Instigator / Pro

1417

rating

158

debates

32.59%

won

Topic

#2304

If it was possible to revive your most loved one, you should do it

Status

Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics

Better arguments

Better sources

Better legibility

Better conduct

After 1 vote and with 2 points ahead, the winner is...

Intelligence_06

Tags

Miscellaneous

Parameters

Publication date: 08.31.2020 04:46PM
Last updated date: 09.16.2020 02:29AM
Type: Standard
Number of rounds: 3
Time for argument: Two days
Max argument characters: 10,000
Voting period: Two weeks
Point system: Multiple criterions
Voting system: Open

Contender / Con

Intelligence_06

1731

rating

167

debates

73.05%

won

Description

assume that everyone is able to revive their most loved one. If they have many they love equally, they can choose only one.

They are revived healthy in their physical prime.

Round 1

seldiora

08.31.2020 05:13PM

Pro

The human life is valuable, and your loved one even more so. To counter this fact is nigh impossible. Indeed, especially if they were sick or old, the premise in this debate is that they are now healthy and in their physical prime. While people may have been depressed before and unable to get over the person's death, now they can be with the one they love for the rest of their life, especially if we have this button that can revive your loved one. They can now not only contribute to your life, they can go back to contributing society, a win-win situation.

I anticipate con might use the incredible argument that people live on in your heart. But the idea that this debate concerns whether you can move on or not is a complete straw man fallacy as being able to revive someone means you won't have to move on; you can merely continuously revive your loved one. Memory can fade over time, Alzheimer's and dementia go to prove this to the extreme, and as such a physical presence would be key, necessary to support ones who are mentally just not strong enough or struggling with remembering. The physical presence of your lover can release dopamines and oxytocin, and prevent you from being sad. And isn't one of human philosophies utilitarianism, the idea that the greater happiness gained, the better? Who wouldn't want to live another life? Unless you told your lover, "please let me rest in peace", a very small minority I'm sure, the person should definitely press the button if an unforseen accident occurs and their most loved one loses their potential loved and societal value.

Intelligence_06

08.31.2020 06:21PM

Con

It is just thinking that would make this law absurd. These social disruptions will occur if the revival of loved ones is encouraged.

Social security and legal age

It is highly possible that their late loved-ones were buried in their local cemetery, and until this technology is widespread, they might lay in their cemetery for lots of years. What will happen after? A discrepancy between their legal age and their physical age. According to Pro's rules, these may happen in just a front of legal age.

If my GF died 6 years ago and until now there is no way to revive her, is she 36 or is she 30?
What happens to the social security number and any credentials? Do they get reset or do they stay the same?
How are legal parameters defined? Do they classify as dead still or do they get unclassified as dead?
Suppose my GF reached physical prime in 20 years old while someone else's achieved physical prime in 36, even if they are born on the same exact day, why is that mine is 16 years younger than his? Even if it is viable, the parameters here are poorly defined and it just doesn't work.

Too many unsolved problems would make this basically impractical.

Conservatives

Let's say it is usable for the grand old public. However, the Bible cites:

As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so one who goes down to the grave does not return. Job 7:9

Now, even if I do support this usage of technology, there are basically conservatives that are against cloning, abortion, etc and anything tempting with life. It is obvious that there will be a lot of people opposed to this as they believe the dead would stay dead to be moral.

There also would be lots of people, especially conservatives, that even if offered the chance to do so, would not do it considering they would think tempting with life is immoral, just like the Bible has said. This would make the technology available to about only 50% of the married population. This is minus a large portion of young non-conservatives are unmarried and even then there would be lots of people that are both liberal and married that would still not want to do it, making this technology, even if endorsed, not really widespread at all.

Overpopulation

Bring a person back from death would be one more person on Earth. Now, if it is endorsed, there will be millions of additional people from death just per week. On one side, there is the man and the woman doing what the Birds and the Bees do, creating a new life; on the other side, massive amounts of people that could have died are back from life. This is basically the tank of the earth having a large stream coming in and a reduced one out, and eventually, this will mean overpopulation. More than that: Some people would use this over and over again, eventually they never die, which would be really confusing. Eventually, this technology will make everyone immortal and the purpose of reproduction is completely gone. It is either overpopulation or non-reproduction, which are both hard to adjust to.

Inequality

Just that hospital bills are not free, this should not be free either as the corporation would get bankrupt serving people. As a result, it will cost money. It will amplify inequality as the rich always have the money to do so while the poor people would not. Eventually: The rich never die and the poor die a lot, causing everything unequal. You may say that since the poor died the population would reduce, making the planet stable. However, that would be as absurd as saying we should kill people to maintain a stable population, which is considered immoral at the present stage of society.

