Barney

FF
Had pro not forfeited, I would have suggested you both ask the moderators to delete the debate.

Anyway, con, you can always launch this one again and reuse your same opening.

The con case centers around how everyone in the US loves Trump, and how wrong it is for any of them to call him a Nazi... Kind of self defeating.
The pro case only gained any momentum later, with Trump having apparently confessed to impeachable crimes (dismissing the rest of that round because it looks copy/pasted) which con chooses to drop.

Conduct for greater forfeiture.

First off, 50% forfeiture.

Pro made a decent opening gambit saying for this debate we should ignore any part of the bible that was not specifically about Jesus. He argues that Christians just seek to emulate Jesus... Con points out this necessitates fasting in the desert without even water for 40 days. Pro tries special pleading, but the part under discussion was what he considered a moral thing to be done, and even sides with the impossibility of mortals surviving engaging in this important Christian moral... There's just no way to overcome this when the moral system apparently requires everyone die during initiation. (not even addressing if they should be crazy hearing voices as well).

Con points out the guy in question is not just an actor but also a lawyer, giving him insight into the legal problems of the job he is undertaking (or trying to undertake), and of course that it hasn't stopped success before. They seem agreed on the evidence, and logically showed that the evidence favors him.

What's to say, pro showed the unquestioned correlation. Con responded by arguing we're changing the weather not the climate, and closes by insisting it will naturally return to normal. If it isn't a big deal, doesn't dispute the human connection.

Conduct for forfeiture.

I don't even want to address this horrid of a resolution, but I will say significantly neither advanced their BoP toward it.

S&G did come up as an argument, which pro dropped, all but conceding that his S&G was too horrible for his ideas to be understood. However, I think I get the gist of pro's points (as strange as they were).

Conduct: Threatening to murder a cat.

Forfeiting every round after the first counts as an FF, to which we must award in favor of the other side.

FF

FF, and plagiarism https://arcapologetics.org/culture/our-dying-culture/

Con clarified his stance in relation to the resolution, which doubled up as couching pro how to win: "my only job is to prove that my opponent has neither sufficient evidencer nor proper to prove the resolution to be true." which he goes on to do.

Pro responds with plagiarism, taken in part from http://theglitteringeye.com/perspectives-on-the-2016-election/

I don't understand rap battles as debates, so I am not assigning arguments.

However, con waiving R3 to set the debate on equal footing was some truly amazing conduct.

I fully believe the majority of votes will end up favoring con, but mine does not due to the arguments presented.

Pro gives a case about the bible and what it says about God, and how that would be impossible due to contradiction. Con immediately tried to move the goalpost by arguing that God isn't the being described in the bible and such a being would be logically impossible (an accidental concession, which I would be more willing to forgive were it not for the cheap tactic of trying to toss out the bible which was mentioned in the resolution). The being described in the bible is Omnipotence and Omniscient, to which in his final statement con renews his insistence that such would be impossible

Two rounds of forfeiting vs. one, so conduct to con.

FF

See comments:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1235/comment_links/20667

My usual gist section doesn't do this debate justice. Fantastic job all around!

I was genuinely tempted to rate this one a tie.

This is an easy one (not the mention a troll debate). Pro makes some broad assertions which boil down to them treating the resolution as a truism rather than a debate, and con basically offers to concede the debate if pro will just point to the official source mandated by the resolution.

Pro works hard to make their side look moronic, by claiming that con must turn himself in to homeland security for having been labeled a domestic terrorist, but refuses to show any evidence to suggest this is more than their own imagination; as con reminds us.

Sources:
Con leveraged the absence of positive evidence to win the debate. Not only this, but he outright walked pro through how to find a source to support their case and win (just talk to homeland security, and get them to provide a link...). This award is akin to had pro offered a dozen sources and con flipped them all to favor his side. Occasionally one can leverage the existing evidence to win a case, without introducing any of their own.

