THBT: SOCIETY would be BETTER OFF if LGBTQ people did not EXIST
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 2 votes and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 8,000
- Voting period
- Two weeks
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
THBT: On balance, SOCIETY would be BETTER OFF if LGBTQ people did not EXIST
DEFINITIONS
Society: the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community.
Better off: In a more desirable or advantageous position
LGBTQ: People who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer
Exist: have objective reality or being.
All terms should be used in their commonplace understandings
THE DEBATE
~~BOP is shared~~
PRO: Must uphold the resolution and make an argument as to why society would be better off if LGBTQ people did not exist
CON: Shares the burden. CON must provide evidence as to why the resolution is false and prove why society would not be better off, or even (but not required) worse off.
Both sides seem to agree that this resolution is viewed in the lens of "LGBTQ+ people being removed from existence starting today." Nowhere does either seem to claim to be arguing about "LGBTQ+ people being turned into cishets." Viewing it in that light, pro's argument is self contradictory. An existence where one endures hardship, but still possesses the capacity to live a fulfilling life is preferable to nonexistence (which is what pro is advocating for). Preventing the suffering of other people who cannot accept their identity is nowhere near sufficient to justify their annihilation. All of pro's case relies on the fundamentally false assumption that nonexistence is preferable to hardship and that removing the annoyance experienced by bigots is sufficient to justify annihilation of hundreds of millions of people, and pro's case thereby falls apart.
Looking at it that way, con points out that removing all LGBTQ+ people from present and future existence would create butterfly effects (what if the cure for cancer would have been created by a gay man, for example). This is at least some reason to believe that more people existing is better than less people existing, which is more than we get from pro.
This was honestly almost a tie. Pro could've won by just defining the resolution to be that nobody was LGBTQ+; all LGBTQ+ people become cishet. The phrase "LGBTQ+ people do not exist" implies that we are talking about the people not existing, not necessarily saying that LGBTQ+ as an identity does not exist. Pro never challenges that this means removing all LGBTQ+ people from existence entirely as con postulates, and for these reasons that is the definition that I am judging this debate relative to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ
As far as magical thought experiments go, it's a decent setup; save for the basic flaws of LGBTQ being a very wide and varied group, and the timing and method of removal being open to interpretation (is it they never existed, or magic purple man snaps his fingers and they disappear?).
R1, PRO:
Suffering:
Pro says LGBTQ people cause suffering, and backs this up that they are disproportionately the targets of violent criminals. They also suffer more in their youths for other reasons. Pro concludes they'd be better off not existing.
Persecution:
Pro adds that they are more frequently the victims of violent crazy people in power.
Diseases:
Pro argues that they have higher STD rates.
Social Implications:
Pro argues some pronouns and other cultural shifts make some people uncomfortable.
R1, CON:
Mechanics:
Con treats this as a proposal debate, and catches If the How is missing, they are easily countered with impracticality. He argues that the means by which LGBTQ people are made to cease to exist, will outweigh whatever benefits pro believes will be attained by said removal. He lists three ways it could be evaluated, each of which builds inherent horror to the proposal. Under the best of the three, we have a world without computers to hold this debate on, where the Nazis won (more likely WWII stretched on a bit, but con's argument that they would have won is unchallenged), and Queen's music never came to be.
R2, PRO:
Pro counters "CON's case is entirely irrelevant" which is where I lost faith in him standing a chance. He goes on to argue that it's pro's least bad world choice in which those people never existed (he implies it, without admitting it's from con), and then proceeds to ignore the harms con built out to declare himself the winner and that con might have secretly conceded...
So with half the debate read, we have a hypothetical world ruled by Nazis, without computers, no Queen music or any music inspired by it (honestly, ruled by Nazis would rule out any music made after the 19th century; but con's focus here was on Queen, so for weighing the debate just no Queen); but for the trade off of... A few less victims for the Nazis to murder suffering that fate? Pro declares it to be self-evident that this would be better... Nay is self-evident at this stage.
R2, CON:
Con argues that to create the world pro proposes, would require genocide, rather than magic painless genocide. He attacks the framework of the debate as being too poor to allow a cost/benefit analysis, and adds that pro refuses to clearly pick a means of removal for the comparison.
Civil Rights:
Con builds out that LGBTQ people were key to the civil rights movement. And that while there's strife from it, it's healthy strife which helps us grow.
Computers:
Con repeats
Queen:
Con repeats.
Violent crazy people:
Con points out that violent crazy people have issues that make them violent and crazy, so removing one target, they would substitute another.
R3, PRO:
Pro coasts into the finish, repeating some of his harms without challenging the harms con listed. He has one decent note against the civil rights movement, that because there's no evidence for what it would really look like, we can dismiss it... Which while decent, adds a lot of validity to cons points against the pro side being able to be weighted at all without evidence.
