Yeah, I did get that vibe that Speed was more arguing for a minimum wage in general and not specifically a flat one. I don't think he brought up any stats that were specific to flat minimum wages that couldn't apply to a tiered one.
I brought up disability because people feel they can't hold a job anymore so they go on disability. They wouldn't otherwise go on it(it definitely isn't enough to live comfortably on in many cases. The number of job applicants per position is important, and it's more of it needs to be a happy medium(it can't be too low or too high). If there are too many applicants, then it's an employers economy where they can pay starvation wages and offer horrible conditions because out of the 100 applicants for one job position, it's likely one will still accept it out of desperation or something. Since there are so many applicants per job position, employers can be super picky, moreso than say 70 years ago. So, people with simple depression and displaying such symptoms at work can be let go or fired in favor of one of the dozens more mentally-healthy candidates. So, depressed people or anyone with a simple disability apply for disability income. While they do that, they are no longer counted as unemployed. Do you see where I'm getting at now?
Either way, it may be best to wait and see what I bring up in that debate. It'll be much clearer when I lay out my case there since this is just a comments section.
In the mean time, you've both argued about the economy. I'm assuming you're referring to GDP and unemployment. Both are flawed statistics to go by. GDP can simply rise due to automation(it directly raised productivity, and thus GDP), so it has nothing to do with how well the average person is doing(i.e how much they make). As for Unemployment, there are a lot of areas which don't count towards official unemployment records. One in particular is disability. ~500K people were on Social Security Disability benefits in 1960. Today, over 10 million are - a 20 fold increase that also doesn't take into account the disability benefits on each state level(this is only federal), so even more people went on disablity through states too(which are mutuall exclusive with federal benefits as you can only collect one or the other). Meanwhile, population only increased by about double. Unless Americans are 10 times more likely to be disabled, something is going on here. Perhaps people feel more compelled to apply for Social Security Benefits(and go into other areas such as Students, prisoners, etc who aren't counted as officially unemployed) due to that they can't get a job.
A better metric to measure the economy, imo, is the average number of applicants per job position. Let's look at that instead of unemployment.
Furthermore, the average income of Americans is only so high because it has the most billionaires(aka OUTLIERS) per capita. Yet, it also has the most people per capita in the developed world who become debt slaves due to life-saving expenses like health care.
Actually, more Mexicans are voluntarily leaving the US and consider Mexico better than the US right now, and have been since about 2008[1][2][3]. Given I've had to gone into debt just to merely live(as do some 1/3 of Americans), I agree with them. Pretty certain no one in any other developed country has to make the decision of whether to die or become a debt slave to the overpriced healthcare system in other countries.
Furthermore, my Wife's family agrees. She's the daughter of Mexican immigrants(yes, she's a citizen), and I agree. My wife and I plan on going back to my ancestor's home country: Italy. The US is complete garbage right now. The irony of this is my ancestors moved in 1920 due to fears of rising Fascism in Italy, and now I'll be doing the reverse but for the same reason ~100 years later. Fortunately I was technically born with dual American and Italian citizenship due to Italian citizenship laws being quite liberal in that they grant citizenship to anyone who has Italian citizens as ancestors(I do of course). I just need to prove that is all, and they'll consider me as having been born with Italian citizenship, and with my wife being married to an Italian citizen, makes it easy for her to.
I think you should be more specific. Many founders were pro-slavery, so since you didn't specify which ones you're talking about, then con can simply bring up someone like John Rutledge or something.
To add to what Nihilist said, as a survivor of multiple suicide attempts, I'm positive I'd be dead long ago if I attempted with a gun rather than the methods I did use which take a much longer time to kill someone(so usually each time someone found me in time before it was too late to send me to an ER and save me).
Though, I'm not opposed to the right to have a gun, I just don't think it should be capable of killing innocent people(so perhaps a requirement to have smart guns that don't shoot unless the target is determined to be a threat should be law or something. The details can be ironed out if there are issues with such a gun, such as it taking too long to determine someone is a threat, etc. This requires testing and further advancement ofc, so don't shoot it down immediately until you're certain no amount of testing and advancing would help)
Generally, the username/profile pic with a red background is con and the one with green is pro. That's how it is for this website, unless the maker of the debate made a mistake.
If that's the case you have no issues with what I've argued, as I had said in the description, you can argue for the same position in a different way. It doesn't exactly weigh on us as debater for whether we are good at debating if we have opposing positions. Feel free to argue for the same position with different arguments.
