Raltar

Yet another full forfeit by Type1!

Ugh, someone made this a "winner selection" vote, instead of the typical points system, which denies me the chance to award points on appropriate issues like conduct, sources, etc. Thats always annoying, and often to the disadvantage of debaters who might have done well in those categories.

Round 1:
Pro opened his argument by repeating verbatim what he said in the debate description, then challenged his opponent to present their "take" on the issue. As far as opening statements go, that was one of the weakest I've ever seen. Con's rebuttal was better stated and presented, but also fairly weak, in that he resorted to an analogy in which a hypothetical person argues that the characters in a proven fictional movie are deities. This struck me as a poor opening argument as well, because the analogy seemed like a false comparison. Neither side accomplishes much in the first round.

Round 2:
Pro pointed out the flaw in the analogy Con used in round 1, being that the movie analogy has an obvious piece of evidence to point to, where as real-world discussions of the existence or non-existence of God have no such conclusive evidence for either side to use. Pro better states his case that in the absence of evidence, the logical course of action is to abstain from joining either side by being agnostic instead of atheist. Con initially tried to defend his analogy by claiming his opponent's failure to cite a specific deity to discuss made his analogy valid, but that didn't strike me as being very valid. Con then made a better argument by accusing the agnostic position of being a middle ground fallacy (with a link to the balance fallacy, which is effectively the same thing). That was a good. Then he made another poor argument by criticizing religion broadly by complaining about the minority of religions which have made false end of the world predictions. Even to the limited extent the point is true, it only applies to a minority of religions and seemed to have no real place in this debate.

Round 3:
Pro forfeited the round. Con reminded the audience of his accusation of a middle ground fallacy, which was good, since it was his strongest point thus far.

Round 4:
Pro reappears in round 4, but his argument became rather difficult to follow. He did make a good rebuttal that the agnostic position is not a middle ground fallacy because it doesn't agree with or try to compromise with either of the other alternatives. Then he started talking about Santa Claus, which sounded like he was responding to an argument from earlier, but this was only place anywhere in the debate that Santa Claus was mentioned, which seemed very disjointed. Pro did seem to make a summary statement at the end of his argument, once again restating his position that lack of evidence for either side makes a refusal to draw either conclusion the "logical" answer. Con responded by accusing Pro of moving the goalposts, which I didn't really see... but Con did accurately point out that Pro claimed to have cited particular sources, but never actually provided those sources during the debate. Pro even specifically said round 1, but his round 1 argument was super weak, so he definitely didn't cite any sources there.

Argument wise, this debate was weak on both sides. I understand Pro's argument, but he didn't do much to reinforce it. Con offered several rebuttals, but only the middle ground fallacy accusation held much water, and Pro did provide at least a minimal response to it. On arguments this would be a tie. If this were a normal point system vote, I would award both conduct and sources to Con, since Pro forfeited a round and lied about his (lack of) sources, while Con provided excellent sources, such as his link explaining the "middle ground" (balance) fallacy. Being limited to only choosing a winner, I have to give victory to Con, due to the sources and forfeit issues.

Full forfeit.

Full forfeit by Pro.

Pro never even provided an opening argument, but Con saw the debate all the way through, even though he was effectively debating an empty chair. Plus, the toucan thing.

Pro's opening argument was effectively a rant (with needless references to "worthless pieces of crap" and "fat jews") which seemed to only reflect his personal opinions, due to a lack of any sources being offered. Con provided a detailed rebuttal, using actual sources. Pro then forfeits the remainder of the debate with no further material offered. Basically a full forfeit (with bad conduct) from Pro, with Con at least putting in appropriate effort.

Also going to echo Mharman here; Pro offered nothing but an unexplained link to a YouTube video. I don't have any explicit objection to using a YouTube video as a source, but you should at least summarize within your argument why you are providing a source and not expect the source to speak for you as the entirety of your argument. Con offered a basic rebuttal, Pro then forfeit the remainder of the debate. Easy win for Con.

As a preface, head moderator bsh1 has already publicly confirmed that additional “rules” included in the debate description are not binding on debaters, voters or moderators. Only the actual rules of the site as called upon from the Code of Conduct are enforceable;
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/755?page=1&post_number=4

Pro, as instigator, makes the outrageous claim that the sun is god, the sun exists, the sun is an important element of the ecosystem upon which humans rely, thus, humans “depend on god to live!” Clearly, nobody denies that the sun exists or that our ecosystem relies on it, so this debate hinges on if Pro can angrily intimidate his opponent into accepting his claim that the sun is god… which didn’t go too well to say the least!

First, Con begins by stating that he will be paraphrasing famous theologian Thomas Aquinas (thus indirectly using a source) to demonstrate that the idea of a “god” is more complex and detailed than his opponent is trying to paint it. Instead, he points out that the sun is merely a physical object, not even a sentient object at that. To this end, he draws attention to serious philosophical flaws in Pro’s claims, such as his claim that the sun created life on earth, when all the sun actually did was produce light which was part of the ecosystem that sustains life, not the actual creator of life itself. Pro’s only real rebuttal was to angrily demand that his opponent strictly obey the definitions and “rules” he created for the debate (some of which didn’t even appear until after the debate started, meaning they weren’t even included in the actual description). Con easily rejects this and continues.

Next, Con demonstrates the flawed logic within the “definitions” Pro uses. Pro claims that the sun is “superhuman” because of the size and shape of the sun. Con points out that if the definition of “superhuman” is allowed to be as broad as any feature or trait that humans lack, then it would be all too easy to use that same logic to extend godhood to any object. For example, since an elephant is “stronger” than a man, this gives the elephant a “superhuman” trait according to Pro’s definition, and thus an elephant would be a “god” by such a definition. Con also points out that the earth itself shares many of the same traits which Pro attributed to the sun (size, shape, essential for life, etc), so why doesn’t Pro also worship the sun? Again, Pro had no real rebuttal to any of this, other than to become increasingly angry and repeatedly demand that his opponent obey his special “rules” and definitions. Con once again refuted the idea that he was in any way obligated to obey these "rules" and definitions, particularly since Pro was clearly stretching the definitions to fit his own personal meaning, rather than the commonly accepted and intended meaning of the words.

