Total votes: 15
Con put up a stalwart defence, but unfortunately I just feel like pro was a little more invested in the debate.
Forfeit by pro
Both sides seem to agree that this resolution is viewed in the lens of "LGBTQ+ people being removed from existence starting today." Nowhere does either seem to claim to be arguing about "LGBTQ+ people being turned into cishets." Viewing it in that light, pro's argument is self contradictory. An existence where one endures hardship, but still possesses the capacity to live a fulfilling life is preferable to nonexistence (which is what pro is advocating for). Preventing the suffering of other people who cannot accept their identity is nowhere near sufficient to justify their annihilation. All of pro's case relies on the fundamentally false assumption that nonexistence is preferable to hardship and that removing the annoyance experienced by bigots is sufficient to justify annihilation of hundreds of millions of people, and pro's case thereby falls apart.
Looking at it that way, con points out that removing all LGBTQ+ people from present and future existence would create butterfly effects (what if the cure for cancer would have been created by a gay man, for example). This is at least some reason to believe that more people existing is better than less people existing, which is more than we get from pro.
This was honestly almost a tie. Pro could've won by just defining the resolution to be that nobody was LGBTQ+; all LGBTQ+ people become cishet. The phrase "LGBTQ+ people do not exist" implies that we are talking about the people not existing, not necessarily saying that LGBTQ+ as an identity does not exist. Pro never challenges that this means removing all LGBTQ+ people from existence entirely as con postulates, and for these reasons that is the definition that I am judging this debate relative to.
Novice R1:
The meat industry self-evidently does not practice rape and slavery. It's so ridiculous to say otherwise that I had to point it out. Pointing out that people making more than $80K USD annually means they can afford to not eat meat and that it's healthier to have a vegan diet are preemptive rebuttals for points RMM could've but did not end up making, but they are effective in that regard. Nonetheless, they are just that: rebuttals. Therefore, they give no reason to believe the resolution, just show why not to believe reasons that the resolution should fail (those being people not being able to afford non-meat or needing it for health reasons).
They point out that some animals are more intelligent than humans. Sure, maybe some animals have complex emotion and consciousness to the point they have a right to life, but what about the animals that don't? This isn't something they explain. This casts doubt on that point because chimps are an incredibly small fraction of the global meat market and much dumber animals (like pigs or cows) make up the lion's share. Since this is an on-balance resolution, it's flimsy at best. They talk about the torture of animals, but what if it's meat from a cow that hasn't been tortured and was slaughtered humanely? In that example, there's not a single case of a person who doesn't deserve to eat that meat. Even if most meat is from tortured and slaughtered animals and therefore nobody deserves to eat it, that just means they don't deserve to eat most meat, not that they don't deserve to eat meat in most cases (which is what the resolution is regarding). Said differently: this debate is about "not deserving to eat meat in most cases". What it isn't about is "not deserving to eat most meat." This point only demonstrates the latter, which isn't what this debate is about.
RMM Round 1:
RMM explains why the resolution would, in fact, lead to a higher percentage of meat being produced inhumanely because less people would be buying humanely produced meat, pushing companies to produce cheaper meat. This argument has enough validity to at least pull the debate in RMM's favour somewhat, meaning he's winning at the end of R1 because Novice presented no reasonable affirmation of the resolution.
Novice Round 2:
The income and diet things are irrelevant. They're preemptive rebuttals to points that RMM didn't make and they don't help Novice's case. RMM talked about how high earners help increase the amount of meat that is humanely produced, not how some people can't afford to not eat meat. RMM didn't even talk about diet. Novice provides no further affirmation of the resolution, only rebuttals.
By the end of Novice's 2nd speech, it doesn't even matter what RMM says. Novice has failed to affirm the resolution in substantial way and RMM wins by default. RMM provided some reasoning to believe the resolution should fall that was not successfully taken down by Novice. In contrast to the irrelevant points Novice made, RMM wins in that regard too.
Both sides forfeited all 3 rounds. Pro saying "I forfeit this round" doesn't count as not forfeiting the round.
Full forfeit
Per the DART voting policy, argument points are awarded like so: "Goes to the side that, within the context of the debate rounds, successfully affirms (vote pro) or negates (vote con) the resolution. Ties are possible, particularly with pre-agreed competing claims, but in most cases failing to affirm the resolution means pro loses by default."
