people of your generation and your older brothers and sisters, the young millennials. And that has to do with school shootings and the call then for gun control. Is that necessary? I mean, is that something that makes sense to you? That these school shootings are massive evidence for the need for widespread tightening of gun control laws? I think we're seeing a lot of correlation. We're not seeing causation. Because if you look at the facts, you look at the FBI, I mean the FBI's stat book, a lot of these sources agree that you can't really link homicide rates with, or you can't link a decrease in homicide rates with an increase in gun control. Rather, you kind of see the opposite, which is why there's a statistic where 98% of mass shootings occur in gun-free zones because you take away the people's ability to defend themselves and that's really, really important and really terrifying especially in a country that was built upon and has a second amendment based off of protecting yourselves through bearing arms. Do you agree that that's what the research shows, Michelle? I do agree, yeah, and in debate that's something that we evaluate a lot too. We say correlation doesn't imply causation and even sometimes when there's not correlation we need to really examine the evidence. And by that correlation and not causality, you mean guns, school shooting, guns cause school shooting. Right, exactly. That's not necessarily the case. What we're observing is merely guns and school shootings. And there may not be a causal relationship between the two. Yeah, well, it's also, I think, looking to one statistic in terms of international comparisons, what we see is Japan has the lowest rate of shootings and homicide rates, but second lowest is Switzerland. What we don't realize is Switzerland also has the second highest arms possession rate. So it doesn't necessarily mean if you have more guns that you're going to be seeing more homicides. It's not the case. Counterfactual there, Switzerland. And so how do you handle the fact that you're surrounded by a generation of people who don't agree with you, who march on mass and I don't have any disrespect for showing, for memorializing the tragedy that took place on many campuses, but there was a lot of political pining there about gun control and so forth. How do you handle being somebody who has a different opinion than the majority of your peers? I think what's important to recognize is that, yes, we have seen a lot of vocalization, but that's not, and we're not saying it's a completely bad thing, because that's what makes America America. We can protest about things that we don't like, but we also have to recognize that for people like us, we tend to be, Michelle and I tend to be the minority of viewpoints, especially in the state like Hawaii, but that's why we really go back to our friend group, we go back to a speech in a bait where we can have this discourse with each other and actually get to the bottom of these issues. So your political views aren't yours necessarily because you belong to a party or a club or because of your parents and so forth. I hear underneath what you're saying is you rely upon your critical thinking skills, your research ability and so forth to form opinions. Yeah, I'd say that's fair. Well, at least that's what we try to do to the best of our ability. And at times we're wrong, which is totally okay, but it's about going back to the evidence, to the facts, I think, rather than simply siding with a political figure you agree with, it's about doing deeper research. How free is our speech and how assured are our rights here in the United States? It's a massive question. That's a really deep question. I think systematically it's free, but what we've seen in the past few years is that free speech is under attack. We've seen the rise in, what is it, safe spaces, a lot of this hypersensitive community has really restricted a people's ability to have this discourse, to have this exchange of ideas, this marketplace of ideas, because it might be politically incorrect to say things. And so that's really important and really detrimental to our free speech and our first amendment as a whole. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I think one of the major issues with this generation is because of this hypersensitive culture, we've forgotten how to disagree productively. And now it's all about disagreements become personal and you're being attacked by ad hominem suddenly when you're just trying to have a conversation with someone. So it needs to be about, sure we have these differences, these disagreements, but how do we reconcile these and how do we move forward together? Rather than taking everything to a fence, it needs to be about moving forward together. Well, wonderful. I think we were in good hands both of you are part of the discourse in the years to get shaping the quality of life in our nation. Maloa, thank you for being with us. Michelle, thank you. Quickly before we go, take 10 seconds each to tell our audience what you plan to do this coming year. I'm going to be pursuing a degree in, hopefully I want to major in human biology with an emphasis in bioethics at Stanford University. So that's where I'm going to be this next year. I'll be attending Marist College in the fall. I'll be majoring in New York. Yeah, in New York. I will be majoring in business administration with a concentration in finance and then probably minoring in economics as well. Well, I wish you both the best and thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you for having us. You did a great job, you really did. And congratulations on your victory. Thank you. Well, thank you for watching today. You've been watching Maloa Akina and Michelle Morata, Hawaii's top debaters perform just for you and me displaying their capacity to understand issues, to take research and critical thinking and come up with ideas. And I think that's very important as we look ahead. Our future really is going to be driven by the millennials and their little brothers and sisters known as Generation Z. I got that right finally. I'm a post-baby boomer. Thank you again for being with us today. I'm Kili Iakena. I'm Think Tech of Hawaii's Hawaii Together. Until next time, aloha.