Barney

I enjoyed the time travel paradox discussions. Also I strangely liked con's opening lesson on debate logic, and hope he maintains it going forward.

Arguments: Both from ethics and logic, far greater reason to not kill some baby were provided.
Conduct: Forfeited round vs no forfeited rounds.
S&G: I wish I could give this to con for the organization and presentation.

Debate Highlights:
Nature of time travel and determinism from con, were barely even noted by pro. I think pro's main counter to this was trying to claim we might have doomed the current planet? Were that true, it implies strong odds that we already destroyed our planet in diverging timelines were more people lived.

Computers… we can call both sides assertions, but it's common knowledge than Alan Turing is the father of the modern computer. No war, no Turing Machine; no Turing Machine, no modern computer. A source to disprove this, would have given me some deep thoughts; and maybe won the source point (more likely it would have been the start to winning that, but maybe three thought provoking sources would have done it).

I am unclear why weakening the Rothschilds was a good thing. Con forgot Poe’s Law when sarcastically agreeing that weakening them was a good thing (at least I hope that’s what it was?).

Pro’s attempted K of the topic, fell flat to me. Con had pre-refuted it with a good ought. So if probably nothing really matters, why not attempt something good instead murdering babies at random in the name of nihilism? … Pro followed up with a chicken/egg riddle, in a bad attempt to shift the goalpost. To be clear, the resolution was that we should kill him, con’s side was not automatically that we should prevent his assassination. (I hate disregard for debate resolutions)

...

Educational supplement:
In case pro thinks there is no other way he could have argued this... A better argument pro could have made, was the sheer value in knowledge to be gained about time travel by killing B.H.. This debate pre-supposes that it is in some sense possible to kill the target. If possible, why not kill and gather all knowledge of changes, and then un-kill? (obvious counter is that you could just take him to the future; I said a better argument than pro's, not a winning argument).

Almost a no contest, but pro then conceded so wins conduct for saving us analysis time (to be reapplied during the rematch).

Forfeiture.

Forfeiture.

Simply put, BoP.

Pro's case offered 5 key areas.
1, that random evolution is false, which was countered by con with the vague possibility of aliens (I.e., any one particular god is not required). The defense tried to be entertaining with talk of Jedi and lightbulb-fish, but the idea that there's an originator fails to imply the particular one required for the resolution (pro, I am not trying to be mean, but rather help you improve).
2, that the bible has wisdom.
3, haunted houses (this was supposed to support #2, not sure how... or how it supports the resolution for that matter).
4, sex/monsters being featured in many mythologies to include the bible and conspiracy theories.
5, gingers are soulless!

Con focused his efforts on a counter case instead of pure refutation, that case being a very annoying K to the topic (PRO: You don't need to prove existence exists, but you'll see this K a lot in debating, so study the logical fallacies related so you can counter it concisely). ... Despite the heading, con made a well-reasoned point that if some god created everything but resides outside our reality, then said god is not real as we understand it (this point should have been addressed by con!).

IMAGES: Images cannot be displayed inside debates here. If it's important, give a link; just be selective as no one wants 20 windows open for one debate.
SOURCES: I really want to give this to pro for effort. However, crossing into source spam to say there's a lot of them, doesn't make any of them utilized to support the case beyond a bandwagon appeal. If I could give 1 point for sources instead of 2, pro could get this.
CONDUCT: Plagiarism forgiven this time, due to high probability of pro being the original author of the copied works (next time cite yourself... or at least clean them up a little, refine the copies on your harddrive).
NOTE 1: yeah, read the debate before realizing it's the argument only standard.
NOTE 2: Some judging standards would insist pro has won, due to con dropping such matters as gingers being soulless ('pro won a greater number of contentions'). Firstly, the connection to the resolution was too unclear to me for this to be valid evidence; secondly, I care more if the resolution is adequately supported/countered or not.
ADVICE: Next time do a simple logic map on each premise, and only share them in a debate where they directly support the conclusion. Any one of them could be its own debate, so that might be a good place to practice.