This is not a tied resolution; there's no reason for me to be unsure if the resolution has either been affirmed or negated. There's only a failure to affirm the resolution and thereby no need for con to negate the resolution.
If I could somehow penalize both sides for their conduct, I would. While it was a little funny, objectively both sides did not act respectfully.
To put it bluntly: it's impossible for con to win with this style of argument. Even if pro and con agree that pro needs to give reasons that a deity doesn't exist and con just needs to undermine pro's case, con presents no constructive arguments that establish the plausibility of their position, thereby making it impossible for con to bring the debate in their favour. The only possible way this could be a tie is if the arguments presented by pro are presented and/or refuted in a way that their case does not bring the debate in their favour in any meaningful way, which is not the case.
Because con presents no constructive arguments, if there is any reason to believe pro's case at any point, there is more reason to believe pro than con because at no point does con give any reason to believe their case, just reasons to not believe pro's case. Regardless of debates con may have seen where theists argue for a deity's existence and non-theists just refute their points, that's not how logic works. With only refutations, you can at best bring the debate back to exactly where you started, which leaves me with no reason to believe either side. Pro makes arguments that separately attempt to prove that all 4 attributes that make a being into a deity are logically impossible. Those 4 attributes are:
1. Omnipotence
2. Omniscience
3. Being the creator of the universe
4. Being all good
In response to pro's case, con only provides refutations in an attempt to say that pro's arguments do not prove that it is logically impossible for a deity to exist. Just because something is theoretically possible gives me no reason to believe that it is true. It is not logically impossible for me to get up off my seat and go live in the amazon rain forest by next month, but that doesn't give me any reason to start preemptively packing my bags.
I think that pro's arguments regarding the omnipotence paradox and the inability to provide an objective standard of morality, though I do not personally agree with them, stand up against con's rebuttals. This fact alone wins pro the debate because, again, there is nothing con can do to bring the debate in their favour, they can only prevent the debate from moving in pro's favour, and they did not successfully prevent pro from bringing the debate in their favour with these two arguments. Therefore, there is sufficiently greater reason to believe pro's case than con's and thus pro wins the debate.
If this debate were "It's logically impossible for a deity to exist," con's case would be much more effective. The burden of proof falls upon the positive claim, sure, but pro nonetheless provided proof for their position that stood up to con's scrutiny, and once the party representing the positive claim presents reasonable evidence of their position, it becomes con's burden to present evidence to prove their position and they did not do so.
If this was meant to be a joke debate, it wasn't clear, neither side treated it like one, and it wasn't funny. While it's clear that drlebronski was being ironic in this instance, if he wanted a joke debate to mock conspiracy theorists and pseudoscience, he should've stated that's what he wanted from the outset.
All of the claims made by pro in r1 are unsourced, many of which con refutes or points out have no source and gives a source proving the contrary. Pro's entire argument never attempts to poke a logical hole in con's constructive arguments or rebuttals, instead just disputing the validity of his sources. If he could prove to me that every source that pro gave was either a) Unhelpably biased, b) Irrelevant to the claim being made or invalid for any reason, or c) Pseudo-scientific evidence designed to deceive, then I would believe him, but he doesn't. He simply claims that they are invalid despite the fact they're obviously, at least for the most part, logical. He cannot simply make a claim and then not explain it or source it.
Pro doesn't give a single source except for one from the CDC which he claimed was untrustworthy one paragraph prior. Con gives many sources.
Pro's first speech is literally a single block of text. I honestly want to give S&G a tie vote because of the quote indentation that gets worse the longer the debate goes, but it's still legible, whereas the block of text genuinely hurts to read.
The resolution is a paradox. To lose a debate, you must be proven wrong, but if you lose this debate, you're proven right, which means you should win, which means you're proven wrong and should lose (this repeats forever). Neither side can then conceivably be correct in any meaningful way.
Conduct point to con as pro literally forfeit 50% of the debate and the "no semantics" rule is ridiculous. There's no way to understand what is being debated if we do not have an absolute meaning of the resolution as established by the way the resolution itself is worded. Both sides engage in semantics anyways.
Con failed to follow the clearly laid out rule in the resolution that forfeiting a round was an immediate loss. Moreover, they also forfeit 75% of the debate entirely.
Double full-forfeiture.
Forfeiture of all rounds by pro allows me to forgo judging of any arguments and to award con the win.
Forfeiture of all rounds by pro allows me to forgo judging of any arguments and to award the non-forfeiting side all points.