Ah, I forgot to mention HOW we control neurotransmission. Of course even today we can do that with magnets, psychiatric medication, electric-shock therapy, etc. I'll make mention of that in the next round. If we controlled two identical twins' neurotransmission completely(of course, we need to finish mapping out the brain), then I see no reason to believe they would suddenly be controlled by the same self, if "the self" is merely the matter that forms the body and brain + neurotransmissions as those more materialist people would claim.
To an extent, I agree with you. It is a trap debate for a theist to accept. However, as an agnostic, I have some points to bring up that I don't believe a theist would, which work around what the OP has stipulated in the description.
Would you be alright with accepting an agnostic to debate with? Of course, I don't hold this position you wish to argue against(nor would I hold the position you're arguing for), but I could certainly offer a different perspective for the position you want to argue against. While I don't believe in this position, I am willing to argue for it, and I don't believe a theist would bring up similar arguments, at least I've not seen any from one that I've pondered over.
You had said: "You will never ever find that the majority of stocks in any firm at all is non-voting, that is a total waste of investment for the firms because they want to steer the company as time goes by."
I get this point, but as was stated in the description of my debate:
" I would like to think I defined the above terms in a suitable way, though I recognize I may have left out or worded something improperly. If that's the case, my opponent should let me know IN THE COMMENTS, before accepting the debate so I may change the definitions if I agree with you that I somehow misrepresented these terms. "
If you had an issue with how they were defined in the description, we could have worked out a better definition in the comments. I was more than willing to adjust the definitions if I determined I did misrepresent something in them. I apologize if that wasn't clear. I did have a very large description, perhaps it offered difficulty in comprehending it all or made one decide not to read it all.
Thanks man. I don't know if I actually changed your opinion on this. Would you say what I've argued for has made you rethink supporting a flat minimum wage?
DISCLAIMER: to any voters, if speed race admits to changing his opinion on this, make sure to keep that separate from your vote, as only what is written in the debate rounds formally should be counted.
Yeah, though as I said, it may have turned out I wouldn't post at all. I usually like to post much more than I did, but yeah... as I said I have been having some pretty severe health issues lately. Figured a simple conclusion is better than me just forfeiting that round. I definitely wouldn't have had the time to provide the usual level of arguments I do lol.
But yeah, I suspected what I just said in comment #8 to be the case before I even engaged in this debate. And that's why I decided to keep this unrated since I don't want my inability to communicate in written word be such a huge factor that would bring down my score for the ability to debate. Of course, one could say this is what makes a good debater, to avoid such instances like this, but I would say that's not the case in this specific instance due to that I am fairly positive there were no words I could have used to properly communicate the idea in English, and the ones I found which were closer, would have sounded foreign to the average person since the average person only knows a few tens of thousands of words out of the million of English words there are.
I am quite certain I have a better command of the English language, diction, and vocabulary than most(as I actively put in effort constantly in my everyday use of the language, to find alternative means of communicating what I mean), and even I'm having trouble communicating this. I did a lot of research into the English language to see if there were better ways to communicating my thoughts here, but I didn't find anything completely satisfactory that doesn't require the proper interpretation of my diction. I have to agree with a lot of deconstructionists out there that language is very limiting. It's especially so for a topic as deep and thought-intensive as the one in this debate.
Most other debates I do not have a problem with getting the proper interpretation from readers, but I suspected this one would be very difficult to do so. It requires the readers to transcend above the meanings of the words I used in English, and I'm not sure that's going to happen here.
This was a rather enjoyable debate and has helped me further consider this issue.
The problem is, I have difficulty conveying these ideas I'm presenting. I have to say I think some of the contradictions you pointed out were more due to me having trouble properly communicating what I meant. In this respect, I'm finding language to be a huge limitation on the ideas and things I've pondered over for this topic. German is my second language, and there are certain ideas and concepts that can be communicated in German that really do not have any sort of equivalence in English. I find myself in my inner thoughts switching between the two languages.
A lot of this, sadly, will be whether the voters interpret what I've said the same way I interpreted in my head, but couldn't properly represent through the written word.
You may be interested in this debate I started: https://www.debateart.com/debates/1216/the-self-is-god-unrated-practice-debate
It's almost over as my opponent just needs to post a concluding round. A lot of it is based around solipsism.
Apologies to Speedrace, somehow I missed that this one was ready to be debated. At least I caught in time before the time was up. I'll have my rebuttals up very soon.
