“A full-forfeit debate is defined as a debate that has no argument presented by one side following the opening round, resulting in all subsequent rounds being forfeited”
In this debate no argument was presented, but not all subsequent rounds were forfeited. Would this qualify as a full forfeit?
Looking back through your voting history and virtuosos comments on debates , you had multiple votes removed over a period of several months for being insufficient, either awarding conduct only and not mentioning arguments, or insufficiently explaining arguments - finished with a combination of conduct only decisions and awarding debate ties solely for the purposes of winning a voting medal.
While I won’t speak for the mods, I strongly suspect your rights were removed due to moderators having to remove your votes for the same reason over and over again
“A full-forfeit debate is defined as a debate that has no argument presented by one side following the opening round, resulting in all subsequent rounds being forfeited”
While not great - an argument was offered in round1 and round2
For the vote competition I would only consider votes removed as insufficient as “removed votes”, revoting and changing your mind are fine and will not garner a deduction. Its within the spirit of the competition
In terms of potential improvement - there are two areas:
1.) I would have argued that the emotional impact of the terrorist attack, and the comment FA made in the context of being anti-Muslim, and dismissive of the deaths mere hours after the attack were a mitigating factor. A bit like a crime of passion - you mostly glossed over this context and I felt this was important.
2.) You focused on his senate role, which was good - but I would have added that he is also a prominent public figure who has the ability to reach and convince others of his message in a way that regular people do not. This makes the issue more complex than simply two people disagreeing - it is a case of asymettric influence, for which it’s not possible for one side to simply vocally disagree as his voice is not as loud, or as well heard.
A key and common thread that runs through most of the serious debates I’ve seen are that:
1.) Debaters forget what the resolution is.
2.) Debaters get fixated and tied up with the arguments presented to them, and forget to spend the time challenging the assumptions of them. 90% of the time, the arguments made by both sides are absolutely correct: but their correctness depends on the implicit assumptions both sides are being made. I can’t see those assumptions, and they often get hidden or obfuscated - so often I end up having to judge based on which assumption is more compelling, and more justified.
3.) Debaters don’t show the weight of harms.
This is what happened imo - both sides sort of lost track of what each other’s arguments were predicated on - and as pro did a better job of outlining his assumptions and justifying them, it was difficult for me to go the other way.
Imo the debate would have been better served had you adopted the happiness counterpoint, and argued that better - and the remainder was either about Gods existence, or possibility - or simply arguing about how much of a real harm pros points really constitute. If you had argued that pros harms are either rare, or have minimal impact - you could have argued that the objective benefits (happiness, community, overall morality) outweighs them.
The exact line was “Fetuses are pure potentiality, and by aborting one you're transforming that into an actualized negative death.”
I kind of meant killing in this context - the specific issue I was trying to get across was that I felt your argument was implying that because of potentiality, that an abortion of a potential life that could be a human, should be counted as the same as killing a human. (I just used murder because that seemed the most appropriate word in that context).
So I kind of agree with your stipulation that this wasn’t explicitly your argument, but my vote didn’t really consider it so, so it’s really just the word I used that’s at issue!)
As a specific clarification of the conduct point on my vote, and would prefer it to be considered as such. It’s saying the same things, and explaining the same vote to fully elaborate on what I was saying about the allocation
I tell you want, If you can give me a convincing reason why not waiving the final round (but using it to clarify that you were changing the rules), is so bad a conduct violation that it overrides your forfeit, you changing the rules, and you not fully providing your opening round - OR if you can fix ANY debate where I have awarded even conduct when one side has forfeited that you feel the non forfeiting side did something less bad than Death23,
I’ll ask virtuous to remove my vote myself, and tie conduct. Otherwise, my conduct vote stands.
I listed all the infractions in both sides. You forfeited a round, didn’t post the opening, and waited 2 1/2 days before posting a dismissive start and attempted to change the rules. Your opponent claified that you were trying to change the rules in the final round instead of waiving.
His single minor violation was not sufficient to override your two major - and one minor violation.
I’m not quite sure how you feel accurately comparing what both sides objectively did is asserting “my opinion”, or how detailing infractions on both sides - and comparing the two to determine which was more serious and major is “cherry picking”, but clearly my RfD does not match either of the regular definitions of either of those two things.
You appear to be simply objecting to me categorizing your second post as an “effective forfeit”; whilst ignoring that I pointed out you forfeited round 1, and tried to change the rules - both of which are major violations.
This is like arguing to should be found innocent of all two counts of 1st degree murder and one count of 2nd degree murder, because the last count was 3rd degree murder.
I consider saying “source please” multiple times in a debate as disrespectful when it is used on its own without any other language as a dissmissive argument - yes absolutely.
If you had said: “I have looked for a this data, and haven’t been able to find anything: pro must source this claim in order for it to be accepted”, that would have been fine. Better yet - if you had found the source material of the claim he was referring to and refuted it directly”.
It’s not disrespectful enough for me to award a conduct violation for - but enough for me to mention.
I am also assuming that due to you completely ignoring everything else I said, that you are now accepting what I posted for arguments, and my lack of bias.
You forfeited a round - you get the conduct penalty. You didn’t offer anything at all other than a dismissive throw away line 2 1/2 days after pros opening- and added nothing - which is nearly as bad. You got the Conduct hit for the forfeit - and the second only marginally factored into my decision to ignore pro not waiving the final round. If you had posted a more generalized opening in round 2 - I would have still hit you with Conduct violation the same way I have in literally 100% of other regular debates.
I am not quite sure what you think is unfair here. You forfeited a round - what con did wasn’t too bad - you get hit with Conduct.
“If you literally look at all the rounds you can clearly see con barely rebuttaled any of my points.”
And if you look at my RfD - I clearly explain in detail why I felt his arguments were not rebutted by the points you raised.
“WTF? How did i have poor conduct in the last round. .”
You started becoming snarky by use of “source please”, which I found irritating and overly disrespectful - I didn’t penalize you for this - I was just warning you not to keep doing it in the future.
“Rediculous and unfortunate bias vote who can't vote without implementing his progressive views into it”
No - this is solely on your arguments being bad - and I explained how and why in my RfD. I’m sorry you don’t like being criticized - but I absolutely and repeatedly vote on conservative points when they are argued better.
This includes another gun control debate, by you, where I voted in support of your position:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/206
Please do not confuse your arguments not being good - with my opinions interfering with my ability to vote - as the facts are absolutely not on your side on this one.
Your first actual posted argument was just a throw away non argument rather than “a general overview of the debate”, so I count that as an effective forfeit.
Essentially - the only violation was that con posted a clarification in the final round, and you forfeited one round, and didn’t post an argument in the second: this is all I meant by “effectively forfeited two rounds”.
Unfortunately, the vote was placed on the arguments you made, not the overall validity of your position or the views I personally hold. As I explained in my RfD: you made a set of logical errors that lost you the debate, as regardless of the validity of your position, you mostly deflected the points raised to a more generalized argument about crime in general - specifically a great deal of your argument is predicated on the assertion that people murdering with guns today - would all buy knives or illegal guns tomorrow: this meant a number of the issues your opponent made were generally unrefuted.