The final nail in the coffin of Pro’s argument comes from Pro himself. After becoming increasingly hostile and visibly angry throughout the whole debate, Pro finally loses his temper in the final round and descends into one of the most childish insult frenzies I’ve ever seen that didn’t take place on a kindergarten playground. This obscene behavior is not only enough to cost him the conduct point for the debate, but if the best rebuttal he can think of in the final round is to launch childish ad hominem at his opponent, it rather solidly proves that he never had a real argument in the first place.

Arguments and conduct both go to Con.

Full forfeit.

Full forfeit.

LOL WUT?

Pro opens the debate by going off on a completely off-topic rant about the "drivel" from the comments section. Dragging the comments section into the debate is bad enough on it's own, but the fact that his rant never even mentioned the actual topic of the debate further makes this strategy maddeningly illogical.

Con's rebuttal was simple, efficient and ultimately correct; Bernie Sanders self-identifies as a democratic socialist on his own website.

This was never refused by Pro, who forfeited the remainder of the debate without further comment. Arguments and conduct to Con.

Pro's first song; Annoying opening jingle, but got better after that. So-so over all.

Pro's second song; Mildly annoying, but not terrible. So-so overall.

Pro's third song; Liked the semi-arabian theme with a mix of stuff that sounded a little like old-school video game music. Still a bit annoying for four minutes of electronic screeching. So-so.

Pro's fourth song; Definite video-gameish feel. Minimal lyrics, but good for what there was. Pretty Good.

Pro's last song; Had high hopes based on the title... and it lived up! Good video-game vibe. Could have been a little more hard-core, but good overall.

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Con's first song; Annoying opening, got weird after that. Didn't like it.

Con's second song; Hey, actual lyrics! And they aren't annoying! Good!

Con's third song; Not my style, but actual lyrics and not too annoying. So-so.

Con's fourth song; Pretty decent. Amusing lyrics, interesting and diverse music. Slightly better than a 'so-so' vote.

Con's last song; Actual lyrics again! Not my personal style, but I can see a lot of people enjoying this song.

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This is a tough vote! It is VERY close. As an old-school gamer (who literally played games back before they were cool) the video-game style of Pro's songs really appealed to me, almost enough to totally overlook the lack of lyrics and sometimes annoying noises. Con's music unarguably had better lyrics and was the sort of music I could see the majority of people liking better. Minus that first song from Con which I didn't like, his music was slightly better on average, where as Pro's music was really just "so-so" and only tolerable because of my nostalgia for video-games. If there was some other voting option for dividing points I would definitely find a way to award points to both sides, but being that I only get one option... gotta make a tough call and give this one to Con.

Conduct; Pro.
Con's opening argument was some kind of silly attempt to pull an indirect kritik based on something his opponent said in the comments. Then he forfeited the last two rounds. I feel like I have to slap a conduct point on this for those issues.

Spelling & Grammar; Tie.
Not perfect on either side, and both sets of arguments have some readability issues, but roughly equal.

Sources; Tie.
Pro accuses Con of using biased sources. Con counters that the sources used by Pro are also biased and that attacking a source merely because you don't like the political stance of the author is an ad hominem fallacy. Con eventually admits that since both sides used biased sources they are "even" on this point.

Arguments; Con.
The major arguments in this debate revolved around crime, jobs, taxes and the sources used by each side. Pro said a few other things about "invasion policies" and other vaguely suspicious-sounding things which were never hashed out much, so I can't really comment on any of those. Pro also had a strange hypothetical public policy suggestion...

Pro's opening argument on jobs was to admit that illegal immigrants take jobs, but claim that they also create jobs. Pro also claims that illegal immigrants are better at the jobs they take, but no citation was ever provided to support this claim. Later in the debate Pro also adds a claim that we need immigrants to replace our "aging population." Con rebuts these points both by pointing out the already conceded point that illegal immigrants take jobs from lawful citizens, as well as citing a source showing that our "aging population" (baby boomers) are refusing to retire from the workforce, which is holding back the job opportunities of younger generations. Pro never offered any meaningful counter to this, other than to quibble over the sources which Con used. Since Pro eventually concedes that he also used biased sources and that both parties were "even" in that regard, Pro effectively dropped this point in favor of Con. So Con wins on the jobs issue.

Pro claimed that illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes than legal citizens and cited two sources to support the claim. Con countered by citing a detailed report which debunked the claim that illegal immigrants are law abiding by providing an extremely extensive list of the most common crimes committed by illegal immigrants. Con also cited a report showing that illegal immigrants raise the overall crime rate and a memorial to people that have died as the result of illegal immigrants. As with the jobs issue, the only major rebuttal offered by Pro was to quibble about Con's sources being biased, but Pro eventually concedes this due to his own sources also being biased and thus "even" for both parties. Con's points appear to disprove the claims made by Pro and since Pro drops the issue, Con wins on the crime point.

Pro argued that illegal immigrants pay taxes. Con countered by citing multiple sources showing that illegal immigrants pay less in taxes than the cost of the public services they use, meaning that they still represent a net loss to the government by consuming more than they produce. Pro countered with a very silly rhetorical rebuttal that some citizens also don't pay enough in taxes, so maybe they should be deported too? Con simply rebuts this by pointing out that legal citizens can't be deported because they have a legal right to be here. Con wins this point easily.

Then we have Pro's interesting public policy hypothesis... Pro has this scheme that illegal immigrants can be forcefully relocated to the South-west U.S. where they will be forced to perform manual labor to pay for "assimilation" classes. Pro never explains how this policy would work, how "assimilation" classes would help or how he would tackle the difficult political process needed to enact such a policy. Pro also admits that if illegal immigrants don't like it, they should leave the country, which really seems counter-intuitive to his overall argument. Con points out that this policy doesn't exist, likely won't ever exist and could be easily overturned in court even if it were enacted. Since it isn't really obvious what this argument was meant to accomplish and Con offered a lot of good points against it, I consider it effectively negated.

