Massachusetts is a Greater State than California, as of now.
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 2 votes and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- One week
- Max argument characters
- 3,500
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
BoP shared
My opponent must argue California is greater.
Greater definition that must be agreed on.
"of a more excellent or effective type or quality."
- CA is 16 times the size of MA
- 5.7 times the pop
- CA has 53/435 reps in US House- 55 electoral votes. [MA = 9/435]
- CA has an avg life expectancy of 80.9 yrs and increasing [MA avg is a full year shorter 79.9 and decreasing]
- Of the 100 largest US cities, CA has 16 major cities- MA has Boston. In fact, when we say MA, we mostly mean Boston:
Over 80% of Massachusetts' population lives in the Greater Boston metropolitan region.
- CA has the most (9) National Parks of any state- from Death Valley to Sequoia, Joshua Tree to Yosemite. [MA has 0]
- Compared to national GDPs, CA ranks 5th- before UK, FR, & India [MA ranks 31st- after Taiwan and the state of Georgia]
- CA generates more than one-seventh of the US economy
- CA #1 state for Agriculture- 13% of all US Ag. [MA is #47- 0.10%]
- CA feeds the US: 1/3 of all US veg & 2/3 of all fruits and nuts are from CA. [MA is #2 in cranberries]
- CA is food self-sufficient. MA makes less than 10% of the food eats.
- CA originates most US food trends- chinese, fast food, drive-thrus, organic, food trucks, etc
- CA #1 state for Tourism- earns 15% of all US tourism spending. [MA is #20]
- CA has the third and 24th busiest airports globally. [Boston's is #48]
- CA has the 1st and 4th busiest port cities in US. [Boston is #35]
- CA is home to 53 Fortune 500 Companies [MA has 12] and has most Fortune 1000's
- CA is #1 state for high-tech innovation, development and jobs
- 1/3 of all US venture cap is invested in Silicon Valley
- CA spends 5 times as much as MA per cap on tech R&D
- CA consumes 7.1% of US energy but is 2nd lowest per capita energy user in spite of huge transportation needs [MA consumes 12 times as much energy as it produces]
- CA is #1 state for media ownership, production- Film, TV, Video games, software
- In fact, CA's domination of modern media is not just an economic consideration but a cultural and ultimately a political indicator. CA has been the major maker of films since that medium became the world's most popular entertainment and story-teller in the early 20th century. Then CA translated that experience into TV as that medium became humanity's primary pastime in the latter half of that century. Then CA invented the internet and UNIX and lead the world in the development of PCs and then smartphones. For more than 100 years, CA has originated more of the content that humans consume than any other place as well as the screens and interfaces that deliver that content to the world.
- Put another way, the people of MA (like the rest of Americans) spend an avg of 10 1/2 hrs every day staring at the wonderful creations of CA- screens full of information and entertainment that were invented, invested, developed, improved, and managed by CA more than any other place in the world
- That is what makes CA greater than MA
PRO invested much of R1 towards the avg residential experience in each, which, sure, holds some part of the question of greatness but hardly to the degree PRO makes it. After all, the avg resident of Monaco enjoys higher wages, better standard of living, etc than the avg resident of France, but few historians will remember Monaco as therefore GREATER.
Let’s not forget that MA has superior infrastructure, with more than half of CA dams being unstable. To clarify CA has the fifth worst.
True, but on a national level CA citizens hold the 49th highest per person voting power, MA ranks much higher. So if every citizen in MA has a higher voting power, CA really comes up short.
Health
CA has an avg life expectancy of 80.9 yrs and increasing [MA avg is a full year shorter 79.9 and decreasing]
Land Use
My opponents points about airports and national parks are faulty. States merely build things they need or want, MA doesn’t need or want obscene amounts of air ports and national parks, this is not indicative of MA not being great.
Innovation and business
California business
You point to the successful CA businesses but it ranks below MA if we look at the top states for business, this even accounts for tech innovation. Let’s not forget that MA ranked 4th for opportunity while CA ranked 23rd, and MA has more. CA is the 50th business friendly state and 50th for cost of doing business as of 2019.
Innovation
You point to innovation and tech, but MA has superior innovation(MA ranked 1st) and science/tech(MA ranked 1st).
Economy/Per person well being financially
GDP
- MA is mostly just one fairly big urban region
- CA has
- four cities larger than greater Boston
- plus 12 other major cities
- plus huge chunks of
- US agriculture,
- industry,
- technology,
- energy sectors
- plus vast landscapes of legendary beauty
- plus influence unmatched by any other sub-national entity in the world
- political
- economic
- cultural
- Those are the measures of a state's greatness, not average per capita mortgage debt.
- Con concedes the stat but
- rejects the premise that per capita wealth is the primary measure of state excellence, efficiency (greatness).
- Using PRO's args, Wash DC and Rhode Island are greatest in US>
- Like MA, these are small samplings of richer urban districts
- MA's prosperity is entirely dependent on other states (like CA) providing food, energy, cheap labor.
- New York City could improve its fiscal outlook considerably by forsaking the rust belt remainder of the state but would NYC be greater by secession? No.
- Using PRO's arg, the wealthiest city in US, Atherton CA, exceeds MA in wealth, healthcare, per cap stats. Therefore, Atherton is greater than MA and also only one small part of CA.
- hourly wages,
- debt to income ration,
- unemployment,
- foreclosures,
- credit card debt,
- mortgage debt,
- poverty &
- homeless &
- bankruptcy rates, and
- tax revenues
- are more a reflection of fiscal gerrymandering of one dense and prosperous urban region than excellent or efficient policy.
- Yes, we often see better hospital coverage and student/teacher ratios in urban areas.
- Again, we are debating CA v MA not Californians v Bay Staters.
- Again, a state's greatness is more than per capita stats.
