Total votes: 1,434
Pro's got a straight forward case, that gender and sex most often match, therefore they are the same.
Con disagrees, and digs into masculinity vs femininity as an arbitrary cultural thing which shifts even when our biology does not. From high-heels, to who can serve in the military, the gender roles are easily shown to be a social construct.
Pro gets sidetracked on the very mention of intersex, before doubling down on gender being exclusively another word for one's sexual organs.
They fight over definitions, with pro insisting "I wouldn't trust a source that changes the English language definitions." Whereas con uses a variety of sources, from government websites, educational websites, and even psychologytoday. Pro says we should ignore definitions if he morally dislikes the source.
They got into an interesting back and forth with con conceding that two genders are based on biological sex, but not the various others. Pro argued off that the the others must not be genders, but refused to clarify what else they might be. Con defended with an analogy of books to movies having the option to be broader than the original source material.
Sources:
I prefer con's use of these, particularly not getting side tracked on his feelings against Canadian culture. That said, pro did his due diligence on sources, so I am leaving this tied.
Arguments:
This is a little closer than my above commentary would suggest. Con did have a weakness to his case of not properly emphasizing various other genders; some grading standards would consider this a critical error. It might be one had he initiated a debate that gender is a social construct; but being con under the existing resolution, casting strong doubt upon the validity of the resolution is plenty.
Conversely, a notable mistake from pro was both passing con the evidence, and then later denying there had been any response (asking con for a definition, and then repeating the ask later as if it had not already been provided).
Also on arguments, there seems to be a problem of is vs. ought. I feel pro's passion for this topic, but it fell a little flat against the definitions from various agencies showing how gender is most often defined today. A better resolution would be that gender ought to be regarded as synonymous with biological sex.
Pro had a clever Kritik, but it was too poorly executed.
Lines like this "The Bible, the Bible, the Bible, the Bible." cost pro's case the credibility it desperately needed.
Con was able to show that pro's case was dependent not upon the bible proving God, but rather reaffirming to someone who already believes; and pro seemed to double down on this not understanding why it was a problem.
That pro believes he won the debate because the topic is the bible, does not actually make it a victory. There are various biblical commentaries which could have explained how pieces of it are proof, but instead we had a few random passages that say things like we can listen to God as proof of God...
From the description: "Evidence and confirmation of God's existence shall be given, using the Bible as the main source."
This confirms the need for scriptures which support the resolution.
Then using evidence that people hear the word of God as the proof, is only proof if there are follow up to people hearing that; as opposed to reading it.
Fun little comedy debate. I'd consider penalizing con on conduct for treating it so seriously, but that end comment about wizards won; and earlier the comment about regulation was a decent leadup.
A place pro missed a golden opportunity was when con referenced police using cars. an ACAB appeal would have been a perfect rebuttal, showing that by ferrying police around, they are further increasing the death toll.
Ultimately, pro wasn't funny enough to carry this.
Effectively, con missed a single round, and pro decided to drop con's entire case.
Most importantly, pro decided to drop that denied abortions creates a net harm for society; particularly the existing children of the woman choosing to receive an abortion. This is contrasted with a lack of benefit, as con pointed out the abortions will still occur, just in an unsafe manner.
One point there was actually a little back and forth on was early chemical abortions compared to contraceptives vs later surgical abortions... I wish they had delved deeper into this, but it seems it falls most closely to an extension of contraception, as opposed to the procedure pro described for a pathos appeal.
This is little more than a foregone conclusion.
Pro lists the core benefit that 12 year olds would like money, and leverages that some are capable.
Con kritiks that by definition they’d be given these jobs without choice or compensation, making it just slavery. He then invites pro to give any other definitions, which pro drops…
Ultimately, con was able to cast serious doubt upon the resolution with the example of how someone would be awarded victory when being grossly off topic (which was a direct reply to pro's talk of strategy and style); and the assertion that strategy is already part of how arguments are structured which I saw no reason to doubt.
Pro for his part did well, particularly with the example of how someone can be so rude they make an opponent leave the site. However, the fear of a bad debater, does not outweigh the fear of judges deciding who wins even more arbitrarily than they already do (such as the appeal to how wonderful horses and donkeys are, winning in a debate about space travel).
Further, pro has the primary burden of proof, which means his case fails when things are in doubt.
Forfiture.
Forfeiture
Forfeiture.
Strong opening from pro, focusing on lack of drug education and government policies opening it to abuse by criminals (such as making drug cocktails, and selling them as if they were the real McCoy).
Con brings up addiction and damage to families. Goes into damage of heroine. And pretty well seals this debate with "date-rape drugs"
Pro extends his case, and focuses on how less deaths would occur...