R3, CON:
Con repeats that it cannot be determined to be better without weighing it.
...
Arguments: Con
This is a landslide. Pro offered no challenge to Nazis taking over the world or cons other harms from a concurrent world where every LGBTQ person never existed, and while con leaned more on how impossible to weigh the benefits would be (a little risky with shared BoP), he well established some massive harms.
**************************************************
>Reported Vote: Nyxified // Mod action: Not Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 3 to Con
>Reason for Decision:
See Voting Tab
>Reason for Mod Action:
The voter sufficiently explains their decision on the basis of the given arguments. The voter clearly adds a little to certain points (e.g. using the cure for cancer as a potential impact of Con's butterfly effect argument and employing the term "cishets") but the voter criticizes both sides and provides reasons why specific arguments and interpretations of the resolution determine where their vote goes.
https://youtu.be/rY0WxgSXdEE
Round 2 is finished.
I regret making time for arguments for 3 days.
This is an 8,000 character debate. It need not be this way.
I will save my detailed opinions for the voting tab, but victory or failure for you is entirely dependent on Novice's ability to play the definition's game. It's not the angle I would've come at this from, but I suppose we'll have to see how it goes.
Nice improvements to your setup and R1.
I read your 'little by little' excuse of a framework in your 'overview' if you mean that. If you think that's gonna win the votes, go ahead and push it.
Time will tell. It's either a big mistake or it isn't.
Uhhh...you made a big mistake
You may want to read this.
You couldn't ever choose that without killing the person you are. It's very simple.
The people who don't want to examine their habits and beliefs, no matter how clearly harmful they may be and no matter how much scientific evidence against them there is, are usually the same people who like to complain at the notion that they may have an advantage over other people.
I won't get into the fetishization of hardship that is rife in American and a lot of other western culture, but I will say:
"They're lucky black people are looking for equality and not revenge."
I'm not sure what the implication with your second paragraph is, but taking the rest in good faith, I think what you're saying is fairly heartwarming! I wouldn't say that it's due to genetics, but rather I would say it's due to a shared culture, collection of experiences, and feelings. Nevertheless, it's undeniable that I would not be the same person if I wasn't LGBTQ+; it's the reason I am today.
While I may experience a lot less hardship if I were cishet, realistically, to not be LGBTQ+ is not a decision I would make nor is it a decision I could make.
" I'd probably choose to not be LGBTQ+ if I could, but I was never really given that option."
That's a cute idea isn't it, as if the parts of your psyche and brain's wiring leading to that are independent of other parts of you.
As you know I am a genticist/determinist whatever, there are elements of us that are hardwired into us. Some people at a very young age are blatantly more brutish or timid or this and that than others and as we grow and develop and hormones and brain development occur combined with experiences, we become things that are NOT entirely unrelated at all.
Of course not all gays are feminine, that's not what I'm saying. It's about a series of habits and tendencies, there are certain personality traits in each lesbian, gay, trans person, genderfluid etc that are fairly inextricable from the rest of them. You wouldn't be you and not have your tendency towards LGBTQ. That is a fact.
"I still scoff at this debate nonetheless because, whether it's with race or sexuality or what have you, it's always the oppressing group portraying the oppressed group as an inconvenience and an annoyance that makes life harder. "
I think you hit the nail on the head here. A lot of the reason why intolerance towards minorities is so on-its-face absurd is the playing victim. Usually there's a 2000+ year history of group A oppressing group B; group B will respond in some way and then group A will act like that response just came out of thin air
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I can't say if you're right or wrong either since we're talking hypotheticals. I do my best work with high character counts, that's for sure.
Honestly, I probably wouldn't even take this debate. The resolution envisions a hypothetical world where LGBTQ+ people didn't exist, not removing all LGBTQ+ people from existence in our world. Would that world be 'better off'? Well, probably. A lot of people would have much easier lives. I'd probably choose to not be LGBTQ+ if I could, but I was never really given that option.
Fundamentally, this debate says nothing about the real world because LGBTQ+ people do exist. I still scoff at this debate nonetheless because, whether it's with race or sexuality or what have you, it's always the oppressing group portraying the oppressed group as an inconvenience and an annoyance that makes life harder. Resolutions like this are almost always made by someone who wishes we didn't exist, and so they fantasize about a world where we don't.
This debate immediately reminds me of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, even if said movement would more likely argue the inverse of the resolution.
Do not take this wrong but I believe I'll do better than you would with 8k limitation on this particular topic. I know precisely where Novice will go on this topic and it's not an easy angle to tackle unless you do what I do.
RMM beat me to it lmao
Maybe sometime soon.
I really hope they accept it.
I am very eager to debate the LGBTQ people within the site, and (hopefully) beat every single one of them
Yours.