In one of the final rounds where any arguments were offered, Pro also raised the issue of deporting immigrants resulting in families being separated. Con never offered a response to this, but Pro rather effectively undermined his own argument by admitting that it was an appeal to emotion.

Although Con flubs the first round and the last few rounds, his solid material and volume of sources make a strong case in the middle portion of the debate. Pro's only real counter argument on most of the issues was to complain about biased sources, a problem his own sources shared and which he eventually admitted was "even." Overall this is a solid victory for Con.

Both parties agreed to a tie.

FF........................

Most of the debate was forfeit by both sides, however, based on what little was offered I have to side with Pro. The setup of the debate makes the scenario wildly unfair to Batman as a ordinary mortal human whose ability comes mainly from his intellect, investigative ability and access to advanced technology through his alternate persona as Bruce Wayne. Pro sets up the debate and also makes arguments which greatly limit Batman's ability to access these abilities. Con's only counter argument is that Batman has trained his agility, while Captain America supposedly did not. Con also asked Pro to explain how Captain America would use his shield during the fight, which provoked Pro to describe how Captain America would not only use his shield, but his superior stamina would eventually prevail against Batman in an extended battle. As Con forfeit the remainder of the debate beyond that point and nothing else was offered, Pro wins by default.

First of all, conduct. Pro made very little contribution to the debate. All of his arguments were very short, consisting mostly of quotes. In both the second and third round he openly admitted that he wouldn't say much, since he didn't have time to do so. The third round was particularly bad, being almost entirely quotes from his sources and virtually no explanation of what the reader is intended to extract from those quotes. Conduct to Con.

Arguments were moderately good on both sides, but Con obviously approached this with a strategy that caught Pro off guard. Pro built a (rather small) case for why he felt he was right. Con, rather than attempting a directed rebuttal or refutation, instead focused on building the opposite case first, before returning to poke holes in Pro's case near the end of the debate.

Pro's case effectively revolved around four points (one of which didn't seem to appear until his conclusion). 1. Innocent people are sometimes "forced" to plead guilty. 2. Plea bargaining is to the benefit of those who are guilty. 3. Alaska had some benefits from banning plea bargains in their state. And 4, banning plea bargains would "restore faith in the criminal justice system."

While each of these main points had some minor merit to it, I felt the overall argument being made here was rather weak. Pro never demonstrated that anyone is "forced" to accept a plea bargain, so although innocent people may sometimes do so, they do so by their own choice. His claim that they are "forced" to do so comes of as hyperbole. Additionally, his statistics about Alaska are great, but Alaska is a very unique situation and he offers no guarantee that other locales with drastically different social and criminal elements would experience the same benefits, so that struck me as a claim which needed a lot more backing to be taken seriously. And his claim that banning plea bargains would "restore faith" in the criminal justice system didn't seem to make any appearance until the final round, with no actual support for the idea that anyone had lost faith in the criminal justice system.

Con initially veered away from a direct rebuttal and instead began building his own case. Firstly, he points out the necessity of utilizing plea bargains as an incentive to persuade informants to give information on more serious criminals, such as organized criminal groups. As one example, Con cites the Mexican Drug Cartels and their aggressive (and often grotesque) methods of intimidating witnesses, making plea bargains advantageous when dealing with such an organization. In following rounds, Con also provided an authoritative source which listed an extensive list of reasons why plea bargains are advantageous (forgive me if I don't quote the entire government report here). Lastly, Con stated that the strongest reason why his case was right and Pro was wrong is that if plea bargains were to be removed from the system, then it would eliminate any reason for guilty parties to EVER plead guilty. Based on basic logic, this makes a lot of sense, because if you have no material benefit to plead guilty, you may as well claim innocent and hope the prosecution flubs the case somehow.

Pro's rebuttals were absolutely terrible, not just because of their brevity, but because they were just plain bad. For one thing, Pro tried to criticize Con for using a source from Australia, which Con accurately pointed out was hypocritical when Pro used a source from Japan. Pro also tried to claim that "Mexico is irrelevant" because he is apparently unaware that the Mexican Drug Cartels are a huge criminal threat to the United States with direct ties to many organized crime groups in the U.S. This made Pro seem really ignorant and unaware of basic criminal justice facts. Pro's only remotely useful rebuttal was pointing out that informants sometimes point the finger at innocent parties, but that one effective rebuttal hardly made up for the awful mess which was the rest of his argument. Yikes!

Pro's conclusion tried to claim that Con "dropped" his original four arguments, but Con addressed this in his conclusion by responding to each one of those four points and showing how his arguments either override or rebut each of those issues.

If Pro's opening arguments had just been the first volley in a larger assault, he may have won this... but it seems his opening argument was really all he had and everything after that mainly just served to expose his own lack of knowledge about criminal justice and organized crime threats within the U.S. Con alternatively provided a valid explanation of the benefits of plea bargains as well as the potential consequences of banning them, while displaying a greater knowledge of the topic. Hence, argument goes to Con.

Full forfeit.

Pro forfeited almost the entire debate and never provided any rebuttal of Con's argument.

This is one of those debates that irks me because the instigator tacked a bunch of unnecessary and unenforceable rules onto the debate description. I've asked the moderators for clarification before, and it has been repeatedly confirmed that these rules are NOT enforceable. But in this case, the instigator who inserted these rules also violated his own rules by forfeiting round 3, so I think that merits a conduct point to Con on this one, easily.

On arguments, the important thing to note is that Pro is attempting to establish that abortion is "prima facie" immoral. Not just immoral, but specifically "prima facie" immoral. That was a big tactical error here.