Round 2

seldiora

09.01.2020 12:21AM

Pro

Social security and legal age

They are alive, and keep their previous security number and credentials. I don't see the problem with keeping the age the same. There are many people who look extremely young but are already in their 50's or even 60's. This is not a problem.

Conservatives

Why is religion so important? Some even argue bible doesn't support capitalism, corporations (greedy), homosexual marriage, and countless political laws. If you don't want to do it, you shouldn't be forced to, but overall you should do it if you're not sure overall. (this is similar to, even if you aren't homosexual, you could still support homosexual marriage, despite it being a minority) My benefits have proven this.

Overpopulation

Your conservative argument contradicts this one. Have you not heard that recently, giving birth is more and more rare as the population begins to stabilize? (https://www.npr.org/2019/05/15/723518379/u-s-births-fell-to-a-32-year-low-in-2018-cdc-says-birthrate-is-at-record-level#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20birthrate%20fell%20again,seen%20so%20few%20babies%20born. speaks of how US birth rates are the lowest within 32 years already!) People understand the consequences, they surely wouldn't be rash and have everyone revive another person.

Inequality

What are you talking about? Why would corporations go bankrupt? Alright, in I can I BB this was simply just a button that could easily revive people at no cost. I apologize for not taking the same precise topic. But if it was actually costly that would ensure only the most incredible influential people got revived, such as Einstein or Steve Jobs. The contribution they can give back to society outweighs any costs. Plus, this is incredibly vague on pro's side; consider that we can already bring back some people near death using CPR and electric medical uh... whatever it's called. Consider how low costly that is, and apply it to this science fiction. It's not too much of a stretch to think it could also be cheaply costing, especially since I can I BB proposed it to be done for free at anyone's convenience and not involve any corporations.

Extend all arguments from R1.

Intelligence_06

09.01.2020 01:02AM

Con

Conservatives
Why is religion so important? Some even argue bible doesn't support capitalism, corporations (greedy), homosexual marriage, and countless political laws. If you don't want to do it, you shouldn't be forced to, but overall you should do it if you're not sure overall. (this is similar to, even if you aren't homosexual, you could still support homosexual marriage, despite it being a minority) My benefits have proven this.

Some even argue that the Bible supports not even corporations nor homosexual marriage. It is just non-support. However, I have stated the very verse that stated that bringing the dead back is simply against the life cycle(All humans will die). Thus is anti-support instead of non-support. Having them equal would be equivalent to "I have no feelings towards you" is the same as "I hate you". My opponent provided no reliable reason why religious people would use it regardless, and they simply have the choice of not using it.

Well unless it is a no-grab-no-go. Said technology is literally so great that missing out on it is equivalent to dying. This would lead people into violating their religion to live longer lives.

Overpopulation
Your conservative argument contradicts this one. Have you not heard that recently, giving birth is more and more rare as the population begins to stabilize? (https://www.npr.org/2019/05/15/723518379/u-s-births-fell-to-a-32-year-low-in-2018-cdc-says-birthrate-is-at-record-level#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20birthrate%20fell%20again,seen%20so%20few%20babies%20born. speaks of how US birth rates are the lowest within 32 years already!) People understand the consequences, they surely wouldn't be rash and have everyone revive another person.

Well, the birth rate is reducing but with common sense, everyone would try to bring their dead ones back, hence there is literally no reduction in total population. People of course understand the consequences, but they would also try to bring their own dead relatives back. Overpopulation would still occur especially when a revival tool is so easy.

My opponent failed to state that people would keep their heads while making decisions, and that would be a move of the goalpost. If we are arguing "Socialism works" and I state "If all people cooperate with each other, socialism will work", it is simply moving the goalpost consider we know that not all people are rational in this decision, especially since how much the dead ones mean to them when they were alive. It is common sense that not all people are rational, and assuming that would be one too good to be true.

Also, unless the world's net population is essentially reducing, this "Bring-back-the-dead operation" will only speed up the overpopulation considering on one end there is birth and on the other end there is non-death: Instead of funerals, it is a revival celebration. Eventually most people would be immortal had this be true, and this would cause massive overpopulations that are not solvable especially since birth rates still exists.

Inequality
What are you talking about? Why would corporations go bankrupt? Alright, in I can I BB this was simply just a button that could easily revive people at no cost. I apologize for not taking the same precise topic. But if it was actually costly that would ensure only the most incredible influential people got revived, such as Einstein or Steve Jobs. The contribution they can give back to society outweighs any costs. Plus, this is incredibly vague on pro's side; consider that we can already bring back some people near death using CPR and electric medical uh... whatever it's called. Consider how low costly that is, and apply it to this science fiction. It's not too much of a stretch to think it could also be cheaply costing, especially since I can I BB proposed it to be done for free at anyone's convenience and not involve any corporations.