Public trials are where by someone or someone’s try and convince everyone else - and the mods of how bad someone is - and how this person deserves a ban or formal sanction.
It’s possible that it could be moderators approving it or not: but it is effectively an attempt to make moderation sanctions predicated on public opinion (which could have been stirred up by animosity, half truths and user popularity).
A public trial is essentially a call out thread posing as both fair and legitimate - when in reality it is neither of those things.
The issue with what you said, and why I viewed it as a massive undermining of your point - is that you argued that eating meat is a moral issue, and that the value I need to weight in this argument is that I should vote against animals suffering, because they’re sentient and can feel pain - accepting that it’s okay to eat animals for reasons short of absolute necessity undermines that position - regardless of whether this was or was not outlined in the opening.
The argument that it’s sometimes justified doesn’t fully in and of itself concede the debate (though I feel that if pro had pointed this reasoning out, I would have considered it that), but the value you chose and the justification you gave for the exemption did, in my view, pretty much undermine your debate value.
To sort of elaborate on my issue: you’re basically saying that it’s okay to cause pain and suffering when it harms the convenience or well being of humans (ie: because it’s harder to grow crops - for example), it points out to me that the convenience to humans is important to consider too - not just suffering, and as you didn’t elaborate on what the line is and why, all I was left with was you apparently saying it was sometimes okay to eat animals short of absolute necessity in a debate for which you the resolution is that it’s not okay to eat animals.
Imo your alternatives were:
- Say nothing, and if your opponent points it out deal with it then.
- Take an extreme but defendable position: that it’s only acceptable in cases of necessity - that someone will die if they don’t eat meat: your not arguing that it’s possible for the 3rd world to be vegan - just that they probably should.
- Spend more time defining what the line between acceptable and unacceptable is, and how I can determine it.
Normally, it’s best not to volunteer information not specifically relevant to the resolution unless it’s central to your argument: for this reason.
“It is better that you think you are tricking me as for some reason you bother to do things like give me the conduct vote here and such.
So, let's say you're right and I'm delusional as somehow you play nicer than you otherwise would since I shut up about it.”
I’m thinking you meant this:
“It’s best you think you are tricking me: as this way you seem to give me some points.
Let’s just keep thinking I’m delusional - you behave better when I don’t harass you for it.”
As quite frankly deciphering what you meant is a bit of a crap-shoot.
Please review the Code of Conduct, while the help Center is mostly correct: the specific rules for allocation according to the voting code of conduct is:
“In order to award sources points, a voter must explicitly, and in the text of their RFD, perform the following tasks:
- Explain, on balance, how each debater's sources impact the debate
- A Directly evaluate at least one source in particular cited in the debate and explain how it either bolstered or weakened the argument it was used to support
-Must explain how and why one debater's use of sources overall was superior to the other's
-Mere appeals to quantity are not sufficient to justify awarding sources points.”
The code of conduct elaborates the detail of source allocafion here, and my decision for not awarding them adheres strictly to the code of conduct voting regulations - specifically relating to the first, second and third bullet points.
You can find it here: https://www.debateart.com/rules
It is a bit confusing, but the resources on the main page is a little out of date, the code of conduct takes precidence.
Sources are not awarded on quantity. If it was sheer volume of sources, or where the sources came from: pro would have won.
Unfortunately, I will not generally award sources when one side merely corroborates claims that are not particularly unreasonable; for me to get sources, you need to make one or more knock out points - that bolster your argument for the resolution which are then corroborated by a source in a way that reduces your opponents ability to argue against it.
I don’t either of those things were true here: if every factual claim you made are true, it wouldnt have proven the resolution, so no validation of that position helped you.
The last 16 times I have voted for you - it’s 12-3-1. I have voted you to win at a rate of 75%, - which is actually better than your win ratio. I’m voting you to win a higher percentage of the time than debates you have actually won.
The draw - there were 2 other votes someone else voted a draw, and someone else voted against you: so my vote was more in your favor than the decision. Out of the times I voted against you in these 16 last debates - one was the only vote (but another voter indicated they would have mostly voted the same way. Two other times were in a rap battle (where supa also voted against you), and a 2 for 2 against an EDM debate.
So not only do I vote for you at a better rate than your overall win rate (so by definition I’m doing better than average), over the last 16 times I’ve voted for you, but every time I’ve voted against you, someone else has too (or at least agreed)
The fact that you appear overly sensitive and appear to be misremembering facts, tells me that this is simply your unwillingness to accept your arguments were not as good as they should have been - that’s what I always vote on.
I voted against you because your arguments were either bad or non topical. The only real arguments on topic, that had any validity on the topic was that capitalism has innovation - which even if I accept this as true it doesn’t prove the resolution - and the idea that capitalism will deal with the problem at the last minute: this was partially refuted and cast into doubt by an argument in the shock doctrine you didn’t really respond to, and fundamentally undermines by the urgency and the fact that you never justified why “as late as possible” was unlikely to be “too late”, which was necessary for me to accept the argument.
You keep repeating these same errors of topicality repeatedly, you can either learn from the vote - or keep making the errors and being voted against.
Unfortunately - the reason for your anger and paranoia is your personal overassessment is your abilities rather than my underassessment of your arguments.
I vote on the debates in front of me.
If I wanted to vote against you, I wouldn’t have awarded conduct here, and would have dinged you on sources. You’d also be in 3rd right now - as I could have easily voted against you in multiple troll and actual debates against Type1, which would have massively harmed your current rating.
Fortunately for you, my motivations are voting on merits
Pro pointed out that capitalist governments seem to be easily controlled by billion dollar corporations - nothing said here refutes that by con
Con also neglects to provide a refutation to pros example both that innovation isn’t
Necessarily tied to capitalism (and it’s occurred in other systems), and that innovation from capitalism is mitigated by its inherent harm.
Pro round 4:
So pro points out that con argues capitalism will deal with the problem as late as possible: pro claims con concedes the debate (I don’t think this is literally true), and I feel he could have done a bit better to summarize how capitalism inherent last minute solution would be too late, but he points it out well enough to build on cons inherent lack of warrant.
Pro reaffirms the second pillar by pointing out the link between the necessity of government intervention - and how its previous failure shows capitalism likely can’t be harnessed - this makes a little bit more sense to me now with that clarification.
Con round 4. Con summarizes what has already been said.
As a result, pro clearly casts sufficient doubt on capitalism’s ability to deal with the issue. Cons arguments were mostly non topical, and what scant topical arguments were made seemed not to be unwarranted, and picked about by pro.
Saying this, I felt pro could have done better picking some of this apart. Though it can be hard trawling through so much irrelevance. Pro did just enough here, but if he were against a better opponent I feel this could have gone differently.
Arguments to pro.
All other points tied: I would have given pro sources has he sources shock doctrine - that was a great argument.
Cons whole rebuttal round points out the individual and specific complexity of attraction. Con points out that just pointing a list of things that woman find attractive doesn’t mean a woman would someone above average in all more attractive than someone exceptional in one - basically pointing out the situation is too complex to be boiled down.
Summary. I felt pro lost site of the specifics, and was mostly trying to argue that as women are attracted to multiple individual traits that more individuals traits Being good Are better than 1 big one.