A lot of greatness comes down to virtuosity as well, and if we look at freedoms and racism, MA wins.
- that CA is more racist based on survey of tweets containing anti-black slurs
- by which methodology Baltimore is most anti-black city- in spite of 2/3rds black pop
- We would expect MA to have fewer racists because MA is 80% white meaning less racial conflict.
- CA is 37% white, 39% Hispanic, one of only 5 states with a minority majority.
- Google the phrase “Most racist city,” and Boston pops up more than any other place, time and time again.
- A national survey commissioned by the Globe this fall found that among eight major cities, black people ranked Boston as least welcoming to people of color. More than half — 54 percent — rated Boston as unwelcoming.
- African-Americans in Greater Boston have a median net worth of just $8.
- That is, according to Boston's oldest and largest newspaper, MA is more racist than most of US including CA.
- Google the phrase “Most racist city,” and Boston pops up more than any other place, time and time again.
- A national survey commissioned by the Globe this fall found that among eight major cities, black people ranked Boston as least welcoming to people of color. More than half — 54 percent — rated Boston as unwelcoming.
- African-Americans in Greater Boston have a median net worth of just $8.
- PRO falsely claims MA has superior infrastructure by cherry-picking data dam information from "Aggregates Manager" site ignoring his own sources' demonstration that CA has safer roads and bridges than MA and drivers spend half as much on them. Meanwhile, big picture sources like USA Today or USN&WR give CA a better infrastructure score than MA.
- PRO calls MA most innovative state by quoting wallethub.com survey, which skews towards financial consulting rather than an objective analysis from an established source like Bloomberg (which consistently ranks CA as first in innovation).
- PRO discounts CA superior life expectancy by appealing for the exclusion of Asians from the stat.
Great job both of you. Ragnar beat me to this already and said like everything I was going to say, but I have a few things to add...
1. Oromagi was a little bit more organized in his delivery. Trent was listing facts, but Oromagi has sub points to those facts.
2. Oromagi argued with Trent in a general sense, but Trent argued with Oromagi directly, and I think a direct argument is better in this case.
3. None of you guys really said why those benefits matter. Sure, one state may have a better system than the other state, but why does that matter? Both of you kinda skimmed on why stuff matters, but most of the part were just listing facts with no context. I have no knowledge of this topic, and without the why part in the debate, I feel like the arguments were kind of plain, and unrealatable.
So in the end for me, I'm going to go with a tie.
Good job both of you though.
First of all, both sides did really well.
I am not reading all the links but generally trusting peoples word unless there's a dispute. Innovation was a place where pro made the mistake of responding to challenge by repeating his link, without giving any analysis of why MA did more for innovation than the tech and film industries based out of CA. The source point leans toward con due to using con's own evidence to show better roadways (which relate more to the average experience which pro has argued), but I am not clicking through enough of them to consider myself justified were I to award the point.
To me this debate boils down to pro arguing the average experience of people living in a state vs con arguing for maximal contributions of each state. They of course clash, but they never come to any agreement on which standard is better. As a voter, I have to take a side, to which I am going to use an analogy... When Nux trips and Immortan Joe calls him "mediocre," it's not to say he's complete garbage, rather he would expect the average person to trip but Joe demands excellence, and when Nux fails he has to go murder Imperator Furiosa himself.
As can be guessed from my analogy, I am treating "of a more excellent or effective type or quality" to favor the maximal more than the mediocre. California giving so much more to the US economy (even if on average they have a lower disposable income), their tech sector, their national parts (which MA validly chooses not to do, but I consider their presence to imply quality), and more. A couple factors I really don't favor California on are pure size and population (which does affect the electoral votes, which is something I would consider in their favor... About like if we were comparing boxers and one had much longer arms). The racism angle fell flat to me, as a state containing some racist people isn't usually defined by the racism, and we're trying to analyze the comparative greatness; which isn't going to be ruined by a blemish (were one state being lead by the KKK it would be a lot more than a blemish, but Twitter posts which are likely skewed by a few jerks who post a lot, is just not enough).
Thanks for the vote. Can't say I disagree with your conclusion.
Last chance. No votes for a short well-contested debate.
BUMP
Things that go 'bump' in the night
Should not really give one a fright.
It's the hole in each ear
That lets in the fear,
That, and the absence of light!
-Spike Milligan
Excuse the few structural errors, my argument didn't paste correctly.
its a a complex psychological condition, i mean situation ;)
Not surprised you know this.
poor guys on the spectrum, but he is a bonafide Savant syndrome, guess you cant call them idiot savants any more
I'm aware, learned this from possibly the wisest human being in existence, in this debate--
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1427/massachusetts-is-the-most-prosperous-and-ideal-sate-in-the-union.
well according to the legantum prosperity index massachsetts is the pentultimate state https://usprosperity.net/
8 hours left, you should have enough time if you haven't started your argument.
Sources for links: CON's R1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California#Federal_representation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_life_expectancy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts's_congressional_districts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_parks_of_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states_and_sovereign_states_by_GDP
https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/statistics/
https://beef2live.com/story-states-produce-food-value-0-107252
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_California
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2017/Full_Report/Volume_1,_Chapter_1_State_Level/Massachusetts/mav1.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic
https://www.geographyrealm.com/fortune-500-list-by-state-for-2015/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California
https://www.business.org/business/startup/most-innovative-states/
https://www.eia.gov/state/data.php?sid=CA
https://www.eia.gov/state/data.php?sid=MA
This is gunna be good.
I love Boston- my sister the cop lives there. I'm wearing a Boston Aquarium hoodie right now.
.....but, Mass greater than Cali? What are you, nuts?
Would be ideal if it just floated away
I don't recognize California as being part of the union.
ayyyy massachusetts born