This is not a matter of neither side having evidence, this is both checked for evidence and provided it all; which con pointed out was none, and that disfavors pro.

FF.

Forfeiture

Correlation =/= Causation

Anyway, con uses a ton of sources to show a more likely cause of population density, and when pro listed cities, he listed their gun laws to highlight the low level of confidence connecting that as the primary influence to the problem in question. Flipping a point so brutally gets extra credit.

Plus, pro accidently conceded things in his first run on sentence: "mostly because stricter gun laws" ... If it were because of ten reasons, but mostly one, it would still not be because of that one alone which the resolution implies. ... Still, credit for some rapid improvement.

FF, and a borderline truism.

Interpreting the resolution:
The generic world government would be better served by not seeking to prosecute the wielder of the Death Note

Gist:
Con dropped pro’s argument to run a K, but the K missed the target leaving pro’s six major points wholly uncontested.

Suspension of disbelief
The first sentence in the description informs us what basis things are assumed to happen in. Arguing that the world should not have acted against Kira in 2019, doesn’t touch on the crime ridden world of 2020 in which this debate is focused.

Arguments:
Some credit to con for engaging in the debate without just copy/pasting lines from sources. However, the crime data he cited from 2018 and 2017 is grossly outdated, we could not have predicted the crime wave that was to start in October 2019! That those changes worked for awhile, did not stop the criminals; it’s like con is struck in the past...

I do generally agree with con that we should deal with poverty (and ideally not by means of the Death Note), and train better police. Pro even built into his case that Kira might just stop one day, and implied we should press our advantage.

A good counter case could have focused on Kira needlessly targeting police officers, and possibly the corruption of power clearly manifested in the uncontrolled criminal activity around the world... Heck even a ‘we should take it for ourselves, and use it to end poverty’ would have been at least potentially valid (if still unlikely to win).

Conduct:
“the hypothetical world you created in your brain is silly so is a book you can right names in” unwilling to engage in the debate as agreed, and insulting the very foundation of it, merits the penalty.

"Rules: ... 3. No religious argument" haha (I get what pro meant, but it still reads funny on a debate about religion)

1. Unit People
Well laid out assertions about empires, and I would have liked some verification on what religions they had.

2. Mental Health
So because we talk online, we should specifically believe in God and go to church on Sundays for needed human interaction... This majorly begs some questions.

3. Wars
Wars in the name of God were really "political, social, or economical." A great example here was "In the thirty years war, the French fought the Spanish even though they are both Catholic." Con counters with something of a rant, which the poor punctuation ossufcates the message, but there's bits like how apparently Catholics currently commit wars so that they can rape their own children and plunder the creation of the mafia? ("catholic people the rape of its own children the wars the plunder the creation of the mafia"). And apparently "Protestants arent really much better as they are responsible for the crime of the evil British empire which is respsible for more genocide and famine than any other entity" if the British empire created worst famines than communism, this needs to be shown, and the religion angle needs to be connected. Pro of course already said his angle that any of this stuff isn't about religion (hard to prove or disprove, but he front loaded his case rather than doing special pleading after the fact).

I admit to being genuinely curious about the wars and genocides carried out in the name of Buddha (they were said to have happened, but none were listed).

Arguments:
I was going to leave these tied, but con in the final round trying to pull the thirty year war, which was already shown to be Catholic Against Catholic violence, undermined his case that religion is the cause of these wars rather than just an excuse during them too much (this is in addition to him dropping the positive claims of religion).

S&G:
I couldn't understand con. Gibberish about children rape mafia war etc., and other examples above, already show that this case was illegible. Pro on the other hand was well organized, clean, with no glaring mistakes to distract me from the debate.

Conduct:
"Rules: ... 2. No insult"
Not a hard rule to follow. Cite examples (even broad ones of the priesthood) rather than accusing all Catholics of child rape and personally forming the mafia.
Pro on the other hand stayed respectful.

I would actually give pro conduct for concession, but I have been corrected that it must be an explicit rather than implicit one.