The evolution argument was interesting but didn’t pass muster - as pro did not establish more than a theoretical relationship. If there was a caveat in the resolution to this effect, I may have reviewed this differently.
Con - on the other hand sufficiently muddied the water on this point, and detailed the complexity and the lacking justification in order to win. Enough doubt was introduced here to erode the burden of proof even in spite of the lack of overall warrant. At best this could be a tie.
Conduct: so, the BoP was on pro as clearly stated in the agreed description. I can’t accept R1 changes - as I didn’t even notice them Despite reading through multiple times, pro bickered about the BoP not being on him, and argues that I must hit him with a Conduct penalty for arguing pro has burden of proof when pro clearly states this was not the case in the description. I don’t view cons violation egregious - and he made up for it by waiving his round.
At this point I did come close to hitting con with a violation, but I feel the arguments points is sufficient - and It’s hard to judge whether the change was intentional. But it was tough.
However, what I feel pro fails to do - is just the resolution as he defined, that it’s better to be all round good, than good at one specific thing. Pro doesn’t offer a justification that being a bit better in multiple examples on the list is more important that being much better in others.
Pro gives examples of athletes being exceptional AND above average (so matching both paradigm). But also mentions autistic savants, who are exceptional and below average (so failing to be relevant as per what I need to award a win.)
Cons rebuttal, is threefold that there are too many variables to track - that to not possible to say for shore:
Specifically con points out it’s hard to measure attractiveness and the impacts of each specific area, that pro cannot read minds to get more objective data, and sometimes it’s not always clear what women’s preferences always are (you don’t know what you don’t know).
I tend to agree with con on these grounds to be honest.
So: pro successfully refutes one part of cons argument: that you can’t tell. The scientific data pro provided I’m going to accept on its face, as he mounts a reasonable response to why his data should be accepted.
Throughout this round, what pro does is argue that his data is accurate and valid. The other relevant prong is that pro argues that the evolutionary interpretation would appear to indicate a broad strategy maybe best - but I don’t feel pro justifies why the theoretical examples apply to the real world - that requires data.
My main issue with pros argument - is that his main points in the opening round remain that women are attracted to individual traits - but pro offers no real argument to justify the impact of being much better at one thing - average in the rest vs a little above average.
As con made opening arguments, but skipped a round - I won’t view this as a violation (though pro should note that you don’t necessarily need acceptance here unlike DDO).
I will also point out pro states BoP is on him in the description - so I will view it as such as this is the description that con agrees to in the debate - and neither side argue that the description is invalid. I will view cons first round as his first reply in this RFD.
Pro is arguing that women are attracted by men who are all rounded, rather than specialized. I found the title a bit confusing, as it kinda changed in the description.
My main issue, is what constitutes the “good at one thing”. It’s not defined, and as human are normally a collection of traits it could be argued that to some degree each are measured on their all round holistic ability.
Because of this, it’s hard for me to pick what a win would look like. Pros autism savant point - is it the success that is not important, or empathy and social interaction - the collection - that is an issue. If that is the case, I feel that this would render this debate unwinnable by con.
Instead I have to take the position that pro must argue that being exceptional in one way and average in others is less attractive than being a bit above average in multiple aspects.
The first main argument he makes is evolutionary. While I think it would make sense from an evolutionarily stand point - I do not feel that this is sufficient - the reason is that pro doesn’t give me a reason to believe that because it makes sense in the context of evolution that this is what is happening in the real world - pro did not provide warrant for that connection.
Pro lists a number of attraction factors and provides some level of justification that woman are attracted based on these features.
BoP in debates such as this is normally shared you have to show your position is valid - and your opppnened has to also - with the winner decided primarily by who does the best in the face of your opponents argument.
As a result, you had a burden to show that according to the Bible, fatalism is valid: as I stated in my vote - I don’t feel that simply posting some scripture and stating “here are where the bible supports it” is sufficient on those grounds.
However, I don’t feel con did enough here to tip me over the edge to show a clear and unambiguous value. This may have been different had he placed the concession in more context, as I felt this undermines his core contention of suffering too much.
Pro would have won if he had focused more on pain and suffering free existence: it was too scant for me to award it solely on this - even though I liked the athument
Arguments: tied
Sources: this is more clear cut. Pro offered no sources. Con improved his warrant with sources in two ways:
By showing animals don’t suffer and don’t have a nervous system (the vice article
Citing a botanist - and the livekindly article which cited a number of interesting studies).
This served to undermine a key point pro made relating to plants being the same as animals and feeling pain - as pro used sources well to undermine his opponents primary contention, I feel this warrants source points.
Sources to con.
All other points tied: though be warned pro, I considered awarding the conduct point against you due the attitude. Try and keep it a bit more civil and respectful - it may have been a jokey style debate - but this is not always how it will come across.
After this pro goes off the rails a bit, and it is not clear the relevance of his position.
Final round:
Con/pro - there is a lot of crazy moralizing going on here - it is not clear how this fits into the resolution. The remainder of this round is mostly rehashing the points already made in the debate.
Summary:
So: the main issues here are as follows.
Con concedes. Con argues its sometimes okay to eat meat. This is a massive blow to his position. The only reason that I didn’t award the debate on the spot, is that pro didn’t call him on it.
Suffering: pro points out animals can be ethically treated, and do not have to suffer during their lives. Con dances around suffering, death, and what animals feels plants.
While con clearly sets the value for the debate on the principles of suffering, pro eroded successfully eroded this position:
If suffering relates to pain, then I side with pro - as animals can be treated humanely, and con doesn’t explain how an animal can be treated humanely, have a pain free life and death - and still be notionally “suffering”. If suffering isn’t related to pain - then I side with pro that animals count too. Cons argument from sentience was too little, too late - and appeared to muddy the water rather than clarify. Saying this though - pro did not do NEARLY enough to show me that the suffering of animals can be greatly alleviated other than one or two throw away lines.
My main issue with pro here is that he argues both from the lack of suffering angle, then repeatedly tries to hammer home that plants and cows are the same (con refuted), that it’s there is no moral harm in eating sentient animals, and this part is arbitrary (pro did not provide a great framework).
I could go two says in this - one is to award the arguments to pro on the grounds of suffering being alleviated with his plan, but I don’t feel it was sufficiently argued, and feels like a massive cop out technicality to award a win on these grounds.
While I agree with con about the plant/animal distinction, I felt the defence of death vs suffering was very poor here. I would not consider death on its own to be suffering other than what is produced by its cause - as animals will die whether we intervene or not: so I can’t buy this prima facia.
Pro round 3: pro does well to turnaround the death point - as if you make death the sole categorization for suffering as con does - it means that by his own definition plants suffer. (As suffering in this case is not related to pain, or having feelings).
The majority of pros points are mostly either comical (be careful pro - your straying into conduct area!), or reiteration of his original points about the meat industry.
Con r4:
Con here basically changes up, and draws the distinction of intelligence and sentience to delineate what meat is okay to eat. While this is subjective, it feels okay on its face - however it is very late in the game to change positions.
Pro r4: I side with pro about moving goal posts - so I’m not going to weight cons argument here as strongly.