Pro opens with a strong argument, pointing out that humans are a member of the community from the moment of conception and citing several authoritative sources to verify this claim. That was a great start, but Pro then ends his opening arguments on a weak note by presenting several other premises that he merely says are "obviously true" with no source to support them, and further states that he won't even bother to defend them unless Con challenges them. His conclusion is that since humans are members of the community from the moment of conception, abortion is "prima facie" immoral.

Con's rebuttal probably wasn't what Pro was expecting, since instead of trying to fight the "immoral" part of the resolution, he instead begins by targeting the "prima facie" part. Con points out that the "prima facie" is a "conundrum" in this case, reminding the audience that the definition of prima facie is "at first sight (= based on what seems to be the truth when first seen or heard)." Con then argues that abortion will not be "prima facie immoral" for everyone, because many people take a very different approach to examining the morality of abortion, such as by considering the effect that abortion has on the mother as being more significant than the effect that abortion has on the child. Con doesn't actually need to prove that this view point is correct, he just needs to show that for such people, abortion isn't automatically "prima facie" ("at first sight") immoral. This poked a HUGE hole into Pro's claim, since if there is any reason that abortion falls short of being "prima facie" immoral, then his whole resolution effectively comes up short.

In round 2, Pro said that Con's argument was "a bit of a kritkit," which I disagree is the case. Otherwise, Pro's only rebuttal of Con's argument was to merely provide a few additional sources to support his original arguments from the first round. His sources from the first round were already strong, so this really added nothing new (as Con pointed out in the following rounds).

Con made several additional arguments on behalf of Abortion, but I didn't really consider these for several reasons. Firstly, these arguments weren't really necessary. Con already toppled Pro's argument when he targeted the "prima facie" element of the claim, so defending abortion as moral wasn't necessary to defeat Pro's argument. Secondly, most of these arguments seemed to be generic rebuttals of generic arguments which are often made in abortion debates, but which weren't actually made by Pro during this debate, so they seemed a bit off-topic. Lastly, because Pro forfeits most of the debate after this point, he never offers any response to any of these arguments, so they effectively just become dropped points anyway.

The key here was that Pro specifically claimed that abortion is "prima facie immoral." If he has merely said "immoral" without the "prima facie" prefix, he would have had a very strong argument, and could potentially have won this debate if he hadn't forfeited so many rounds. Unfortunately, he did include that unnecessary "prima facie" prefix and Con successfully attacked it as invalid, while Pro flubbed the remainder of the debate beyond that point. Thus, Pro's argument comes up short and I have to award argument points to Con.

This is a tough one to vote on.

Con forfeited the last round, which meant he didn't get a chance to make a final rebuttal or closing statement. Pro said that Con was unable to access the site and asked that voters not consider the last round... but that also causes us to lose 1/3rd of the debate. Being that this eliminates a big chunk of the arguments and rebuttals, that makes it difficult to evaluate the arguments.

I would have awarded conduct to Pro for Con's forfeit in the final round, but again, Pro politely asked us not to consider the final round. So thats out.

Spelling and grammar were roughly equal on both sides. Tie.

That just leaves Sources. Luckily, this is where we find a pretty respectable comparison that clearly leaves one side the victor.

Con only used four sources. One was a federal government website, so that was pretty authoritative. However, one of the others was a blog, which seems not very authoritative when discussing a very significant public policy issue . And the other two seemed to be news websites with a possible political bias.

Pro used significantly more sources, and those sources were from a much more diverse array of types of information. One of those sources was the exact same federal government website Con used, so Pro was able to use that same source for his own argument. Pro also cited several different wiki sites, several different news sites (from both sides of the political spectrum), a document hosed by a university and a helpful info-graphic, just to name a few. All of these sources were spread reasonably evenly throughout Pro's argument and verified many of the statistics he cited to support his argument. Overall, this diverse array of sources came across as being a lot more trustworthy and authoritative than the small sample of sources used by Con.

After reading over the debate, I don't feel that I can offer any valuable opinion of the arguments offered by either side.

However, I do feel strongly that it is appropriate to award conduct to Pro for this debate.

In the final round (after failing to offer any argument in the prior round), Con suddenly abandoned the argument itself and began attacking his opponent wholesale.

Con cites several of the rules from the debate description and accuses his opponent of violating them. I have asked moderators for clarification on these sorts of "rules" that get tacked on to debate descriptions and was told that such rules are not enforceable. So even if Pro had violated such rules, it wouldn't matter.

However, in making his accusation, Con violates an actual site-wide rule by posting (what he claims is) the content of a private message. That violated the actual "pm doxxing" rule.

I'm not really sure what Con was trying to accomplish here... He had to know he was breaking the rules. Was it some attempt at irony, to break a real rule by accusing his opponent of breaking a fake one? Or was he trying to lose the debate on purpose? Or did he really think such a crazy scheme would fool voters into voting for him? We may never know.

Cons opening argument is two pronged. First, the common atheist argument about a stone too heavy for God to lift is already based on a misunderstanding of how God's omnipotence works. Secondly, trying to set up this sort of a paradox is a self-contradiction anyway. Con caps off these two points by offering a famous quote from a well respected Christian theologian as a simple summary of his argument. His overall presentation here was both logically valid and stylish.

Pro then showed up and clearly "phoned in" a half-hearted attempt at a rebuttal, by tossing out two hypothetical scenarios where God could make a rock too heavy to lift.

The first scenario was that since God can't lie, he can just say that he won't lift a rock and that would make it too heavy. Con offers the obvious rebuttal that God promising not to do something isn't the same thing as actually being unable to do it.

The second scenario involves God taking human form and thus being unable to lift the rock. Again, Con offers the obvious rebuttal here that Jesus regularly displayed various powers beyond that of an ordinary human, so assuming that he wouldn't be able to lift heavy rocks doesn't make a lot of sense.

Neither of Pro's scenarios made much sense and Con easily slapped them both down. Pro then forfeited round 2 and made a very weak effort to change his argument in the final round. Even with his proposed change, Pro seems not to really be taking the argument seriously and never offered a real rebuttal to any of Con's original points.