"One of them was shot dead days later." It took days to handle a petty half dozen people uprising, which does not come anywhere near close to fitting the definition con provided (and pro accepted) of easy. That it would not be a threat to the union, doesn't mean it's easy for the boots on the ground. Easy would be if we could settle them with quick drone strikes without consequence.

FF

FF

Dictatorships inspired by socialism, does not prove the nations are socialist. Con used a trustworthy definition to show what socialism actually is, and it's more than a name, it's quite simply the workers owning the means of production; to which neither country in question was demonstrated to live up to no matter what they call themselves. Pro on the other hand, did his usual borderline plagiarism (write your own argument, and support it with sources and choice quotes from them... at least use the indent quotation tool to mark what's copied when it's so long).

Apparently 5G internet proves God dialed our clocks... Oh well, haha, FF.

FF
Plus not a bad concise case in support of the resolution. Nice job Bill.

While the resolution is invalid and unsound, con dropped out and did not extend his points when he returned.

I did not see any points advance things in either direction (Dogs eating homework and Bsh1 eating homework, seem pretty interchangeable excuses which don't touch upon it).

So rematches can be done easily, and if your opponent is nice, admins are willing to delete the old debates if both sides agree to it.

Con dropped out, leaving pro's remaining case uncontested. This was over half the debate missed.

FF

Gist:
Thailand is greater as of now, and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. This was shown through arguments by pro. The counter case hinged heavily on potential, but such had to outright ignore size differences (if both lived up to their full potential, it would go to the larger... some reason to believe either one of them will do such did not seem to be present)

1. Tourism
T. is more desirable to visit. Dropped by con

2. Quality of Life and Cost of Living
T. is better for raising children. While V. being cheaper to live in is neat for visiting, basic economics tell us there will be less pay there, as pro points out, T. has much greater spending power (massively higher pay, for only marginally higher expenses).

3. Education and Academic Achievement
T. comes ahead. Dropped by con.

4. As of Now ... Dying
So I agree that there’s something to be said for potential, but such needs to be carefully quantified if used on a debate like this. N. Korea for example, gets some credit in power for their nuclear program, but it doesn’t get treated as superior to the USA’s for potential or current growth rate vs a mature arms program. That T. is mature, similarly doesn’t count against it, it’s a known quantity, which while having the potential to crumple, so does V..

Advice:
Pro, pretty good job. I do suggest resolutions which imply some degree of probability, but by pulling things back to the resolution rather than side tangents you won this debate.
Con, don't worry so much about line by line rebuttals to whatever someone else says, come up with an attack on the resolution itself. ... Don't get me wrong, still address the theme of someone else's case, but even when they have BoP there is nothing to stop you from introducing your own contentions. As an example, you could argue that possible things can be assigned some probability (there's various calculations for aliens as an example), and there is no basis for God having a probability (maybe even stack it and say the probability of God not existing =0.99999... to infinity, which in turn equals 1, leaving no possibility of God existing).

Arguments:
1. Many complex planets, solar systems, and galaxies in our universe
Doubtful, but possible.
Con's counter about aliens, really hurt his case. Were the debate about aliens possibly existing, saying their existence hasn't been proven would not counter the possibility.

2. The laws of science are universal
This could have been leveraged against the possibility of something violating those at a whim, instead con pointed out it hasn't been proven, which does not address the possibility as per the resolution...

3. DNA
Completely unsure how this is supposed to relate to God.

Conduct:
When asking voters to weight conduct, ensure yours is the preferable side...
"Please voters review this as a forfeit by my opponent or unwilling to give rebuttals so essentially the same thing just the same thing."
A forfeiture would give the conduct point, asking for this due to not liking the concise defense style of using the resolution, is very poor conduct. Much better to just adapt and make a better case (or explain the error in their reasoning, and extend points if they're proven topical). This is worse for the amount within that "forfeit" to which con then went on to reply. ... Con, you would not want people to consider your R4 forfeited, when you truly gave nothing to respond to within it. The end result of the waived round was not quite a final round blitzcreig, but it entered that dangerous conduct area.
Going on to Kritik the debate as unfair, would have been a valid tactic in R1 (E.G., 'mere possibility is meaningless, thus this debate is a truism troll debate, and I should win for possibly being the true uncaused cause which caused all others...'), but late in the game it felt like special pleading.