Pro reiterates that con defined death as suffering regardless of pain felt. While I wouldn’t necessarily agree that this is quite on the level of special pleading, I feel pro successfully highlights that con is making arbitrary distinctions.
I am going to ignore pros viability argument - in these debates there is a level of fiat (it is assumed the plan can be enacted so as to discuss the merits rather than practicality).
Pro offers the defence that eating anything is eating an organism. That due to plants being organisms, not wanting to eat meat makes and arbitrary distinction between animals and plants.
Pro invites con to give justification as to why we shouldn’t eat plants too.
R2: con. Con offers an objective distinction between plants and animals - namely the ability to feel pain. Con contends the major issue between animals and plants is the capacity for the former to experience suffering.
I particularly liked con pointing out that pro is engaging in an appeal to futility.
Con goes on - specifically talking about related harms, pesticides/veganism, however I will not assess these as topical as they appear outside the scope of the resolution.
Pro r2:
So pros position here, is that he isn’t defending the meat industry - I would agree with this, and this somewhat slides the BoP towards con for me. Pro has argued that animals can be eaten without suffering - an issue that is central to cons point.
Pro addressed the canabalism issue - specifically using illness as an example.
I feel pro has done a good job thus far to reframe the debate about eating meat, and undermines pros case relating to suffering.
Con r3. I felt con came off the rails a bit, while his argument thrown back at pro about humans eating sentient humans was a good way of reframing pros canibalism; my main issue is the con concedes it’s sometimes okay to eat meat for the purposes of food. In my view this concedes the whole debate.
Con contends that pro must support the meat industry - I don’t but this, as pro may well agree the status quo is not good - but doesn’t feel that removing meat completely is a solution.
In the end Pro did not directly and causally link arrest to imprisonment. It is left implicit that the systemic issues with incarceration are as a product of arrest. I could have believed the link if the angle taken was related to guilty pleas and bail conditions - which I feel con could have made a good counter plan on (I would have liked con to have done this preemptively, but won’t hold it against him that he didnt - but pro doesn’t give a compelling link, so I have to reject the majority of his arguments
Benefits of arrest. Con didn’t do much at all here: but he did point out the necessity of police arresting individuals at the scene - the clear counter plan, and example plan in my view does enough to negate the majority of pros harms - whilst providing a small nominal benefit of arrest that I don’t believe was refuted.
The big thing for me is decriminalization. Pro himself argues for lack of prison sentencing and lack of arrests for minor crimes, and con clearly shows how this is tantermount to decriminalization, and emphasizes impact of victims. While pro disagree, broadly speaking his plan appeared to be to eliminate criminal records for both arrest and no prison time for crime. This is as close as you can get imo, and I have to side with con
The only point that i could have given to pro was related to racism and arrests. This is the only true harm pro states that is arrest related that maybe effected. I am tasked with weighing this against victims, and decriminalization - and so in my view the point is not strong enough to overcome the points con raises - as fundamentally in pros opening this doesn’t eliminate the issue - and cons counter offer plan sufficiently nullifies the harm.
Recidivism/overcrowding. this seems again primarily related to imprisonment - with the exception that pro argues that arrest does get included in a criminal record. I must discount all of the imprisonment specific arguments.
Counter plan: cons counter plan is arrest but no imprisonment - this removes almost all of the issues presented and, imo is not the same as no arrest or imprisonment.
Round 2; con.
Kritik: I’m not buying this at all. I don’t feel that arguing the consequences of arrest is challenging the assumptions of the debate topic.
Ad hom: I’m going to reject this too, what pro said didn’t seem outside of the ordinary
Minor offences: I missed that this was defined by pro in the beginning, through his source. I don’t find it as cut and drop as con states (the sources include “can include”, and an example that includes class D felonies), but I would prefer running with the slimmer interpretation.
Decriminalization: con points out that pros objection here appears to be angling for full decriminalizafion - of these minor crimes. Re-reading pros rebuttal, this does seem to be the primary argument pro is making in context: no prison, no arrest. Con clearly justifies through victims why this shouldn’t be accepted.
I feel this covers the aspects of c3 which con didn’t cover elsewhere.
Round 3: in my view there was not anything new in this round that I have not already mentioned.
Con also points out the absurdity of the policy not being able to arrest and remove a perpetrator of a minor crime at the scene - to me this establishes a good core case for arrest.
Cons c1-2 seem to be echoing my point on arrest vs imprisonment. I will not go into details
C3: I will defer.
C4: con offers the counter plan of allowing arrest, but limiting the scope of imprisonment. This seems like a reasonable plan which does indeed seem to cover the majority of pros points with the exception of imprisonment without bail - con doesn’t make clear what’s going on here.
Round 2: pro.
Pro contends that there are more impacts from arrest other than the arrest itself. I can’t accept this without examples and context. Some generic “harm” that is unspecified is unweightable by me.
Pro contends that what constitutes minor crimes differs from that of con. Im going to see how this definition side of things plays out.
In the final observation - pro again seems to confuse arrest with imprisonment. Unless pro doesn’t provide me a knock out reason why I must accept the two as synonymous - I can’t accept this, ESPECIALLY i light of the counter plan.
Proportionality: given my response above, I can’t buy pros poaition here. He gives no real harm to weigh, and no clear link from arrest to imprisonment.
My major issue issue with this debate, is that it appears pro is confusing arrest with imprisonment. As a result, I cannot accept any of pros arguments that directly relate to imprisonment as a punishment as opposed to the arrest as topical unless con agrees (I haven’t read this far yet!)
So pro round 1:
C1a: appears to relate to bail, rather than arrest - I will accept this only if con doesn’t challenge
C1b: appears to be relating to imprisonment as punishment - not arrest. Not topical
C2a: seems again bail related (imprisonment pending trial), I will treat this like c1a.
C2b,c: these again seem non topical and related to imprisonent
C4: this seems again relying to how crimes should be punished rather than arrest. Non topical.
C3 seems topical: that preventing anyone being arrested for minor crimes, will stop minorities being targeted by police for arrest. However, it is ripe for a counter plan here.
Con R1:
Con starts with definitions, I am going to reject his argument that class D felonies and third degree rape are “minor crimes” in the context meant by this debate. It’s too much of a semantic argument, with not enough meat - however what I will do, is I will take into account the fact that we may not all agree on what a minor crime is. I will factor this into the arguments.
I literally spelt out what you need to do to win my vote - by proving fake news. If you want to ignore the logical problems with your position and namecall - be my guest.
If you want to go through the debate and not prove it - also be my guest. If RM doesn’t pick up on you asserting bad facts, then you can still win.
Take a stab at how likely you think that is, given where RM is on the leaderboard and given that it is impossible to underestimate how intelligent he is - especially at picking out subtle meaning and details from what people place in debates.
Paraphrasing red dwarf:
The only thing he is guilty of is being RationalMadman. That is his crime.
It is also his punishment.
Could I have a clarification please!:
“A full-forfeit debate is defined as a debate that has no argument presented by one side following the opening round, resulting in all subsequent rounds being forfeited”
In this debate no argument was presented, but not all subsequent rounds were forfeited. Would this qualify as a full forfeit?