Pro's opening argument was a non-sequitur, given that if CO2 caused nothing but clouds, that would be climate change: Which was easily outweighed by con's evidence such as Nasa.giv explaining all about CO2 causing heat with long term effects on the climate. Pro then ignored the counter case (leaving it unrefuted), to offer conspiracies, and complaints about his case being ignored (while ignoring cons... multiple rounds of this repeated).

There are just too many dropped proofs to take pro seriously on this debate, not the mention the number of times con caught him disagreeing with himself. ... Pro, next time I suggest arguing just one of the conspiracy theories related to this, until you have the skill toe argue such a profound conclusion.

"War will exist as long as any community desires to impose its will on another community more than it desires peace. Coercive men see only slaves and rivals in the world. If the meek refuse war to defend themselves against coercion, then they deserve to be slaves. Peace-lovers can only have what they love by being better at what they hate than those who love war. There is no road to peace that does not pass through war." -Orson Scott Card, Hidden Empire
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First off, I would have preferred a better setup (description). For example, who has BoP is something worthy of debates itself, so clarifying in the debate setup would have (hopefully) avoided the debaters needing to spend so long off topic on it. Or both debaters pulling the same dictionary for the same word, somehow in disagreement...

Regarding what counts as the true religion, I will take a side. For anyone to judge this at all, a side must be picked. As of now I am at the start of R2, and since Nazis have been mentioned by both debaters, I'll use them as an example: The person who claims true Nazidom is unrealized, and we should give real Nazidom a try, is clearly up to no good. ... This debate defines Islam as a religion, not as a hypothetical book wholly separate from its followers. Those followers are not solely the result of its teachings, but their lives (and for peace to exist, the lives of those around them) are impacted for better or worse by said teachings.

Rat's example of Christianity's inspirations was a nice double-edged sword. It sets a point of contrast. If inspiring such men of peace is accepted as evidence of a religion of peace, then similar men from Islam would in by the same standard count as evidence of a religion of peace (Moe could have won the debate on this, but chose to drop it).

Similarly Moe's examples of "give zakah" and " pay the prescribed alms" and " until they give the jizya" could have given Rat easy victory (had he picked up the points), as extortion backed with the threat of violence is not peace. With a sword to the throat, the victim certainly won't feel harmony/tranquility, and if the aggressor feels such, they are an inhuman monster.

4:90 (yes, Rat initially used the wrong link). It leading in to a rule against making alliances with non-Muslims was pretty bad (doubly so with frequent use of the word kill). But of course, peace and pacifism are not always the same thing (the crux of Moe's case). What 4:34's opinion of women, was certainly not peaceful (meet mere arrogance with violence...).

Accidental Concessions: I should note that Moe took a huge risk in stating "If Con can prove the existence of any non-peaceful Quranic verse or sahih hadith, then he will successfully negate the resolution" given what had already transpired in the debate. At the same time, Moe caught a pretty damning line in one of Rat's sources (a few more like this would have claimed the source point). Weirdly Moe then went on to outright agree with the crux of Rat's case that Muslims seek fake peace for the sake of oppression... I am befuddled as to why he thought this was victory. Rat wisely countered with Moe's own bit about the Nazis.

"Recall that Muslims are required to emulate and follow the conduct of the Islamic Prophet." While this was used well by showing times Mohammad spared lives, it also opened the door to some really sickening information, but the topic is warfare, not child rape.
"Claims are cheap" under this R2 heading from Moe, he did exactly what was predicted by Rat. It goes back to points such as "like ISIS or justify war with Israel" (which Rat really should have expanded upon more directly. Same with the single mention of the Ottoman Empire). If Sharia law countries (experts at obeying the Koran) are secretly "false Muslims," then true Islam exists no more than true communism, making the resolution false.