Where I said his first contention is in contradiction to the last, it should have been the second one technically, but depending on what we mean by "first" it technically was "first" when just looking at contention 2 and 4. I mean, 2 is first for the range of 2-4... but alright, I'm obviously trying to cover my ass for this mistake XD
Also:
Dang it. Somehow Debateart continually messes with the organizations of my paragraphs now and then. I apologize for one of my paragraphs being split up randomly: the first one for C2(There should only be two paragraphs for C2). I don't understand why this is happening. I do know for sure it happens when I type on debateart, but this one I literally copied and pasted from a document file, since I'm already aware of this issue. I haven't the foggiest clue how this one happened this time. Maybe it is doing it after I click publish in addition to when I type? I'm really lost here guys.
Also, I seemed to have mixed up Murray Rothbard with Von Mises when stating who Doug French studied under. The article on him I provided has Rothbard mentioned. Apologies. For whatever reason I tend to mix the two up.
Man, it seems no matter how many times I read over my arguments, there are still some mistakes like this in them :P I kid you not, I did read over it at least 3 times before publishing, and I corrected many mistakes I saw, but somehow this one and the one below I missed.
Hopefully that won't be too big of an issue. I'll correct it officially in the next round.
Ok, so I'm not sure how this happened, but I didn't catch that I used the wrong term here. Where I say:
"I remind us, however, that people generally have low time preference..."
I meant to say "high time preference". Given this statement is contradictory with what I state after it, I made a clear error here with the choice of words. I could have sworn I wrote high time preference, but oh well. I'll correct it officially in the next round if my opponent points out the contradiction.
Apologies to my opponent and voters/spectators for cases where my paragraphs seem to randomly break up. For whatever reason, debateart is messing with how I'm organizing things when I type in it. I tried to solve this issue by typing up my arguments in documents first and copy and pasting, but it seems I didn't catch all instances of where my organization was originally messed up. As you can see the second paragraph in my third counter is all split up rather oddly. This counter is supposed to have only two paragraphs. Any time there is not a line break between what appears to be different paragraphs, are likely technical issues I experienced with debateart. Apologies again, i'm trying to prevent it from happening, but that particular paragraph's misorganization escaped my notice before I published.
Is this a debate you'd be interested in participating in and arguing for con? It looks like RationalMadman may not respond in time, though they do have ~11 hours left now. Should that happen, I'm still interested in debating this, and I'd be willing to debate you if you want the con position.
So, I find now my next argument to be dependent on arguing over what constitutes the "universe" sadly enough. I think neither of us anticipated the need to define certain terms.
To try to keep this fair conduct-wise, I want to ask if this definition, found through a google search, suffices for you of the term "universe":
"All space-time, matter, and energy, including the solar system, all stars and galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space, regarded as a whole."
So long as you agree, I'll present that formally in this round too, and I'm accepting your added definitions as well.
By the way, I accept those definitions. While, yes, it doesn't follow the organization I have laid out, it's fine because I stated in the description that unless otherwise stated, we accept the most common definitions of terms. What you presented to me seem to be the most common definitions of perceive and create, so I have no objections. I'll state my acceptance again in this round though, which I'll hopefully have my counters and/or new arguments up within 24 hours. Just thought i'd let you know now, but so that it's on the record I'll also state I accept them in the official debate too.
Given neither defined the parameters of the debate, it is logical to conclude the parameters are set by the diction in the description and title.
Any reasonable person can see there's a difference between "determined at birth" and "aware of at birth" or "present at birth". If the debate title was worded with one of the latter two diction choices, the instigator would be winning. As it stands, it seems very much so they are moving the goalposts of what the debate was supposed to be.
That said, though, perhaps there's a case to be made here, Technically one's genes are decided at the fertilization of an egg, not birth. Anyhow, seems this debate has turned into a huge semantics debate now. Hate when that happens.
Also, just to clarify, I've purposely not stated what the rest of the rounds are used for. So, you may use them in any way you feel is fair, logical, whatever. So, for example, I have us both state the reasons for our position in the first round for a purpose.
Should either of us want to pre-emptively argue against the contentions one has raised in round 1, that is permitted in round 2. You can do a combination of that along with supporting evidence for your position.
The last round, while usually thought of as concluding statement, you don't have to use it for that, but it may be a point where voters could vote against conduct if they view it unfair if you rebut what I say in the last round since I'd have no opportunity to respond. But, that's a risk I'm allowing you to take, and perhaps voters won't see it that way. It is indeed a risk.