Looking back through your voting history and virtuosos comments on debates , you had multiple votes removed over a period of several months for being insufficient, either awarding conduct only and not mentioning arguments, or insufficiently explaining arguments - finished with a combination of conduct only decisions and awarding debate ties solely for the purposes of winning a voting medal.
While I won’t speak for the mods, I strongly suspect your rights were removed due to moderators having to remove your votes for the same reason over and over again
You can report my vote.
There is a tiny little red flag that you can click. You don’t have to publically tag the moderators to ask them to report my vote that’s just odd.
“A full-forfeit debate is defined as a debate that has no argument presented by one side following the opening round, resulting in all subsequent rounds being forfeited”
While not great - an argument was offered in round1 and round2
For the vote competition I would only consider votes removed as insufficient as “removed votes”, revoting and changing your mind are fine and will not garner a deduction. Its within the spirit of the competition
Thanks Omar.
In terms of potential improvement - there are two areas:
1.) I would have argued that the emotional impact of the terrorist attack, and the comment FA made in the context of being anti-Muslim, and dismissive of the deaths mere hours after the attack were a mitigating factor. A bit like a crime of passion - you mostly glossed over this context and I felt this was important.
2.) You focused on his senate role, which was good - but I would have added that he is also a prominent public figure who has the ability to reach and convince others of his message in a way that regular people do not. This makes the issue more complex than simply two people disagreeing - it is a case of asymettric influence, for which it’s not possible for one side to simply vocally disagree as his voice is not as loud, or as well heard.
A key and common thread that runs through most of the serious debates I’ve seen are that:
1.) Debaters forget what the resolution is.
2.) Debaters get fixated and tied up with the arguments presented to them, and forget to spend the time challenging the assumptions of them. 90% of the time, the arguments made by both sides are absolutely correct: but their correctness depends on the implicit assumptions both sides are being made. I can’t see those assumptions, and they often get hidden or obfuscated - so often I end up having to judge based on which assumption is more compelling, and more justified.
3.) Debaters don’t show the weight of harms.
This is what happened imo - both sides sort of lost track of what each other’s arguments were predicated on - and as pro did a better job of outlining his assumptions and justifying them, it was difficult for me to go the other way.
Imo the debate would have been better served had you adopted the happiness counterpoint, and argued that better - and the remainder was either about Gods existence, or possibility - or simply arguing about how much of a real harm pros points really constitute. If you had argued that pros harms are either rare, or have minimal impact - you could have argued that the objective benefits (happiness, community, overall morality) outweighs them.
“con waives first round, pro waives final round.”
https://www.debateart.com/debates/679?open_tab=comments&comments_page=1&comment_number=12
lol.
Oops typo last line! Meant pro (got turned around due to a bunch of RFDs I’m writing)
Normally votes and S&G do not need to be justified if tied.
Nm lol wrong debTe
The exact line was “Fetuses are pure potentiality, and by aborting one you're transforming that into an actualized negative death.”
I kind of meant killing in this context - the specific issue I was trying to get across was that I felt your argument was implying that because of potentiality, that an abortion of a potential life that could be a human, should be counted as the same as killing a human. (I just used murder because that seemed the most appropriate word in that context).
So I kind of agree with your stipulation that this wasn’t explicitly your argument, but my vote didn’t really consider it so, so it’s really just the word I used that’s at issue!)
I would consider:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/652?open_tab=comments&comments_page=1&comment_number=30
As a specific clarification of the conduct point on my vote, and would prefer it to be considered as such. It’s saying the same things, and explaining the same vote to fully elaborate on what I was saying about the allocation
What makes you Think I’m not jaded.
I tell you want, If you can give me a convincing reason why not waiving the final round (but using it to clarify that you were changing the rules), is so bad a conduct violation that it overrides your forfeit, you changing the rules, and you not fully providing your opening round - OR if you can fix ANY debate where I have awarded even conduct when one side has forfeited that you feel the non forfeiting side did something less bad than Death23,
I’ll ask virtuous to remove my vote myself, and tie conduct. Otherwise, my conduct vote stands.
I listed all the infractions in both sides. You forfeited a round, didn’t post the opening, and waited 2 1/2 days before posting a dismissive start and attempted to change the rules. Your opponent claified that you were trying to change the rules in the final round instead of waiving.
His single minor violation was not sufficient to override your two major - and one minor violation.
I’m not quite sure how you feel accurately comparing what both sides objectively did is asserting “my opinion”, or how detailing infractions on both sides - and comparing the two to determine which was more serious and major is “cherry picking”, but clearly my RfD does not match either of the regular definitions of either of those two things.
You appear to be simply objecting to me categorizing your second post as an “effective forfeit”; whilst ignoring that I pointed out you forfeited round 1, and tried to change the rules - both of which are major violations.
This is like arguing to should be found innocent of all two counts of 1st degree murder and one count of 2nd degree murder, because the last count was 3rd degree murder.
I consider saying “source please” multiple times in a debate as disrespectful when it is used on its own without any other language as a dissmissive argument - yes absolutely.
If you had said: “I have looked for a this data, and haven’t been able to find anything: pro must source this claim in order for it to be accepted”, that would have been fine. Better yet - if you had found the source material of the claim he was referring to and refuted it directly”.
It’s not disrespectful enough for me to award a conduct violation for - but enough for me to mention.
I am also assuming that due to you completely ignoring everything else I said, that you are now accepting what I posted for arguments, and my lack of bias.
You forfeited a round - you get the conduct penalty. You didn’t offer anything at all other than a dismissive throw away line 2 1/2 days after pros opening- and added nothing - which is nearly as bad. You got the Conduct hit for the forfeit - and the second only marginally factored into my decision to ignore pro not waiving the final round. If you had posted a more generalized opening in round 2 - I would have still hit you with Conduct violation the same way I have in literally 100% of other regular debates.
I am not quite sure what you think is unfair here. You forfeited a round - what con did wasn’t too bad - you get hit with Conduct.
“If you literally look at all the rounds you can clearly see con barely rebuttaled any of my points.”
And if you look at my RfD - I clearly explain in detail why I felt his arguments were not rebutted by the points you raised.
“WTF? How did i have poor conduct in the last round. .”
You started becoming snarky by use of “source please”, which I found irritating and overly disrespectful - I didn’t penalize you for this - I was just warning you not to keep doing it in the future.
“Rediculous and unfortunate bias vote who can't vote without implementing his progressive views into it”
No - this is solely on your arguments being bad - and I explained how and why in my RfD. I’m sorry you don’t like being criticized - but I absolutely and repeatedly vote on conservative points when they are argued better.
This includes another gun control debate, by you, where I voted in support of your position:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/206
Please do not confuse your arguments not being good - with my opinions interfering with my ability to vote - as the facts are absolutely not on your side on this one.
Your first actual posted argument was just a throw away non argument rather than “a general overview of the debate”, so I count that as an effective forfeit.
Essentially - the only violation was that con posted a clarification in the final round, and you forfeited one round, and didn’t post an argument in the second: this is all I meant by “effectively forfeited two rounds”.
“Your vote was biased af”.
Thanks for the valuable and detailed feedback.