This debate was made slightly confusing by the set up and the roles of the contenders. The title seems to imply that the instigator would be Pro, but he is actually Con. Plus, the participants admitted that they had taken the political sides which are opposite of their own usual positions.

That aside, Con used sources and used them effectively to support his point, citing both the original promise of payment, as well as sources clarifying the circumstances under which payment would occur. Pro use no sources, so sources points to Con.

Pro forfeit the last round and offered only minor rhetorical arguments in the prior round. Conduct to Con also.

Tie agreed on by participants.

This debate is tough to follow, because both participants have a habit of lumping a large number of small arguments into a single convoluted paragraph. Also, Pro's grammar, spelling and general sentence structure were massively baffling. As such, I think it is fair to award the S&G category to Con right off the bat. As for arguments, I'll do my best to follow them...

Pro attacks the emotional differences between Mario and Luigi, specifically that Mario is a "jerk." Con seems to concede that at least one example of this accusation is valid, but argues that Mario's actions are justified and that having the "guts" to act that way actually makes Mario better. This rebuttal only makes sense if being a "jerk" actually makes someone a better person, which seems like a poor argument. I have to give this one to Pro.

Pro claims Luigi jumps higher than Mario. Again, Con seems to concede that this is true but counters that jumping higher is actually a disadvantage due to the possibility of encountering an enemy in the air. From what I recall of the 2D Mario side-scrollers, characters tended to have a lot of "air control" that allowed them to control both the direction of travel while jumping as well as the height/length of their jump. That being the case, I can't see a reason why less jump height would improve chances to evade enemies in the air. Another point for Pro.

Con argues that Mario is the protagonist for "99%" of Nintendo games. Pro's (badly spelled) rebuttal was that Luigi was also a protagonist for several of the games he appeared in, as well as having several spin-offs dedicated to himself specifically. Con came back to say that some of the spin-offs weren't made by Nintendo, so they supposedly don't count. Con pointed out that even if Nintendo didn't develop the game in-house, they still own the copyright on the franchise, so it doesn't matter who made the game. Pro seems to effectively negate this point.

Con argues that Luigi started as just a different colored version of Mario in the early 2D games. Pro rebuts that Luigi has developed into a full character since then. Given that the plot and backstory of the games has obviously developed greatly since the original 2D games, Pro seems to have a valid point to negate Con's argument.

Both sides claim their champion has saved the other on previous occasions and both sides provide sources to verify this fact. These competing claims seem to negate each other.

Pro claimed that Luigi had his own year. Con rebutted that Pro provides no source to support this claim and since I'm not aware of any such event, I have to agree that Pro should have provided a source. Point negated.

In the last few rounds, things get pretty confused talking about the powers that Luigi may posses in various games, and I'm not familiar with all of this as I stopped playing video games about 10 years ago. Pro at one point makes a confusing statement about a vacuum that kills things which are already dead. Con, in pointing out this apparent contradiction, actually helps clarify that the vacuum is used to defeat poltergeists, which appears to be a concession that Luigi does indeed posses such a power. Con also admits that he has "0 knowledge" of Mario games, which doesn't really help his overall position in the debate.

In the final round, several new arguments came up about the position of the characters in the tier list and Luigi's mansion. Since introducing new arguments in the final round is usually considered poor form in a debate and there was limited opportunity to make rebuttals of these points, I didn't consider these.

Overall, Pro made more effective arguments (Mario being a jerk, Luigi jumping higher, and ghost-killing vacuums) while Con mostly seemed to be looking for excuses as to why some of Mario's shortcomings were either irrelevant or actually advantages. Arguments to Pro.

Full forfeit by Con.

Full forfeit by con. Lame!

For the record, I hold a Bachelor of Art's Degree in Homeland Security, and immigration enforcement / border security is one of my favorite topics. So, suffice to say, I was looking forward to this debate. I didn't realize it was going to turn into a rap battle, and that certainly put an interesting spin on a debate I've seen many times before, but also makes it a lot more difficult to evaluate the specific "arguments" used here. A lot of what was said (about issues like Obamacare or Trump) were also off-topic and largely irrelevant.

Pro offered very few arguments, which was particularly disappointing because I personally know many arguments which could have been used in this debate and never saw the light of day. Pro's main points were the number of illegal immigrants in our country (which he provided a source to support) and the fact that these illegal immigrants were taking jobs from legal citizens. Although a valid point on immigration enforcement in general, these arguments didn't really support why a wall should be built, since a wall won't do anything to address the immigrants who are already here or their economic impact. Pro also brought up Obamacare, which was off-topic and irrelevant (particularly since the individual mandate has been eliminated).

Con provided a rebuttal of Pro's argument about illegal immigrants taking jobs by citing an article which claims that illegal immigrants bring a net benefit to the economy that creates more jobs. Con also provided a key argument against the construction of the wall by citing the expense of building it and inferring that Trump would fail in his promise to make Mexico pay for it. Con also peppered his opponent with many off-topic arguments, such as the claim that Trump colludes with Russia and gay adoptions...? Pro's only rebuttal that I saw was that we should pay for the wall anyway because it would be worth it.

On the arguments, I have to award points to Con. Pro's initial argument was weak and Con's rebuttal was more than sufficient to topple it. Most other arguments were off-topic and irrelevant.

On sources, I also award points to Con. Con used sources for almost all of his main arguments, including both the on-topic ones (such as the cost of the wall) and off-topic ones (such as slim shady). Pro used only three sources in one round, no sources in any of the other rounds and of the sources he did provide, only one source pertained to his main argument (about the number of illegal immigrants). Con used more sources and used them more effectively.

As a recommendation to Pro, make sure you hit me up for some suggestions before the next time you debate immigration enforcement issues. I can recommend a LOT of extra sources and arguments. Just saying "they took our jobs" is too generic and will resort in the outcome you saw here, where your opponent dragged you off-topic with a lot of general bickering about Trump.

Pro made an opening argument. Full forfeit by Con, although Con did ask for a rematch in the comments and never received a response from Pro.