Overall this debate strongly implied Islam is more opposed to peace than in favor of it.
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Conduct is not something I thought would play into this, particularly as debaters getting worked on on a topic like this is to be expected, but the line was crossed too many times. Comparing Islam to female genital mutilations was out of nowhere and trying to make the audience queasy with talk of circumcised males harming themselves; it was a very cheap appeal. Just consider the low moment of the debate "Hmm, can't just hurt them, someone offends you via insulting Muhammad or Allah? AYOOOOOOOOOO BEAT THAT BOY 'til he screams for mercy and then slice his head as you do goats for Lols as their body squirms on an annual basis." It left the final round feeling like something other than a continuation of a logic based debate, but instead something I'd expect to see in one of those rap battles.

Forfeiture.

Forfeiture, and no challenge to pro's case (claiming someone should shut up and not make a case at all, isn't the same as challenging it).

...

Con's tactic (he should have challenged a debate on that topic, not made this off topic rant):
Con skipped half the debate rounds in what I'm guessing is a protest against intellectual elitism? What he did post was strictly off topic. I would by no means call it a K to the topic, because even those are related to the topic. This felt more like asking people to vote for him, because they like him more or that they hold some grudge against her from activity on another site.

Mafia is a waste of time:
I do thank con for the reminder of such a good debate.

This debate is a waste of time:
Like my old vote... "I'd say it's a waste of time (which isn't to say that's not people's right to waste their time how they see fit)."

Voting Standards:
When con agreed to debate the topic, he did so under a specific framework. Such includes the inability to be penalized a conduct point. Such includes that we the judges would weight the arguments in question under the precise resolution defined. You don't like the resolution, request it be changed prior to acceptance.

Some of the lines about how judges should vote for whom appealed to their their bleeding heart more (AKA, just vote your bias!), seemed highly inspired by notable intellectual rejects who trade votes instead of winning debates by merit (not to say winning the old fashioned way, given that fellatio was sometimes on offer for favorable votes... To be clear, I am highlighting the problem of the slope his argument is on, to my knowledge con has never been associated with those who are outright opposed to judicial integrity).

God:
Within the confines of this debate, pro proved that God (as defined) is a self contradicting concept. I wish her luck in finding an opponent to actually debate this with.

Forfeiture.

In short: Pro's case is very weak, but con wished to attack pro instead of challenging the case.

Pro's case is one of semantics, that if you define the world as God, than to be atheist world be to reject the very concept of reality... About the only flaw con caught in that is the cherry picked definition, but could find no counterpoint to it, nor the existence of any other definition (a single good one for atheist would have been better than his entire case). He rather built a case around other things that he would like to apply the same definition toward, which would not actually invalidate pro's case.

Conduct: Forfeiture and pointless insults. Con event went so far as to make claims about pro's hygiene ("dorito crumbs"). I wish I could penalize this twice.
Sources: Leaning pro for sure, but I do not award them for such light things as the dictionary.

I apologize in advance in case I misuse pro and con on this (I'm used to the instigator being pro, and the contender being con).

Arguments: Pro. I don't agree with him, but he supported the case well (much stronger than the opposition). The Swiss free media example was the highlight (even while I'm leaving sources tied...), which tied nicely into the points about how sensational private media is when trying to manipulate idiots into voting for bad candidates (really surprised it was con who brought up Trump and Clinton). The suggested penalty of a flat tax (not regressive or progressive), seemed quite reasonable and easy to implement; the counter points were too weak for serious consideration, since tax agencies are known to exist (they already send a bill to the majority of the population... usually this does not lead to the claimed mass starvation). how con twisted that into sending out the military on election day to round everyone up to vote, is quite beyond me.

Pro. You could have made your case stronger with emphasis on voter suppression in the US.
Con. You may have just been introduced to the term moving the goalpost, but that does not mean that everything is that. Pro wanted to use dictatorships as a lead-in, that's perfectly permissible. It would be moving the goalpost if he skipped out on the topic and advocated he should win for his argument in favor of dictatorship as opposed to anything on topic.