Unfortunately, the vote was placed on the arguments you made, not the overall validity of your position or the views I personally hold. As I explained in my RfD: you made a set of logical errors that lost you the debate, as regardless of the validity of your position, you mostly deflected the points raised to a more generalized argument about crime in general - specifically a great deal of your argument is predicated on the assertion that people murdering with guns today - would all buy knives or illegal guns tomorrow: this meant a number of the issues your opponent made were generally unrefuted.
Showing nothing can be shown to be 100% true means that the statement that you can’t show anything to be 100% true is 100% true.
Tampon ban - 3 days in, 3 weeks out.
He forfeited after 3 days. My previous argument was 3 days ago.
Public trials are where by someone or someone’s try and convince everyone else - and the mods of how bad someone is - and how this person deserves a ban or formal sanction.
It’s possible that it could be moderators approving it or not: but it is effectively an attempt to make moderation sanctions predicated on public opinion (which could have been stirred up by animosity, half truths and user popularity).
A public trial is essentially a call out thread posing as both fair and legitimate - when in reality it is neither of those things.
To earth, maybe.
The issue with what you said, and why I viewed it as a massive undermining of your point - is that you argued that eating meat is a moral issue, and that the value I need to weight in this argument is that I should vote against animals suffering, because they’re sentient and can feel pain - accepting that it’s okay to eat animals for reasons short of absolute necessity undermines that position - regardless of whether this was or was not outlined in the opening.
The argument that it’s sometimes justified doesn’t fully in and of itself concede the debate (though I feel that if pro had pointed this reasoning out, I would have considered it that), but the value you chose and the justification you gave for the exemption did, in my view, pretty much undermine your debate value.
To sort of elaborate on my issue: you’re basically saying that it’s okay to cause pain and suffering when it harms the convenience or well being of humans (ie: because it’s harder to grow crops - for example), it points out to me that the convenience to humans is important to consider too - not just suffering, and as you didn’t elaborate on what the line is and why, all I was left with was you apparently saying it was sometimes okay to eat animals short of absolute necessity in a debate for which you the resolution is that it’s not okay to eat animals.
Imo your alternatives were:
- Say nothing, and if your opponent points it out deal with it then.
- Take an extreme but defendable position: that it’s only acceptable in cases of necessity - that someone will die if they don’t eat meat: your not arguing that it’s possible for the 3rd world to be vegan - just that they probably should.
- Spend more time defining what the line between acceptable and unacceptable is, and how I can determine it.
Normally, it’s best not to volunteer information not specifically relevant to the resolution unless it’s central to your argument: for this reason.
“It is better that you think you are tricking me as for some reason you bother to do things like give me the conduct vote here and such.
So, let's say you're right and I'm delusional as somehow you play nicer than you otherwise would since I shut up about it.”
I’m thinking you meant this:
“It’s best you think you are tricking me: as this way you seem to give me some points.
Let’s just keep thinking I’m delusional - you behave better when I don’t harass you for it.”
As quite frankly deciphering what you meant is a bit of a crap-shoot.
Please review the Code of Conduct, while the help Center is mostly correct: the specific rules for allocation according to the voting code of conduct is:
“In order to award sources points, a voter must explicitly, and in the text of their RFD, perform the following tasks:
- Explain, on balance, how each debater's sources impact the debate
- A Directly evaluate at least one source in particular cited in the debate and explain how it either bolstered or weakened the argument it was used to support
-Must explain how and why one debater's use of sources overall was superior to the other's
-Mere appeals to quantity are not sufficient to justify awarding sources points.”
The code of conduct elaborates the detail of source allocafion here, and my decision for not awarding them adheres strictly to the code of conduct voting regulations - specifically relating to the first, second and third bullet points.
You can find it here: https://www.debateart.com/rules
It is a bit confusing, but the resources on the main page is a little out of date, the code of conduct takes precidence.
Sources are not awarded on quantity. If it was sheer volume of sources, or where the sources came from: pro would have won.
Unfortunately, I will not generally award sources when one side merely corroborates claims that are not particularly unreasonable; for me to get sources, you need to make one or more knock out points - that bolster your argument for the resolution which are then corroborated by a source in a way that reduces your opponents ability to argue against it.
I don’t either of those things were true here: if every factual claim you made are true, it wouldnt have proven the resolution, so no validation of that position helped you.
The last 16 times I have voted for you - it’s 12-3-1. I have voted you to win at a rate of 75%, - which is actually better than your win ratio. I’m voting you to win a higher percentage of the time than debates you have actually won.
The draw - there were 2 other votes someone else voted a draw, and someone else voted against you: so my vote was more in your favor than the decision. Out of the times I voted against you in these 16 last debates - one was the only vote (but another voter indicated they would have mostly voted the same way. Two other times were in a rap battle (where supa also voted against you), and a 2 for 2 against an EDM debate.
So not only do I vote for you at a better rate than your overall win rate (so by definition I’m doing better than average), over the last 16 times I’ve voted for you, but every time I’ve voted against you, someone else has too (or at least agreed)
The fact that you appear overly sensitive and appear to be misremembering facts, tells me that this is simply your unwillingness to accept your arguments were not as good as they should have been - that’s what I always vote on.
I voted against you because your arguments were either bad or non topical. The only real arguments on topic, that had any validity on the topic was that capitalism has innovation - which even if I accept this as true it doesn’t prove the resolution - and the idea that capitalism will deal with the problem at the last minute: this was partially refuted and cast into doubt by an argument in the shock doctrine you didn’t really respond to, and fundamentally undermines by the urgency and the fact that you never justified why “as late as possible” was unlikely to be “too late”, which was necessary for me to accept the argument.
You keep repeating these same errors of topicality repeatedly, you can either learn from the vote - or keep making the errors and being voted against.
Unfortunately - the reason for your anger and paranoia is your personal overassessment is your abilities rather than my underassessment of your arguments.
I vote on the debates in front of me.
If I wanted to vote against you, I wouldn’t have awarded conduct here, and would have dinged you on sources. You’d also be in 3rd right now - as I could have easily voted against you in multiple troll and actual debates against Type1, which would have massively harmed your current rating.
Fortunately for you, my motivations are voting on merits
Pro pointed out that capitalist governments seem to be easily controlled by billion dollar corporations - nothing said here refutes that by con
Con also neglects to provide a refutation to pros example both that innovation isn’t
Necessarily tied to capitalism (and it’s occurred in other systems), and that innovation from capitalism is mitigated by its inherent harm.
Pro round 4:
So pro points out that con argues capitalism will deal with the problem as late as possible: pro claims con concedes the debate (I don’t think this is literally true), and I feel he could have done a bit better to summarize how capitalism inherent last minute solution would be too late, but he points it out well enough to build on cons inherent lack of warrant.
Pro reaffirms the second pillar by pointing out the link between the necessity of government intervention - and how its previous failure shows capitalism likely can’t be harnessed - this makes a little bit more sense to me now with that clarification.
Con round 4. Con summarizes what has already been said.
As a result, pro clearly casts sufficient doubt on capitalism’s ability to deal with the issue. Cons arguments were mostly non topical, and what scant topical arguments were made seemed not to be unwarranted, and picked about by pro.