Pro has a well reasoned case, but without evidence it falls flat. Are date rape drugs legal in Portugal? If it's just a lot more drugs, BoP isn't met for all drugs.
Whereas con has an expertly argued case, with a ton of support from .gov websites (such as showing the harms of heroine). A weird note is pro knows about things like Mitragynine, and argues how much safer and better it is than heroine, but his case is trying to legalize heroine as well which he just argued is worse...
Due to risks of me being unfair due to lack of knowledge on the topic (and really not wanting to argue it more), I am withdrawing argument allotments; sources however remain as there can be no question to con wholly dominating in that regard (in future, sources can be listed by just putting the URL below the relevant paragraph; there's of course better ways to list them, but the URL is enough to give credit and avoid plagiarism).
Pro does a good job showing logically valid forms, with wholly unsound conclusions (as con is quick to point out via reminding us the definitions don't connect).
Con would have done better with some more jokes, but as I did not find pro's jokes to be funny, even weighing this as comedy I'll end up favoring con.
Forfeiture.
Hopefully they'll do a rematch some time to finish off those rounds.
Forfeiture.
Forfeiture.
Forfeiture.
Concession.
First of all, I do not see the conduct as significant enough for point allotment.
While 1216 characters instead of 500 is a lot, there seemed no ill intent; it was not setup to capitalize on it; and new members should be afforded some extra leeway.
Proposal Debates
Something ought to change…
A quality opening round must address the Why and How.
* If the Why is missing, they are easily countered by the lack of benefit.
* If the How is missing, they are easily countered with impracticality and limited resources.
https://info.debateart.com/style-guide#proposal-debates
Pro did have implicit benefits, but con was able to outweigh them with greater harms (basically repeating the same cycle pro was against).
With more rounds and a higher character limit, pro likely could have capitalized on the openness of the resolution (the harms are separated from the pure desire), but this debate did not get that in depth for semantics to get analyzed.
Con demonstrated that it's real due to double standards, which went unchalleneged.
Pro starts well with outlining harms, then turns into a disorganized Gish Gallop as if in reply to something con had not written. And declares that to circumcize is to rape (not merely similar crimes, but the same crime).
Con starts with a comedy kritik about the definition of male.
Con argues painful infections are a good reason to circumcise children. Further he uses a series of analogies to show that forcing children to do things can be to their benefit. Con then builds examples when a child would be willing, to wholly refute pro's claims about involuntary.
Pro retorts that con is trying to justify rape. He keeps hammering on this...
Con basically extends, and reminds the audience that the resolution is all in without exception, meaning his case need not be in favor of forced circumcising all boys. He adds that pro has not provided evidence for his assumed harms.
Arguments:
Con easily found times when it is best to circumcise, thereby disproving the resolution. This is somewhat akin to abortion debates where someone does not even allow an exception for ectopic pregnancy.
Legibility:
Pro was a disorganized mess. Con forgot to put extra line breaks when dealing with quotations. Ultimately while I favor con on this, it's not by enough to claim the point.
Conduct:
Pro lost this with the whole rape thing he kept doubling down on.
Good opening, in which pro shows the gist of the pro supernatural side, and a core problems with the pro determinism side (no structure, and belief in moral duties). He determines that Harris' views are utterly impossible. And Craigs case is the only one to lead to objective morality.
Con replies that supernatural morals lead to murders, along with slavery and human sacrifice.
Apparently Craig cried ad hominem, and Harris defended that the attacks were on the ideology not the individual.
Harris uses hell against objective supernatural morality, and no reason to believe such a deity is good, or even that it exists.
And Harris uses human wellbeing as a metric for morality.
In R2 pro immediately goes on the offense, even denying that Harris made any of the arguments con claims were made.
Pro declares victory for con dropping his case... I will note here that some of the come this may be a difference in debate styles, given that in online debates people frequently wait until the second round for rebuttals.
After awhile pro moves onto rebuttals... Pro defends that we have no way to know what God really commanded, so terrorists and the like cannot assign their morality to the supernatural. For hell he defends that Craig never argued in favor of objective supernatural morality, but could be any god of any random religion (which was one of criticisms of the problem of hell). And as for Craig having not first proven God to be good or moral to be able to serve as a moral center "Unsubstantiated claim. Just like the rest of the nonsense and gibberish that composes the rest of con's case."
Con flips pro's points about terrorists as hell, for Craig self defeating his own case with contradictions. To which pro insists contradictions are not contradictions.
Pro does however raise a good point that con has refuted the foundation of his case. Con makes a good point that Craig was utterly humiliated... I'm actually at a loss, since I don't know what victory would entail in the context to which they were debating (and no, I did not watch the debate; rather I'm taking pro's and con's word for what transpired... with an exception I'll get into in a moment). I don't believe the relevant setup parts from each case were provided, to understand why either one must be true, even while it's clear they each believe there is more utility gained from their side.
