Are nukes good?

Point 1 (Destructiveness) indicates how many people even a single nuke could kill. Pro attempts to argue that it wont happen because of how many people nukes can kill, basically saying nukes are so dangerous that therefore they are not dangerous, which completely undermines his own argument that they are safe. Its the equivalent of claiming that a crazy guy with a gun is so dangerous that everyone will avoid trying to interact with him for their own safety, therefore the crazy guy with a gun is safe, since he is so dangerous no one wants to find themselves in a conflict with him. That is incredibly nonsensical, as Con points out.

Point 2 (Environment) is entirely dropped by Pro who wrongly claims that a nuclear war has to be proven to take place for this argument to hold weight. That is blatantly false. A nuclear war does not have to actually occur in order for people to realize that it would be entirely devastating to the environment of the regional area, if not global community. It's the same as claiming that an oil spill from a tanker onto a coral reef cannot be proven to be bad for the coral reef until it actually happens so we can see for ourselves, which is a terrible line of reasoning to try to defend as Pro attempted to do.

Point 3 + 4 (Saved lives + prevents war) is the only argument by Pro that is somewhat defended, and con did a poor job of trying to rebut it, but the argument is undermined by the very next point in the debate mentioning instances where wars were almost provoked entirely because of the existence of nukes to begin with.

Point 5 (Cost) Pro completely drops the ball on by trying to argue that $105 Billion a year to maintain the nuclear arsenal is, somehow, not a lot. Con correctly points out that $100+ Billion on nukes is more than what some powerful countries spend on their entire military, which seals this argument in con's favor by a wide margin.

Of the 5 arguments made in the debate, Con wins nearly all of them in spite of the late round forfeiture. Spelling and conduct were fine on both sides, both sides utilized sources, so the deciding factor was arguments, where Con far and away won the majority of them.

While the four-category system may not apply, it still is relevant to a winner selection debate where the criteria all can be applied.

Conduct Pro - 1: R3 forfeit by Con and Con strangely trying to say history can't be used in the debate to turn things to his favour makes me tilt this to Pro.

S&G - Neither - 0: Pro had more errors but they didn't reduce understanding. The most strange one being spelling Sepukku as Sepuka despite the point not only having nothing to do with the debate but being in the link he used as his only remotely would-be reliable source if it had been relevant.

Reliability and Relevance of Sources - barely tied, Pro did worse- in fact I'd say 1 point to Con if I could give 1: Let me explain something, Pro had a YT video which basically never counts as reliable and was only to back up that Nukes apparently can be attributed to a decrease in warfare (without himself expanding on the how and why). Pro's only actual would-be reliable link was something to explain that the Samurai committed Sepukku... What does this have to do with the debate?! Using Nukes that killed so many civilians in an Era where the Samurai were long gone has nothing to do with the debate at all, it was a bad use of sourcing by Pro. Pro's business insider source was the only one used correctly to explore the cost of Nukes and risk vs reward. The other source while reliable again was solely about a war where the most horrific example of Nukes gone wrong was used... This is not a smart think to bring up.

Conversely, Con's science-backed sourced supported actual statistics of what would happen post-Nuclear war and also how expensive Nukes are (and what that money could be used on instead).

Both users need to learn to put a '- source' UNDERNEATH the quoted thing. You don't quote with the URL in your quotation unless you're quoting your opponent quoting the source...

Tip: ctrl (or cmd for Mac) + ] and [ help to make many layers of quoting, fast. Use the Enter/Return key to split parts up in the quoted text and rank them with the [ and ].

Arguments - Con - neither side defined 'Good' in the entire debate:

There was never ever a given definition of 'Good' provided in the debate. This means that in my eyes even if Con FF'd Pro would win (but I'd vote Pro if this was the case as the Code of Conduct demands us to ignore logic in such scenarios). Neither side explained what Good is, no dictionary was referenced and no real concept of Good was provided. Pro automatically loses because of this as if nothing is able to be shown as Good the default is nothing is proven good, including nukes. Con also showed that Nukes take away money and would cause catastrophe, Pro argues 'but that will never happen unless we are against Samurai types who commit Sepukku'... Well, okay, I guess Con didn't reply saying 'so it only takes one nation to be suicidal and BOOM' but even without Con arguing that, how does this prove it's Good?

This felt like a debate that was "Nukes are Evil." with the sides swapped. Pro clearly felt he was Con to a topic where the other side had the burden of proof and Con clearly felt that he had to prove they were sinister, rather than playing more defensive and exploring what Good is/isn't relative to nukes. Neither side was clashing in the correct dynamic of the debate but because Pro never proves Nukes are Good, only that they can maintain peace in the absence of suicidal types, thanks to mutually assured destruction, Pro loses by never meeting his burden of proof. Con successfully cast some doubt on how Good nukes may be and again, Pro shot himself in the foot but Con didn't capitalise on it when Pro said but a war will never really happen. If a war will never really happen, why then did you just admit that it not only can happen but be very necessary such as with these "sepukku types"? Con didn't retort that, but instead said history shouldn't be brought into the debate... This was all very strange.