PRO's CASE:
CON challenged and ignored all of PRO's submissions in debate description, R1, and R2 because all content was unoriginal cut & paste. PRO's R3, R4, R5, do address a few of CON's arguments but PRO never made an affirmative case.
CON's CASE:
I. Singapore is too unique to make a good example for other nations
PRO conceded that Singapore is unique but argued that Singapore is admired by Taiwan and China. CON documented that China does admire Singapore as a model for political domination but not as a Socialist model. No evidence for Singapore's influence on Taiwan was offered.
Singapore is a fluke: an artifact of empire now sustained by oil and gambling and shady banking. Singapore is an unsustainable island projected to lose more than a quarter of its precious land mass to sea level rise over the next 80 years while the oil dependent country does little to save itself. Nations emulate Singapore at their peril.
II. Singapore is not particularly democratic
PRO conceded in R3 that Singapore is not democratic but dropped CON's argument that refuting dictatorship does not increase evidence of democracy. CON criticized both of PRO's sources and PRO offered no defense.
There is not point to talking about market socialism or the balance of capitalism and socialism in a society without the freedom of speech or assembly. Lee Hsien Loong controls the means of production, not Singaporeans. Lee Hsien Loong controls supply and demand. Should Singaporeans dare to go on strike or protest for a higher wage and they will discover who is in control- as labor leaders now decades in prison without charges or trial have discovered before.
III. Singapore is not particularly socialist
PRO has not addressed CON's important contention that Socialism is not possible without Democracy. Pro's online interview with one random Singaporean (let's hope) confirms CON's complaint well enough:
I think the near-single-party government also played a big role because the normative policies need not give in to populism but continues to be anchored on foresight and good judgements. https://www.debateart.com/debates/1408/singapore-is-a-successful-example-of-socialism

---

Pro, please consider what problems you would have with the above as a vote, then apply correction you would want on that to your argument style.

Actual vote:
First of all minor plagiarism (could also be classified as forfeiting three of the rounds...). Pro's copy/paste could only be considered borderline acceptable in R1 to introduce the theme he wants to discuss (and then, it still should have been marked clearly as quotations). After that, it systematically dropped all of con's arguments (see numbered headings above). To leave them dropped so completely across two rounds and then challenged, ruins the holistic framework of the debate. The one highlight pro attempted was an interview, to which he highlighted and explained nothing, making con's interpretation that it proved pro wrong the only interpretation under consideration (always be careful with double edged swords).

A little odd that by definition both full forfeited, but con did so with capital F's.

See comments:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1335/comment_links/20203

Gist:
Debate got trolled... If not just trolling, even when asked, con could not name even a second conservative president to support his case.

Concession.

Arguments:
In summary, con successfully argues that "Getting rid of the guns does not get rid of crime, especially since people could just switch to knives or something." Pro tries to counter with: "you simply cant tell me strict gun laws did not contribute to the safety of that society" but this ignores that con already successfully did just that.
Not grading this more, due to pro choosing to engage in plagiarism in R5, rather than making his own case, or at least giving proper credit to whoise case he's stealing (not to mention, someone else's case will not be a proper reply to con's specific words).

Sources:
Fantastic work from con, making pro's actual source available... Incidentally, as a voter I am fine with research papers to which only the abstract is accessible (like con, I am not going to read the 50 pages...); however, citing churnalism talking about that same abstract is pointless (why cite the article talking about an article, instead of the real McCoy?).
Otherwise pro had a couple poorly integrated sources, whereas con had about a dozen well integrated ones.

Conduct:
Missed round and plagiarism.