If pro had not been caught on such bad contradictions, I'd probably be favoring him on arguments. Likewise had con shown more of the rebuttals (presuming they occurred), he could have won.
Conduct:
Pro blatantly lied about the content in the debate, and by claiming con had not read the 2011 debate (implying he pulled the arguments out of nowhere, instead of having researched it) which took me out of the flow of reading this debate to verify if con had done that (had con not been referencing the debate in question, I would be voting against him on arguments for being wholly off topic). Makes me ponder if pro believes Craig was just a crazy person muttering to himself, since he's denying the content of his own source that Harris spoke any of those words.
Oh well, Arguments indetermined, conduct to con.
Single round, with con's case wholly dropped, reduces this to a foregone conclusion.
Pro's case is straight forward, to paraphrase: that the unborn are equal to any other human. He also adds that the pro life stance inherently includes "support for expectant mothers."
Con makes his counter on the legal grounds of pro's case, due to self sovereignty. He builds upon this with the concept that self-determination is a human right, and adds a reminder that the death of the fetus is not the goal even while it's an inevitable consequence of eviction.
R2 gets off to a bad start, with pro bemoaning that the definitions were concise and not including a bunch of moral statements. Pro goes on to literally copy/paste his previous statements. Then adds that the pro-life position no longer wishes to be enforced legally ("does not seek to impose its views on others"), before flipping back to legal sanctions, just after admitting a woman has no obligation to allow her body to be used against her wishes...
The core problem with the pro case are well summarized by con:
'What you have failed to do however is outline, describe, or even justify how the inherent value and dignity of human life modifies one's right to one's body, and the reason pregnancy compels us to prioritize, as you describe, "other moral considerations."'
Forfeiture.
Con successfully showed that some jobs (specifically ones which suck) can be volunteer driven instead of for money.
Concession.
Neat that the Sith took credit for R2's, while denying any knowing of 3PO's...
Forfeiture.
Pro dropped his sole point that abortion is murder, agreeing that no one dies, thus handing the debate to con. Conversely, con focused on why exceptions are morally necessary.
The instigator seriously attempted a final round blitzkrieg, and tried to convince the voters into punishing the other side if they challenged it...
Wow, just wow!
Forfeiture
Foregone conclusion.
Pro made no argument that would suggest the game in question is bad. If worse than Among Us, Among Us would need to be proven bad for that to be relevant.
Con’s case that Fortnight is highly ranked went unchallenged.
Forfeiture. Also, I need to reinstall that game to try out any new features.
Forfeiture
Forfeiture.
The resolution needed more qualifiers. If someone worked as an actor, and was also a great leader, the resolution is true. Likely not in the vast majority of cases, but “can” is nearly
Impossibly open ended.
If someone’s time as an actor did not contribute to their leadership ability, misses the point that they did both. Nor do they need to be a great actor (I would however say they should have been a professional actor; otherwise all politicians are semantically actors)
pro brings up Volodymyr Zelenskyy, con does not refute his acting nor his leadership; therefore pro wins.
Forfeiture, and side confusion.
This debate actually manages to be informative via highlighting the difference between logical validity, and logical soundness.
Pro presents a case that assuming he is an all powerful all knowing deity, then he is right.
Con challenges this as unsound, that what is true to pro will not be objectively true due to self deception.
Rinse and repeat. Obviously con wins via denying pro any possibility of reattaining BoP.
While obviously a comedy debate, only pro argued the resolution that he does or does not ❤️ Trump).
Plus, the wordsstucktogether pulled me out of the deba tree, and the forfeiture of 50% of the debate.
Concession.
Concession and forfeiture.
Forfeiture
Forfeiture.
While pro was able to show a history of prison systems being abused to enslave African Americans, con was able to defend that those problems do not raise to the level of actual slavery today; and his reasoning on the wording of the amendment to not rule out involuntary servitude in prisoners seemed reasonable.
Much of the weakness to pros case is scope creep. I cannot grade on discrimination if discrimination is not outright slavery. A more precise resolution would have also helped, such as "Prisons reduce African American convicts to slaves."
The wages line of argument could be expanded into an argument that their treatment is at least akin to slavery, but con was able to defend that it was for their benefit (his arguments of the rest of society benefiting so much could have easily been turned around; probably the biggest weakness to his case).
Forfeited less rounds.
Forfeiture. ... If doing this again, the instigator really needs to have an answer for the double standard of states.
Forfeiture.
Concession, not to mention an argument which defeated itself via describing the social construct.
Forfeiture. Pokémon cannot win without a trainer… and said trainer would probably be eaten by lions.
If doing this again, victory conditions should be pre-defined.