Cons case is that Nukes are bad for the environment, and are devastating weapons.

Pros case is that their only documented use in warfare ended up saving lives overall, and the existence of nukes essentially help maintain the balance of power and prevent a more devastating conflict.

Pros case is dependent on a nuclear war never happening: if it could happen, cons case would take precedence.

Pro argues that the nuclear war is unlikely because of the inherent dangers and destruction caused by nuclear weapons. Cons case here breaks down a little - as he argues that nuclear weapons have almost caused a nuclear war. My issue is the almost, and con points this out: nukes can be thought to be a precipitating reason for the stand down.

My view of the two sides here is mainly that pros argument is that in balance nuclear weapons help reduce deaths by preventing wars. While there could have been more arguments surrounding whether that is necessarily true over a long enough time line: con doesn’t really raise or justify that.

As a result, the idea that nukes prevent deaths and are unlikely to be used is better justified by pro imo, thus pro wins.

Based on the resolution being a question, I am going to assume split BoP. To answer the question favorably to their side, pro needs to show they are good or better, con needs to show they are outright not good or worse. ... Apologies if I have reversed pro and con on anything, the weird debate setup still catches me off guard sometimes.

Gist:
Con's best point could have been men like Curtis LeMay having access to nukes (how dare we not have nuclear airplanes!), but he never got that deep into the topic. As is, nukes were shown to improve our quality of life. The extreme what ifs deal with probability, to which every year without nuclear war shrinks the probability. If we take the estimated death toll multiplied by the probability, it gives us a lower expected death toll than the number of lives saved per year (neither debater did this analysis, but it’s the logical conclusion missing from their arguments). This becomes precisely zero if pro’s insistence that you can’t use past data on this.

1. death toll (pro)
Con references the death toll, which pro counters with the greater number of lives saved.
Similarly, con references potential deaths if massive numbers of them went off, which pro counters with the decreased number of wars we’ve experienced for fear of them. In R2 pro tries to counter that the very death toll he cited from Japan doesn’t matter anymore, which feels like a betrayal of his own R1 argument; it was the basis for his estimating how many more people would die if more nukes went off (for which con expertly mocks him).

2. the environment (pro)
This felt a little tacked on, given that the first point was basically we’d all be dead, so no one would care about crop failure… So con argues USA and Russia would ruin the ozone layer, but con countered with a nice short video explaining why those two specific countries do not war with each other (and why most countries do not war with each other anymore).
Con asserted against reason that nukes only increase the number of wars we’ve experienced… No, just no, the data we've been shown here directly contradicts this. The Cuban missile crisis was a close call, which could have been leveraged to a real case on the death toll, but it was wasted here (not that it can't cross lines, but the point did not have enough built up around it for such).

3. Economy (pro)
pro argued that it additionally saves us money. Because I like numbers, I’m pulling a quote from his source: “the average American taxpayer spends about $225 per year on the nuclear arsenal (sovereignty insurance), while at the same time they spend an average of about $1325 on auto insurance and $12,000 on health insurance.”
Con's counter that this adds up to a lot for any individual if he or she could receive a check for this much (not how it works...), but it fell flat as a sum applied to everyone. (peak spending during the cold war, would have served him much better here)

Well both sides had good points but in my POV con won.

First Round
One of the only statements Pro made that was good about nukes was about how it saves lives. Yes, in some cases it does but not all. The rest was just saying how a nuclear war would never happen.
"No one wants to declare war. This is simple. When a big country has nukes it would only make sense that the other big country wouldn't have fought with nukes because nukes are SO devastating."
Pro concedes with most of cons points right here, saying how nukes are "SO devastating". How is this a point that proves nukes are good? It doesn't. Saying there is no possibility of a devastating nuclear warfare is dissing nukes itself.
Second Round
Most of Pro's responses had to deal with how A DEVASTATING NUCLEAR WAR WOULDN'T HAPPEN... AGAIN DISSSING NUKES
"This is of course IF a Nuclear War happened. A nuclear war will never happen. Nuclear deterrence is the key. No side wants to use nukes do you know how many "close calls" we have had but NONE OF THEM TURNED INTO A NUCLEAR WAR. The fact is that if America had nuke sin the 30's WW2 would never have happened. Germany would never take the risk. Unless you can prove this war will happen these argument is invalid"
Third Round
Con forfeited the round, and Pro makes good points, but still not enough to convince me to make him/her win, because he/she conceded.