In a way, yes. If someone is content with merely living, then I suppose they wouldn't need to work. I think most people want to do more than merely live. As an absurdist, I'd contend we are all looking for a purpose in life and a career is usually something that people feel gives them a purpose. Not all people, certainly, will find purpose in a career. But many other things give people the feeling of purpose that would require a career, such as the pursuit of material wealth. That kind of needs a career usually. I don't think anyone actually is content with merely living though. We usually all want to do something more than just survive in today's world.
Feel free to make that a point of contention. While I'm tempted to address that point here, I would want it in the debate so that it counts lol. But I'll certainly address that should you formally present it in a debate round.
No worries about taking so long. Just glad you got back to it lol. Thought you might have been a troll who just accepts debates and then never answers since you've accepted two of my debates and up until now, hadn't posted. Glad to see you're not a troll.
To clarify, it is "the self is god, PERIOD". I'm not arguing the collective selves are the creator of the universe. That would also require me to prove other people exist, which would be inconsistent with my line of reasoning I've presented so far and what I plan to present.
Anyways. Though I have 72 hours allotted time, I should have my argument up within 24. I'm going to be taking a nap first, then should soon after post my opening arguments.
True. I suppose I worded my comment funny. Should change "Normally I'd assume the instigator is arguing the proposition stated in the title" to "Normally I'd assume the instigator is arguing for the pro-position of the topic in the title" and same for my last sentence to change to saying something like that.
It might be a good idea to more clearly indicate you're arguing that the bible should not be used as a moral compass. Normally I'd assume the instigator is arguing the proposition stated in the title, and I read your description and context clues indicate you're arguing it is not. Not everyone will pick up on that though, but I suppose if you only want intelligent debaters that's how to do it. Still, could have someone accept who doesn't realize you're arguing against the proposition stated in the title.
I must say, you did really well with properly recognizing when fallacies are actually made and when they are not. You would be a worthy contender against me. I get the feeling I disagree a ton with you, but you did really well here.
I would like to vote on this actually, but I don't meet the requirements yet. Not sure I'm going to in time to vote.
While I personally would agree with the contender's conclusions, I find that the instigator is correct of false arguments from the contender. Indeed, the instigator did use a type of circular reasoning. The issue here is that many fallacies have a form of them which is logical, and pro used this. For example, slippery slope and ad populum both have logical versions of them. If someone provides sufficient evidence from the butterfly effect A, to the slippery slope argument Z, as in evidence from each step proving true causation(which by the way is something most people don't know how to prove properly) then it's not a fallacy. It just often is when people use the argument since most people don't seem to know how to prove causation, so it's more often than not the slippery slope fallacy, but a slippery slope can sometimes be a legitimate argument. Same thing with argumentum ad populum. For topics that are not subject to popularity, which this topic is one of them: whether the earth was flooded, it's a fallacy. However, some topics are subject to popularity. I.e language. Language's purpose is to properly communicate with other people. So, if you're the only one who thinks the definition of a term means one thing, while the majority or most of society doesn't, well, you're gonna suck at doing language's purpose: effective communication.
So, I really find the instigator's arguments rather convincing. While I have arguments of my own that I think would disprove what pro has said, con didn't present them. So I wouldn't in good conscience vote for con even though I agree with their conclusions. In this particular case, pro had better premises, the con had false premises. In argumentation, that's what matters more for who debated well, Pro's conclusion is false, in my opinion, but (s)he debated it well.
What the heck. Mharman posted absolutely nothing and gets to win based off of a technicality of TheAtheist conceding XD This is really fishy.
Ah I see. I've heard a lot about DDO going downhill. Became a graveyard once the mods became Hitler-like.
Second, could you be more specific with your debate?
You're green, so that makes you pro-socialism, but your description seems a little ambiguous.
First, who's BIll Sands?
Yeah, I did get that vibe that Speed was more arguing for a minimum wage in general and not specifically a flat one. I don't think he brought up any stats that were specific to flat minimum wages that couldn't apply to a tiered one.