Saying this, I felt pro could have done better picking some of this apart. Though it can be hard trawling through so much irrelevance. Pro did just enough here, but if he were against a better opponent I feel this could have gone differently.
Arguments to pro.
All other points tied: I would have given pro sources has he sources shock doctrine - that was a great argument.
Conduct to con for the first round forfeit.
Cons whole rebuttal round points out the individual and specific complexity of attraction. Con points out that just pointing a list of things that woman find attractive doesn’t mean a woman would someone above average in all more attractive than someone exceptional in one - basically pointing out the situation is too complex to be boiled down.
Summary. I felt pro lost site of the specifics, and was mostly trying to argue that as women are attracted to multiple individual traits that more individuals traits Being good Are better than 1 big one.
The evolution argument was interesting but didn’t pass muster - as pro did not establish more than a theoretical relationship. If there was a caveat in the resolution to this effect, I may have reviewed this differently.
Con - on the other hand sufficiently muddied the water on this point, and detailed the complexity and the lacking justification in order to win. Enough doubt was introduced here to erode the burden of proof even in spite of the lack of overall warrant. At best this could be a tie.
Conduct: so, the BoP was on pro as clearly stated in the agreed description. I can’t accept R1 changes - as I didn’t even notice them Despite reading through multiple times, pro bickered about the BoP not being on him, and argues that I must hit him with a Conduct penalty for arguing pro has burden of proof when pro clearly states this was not the case in the description. I don’t view cons violation egregious - and he made up for it by waiving his round.
At this point I did come close to hitting con with a violation, but I feel the arguments points is sufficient - and It’s hard to judge whether the change was intentional. But it was tough.
All other points tied.
However, what I feel pro fails to do - is just the resolution as he defined, that it’s better to be all round good, than good at one specific thing. Pro doesn’t offer a justification that being a bit better in multiple examples on the list is more important that being much better in others.
Pro gives examples of athletes being exceptional AND above average (so matching both paradigm). But also mentions autistic savants, who are exceptional and below average (so failing to be relevant as per what I need to award a win.)
Cons rebuttal, is threefold that there are too many variables to track - that to not possible to say for shore:
Specifically con points out it’s hard to measure attractiveness and the impacts of each specific area, that pro cannot read minds to get more objective data, and sometimes it’s not always clear what women’s preferences always are (you don’t know what you don’t know).
I tend to agree with con on these grounds to be honest.
So: pro successfully refutes one part of cons argument: that you can’t tell. The scientific data pro provided I’m going to accept on its face, as he mounts a reasonable response to why his data should be accepted.
Throughout this round, what pro does is argue that his data is accurate and valid. The other relevant prong is that pro argues that the evolutionary interpretation would appear to indicate a broad strategy maybe best - but I don’t feel pro justifies why the theoretical examples apply to the real world - that requires data.
My main issue with pros argument - is that his main points in the opening round remain that women are attracted to individual traits - but pro offers no real argument to justify the impact of being much better at one thing - average in the rest vs a little above average.
As con made opening arguments, but skipped a round - I won’t view this as a violation (though pro should note that you don’t necessarily need acceptance here unlike DDO).
I will also point out pro states BoP is on him in the description - so I will view it as such as this is the description that con agrees to in the debate - and neither side argue that the description is invalid. I will view cons first round as his first reply in this RFD.
Pro is arguing that women are attracted by men who are all rounded, rather than specialized. I found the title a bit confusing, as it kinda changed in the description.
My main issue, is what constitutes the “good at one thing”. It’s not defined, and as human are normally a collection of traits it could be argued that to some degree each are measured on their all round holistic ability.
Because of this, it’s hard for me to pick what a win would look like. Pros autism savant point - is it the success that is not important, or empathy and social interaction - the collection - that is an issue. If that is the case, I feel that this would render this debate unwinnable by con.
Instead I have to take the position that pro must argue that being exceptional in one way and average in others is less attractive than being a bit above average in multiple aspects.
The first main argument he makes is evolutionary. While I think it would make sense from an evolutionarily stand point - I do not feel that this is sufficient - the reason is that pro doesn’t give me a reason to believe that because it makes sense in the context of evolution that this is what is happening in the real world - pro did not provide warrant for that connection.
Pro lists a number of attraction factors and provides some level of justification that woman are attracted based on these features.
BoP in debates such as this is normally shared you have to show your position is valid - and your opppnened has to also - with the winner decided primarily by who does the best in the face of your opponents argument.
As a result, you had a burden to show that according to the Bible, fatalism is valid: as I stated in my vote - I don’t feel that simply posting some scripture and stating “here are where the bible supports it” is sufficient on those grounds.
However, I don’t feel con did enough here to tip me over the edge to show a clear and unambiguous value. This may have been different had he placed the concession in more context, as I felt this undermines his core contention of suffering too much.
Pro would have won if he had focused more on pain and suffering free existence: it was too scant for me to award it solely on this - even though I liked the athument
Arguments: tied
Sources: this is more clear cut. Pro offered no sources. Con improved his warrant with sources in two ways:
By showing animals don’t suffer and don’t have a nervous system (the vice article
Citing a botanist - and the livekindly article which cited a number of interesting studies).
This served to undermine a key point pro made relating to plants being the same as animals and feeling pain - as pro used sources well to undermine his opponents primary contention, I feel this warrants source points.
Sources to con.
All other points tied: though be warned pro, I considered awarding the conduct point against you due the attitude. Try and keep it a bit more civil and respectful - it may have been a jokey style debate - but this is not always how it will come across.
After this pro goes off the rails a bit, and it is not clear the relevance of his position.
Final round:
Con/pro - there is a lot of crazy moralizing going on here - it is not clear how this fits into the resolution. The remainder of this round is mostly rehashing the points already made in the debate.
Summary:
So: the main issues here are as follows.
Con concedes. Con argues its sometimes okay to eat meat. This is a massive blow to his position. The only reason that I didn’t award the debate on the spot, is that pro didn’t call him on it.
Suffering: pro points out animals can be ethically treated, and do not have to suffer during their lives. Con dances around suffering, death, and what animals feels plants.
While con clearly sets the value for the debate on the principles of suffering, pro eroded successfully eroded this position:
If suffering relates to pain, then I side with pro - as animals can be treated humanely, and con doesn’t explain how an animal can be treated humanely, have a pain free life and death - and still be notionally “suffering”. If suffering isn’t related to pain - then I side with pro that animals count too. Cons argument from sentience was too little, too late - and appeared to muddy the water rather than clarify. Saying this though - pro did not do NEARLY enough to show me that the suffering of animals can be greatly alleviated other than one or two throw away lines.
My main issue with pro here is that he argues both from the lack of suffering angle, then repeatedly tries to hammer home that plants and cows are the same (con refuted), that it’s there is no moral harm in eating sentient animals, and this part is arbitrary (pro did not provide a great framework).
I could go two says in this - one is to award the arguments to pro on the grounds of suffering being alleviated with his plan, but I don’t feel it was sufficiently argued, and feels like a massive cop out technicality to award a win on these grounds.