Officially, this was a debate to argue about the existence of [the Christian] God. However, if one looks closely at the majority of arguments offered by Con, as well as the debate description which was written by Con, it becomes obvious that the intended objective of this debate was something else entirely. Con alleges, both in the debate description as well as in his opening arguments, that Christians may ONLY use the Bible to "define" God. Aside from this, Con said nothing actually aimed at meeting his burden of proof to show that God doesn't exist. Con spent the entire debate scolding Pro for using a source other than the Bible as part of his argument.

If Con was a Christian debating a Catholic on the topic of Sola Scriptura, then this approach would have made a lot of sense. But when an Atheist is debating a Christian on the existence of [the Christian] God, it mainly just comes off as bad sportsmanship by attempting to block your opponent from using sources which you know in advance are likely to be called upon. Furthermore, it is also a 'No True Scotsman' fallacy, by inferring that Christians are supposedly limited to using the Bible alone, when entire branches of the Christian faith (notably Catholics and Eastern Orthodox) specifically follow a doctrine which allows them to draw upon non-Biblical sources to construct their theology. As such, this mainly comes off as an attempt to hamstring his opponent without offering any actual argument of his own.

Regardless of the problems with this approach, Con sticks to it rigidly throughout the entire debate. In his opening arguments he even claims that the Bible doesn't provide a definition for God. Although this claim could probably be debated in an of itself, the fact that Con brings it up points out another contradictory way in which his strategy is poor sportsmanship; He is trying to limit his opponent to using a single source which he claims doesn't even define the topic of the debate!

While Con makes it obvious how hard he worked to prevent his opponent from using multiple sources, this expended effort seemed to distract him from remembering (or gave him an excuse to ignore) his own requirement to present an argument for why God doesn't exist. As such, he never presented any argument against the existence of God, even wasting an entire round of the debate citing a dictionary definition of a Leprechaun as part of his attempt to deny his opponent access to sources outside the Bible.

Conversely, Pro stuck to his own guns and cited from both the Bible and a dictionary definition of God, which identifies God as "the ultimate reality." Pro draws a connection between the Biblical scriptures which describe God as truth and the dictionary definition, pointing out that they do not contradict each other, but actually support each other. Pro therefore argues that God is truth itself.

I'll agree with some of the critics that this is not a terribly strong argument when presented alone. If I were participating in this debate, I would only use this as a minor argument used to buttress a series of other stronger arguments, if I used it at all. However, it still remains true that it IS an argument, even if a weak one. And Con never provided an effective rebuttal of this argument, other than to continuously complain that his opponent can't use the dictionary through the aforementioned 'No True Scotsman' fallacy.

In summary, Pro edged out a narrow victory on this one in my eyes. Pro presented one weak argument. Con only attempted to make a rebuttal of this argument by (fallaciously) claiming that his opponent shouldn't be allowed to make it. But Con was so busy railing against Pro's argument, that he failed to present any argument of his own. In a contest between a weak argument and no argument, the weak argument still wins.

In his opening arguments, Pro takes a two pronged approach to building his argument. On the one hand, he argues that he is a bad person, citing his job in fast food as making people fat, a vehicular accident in which a thief was killed, the poor upbringing of himself and his siblings, and his estranged son. The second prong of his opening argument is the hypothetical benefits of dying, on which he mainly focuses on him being unable to cause anymore harm and the possibility that his fiance may receive an insurance pay-out as a result of his death if he is able to fake a murder or accident.

Con made a rebuttal of several of these points. In a generic response to all points, Con insists that the negative events experienced by Pro have made him a better person. In specific response to the fast food point, Con asserts that Pro's job is still better than an illegal job such as drug dealing, and provides a positive economic benefit to society. Most prominently however, Con emphasizes that Pro being hard on himself is a way in which he can excel and be a better person in the future.

Pro's round 2 rebuttal starts by asserting that Pro didn't give him any reason to stay alive and "dropped" the point about the wellness of his family. Pro infers that his family would be better if he were "replaced" by someone better, and again suggests killing himself for the insurance money. He cites a website about saving starving children and claims to be responsible for their death by not sending all his money to them. Then he cites an article about copycat suicides and suggests that he could fight global warming by convincing other people to kill themselves too. Pro seems not to notice the obvious contradiction here that you can't both fake an accidental death for insurance money and inspire copycat suicides at the same time.

Con's next rebuttal directly targets the insurance issue, citing an article which highlights the safeguards used by insurance companies to prevent exactly the type of scheme Pro has suggested. Con also cites one of Pro's own comments from outside the debate, paired with an article on poker strategy, to build an argument that killing oneself is a poorer strategy than attempting to live as a better person.

Next round, Pro again claims some of his points were dropped, although this seems to be mainly due to the very small character limit which strictly limits how much can actually be said each round. Pro's main argument during this round is to argue that he is such a failure in life that he can't help anyone else, because his own advice has gotten him nothing but bad results, so it would get other people bad results as well.

Con's next rebuttal focuses on the contradictory nature of some of Pro's arguments, pointing out that he can't both be angry at himself over not being successful enough, supposedly doing too much harm to the world through his gainful employment and want to give away all his money (of which, he supposedly has little) to save starving children all at the same time, then somehow conclude that being dead and solving none of these problems would be any better than the current scenario. Con again asserts that Can cannot solve the stated problems by killing himself and would be more effective by staying alive and actually addressing the problems.

Round 4 opens with Pro insisting that he won the debate already. Huh? Pro then proceeds to tell the story of how he worked two jobs when he was 16 to provide for his siblings, which appears to contradict the earlier version of events he gave in the first round where he claimed to have ruined their lives with his bad example. Many of Pro's other statements during this round also seem contradictory of points raised elsewhere. Pro also describes his state of hyper-awareness and the manner in which he always has a plan to kill people around him. In a military context, this would actually be a positive benefit, not a particularly good reason to kill yourself, again contradicting much of his own argument.