I brought up disability because people feel they can't hold a job anymore so they go on disability. They wouldn't otherwise go on it(it definitely isn't enough to live comfortably on in many cases. The number of job applicants per position is important, and it's more of it needs to be a happy medium(it can't be too low or too high). If there are too many applicants, then it's an employers economy where they can pay starvation wages and offer horrible conditions because out of the 100 applicants for one job position, it's likely one will still accept it out of desperation or something. Since there are so many applicants per job position, employers can be super picky, moreso than say 70 years ago. So, people with simple depression and displaying such symptoms at work can be let go or fired in favor of one of the dozens more mentally-healthy candidates. So, depressed people or anyone with a simple disability apply for disability income. While they do that, they are no longer counted as unemployed. Do you see where I'm getting at now?
Either way, it may be best to wait and see what I bring up in that debate. It'll be much clearer when I lay out my case there since this is just a comments section.
I've given reasons in the below debate I'm doing, and I'll be substantiating those claims once my opponent posts their opening:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1325/the-us-is-dropping-to-the-bottom-half-of-desirable-developed-countries-to-live-in
In the mean time, you've both argued about the economy. I'm assuming you're referring to GDP and unemployment. Both are flawed statistics to go by. GDP can simply rise due to automation(it directly raised productivity, and thus GDP), so it has nothing to do with how well the average person is doing(i.e how much they make). As for Unemployment, there are a lot of areas which don't count towards official unemployment records. One in particular is disability. ~500K people were on Social Security Disability benefits in 1960. Today, over 10 million are - a 20 fold increase that also doesn't take into account the disability benefits on each state level(this is only federal), so even more people went on disablity through states too(which are mutuall exclusive with federal benefits as you can only collect one or the other). Meanwhile, population only increased by about double. Unless Americans are 10 times more likely to be disabled, something is going on here. Perhaps people feel more compelled to apply for Social Security Benefits(and go into other areas such as Students, prisoners, etc who aren't counted as officially unemployed) due to that they can't get a job.
A better metric to measure the economy, imo, is the average number of applicants per job position. Let's look at that instead of unemployment.
Furthermore, the average income of Americans is only so high because it has the most billionaires(aka OUTLIERS) per capita. Yet, it also has the most people per capita in the developed world who become debt slaves due to life-saving expenses like health care.
Actually, more Mexicans are voluntarily leaving the US and consider Mexico better than the US right now, and have been since about 2008[1][2][3]. Given I've had to gone into debt just to merely live(as do some 1/3 of Americans), I agree with them. Pretty certain no one in any other developed country has to make the decision of whether to die or become a debt slave to the overpriced healthcare system in other countries.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/
[2] https://www.delmarvapublicradio.net/post/more-mexicans-are-crossing-border-leave-us-here-s-one-family-s-story
[3] https://www.businessinsider.com/number-of-people-moving-from-us-to-mexico-2019-5
Furthermore, my Wife's family agrees. She's the daughter of Mexican immigrants(yes, she's a citizen), and I agree. My wife and I plan on going back to my ancestor's home country: Italy. The US is complete garbage right now. The irony of this is my ancestors moved in 1920 due to fears of rising Fascism in Italy, and now I'll be doing the reverse but for the same reason ~100 years later. Fortunately I was technically born with dual American and Italian citizenship due to Italian citizenship laws being quite liberal in that they grant citizenship to anyone who has Italian citizens as ancestors(I do of course). I just need to prove that is all, and they'll consider me as having been born with Italian citizenship, and with my wife being married to an Italian citizen, makes it easy for her to.
I think you should be more specific. Many founders were pro-slavery, so since you didn't specify which ones you're talking about, then con can simply bring up someone like John Rutledge or something.
To add to what Nihilist said, as a survivor of multiple suicide attempts, I'm positive I'd be dead long ago if I attempted with a gun rather than the methods I did use which take a much longer time to kill someone(so usually each time someone found me in time before it was too late to send me to an ER and save me).
Though, I'm not opposed to the right to have a gun, I just don't think it should be capable of killing innocent people(so perhaps a requirement to have smart guns that don't shoot unless the target is determined to be a threat should be law or something. The details can be ironed out if there are issues with such a gun, such as it taking too long to determine someone is a threat, etc. This requires testing and further advancement ofc, so don't shoot it down immediately until you're certain no amount of testing and advancing would help)
I'm on debateisland, though not as active there anymore. I am "geolibcogscientist" with the same picture
Generally, the username/profile pic with a red background is con and the one with green is pro. That's how it is for this website, unless the maker of the debate made a mistake.
If that's the case you have no issues with what I've argued, as I had said in the description, you can argue for the same position in a different way. It doesn't exactly weigh on us as debater for whether we are good at debating if we have opposing positions. Feel free to argue for the same position with different arguments.