Conduct: Pro. I won't call the final round a blitzkrieg tactic, but it did try to manipulate the voters unduly by changing what both debaters had discussed. There was talk of a simple fine, claiming that pro was advocating rounding people up was in no way a misunderstanding, but a strawperson of the worst degree. Pro had agreed to not respond, and con attempted to bait him with blatant lies about the debate. ... As per pro's two sentence signifying waiving of the round, I see no debate points brought up or replied to. He was not instructed on any particular phrase to use. To penalize this would be akin to penalizing "Thanks for the debate, I had fun."

S&G: Tied. Both were legible. Had there been a single spelling mistake, that would not warrant the point being assigned. The point is a penalty for severe problems. ... Related notes (presentation): Pro you should probably put your replies onto the next line from your quotes. Both of you should use bold or otherwise highlight opponent quotes.

Sources: Tied. Admittedly, I will not check tinyURL for what the sources really were. So my stylistic preference leans toward pro on this one (leaning doesn't get the point... both sides seemed to hold their own in this area).

Conduct: Tied. Both behaved in a civil manner. I do not consider mere faulty reasoning to affect this. Personal attacks or worse are required.

Arguments: Con. Talk of robots and the desire to start WWIII (attack allies of countries we don't want to fight...), were very unconvincing. Talk of 22% of our bases being useless, was alone enough reason to cast doubt toward a need to spend even more money (there's no way to assure that any increase would not go toward such bloat). The problems of our budget already radicalizing our enemies were wonderful additions.

Regarding the goalpost: Pro, take a sliver of the topic you want and start a debate on it. Your robot soldiers for example (I should note that in this one, the budget overages for known technologies pre-refuted you). Think of it this way:
P1, War against communism!
P2, Robots!
P3, whatever...
C, budget increase is the only way to attain all this.

The problem is that none of the premises are to be taken seriously without serious support. If none of them hold up, there's no reason within your argument to support the conclusion. However, if you make a debate just on the benefits to going to war with various countries (or even a debate that their allies would be unlikely to join in, I suppose WWI and WWII having not happened as a supporting example), you could then build up the skill needed to support this broader topic.

Forfeiture.

It seems the pro side was attempting to learn about the topic, rather than engage in a debate. Mistakes happen, but a win by default is still a win.

Forfeiture.

Forfeiture.

Conduct for forfeiture.
Arguments chiefly for not labeling this a humor debate (and within that, failing the bring the laughs).

Pro presented the idea that every American right winger today was fathered (and grandfathered etc.) by exactly one WWII POW (wow that guy must have slept around more than Genghis Khan)... While con chose ignore this, his arguments about the Jews hints at the key problem to such a claim of genetic inheritance. Really pro's arguments boil down to racism as we know it to be a genetic trait, to which the infected must logically be purged so that only the new ubermensch remain (sadly, it's hard to tell if he's just trying to be funny, given the number of people who believe things like black's are too genetically superior to be capable of racism).

Con's counter argument focused on how to literally use the English language, and pro's half-witted failings in that department.

At the end of it, unless pro is a right winger, he has not proven anything about even one of their number, let alone the average member.

Conduct for forfeiture.
Arguments as detailed below.

While the only argument presented was "Pro has BoP," it is indeed a strong one given the impracticality of proving the two clauses of the resolution. Were this debate to have been lengthy, I strongly suspect base proof of the claim being unmet would remain the core issue.

Should this debate be reopened, I highly suggest changing the resolution to presume the first of them; which leaves a massive challenge in proving raw meat as the main path to take for health, but at least it could conceivably be implied within the confines of a debate.

Forfeiture.

Forfeiture.

Forfeiture.

Forfeiture.

Forfeiture.

PLAGIARISM: http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/Is_MSG_bad_for_you

With pro's R1 dropped for that reason, combined with one third of the remainder getting into cons masturbatory habits, this really was a case of no contest.