As if the move of the goalpost wasn't obvious enough, Pro moved it to the other side of the field for no apparent reason. On the beginning of the debate he states "You should bring back your dead loved ones, if there is one", but here, it is "We should only bring back influential persons", which is just non-sequitur from his last round.

Pro cannot predict that my supposed loved one would become vastly contributional to humanity, and thus, it is no decision that I should revive her, since Pro stated here that only the most successful people deserve a revival, which is already different from the original resolution.

Round 3

seldiora

09.01.2020 01:51AM

Pro

In the end, I feel like religion is a very nitty gritty argument, especially since the scientific thought and truth of the time was that people could only go dead and could not be brought back. But new technology comes again and again. Remember how con in I can I BB original incredible strong argument argues that you still live on in other's heart even while dead, would this not contradict the idea that one who goes down the grave cannot "come back"? As such, we should still save people, otherwise, even "remember them in your heart" could be interpreted them as keeping them in your memory instead of letting their "soul" stay in their grave. And who wouldn't want to remember their loved ones?

Con continuously says that millions of people extra would be a huge problem, however, he has provided no support for this. There is plenty of resources and finance for everyone on the planet, and more. He must initially prove that adding more people would be a conundrum, only then can he assert this idea. But it's more about the distribution of the resources than actually being problematic. Consider that you would only revive someone if you felt like you could take care of them and supply enough food for them. As such, the overpopulation would not be a problem as they themselves could produce the food or work for it in one way or another. Accepting con's argument is like saying we should not keep giving birth as within a few decades there will be millions of extra people. Just what is the difference?

Intelligence_06

09.02.2020 02:29AM

Con

Remember, the BoP is, by default, on Pro. So far, his only justification is that I am wrong. Pro has yet to prove that I should revive my loved one should she be dead in the future.

In the end, I feel like religion is a very nitty gritty argument, especially since the scientific thought and truth of the time was that people could only go dead and could not be brought back. But new technology comes again and again.

That brings us to another approach. There is a possibility that this technology is just developed and isn't ready for the public. We have no conditions of it being publically be in use and my opponent's usage of reviving only the most contributional ones like Steve Jobs would possibly mean bringing it to the public is already a dangerous and risky thing to do, just like that you shouldn't handle nuclear bombs to individual, greedy corporations, nor would you treat rockets like cars and buses of everyone's usage. Technology is helpful but looks like my opponent accepts that this technology, should it be in the spotlight of the public, would bring considerable amounts of harm.

It is dangerous to be in the public considering people will literally try to revive their loved one, thus clogging public service. Look: Of all people most would love a person at all, and they would at least attempt to revive them. As a result, the world will see a 50-100% increase in population due to most people loving other people, and this would mean they would possibly bring much more people in, considering the revived will bring their loved ones back, and so on and so on. Eventually, we would get many more people than we could sustain because there are far more people that are revived. 50-100% again and we have tripled the population, so the earth is unsustainable, boom you ruined it.

Remember how con in I can I BB original incredible strong argument argues that you still live on in other's heart even while dead, would this not contradict the idea that one who goes down the grave cannot "come back"? As such, we should still save people, otherwise, even "remember them in your heart" could be interpreted them as keeping them in your memory instead of letting their "soul" stay in their grave. And who wouldn't want to remember their loved ones?

By them dying, you obviously would have mostly good memories about them considering this is why you love them. Bringing them back would not only make you experience those positives but also negatives. I assure you that no one in this world is perfect, and this would actually make a lot of people sadder, considering the loved one is not as lovable as they'd think. If people love other people equally they could be happy that one is back but also sad that others are not. This is no complete happiness. Unless you are a literal Buddhist monk, there is little to no chance that you will love this person more than you do already.

Con continuously says that millions of people extra would be a huge problem, however, he has provided no support for this. There is plenty of resources and finance for everyone on the planet, and more. He must initially prove that adding more people would be a conundrum, only then can he assert this idea.

Suppose the earth can support two times the population now, which can be explained, and then the people who are brought back would obviously use it too, which would triple the population. and then quadruple, etc. Eventually, the world will be too crowded. It is not about how much one increase is, but how many times of increase there is, which would bring mother earth dead if we are using this.

Consider that you would only revive someone if you felt like you could take care of them and supply enough food for them. As such, the overpopulation would not be a problem as they themselves could produce the food or work for it in one way or another.

Sadly, people have no such conscience. Plus, even if you know you have enough resources for at least you, who you have here, and your loved one back, you would fight with others for the resources eventually for life, which would turn into hunger games, elimination style. This benefits no one as the day this technology is passed to the world, it will drain the earth down. If it is not to the public, then there is no proof that my loved one is even worth reviving.