Ah, I forgot to mention HOW we control neurotransmission. Of course even today we can do that with magnets, psychiatric medication, electric-shock therapy, etc. I'll make mention of that in the next round. If we controlled two identical twins' neurotransmission completely(of course, we need to finish mapping out the brain), then I see no reason to believe they would suddenly be controlled by the same self, if "the self" is merely the matter that forms the body and brain + neurotransmissions as those more materialist people would claim.
To an extent, I agree with you. It is a trap debate for a theist to accept. However, as an agnostic, I have some points to bring up that I don't believe a theist would, which work around what the OP has stipulated in the description.
Should you find that acceptable, I would ask to change the character limit to 15,000 per round.
Would you be alright with accepting an agnostic to debate with? Of course, I don't hold this position you wish to argue against(nor would I hold the position you're arguing for), but I could certainly offer a different perspective for the position you want to argue against. While I don't believe in this position, I am willing to argue for it, and I don't believe a theist would bring up similar arguments, at least I've not seen any from one that I've pondered over.
I don't see anything prohibiting it. Guess I could do it then.
Is that allowed to create a second debate about the same exact thing? I could check through the rules and code of conduct.
I do not suggest continuing to engage with RM
You had said: "You will never ever find that the majority of stocks in any firm at all is non-voting, that is a total waste of investment for the firms because they want to steer the company as time goes by."
I get this point, but as was stated in the description of my debate:
" I would like to think I defined the above terms in a suitable way, though I recognize I may have left out or worded something improperly. If that's the case, my opponent should let me know IN THE COMMENTS, before accepting the debate so I may change the definitions if I agree with you that I somehow misrepresented these terms. "
If you had an issue with how they were defined in the description, we could have worked out a better definition in the comments. I was more than willing to adjust the definitions if I determined I did misrepresent something in them. I apologize if that wasn't clear. I did have a very large description, perhaps it offered difficulty in comprehending it all or made one decide not to read it all.
I didn't see the vote in time before it apparently was removed. What did it say?
Thanks man. I don't know if I actually changed your opinion on this. Would you say what I've argued for has made you rethink supporting a flat minimum wage?
DISCLAIMER: to any voters, if speed race admits to changing his opinion on this, make sure to keep that separate from your vote, as only what is written in the debate rounds formally should be counted.
Yeah, though as I said, it may have turned out I wouldn't post at all. I usually like to post much more than I did, but yeah... as I said I have been having some pretty severe health issues lately. Figured a simple conclusion is better than me just forfeiting that round. I definitely wouldn't have had the time to provide the usual level of arguments I do lol.
But yeah, I suspected what I just said in comment #8 to be the case before I even engaged in this debate. And that's why I decided to keep this unrated since I don't want my inability to communicate in written word be such a huge factor that would bring down my score for the ability to debate. Of course, one could say this is what makes a good debater, to avoid such instances like this, but I would say that's not the case in this specific instance due to that I am fairly positive there were no words I could have used to properly communicate the idea in English, and the ones I found which were closer, would have sounded foreign to the average person since the average person only knows a few tens of thousands of words out of the million of English words there are.
I am quite certain I have a better command of the English language, diction, and vocabulary than most(as I actively put in effort constantly in my everyday use of the language, to find alternative means of communicating what I mean), and even I'm having trouble communicating this. I did a lot of research into the English language to see if there were better ways to communicating my thoughts here, but I didn't find anything completely satisfactory that doesn't require the proper interpretation of my diction. I have to agree with a lot of deconstructionists out there that language is very limiting. It's especially so for a topic as deep and thought-intensive as the one in this debate.
Most other debates I do not have a problem with getting the proper interpretation from readers, but I suspected this one would be very difficult to do so. It requires the readers to transcend above the meanings of the words I used in English, and I'm not sure that's going to happen here.
This was a rather enjoyable debate and has helped me further consider this issue.
The problem is, I have difficulty conveying these ideas I'm presenting. I have to say I think some of the contradictions you pointed out were more due to me having trouble properly communicating what I meant. In this respect, I'm finding language to be a huge limitation on the ideas and things I've pondered over for this topic. German is my second language, and there are certain ideas and concepts that can be communicated in German that really do not have any sort of equivalence in English. I find myself in my inner thoughts switching between the two languages.
A lot of this, sadly, will be whether the voters interpret what I've said the same way I interpreted in my head, but couldn't properly represent through the written word.