Pro says one very important thing in this round;
"I don't care about winning this debate. I care about working through a math problem. The problem of whether society is better off with me dead or alive."
This statement really clenched the outcome of the debate for me.

If this really is a "math problem" for Pro, then the burden of proof shifts to him to prove that he could actually make the world a better place by dying, and he failed to do that. You can't make the world better by killing the general manager of a fast food restaurant, because that job will just be filled by someone else. You can't feed starving children by dying. You can't erase past events with a corpse. Although Pro gives a lot of reasons why his life is bad, none of them can be fixed by dying. His insurance scheme was rebutted effectively by Con, while his "global warming" take was never hashed out enough to be taken seriously.

Full forfeit, both sides.

No appearance by Con. Full forfeit.

Pro forfeit the entire debate.

I also tried to warn him in the comments that his opponent was going to make the exact argument that he made...

Conduct; Con.
Pro (as the instigator of the debate) failed to appear until the final round. Technically speaking, common debate etiquette says that you can't introduce any new arguments in the final round, so Pro really shouldn't have argued at all after missing all the early rounds. Poor form in general.

Spelling and Grammar; Tie.
Roughly equal on both sides.

Sources; Tie.
Neither side used any...

Arguments; ...Tie?
Because Pro failed to appear in the first two rounds, Con had nothing to argue against (due to there also being no debate description). Regardless, Con still offered several small arguments about dragons in round one. Dragons breathe fire, have sharp teeth and are scary, thus are not good pets. With no sources to support this claim, the opinion is a bit subjective, but he at least offered something.

In the final round, Pro finally made an appearance and argued that Dragons are good pets because they are loyal if given food, can serve as a security system and provide a fast method of travel. Again, no sources were offered to support these subjective opinions. Con's rebuttal is that dragons are fictional. Alright, fair enough, but if dragons are fictional that would both negate Pro's arguments as well as the arguments that Con offered in the first round. The debate also never really specified if the topic was being discussed from a "literal" standpoint or if it was intended to be an analysis of factional works regarding dragons.

Neither side had a terribly strong argument here, so tie, I suppose.

Overall one point victory for Con due to following through on all debate rounds, minus Pro forfeiting multiple rounds.

Con forfeit the whole debate.

Full forfeit on both sides.

And on this incredibly rare occasion I agree with Ramshutu; Full forfeit debates should be deleted and not counted in the ratings.

Full forfeit by both sides. No arguments offered. Not even a debate description.

Full disclosure; I was asked to vote on this debate, but my vote will be fair.

Rap isn't my area of expertise, so this is a tough one for me to judge. As far as I can tell both sides made excellent and well-crafted "arguments" for their respective sides.

One area where I did see a clear difference was sources. Both sides provided a source for the "beat" of their argument, however Pro went above and beyond by also inserting links to specific "topics" that were referenced in his "argument." For example, when accusing [his opponent/himself] of being a flat-earther, he provides a link to the forum topic where flat-earth theory was discussed. When using "angry-looking goose" as an insult, he links to a photo of the same. This added a lot of clarification to what these references were supposed to mean and how they applied to the subject being "debated" in this case. If I could give "style" points for this, I would, but awarding points for sources seems to be the best option within the voting system.

This had to be one of the overall "worst" debates I've read on this site. It wasn't amusing in the way you expect a troll debate to be, but although the instigator claimed it was a serious debate, it eventually collapsed into chaos more so than any other debate I've seen.

Spelling and Grammar: Tie.
There wasn't anything to write home about in this category.

Conduct: Bad all around... But a tie.
Before casting this vote, I asked a moderator if behavior in the comments section could be used to justify conduct points in voting. I was told usually not, so that made it more difficult to render a verdict on this category. Since Pro insulted me and tried to influence my vote in the comments, that alone would have tipped this category to Pro. But if the comments don't count, then this category falls to a tie based on what happened in the actual debate. Con accused Pro of trolling during his arguments in the first and last rounds. Pro retaliated by insulting Con repeatedly in round 2, as well as repeatedly claiming that Con forfeited even when he explicitly stated that he did not. It was poor all around.

Convincing Arguments; Tie.
Pro opened his argument by claiming that the widely accepted scientific fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west is a "false falseism" (which would be a double negative that seems to negate itself). He then built a very brief argument that the rising and setting of the sun has a different perspective depending on if one is located in the Eastern or Western Hemisphere. If I'm understanding his obscure argument correctly, he seems to be inferring that the Sun sets in the "west" in the Western hemisphere because you would be facing in the direction of the Eastern hemisphere when watching it set, and the other way around for the Eastern hemisphere. Basically, the argument is clever wordplay based on the location of the hemispheres.

Con's rebuttal was to point out that the Eastern and Western hemispheres are social constructs. Unlike the Northern and Southern hemispheres which are based on the objective scientific fact that the earth has northern and southern magnetic poles. If the socially constructed hemispheres are ignored and we notice that the rising and setting of the sun are based on the rotation of the earth on it's axis, then we know that the sun will always rise and set in the same direction without regard for where one is located. As such, any argument based on the rising and setting of the sun which requires consideration of hemisphere must be scientifically irrelevant.

Beyond these initial opening arguments, everything else just became a mess as Pro repeatedly insisted that Con had forfeited and Con was forced to repeatedly deny this. Nothing else meaningful ever got accomplished. Ultimately, I feel this category must remain a tie because although Con gave an effective rebuttal of Pro's initial argument, the initial argument was really just wordplay to begin with and it wasn't really clear what was being argued at all. I think a tie may even be generous here.

Sources: Con.
This is the only category where points to one side are clearly warranted.

Pro both began and ended his argument with sources. However, it was never clear what those sources were meant to accomplish. Pro repeatedly used the examples of Los Angles and Tokyo, so in the first round he linked to a Google page showing the time of sunrise and sunset in those locations. However this debate wasn't about what time the sun rises or sets, but what direction these events take place in. The Google page Pro linked to says nothing about direction and thus fails to support his argument.