Arguments: con
Pro asserts that it worked because alcohol consumption may have decreased, but con counters that it failed in its' actual goals and was a conspiracy against minorities (German and Irish) spearheaded by the KKK. Pro dropped the entire con case, and refused to defend any aspect of his own. It would be more favorable to call this a concession, but it was not explicit enough...

Sources: con
Pro's first source was beat into the ground by con, and his second had no connection to the debate in progress. Con on the other hand, used a half dozen to prove that prohibition both failed and was evil anyway (by the accepted definitions, something did not work if it was incorrect).

S&G: tied
Pro, thanks for working hard at improving this. No deduction here.

Conduct: con
Pro's R2 was effectively plagiarism. Always highlight if you're quoting something, not just a link at the end of it (I give leeway on that, but only for the precise paragraph preceding the link... and you should bloody well have your own introductory text before any lengthy quotation anyway; like you're debating, it should be primarily your words).

See comments:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1299/comment_links/20154

Gist:
Con’s case that it takes less faith to believe in less complexity, won against the moving the goalpost and claims that we should believe in God, but not in gods, but we can’t define God if it’s inconvenient right now but should just believe unquestionably instead... (pro I am not trying to be as rude as that might seem, but you repeatedly hamstrung yourself)

Pro uses history lessons to prove his case (bad history, stolen titles, and some really funny analogs), whereas con does not challenge any of it and makes a weak case around defamation not mattering. If it matters or not, is not what is in question, so arguments to pro. Sources to pro, largely for connecting the historical figure to currently living people (I had no clue Meghan Markle was from that line...), making the harm (mild as it may be) a sound argument and pre-refuting the contention that it doesn't matter.

Pretty straight away con either conceded or renounced his faith: "If this did happen it is God who did it." Which is conceding that explosions can indeed create (doesn't matter if it takes special ones).
He later concedes again with "Con wins on technicality."

Sources: Con offered many, pro could not properly integrate even a single one to support his case. A source of note was the Cornell.edu one with explains about the Doppler Shift, which is how we know the universe isn't static and measure it.

S&G:
Pro chose to do some really weird formatting to try to make his case unreadable. Layers of increasingly indented bullet points and text callouts (which should not be used for single lines anyway), leading to nothing.

Conduct to the conceding side.

Pro did a well presented and well researched case on the likelihood of Lobsters feeling pain, and the basic idea that we ought not engage in sadism. Con offered an off topic Institutional Kritik. Given this, the debate boils (pun intended) down to the resolution, which is a moral urging rather than call for legal action.

Arguments:
Lobsters feel pain was not challenged on any grounds, nor were topical counter points raised.

Sources:
Pro very effectively used sources to bolster his case, even building and responding to counter cases against likely objections. The level of detail he pulled from Business Insider's article on lobsters was fantastic, as was the example of people doing similar to dogs (side note: animal cruelty activists insist we should cut dogs tails off and mutilate their ears, because they don't feel pain anyway...). Con on the other hand offered no evidence in support of his ideas (the Kritik could have held water with examples of governments abusing perceived moral imperatives).

S&G:
Con has improved over previous debates, but still a ways to go to not challenge the comprehension and coherence. Constant missing capitalization and punctuation, extra spaces for no reason, etc.
As an example of con's problematic sentences: "i did and this i state you imply strongly between the lines that the law should get involved this implication is not explicit but is implied therefore i insist on addressing it, if there is no legal imperative then this is strictly a matter for the individuals conscience and if that is the case there is no further need for anyone to discuss this. Unless you plan on forcing people to avoid the boil, aint nobodies bizness if we do" I should not be pulled out of the debate wondering what "bizness" means, I could guess he means business, but when half the letters are replaced or missing, it pulls me out of reading the debate. Plus why was this single sentence so long? Grammar rules call for the different ideas being broken up; and in debates there should be lines between different ideas being responded to as well, not just walls of text without any periods to close sentences.
Pro on the other hand was fully legible.
Con, for the love of god, use a normal text editor with spell check. If you don't have access to MS Word, Google Docs works almost as well.