You may be interested in this debate I started: https://www.debateart.com/debates/1216/the-self-is-god-unrated-practice-debate
It's almost over as my opponent just needs to post a concluding round. A lot of it is based around solipsism.
Just to let you know, I'll have my argument up no sooner than ~16 hours and no later than probably 36 hours from the time of this comment.
Just in case you're not aware, our other debate has been passed onto your concluding round.
Apologies to Speedrace, somehow I missed that this one was ready to be debated. At least I caught in time before the time was up. I'll have my rebuttals up very soon.
Also, C4 should be C3, typo.
Where I said his first contention is in contradiction to the last, it should have been the second one technically, but depending on what we mean by "first" it technically was "first" when just looking at contention 2 and 4. I mean, 2 is first for the range of 2-4... but alright, I'm obviously trying to cover my ass for this mistake XD
I might need to let the owners of this site know. It's rather annoying this technical issue is happening.
Also:
Dang it. Somehow Debateart continually messes with the organizations of my paragraphs now and then. I apologize for one of my paragraphs being split up randomly: the first one for C2(There should only be two paragraphs for C2). I don't understand why this is happening. I do know for sure it happens when I type on debateart, but this one I literally copied and pasted from a document file, since I'm already aware of this issue. I haven't the foggiest clue how this one happened this time. Maybe it is doing it after I click publish in addition to when I type? I'm really lost here guys.
Thanks for your vote of confidence. My opening argument with supporting evidence is up by the way.
Also, I seemed to have mixed up Murray Rothbard with Von Mises when stating who Doug French studied under. The article on him I provided has Rothbard mentioned. Apologies. For whatever reason I tend to mix the two up.
Man, it seems no matter how many times I read over my arguments, there are still some mistakes like this in them :P I kid you not, I did read over it at least 3 times before publishing, and I corrected many mistakes I saw, but somehow this one and the one below I missed.
Hopefully that won't be too big of an issue. I'll correct it officially in the next round.
Ok, so I'm not sure how this happened, but I didn't catch that I used the wrong term here. Where I say:
"I remind us, however, that people generally have low time preference..."
I meant to say "high time preference". Given this statement is contradictory with what I state after it, I made a clear error here with the choice of words. I could have sworn I wrote high time preference, but oh well. I'll correct it officially in the next round if my opponent points out the contradiction.
Apologies to my opponent and voters/spectators for cases where my paragraphs seem to randomly break up. For whatever reason, debateart is messing with how I'm organizing things when I type in it. I tried to solve this issue by typing up my arguments in documents first and copy and pasting, but it seems I didn't catch all instances of where my organization was originally messed up. As you can see the second paragraph in my third counter is all split up rather oddly. This counter is supposed to have only two paragraphs. Any time there is not a line break between what appears to be different paragraphs, are likely technical issues I experienced with debateart. Apologies again, i'm trying to prevent it from happening, but that particular paragraph's misorganization escaped my notice before I published.
Is this a debate you'd be interested in participating in and arguing for con? It looks like RationalMadman may not respond in time, though they do have ~11 hours left now. Should that happen, I'm still interested in debating this, and I'd be willing to debate you if you want the con position.
I hope you haven't forgotten. Less than 12 hours remain for your first round which is just an acceptance round.
So, I find now my next argument to be dependent on arguing over what constitutes the "universe" sadly enough. I think neither of us anticipated the need to define certain terms.
To try to keep this fair conduct-wise, I want to ask if this definition, found through a google search, suffices for you of the term "universe":
"All space-time, matter, and energy, including the solar system, all stars and galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space, regarded as a whole."
So long as you agree, I'll present that formally in this round too, and I'm accepting your added definitions as well.
By the way, I accept those definitions. While, yes, it doesn't follow the organization I have laid out, it's fine because I stated in the description that unless otherwise stated, we accept the most common definitions of terms. What you presented to me seem to be the most common definitions of perceive and create, so I have no objections. I'll state my acceptance again in this round though, which I'll hopefully have my counters and/or new arguments up within 24 hours. Just thought i'd let you know now, but so that it's on the record I'll also state I accept them in the official debate too.
Given neither defined the parameters of the debate, it is logical to conclude the parameters are set by the diction in the description and title.
Any reasonable person can see there's a difference between "determined at birth" and "aware of at birth" or "present at birth". If the debate title was worded with one of the latter two diction choices, the instigator would be winning. As it stands, it seems very much so they are moving the goalposts of what the debate was supposed to be.