Conversely, when Con made any argument, he would provide a source (and often quote from that source) which explicitly said the same thing as the argument he was making. For example, when Con states that the Eastern and Western hemispheres are social constructs, he both links to and quotes from a source which says exactly that. As such, his sources clearly served the purpose of adding veracity to his argument, which cannot be said of the sources provided by Pro.

I have already been threatened with having this review removed if I voted against Pro in any way. However, before casting this vote I consulted with the moderators and received one on one coaching regarding how to ensure a vote meets all the requirements outlined in the rules. I cast this vote confident that it is compliant with the rules and welcome anyone who feels otherwise to report it and see what response the moderators provide.

Conduct; Tie.
Pro sadly forfeit the last round, while Con stuck it out to the end. However, Con also became very rude in round 4, so neither side deserves to win conduct.

Spelling & Grammar; Tie.
Roughly equal for both.

Sources; Pro.
Sources were most of the battle on this one and Pro definitely won that battle. Con opened with a survey and a highly biased article from the politically motivated site Vox. Pro rebutted with a source showing that the survey had a flaw, while providing several additional surveys of his own. In round 4 Con produced one last source, but just sort of randomly tossed it in with no explanation of how it supported his argument.

More convincing; Pro.
The goal of the debate, however unfair it may have been, was to change Pro's mind. Con not only never got close to that objective, but Pro repeatedly called him out on his poor sources and issued rebuttals for each argument he presented. When Con attempted to claim that banning guns reduces crime, Pro not only pointed out that his survey was limited to certain types of crime, but he also offered a counter example of homicides spiking in England after guns were banned. In round 3, Con randomly claimed that gun crimes were "skyricketing" but Pro called him out on his lack of any source for that claim. Con also claimed, again with no source, that gun shows represent a loophole to purchase guns illegally, and Pro reminded him that gun shows still require background checks, so no such loophole exists. Ultimately, this debate put all of the burden on Con and his weak arguments with a lack of sources just wasn't up to the task.

Both parties agreed to a tie, although it does look like Pro was winning.

Pro's original thesis was vague and likely either too easy to prove or impossible to prove, depending on what definition of "ET" was assumed. However, I guess we will never know how this debate would have turned out, since Pro failed to make any appearance and forfeited every round. Conduct to Con for showing up for every round.

For a debate where most of the arguments were two sentences long, this one still managed to be a real mess.

Conduct;
Con forfeited round 4. Con also tried to move the goalposts in the final round by claiming that he was only talking about the movies and the books somehow didn't count, although the original debate topic didn't actually specify which form of media was being discussed. (What about video games? Fan made content?) Conduct to Pro.

Spelling and Grammar;
Equally bad on both. Tie.

Sources;
Pro used a source in the final round... but technically the final round should be used to summarize earlier arguments and provide final rebuttals, not introduce new information. Con never used a source. Tie.

Arguments;
Although the manner in which Con points it out in the final round was rather uncouth (he needed to make a convincing argument in general, not convince you specifically), it is true that Pro had the burden of proof to show that "Star Was is good" per the title of the debate, with no specific description provided. Pro never really did that. His opening argument was to ask his opponent why it isn't good, which was an inappropriate attempt to shift the burden of proof. Regardless, Con still tossed a few minor arguments at him such as being unrealistic and having bad lighting. The rebuttals Pro provided were fairly meek and not a very good display of knowledge about the topic. In the end, it does remain the case that we don't really know of any evidence or proof that Pro could provide to say that Star Wars is "good" as he claims, so the argument goes to Con.

Con made an appearance for the first three rounds and at least stated his case, although without any significant arguments to support it..

Pro forfeit all rounds and provided nothing.

Conduct to Con. Tie on all else.

Neither side used sources. Spelling/Grammar/writing was roughly equal on both sides. Tie for each of those categories.

Conduct:
As pointed out during the debate, Pro appears to be a banned user. Additionally, he forfeited every round after the first. Conduct goes to Con for this.

Arguments:
Pro unleashed a devastating opening volley of arguments, and the style with which he did it was practically an argument in itself. However, Con delivers an inarguable rebuttal; His opponent is banned, thus Con must be the real Tyrone. Argument to Con.

Pro forfeited most of the rounds and eventually conceded.

Debaters agreed to a tie.

I actually wanted to see a good fight on this topic.

Full forfeit.

Arguments: Pro.

Round 1;
Pro lays out his opening argument using ample citations, quotations and logical arguments. Con's rebuttal was to accuse Pro's argument of being "woolly" and engage in a rhetorical argument of if Pro's use of the word "sound" was appropriate. Con provided no sources and attempted to place the burden of proof on Pro by demanding that Pro explain how God came into existence.

Round 2;
Pro responded to Con's demand and cited several sources to support his argument. Con failed to respond, blaming a computer error.

Round 3;
Pro posted no new content. Con resumed his earlier strategy of quibbling over the definition of words by accusing the word "solid" of being just as "woolly" as the word "sound" supposedly was. Con then began to argue about if God exists or not, which wasn't the actual subject of the debate. Con closed his argument by claiming that "because the existence of a god cannot be proven it is sufficiently reasonable to assume that it is more likely that a god doesn't exist."

Final Round 4;
Pro seemed as confused as I was that Con was suddenly arguing the existence of God rather than the actual topic of the debate, and attempted to redirect by pointing out that the actual topic of the debate itself actually is one of the arguments for the existence of God. Pro also pointed out that Con never really challenged the main assumptions of Pro's original argument. Con closed his arguments by ranting about his personal dislike of Occam's Razor while continuing to argue that God doesn't exist without ever addressing the actual subject of the debate.

Summary;
Pro tried to stay on topic and provided legitimate citations to support his argument. Con provided no citations and quickly went off-topic, never really addressing the actual subject of the debate other than to accuse the word "sound" of being too "woolly" for his taste. Con made no real argument to speak of and seemed to be debating an entirely different topic than the actual topic of the debate. It isn't even clear if Con actually understood the topic being debated. This is an obvious win for Pro.