Conduct:
Neither degraded themselves.

The resolution has some validity to it, people unwilling to debate should likely refrain from insulting those who do... However the debate did not touch on that subject. "Anyone brave enough to engage a battle deserves respect whether or not they win" can be completely true, but not touch on the subject of people who aren't so brave (as per the resolution).

Con points out the missing context, and suggests it was a direct challenge to him for some argument in a comment section. If this was a call-out debate toward con, that he is both cowardly and a loser would need to be shown; if not, so some example of those people should still be used, along with some explanation (even if it seems self evident) of benefits for them or others were they to just shut up (personally, I would have argued them debating would be what they should do, with con as a good example of the benefits to rising to the challenge)

Pro at best rises to the level of circular reasoning, in a case that ends up no more claiming God created emotions than emotions created God.
Con repeatedly asks pro to prove the existence of either core concept (morality existing is a given, but this mysterious and undefined "moral law" does not), but pro refuses to even attempt this.

Arguments:
Pro fixates on the number 100M, con counters that pro fabricated this number from 94M (the source on the book says "For the cumulative toll of victims of communist rule, estimated by the authors at between 85 and 100 million,"). For some reason pro tries to claim victory for his number being accused of being made up by him.

The other thing from pro was refusing (even when specifically requested) to define "use." For the context of the debate, there needs to be wrong time to use it. Otherwise, all pro arguments are self defeating, as attempting to discuss something as a bad source, necessitates using it as a source.

Con on the other hand makes a compelling case for just how good of a source it is. Great appeal to authority of Harvard, with explination of the peer-review process documenting any possibly shortcomings.

Sources:
Con gets this mainly for the BBC, which was vital to making sense of this debate.
Pro's sourcing was pretty bad, sometimes failing to even use quotation marks; which made it look like he was committing plagiarism. One of his quoted sections from a source was so poorly selected it contained this gem in defense of communism: "no extermination camps built to murder millions ... the labour camp population reached 2.5 million at its peak"
I can't help but laugh. It's Holocaust denial level stupid.

Conduct:
This could have also been called S&G, but when you present your material as if it's plagiarism, you get penalized conduct regardless of if you meant to commit said crime. I've written a guide which on the first first page explains how to avoid this problem (https://tiny.cc/DebateArt).

Another troll debate...
Pro spams his usual Gish Gallop, and con counters with explanations on benefits and pro having not proven his claims of evil magic baby poison and such. He adds a nice touch about how too much oxygen can kill you, challenging overdoses as a valid indicator, thereby winning the debate.

In summary (quoting con): "Several claims of magic, sorcery, and babies inside of vaccines are unsubstantiated and too ludicrously to respond to."

See comments:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1386/comment_links/20083

Gist:
Con drops too much of pro’s case to have a prayer. He tries to move the goalpost to outright terraforming, but that’s outside the scope of this first colony debate.

Con makes a case that if things were vastly different Germany could have won (not even necessarily favorable odds), which is neat, but doesn't touch the resolution of the actual state of the war in 1942. Pro's case about troop counts, etc., is untouched. So based on the evidence, the odds were dis-favorable them to attain victory at that point.

Con trolled.

While I will not penalize conduct for the (hopefully) sincere attempt at being entertaining, pro's strong three contention opening was never challenged; and con never attempts to make any type of warranted case (the feelings of white snowflakes, were not even shown to be improved under Trump).

Sources strongly favor pro, with an immediate highlight of the report on dementia. It set the stage for a good debate on if Trump matched those signs, and the lack of any challenge to that hamstrung any potential con case. The YouTube video of Trump recounting that he remembers being nice to someone he doesn't remember having ever met, pretty much sealed the deal. Comparatively con's best source was on employment within one demographic, but he shot himself in the foot by immediately giving credit for it to a previous president from a different political party.

Concession.