That said, though, perhaps there's a case to be made here, Technically one's genes are decided at the fertilization of an egg, not birth. Anyhow, seems this debate has turned into a huge semantics debate now. Hate when that happens.
Also, just to clarify, I've purposely not stated what the rest of the rounds are used for. So, you may use them in any way you feel is fair, logical, whatever. So, for example, I have us both state the reasons for our position in the first round for a purpose.
Should either of us want to pre-emptively argue against the contentions one has raised in round 1, that is permitted in round 2. You can do a combination of that along with supporting evidence for your position.
The last round, while usually thought of as concluding statement, you don't have to use it for that, but it may be a point where voters could vote against conduct if they view it unfair if you rebut what I say in the last round since I'd have no opportunity to respond. But, that's a risk I'm allowing you to take, and perhaps voters won't see it that way. It is indeed a risk.
In a way, yes. If someone is content with merely living, then I suppose they wouldn't need to work. I think most people want to do more than merely live. As an absurdist, I'd contend we are all looking for a purpose in life and a career is usually something that people feel gives them a purpose. Not all people, certainly, will find purpose in a career. But many other things give people the feeling of purpose that would require a career, such as the pursuit of material wealth. That kind of needs a career usually. I don't think anyone actually is content with merely living though. We usually all want to do something more than just survive in today's world.
Feel free to make that a point of contention. While I'm tempted to address that point here, I would want it in the debate so that it counts lol. But I'll certainly address that should you formally present it in a debate round.
No worries about taking so long. Just glad you got back to it lol. Thought you might have been a troll who just accepts debates and then never answers since you've accepted two of my debates and up until now, hadn't posted. Glad to see you're not a troll.
To clarify, it is "the self is god, PERIOD". I'm not arguing the collective selves are the creator of the universe. That would also require me to prove other people exist, which would be inconsistent with my line of reasoning I've presented so far and what I plan to present.
Anyways. Though I have 72 hours allotted time, I should have my argument up within 24. I'm going to be taking a nap first, then should soon after post my opening arguments.
You sure you want to enter a second debate with me? You've yet to post for the acceptance round of the other you accepted with me.
True. I suppose I worded my comment funny. Should change "Normally I'd assume the instigator is arguing the proposition stated in the title" to "Normally I'd assume the instigator is arguing for the pro-position of the topic in the title" and same for my last sentence to change to saying something like that.
It might be a good idea to more clearly indicate you're arguing that the bible should not be used as a moral compass. Normally I'd assume the instigator is arguing the proposition stated in the title, and I read your description and context clues indicate you're arguing it is not. Not everyone will pick up on that though, but I suppose if you only want intelligent debaters that's how to do it. Still, could have someone accept who doesn't realize you're arguing against the proposition stated in the title.
I must say, you did really well with properly recognizing when fallacies are actually made and when they are not. You would be a worthy contender against me. I get the feeling I disagree a ton with you, but you did really well here.
I would like to vote on this actually, but I don't meet the requirements yet. Not sure I'm going to in time to vote.
While I personally would agree with the contender's conclusions, I find that the instigator is correct of false arguments from the contender. Indeed, the instigator did use a type of circular reasoning. The issue here is that many fallacies have a form of them which is logical, and pro used this. For example, slippery slope and ad populum both have logical versions of them. If someone provides sufficient evidence from the butterfly effect A, to the slippery slope argument Z, as in evidence from each step proving true causation(which by the way is something most people don't know how to prove properly) then it's not a fallacy. It just often is when people use the argument since most people don't seem to know how to prove causation, so it's more often than not the slippery slope fallacy, but a slippery slope can sometimes be a legitimate argument. Same thing with argumentum ad populum. For topics that are not subject to popularity, which this topic is one of them: whether the earth was flooded, it's a fallacy. However, some topics are subject to popularity. I.e language. Language's purpose is to properly communicate with other people. So, if you're the only one who thinks the definition of a term means one thing, while the majority or most of society doesn't, well, you're gonna suck at doing language's purpose: effective communication.
So, I really find the instigator's arguments rather convincing. While I have arguments of my own that I think would disprove what pro has said, con didn't present them. So I wouldn't in good conscience vote for con even though I agree with their conclusions. In this particular case, pro had better premises, the con had false premises. In argumentation, that's what matters more for who debated well, Pro's conclusion is false, in my opinion, but (s)he debated it well.