Accepting con's argument is like saying we should not keep giving birth as within a few decades there will be millions of extra people. Just what is the difference?

Giving birth is sustaining life, and Pro stated that the population is stabilizing. Revival technology will disrupt this order as many more people are just spawned for some reason, eventually draining the earth's resources instead of keeping it alive. Vote Con. This technology would benefit no one if passed to the public, and thus the best place for it to stay is in college laboratories and its likes, instead of in the public streets. Since Pro has no sufficient proof that my loved one should be revived and that this technology is basically dangerous, I wouldn't even revive her knowing I can remember her in the heart and this technology probably wouldn't even go out to the streets to make it possible for me. Vote Con.

K_Michael

09.09.2020 01:26AM

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@Intelligence_06

Would you be interested in debating this topic with me?

MisterChris

09.08.2020 10:24PM

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@seldiora

Frankly, you were so close to winning arguments that if you had put a bit more effort into the R3 that would've done it. Keep that in mind for future debates

Intelligence_06

09.08.2020 01:29PM

vote?

seldiora

08.31.2020 05:54PM

there is no price. They are revived at a press of a button.

Barney

08.31.2020 05:49PM

At what price?

MisterChris

09.08.2020 09:03PM

Criterion

Pro

Tie

Con

Points

Better arguments

3 point(s)

Better sources

2 point(s)

Better legibility

1 point(s)

Better conduct

1 point(s)

Reason:

R1:

PRO points out an intrinsic value in human life and the utility of having the once deceased contribute to society once more. Then, PRO says that "moving on" will be a problem society will no longer face as PRO is creating a society in which death is no longer a reality. I would have liked PRO to explicitly state "A PRO world is an immortal society" but as a voter I am left with the knowledge either way. One thing I did like was the tie-in to utilitarian ethics at the end. While Seldiora has a bad habit of bringing this point up at irrelevant times, this time it complimented his case well.

CON points out bureaucratic hurdles. CON says that many will find such tech appalling... A middle finger to God, one might say. Why is this a bad thing? CON never really says. CON points out inherent problems with overpopulation... Once again the problem here is that CON never impacts out what exactly overpopulation would DO. As a voter, even though I recognize the strength in the overpopulation argument, I am left with no way to weigh it against the PRO case. CON's last point about inequality falls a bit flat for me. As a voter I am told at the beginning of the debate that the "revival tech" is just the push of a magic button. I don't really see how CON made the connection between that and a corporation charging for its use.

R2:

PRO counters the bureaucratic hurdles argument and it is dropped from both side hereafter. PRO responds to the unpopular point by saying there is no harm in people choosing not to use the tech, but that it should be available because of its utility. Both of these responses work. However, PRO's response to overpopulation falls flat. His response to PRO's inequality point starts off strong: "What are you talking about? Why would corporations go bankrupt?" But then he accepts CON's framing of "the button will have a cost" and the rest gets weaker.

CON's response PRO on the unpopular argument doesn't do the greatest job here. Why is "violating religion" bad? I am given no real impacts to people dissenting from using this tech. CON wisely points out that "knowing" does not prevent people from selfishly reviving their relatives/friends. CON misinterprets PRO's response to the inequality point. I'm still seeing no evidence that any corporation or exchange of value is involved.

R3:

PRO has a weak R3. The first paragraph is nothing weighable, and the second simply addresses the overpopulation argument and nothing else. That said, his response does capture the essence of my problem with the overpopulation argument from PRO: "why is this a problem? I know there is a problem, but you're not telling me what it is"

CON tries to employ BoP but fails here, "his only justification is that I am wrong" isn't true to any observer, and with the right voter a statement like this would lose CON some credibility. CON gives several new arguments final round, something that is bad conduct as PRO can not respond to them (and yes, new impacts count as new arguments too. If it were new evidence to back up previous arguments/impacts that would be acceptable, but alas this is not the case). CON has had plenty of debate experience, I am genuinely surprised they would pull something like this. I am awarding conduct to PRO.

That said, their responses to the overpopulation refutation have merit, especially "Sadly, people have no such conscience." and "Suppose the earth can support two times the population now, which can be explained, and then the people who are brought back would obviously use it too, which would triple the population. and then quadruple, etc. Eventually, the world will be too crowded."

VERDICT:

CON barely edges out PRO in arguments due to a weak R3 from PRO and a strong finish from CON, despite the new arguments at the end and a weak start. As a voter, at the end of this debate I'm only left with "immortal society with an impact of higher productivity and happiness" weighed against "exponential increase in population that will eventually overcrowd the world with no clear impact, but you can assume it's bad." While I hate to weigh the overpopulation argument for CON, the argument of exponential increase means that whatever the impact IS, it will continue to get worse and worse. Conduct goes to PRO for aforementioned reasons.