While I agree with con about the plant/animal distinction, I felt the defence of death vs suffering was very poor here. I would not consider death on its own to be suffering other than what is produced by its cause - as animals will die whether we intervene or not: so I can’t buy this prima facia.
Pro round 3: pro does well to turnaround the death point - as if you make death the sole categorization for suffering as con does - it means that by his own definition plants suffer. (As suffering in this case is not related to pain, or having feelings).
The majority of pros points are mostly either comical (be careful pro - your straying into conduct area!), or reiteration of his original points about the meat industry.
Con r4:
Con here basically changes up, and draws the distinction of intelligence and sentience to delineate what meat is okay to eat. While this is subjective, it feels okay on its face - however it is very late in the game to change positions.
Pro r4: I side with pro about moving goal posts - so I’m not going to weight cons argument here as strongly.
Pro reiterates that con defined death as suffering regardless of pain felt. While I wouldn’t necessarily agree that this is quite on the level of special pleading, I feel pro successfully highlights that con is making arbitrary distinctions.
I am going to ignore pros viability argument - in these debates there is a level of fiat (it is assumed the plan can be enacted so as to discuss the merits rather than practicality).
R1: pro.
Pro offers the defence that eating anything is eating an organism. That due to plants being organisms, not wanting to eat meat makes and arbitrary distinction between animals and plants.
Pro invites con to give justification as to why we shouldn’t eat plants too.
R2: con. Con offers an objective distinction between plants and animals - namely the ability to feel pain. Con contends the major issue between animals and plants is the capacity for the former to experience suffering.
I particularly liked con pointing out that pro is engaging in an appeal to futility.
Con goes on - specifically talking about related harms, pesticides/veganism, however I will not assess these as topical as they appear outside the scope of the resolution.
Pro r2:
So pros position here, is that he isn’t defending the meat industry - I would agree with this, and this somewhat slides the BoP towards con for me. Pro has argued that animals can be eaten without suffering - an issue that is central to cons point.
Pro addressed the canabalism issue - specifically using illness as an example.
I feel pro has done a good job thus far to reframe the debate about eating meat, and undermines pros case relating to suffering.
Con r3. I felt con came off the rails a bit, while his argument thrown back at pro about humans eating sentient humans was a good way of reframing pros canibalism; my main issue is the con concedes it’s sometimes okay to eat meat for the purposes of food. In my view this concedes the whole debate.
Con contends that pro must support the meat industry - I don’t but this, as pro may well agree the status quo is not good - but doesn’t feel that removing meat completely is a solution.
Voting conclusion.
In the end Pro did not directly and causally link arrest to imprisonment. It is left implicit that the systemic issues with incarceration are as a product of arrest. I could have believed the link if the angle taken was related to guilty pleas and bail conditions - which I feel con could have made a good counter plan on (I would have liked con to have done this preemptively, but won’t hold it against him that he didnt - but pro doesn’t give a compelling link, so I have to reject the majority of his arguments
Benefits of arrest. Con didn’t do much at all here: but he did point out the necessity of police arresting individuals at the scene - the clear counter plan, and example plan in my view does enough to negate the majority of pros harms - whilst providing a small nominal benefit of arrest that I don’t believe was refuted.
The big thing for me is decriminalization. Pro himself argues for lack of prison sentencing and lack of arrests for minor crimes, and con clearly shows how this is tantermount to decriminalization, and emphasizes impact of victims. While pro disagree, broadly speaking his plan appeared to be to eliminate criminal records for both arrest and no prison time for crime. This is as close as you can get imo, and I have to side with con
The only point that i could have given to pro was related to racism and arrests. This is the only true harm pro states that is arrest related that maybe effected. I am tasked with weighing this against victims, and decriminalization - and so in my view the point is not strong enough to overcome the points con raises - as fundamentally in pros opening this doesn’t eliminate the issue - and cons counter offer plan sufficiently nullifies the harm.
As a result arguments to con
Recidivism/overcrowding. this seems again primarily related to imprisonment - with the exception that pro argues that arrest does get included in a criminal record. I must discount all of the imprisonment specific arguments.
Counter plan: cons counter plan is arrest but no imprisonment - this removes almost all of the issues presented and, imo is not the same as no arrest or imprisonment.
Round 2; con.
Kritik: I’m not buying this at all. I don’t feel that arguing the consequences of arrest is challenging the assumptions of the debate topic.
Ad hom: I’m going to reject this too, what pro said didn’t seem outside of the ordinary
Minor offences: I missed that this was defined by pro in the beginning, through his source. I don’t find it as cut and drop as con states (the sources include “can include”, and an example that includes class D felonies), but I would prefer running with the slimmer interpretation.
Decriminalization: con points out that pros objection here appears to be angling for full decriminalizafion - of these minor crimes. Re-reading pros rebuttal, this does seem to be the primary argument pro is making in context: no prison, no arrest. Con clearly justifies through victims why this shouldn’t be accepted.
I feel this covers the aspects of c3 which con didn’t cover elsewhere.
Round 3: in my view there was not anything new in this round that I have not already mentioned.
Con also points out the absurdity of the policy not being able to arrest and remove a perpetrator of a minor crime at the scene - to me this establishes a good core case for arrest.
Cons c1-2 seem to be echoing my point on arrest vs imprisonment. I will not go into details
C3: I will defer.
C4: con offers the counter plan of allowing arrest, but limiting the scope of imprisonment. This seems like a reasonable plan which does indeed seem to cover the majority of pros points with the exception of imprisonment without bail - con doesn’t make clear what’s going on here.
Round 2: pro.
Pro contends that there are more impacts from arrest other than the arrest itself. I can’t accept this without examples and context. Some generic “harm” that is unspecified is unweightable by me.
Pro contends that what constitutes minor crimes differs from that of con. Im going to see how this definition side of things plays out.
In the final observation - pro again seems to confuse arrest with imprisonment. Unless pro doesn’t provide me a knock out reason why I must accept the two as synonymous - I can’t accept this, ESPECIALLY i light of the counter plan.
Proportionality: given my response above, I can’t buy pros poaition here. He gives no real harm to weigh, and no clear link from arrest to imprisonment.
Arguments:
My major issue issue with this debate, is that it appears pro is confusing arrest with imprisonment. As a result, I cannot accept any of pros arguments that directly relate to imprisonment as a punishment as opposed to the arrest as topical unless con agrees (I haven’t read this far yet!)
So pro round 1:
C1a: appears to relate to bail, rather than arrest - I will accept this only if con doesn’t challenge
C1b: appears to be relating to imprisonment as punishment - not arrest. Not topical
C2a: seems again bail related (imprisonment pending trial), I will treat this like c1a.
C2b,c: these again seem non topical and related to imprisonent
C4: this seems again relying to how crimes should be punished rather than arrest. Non topical.
C3 seems topical: that preventing anyone being arrested for minor crimes, will stop minorities being targeted by police for arrest. However, it is ripe for a counter plan here.
Con R1:
Con starts with definitions, I am going to reject his argument that class D felonies and third degree rape are “minor crimes” in the context meant by this debate. It’s too much of a semantic argument, with not enough meat - however what I will do, is I will take into account the fact that we may not all agree on what a minor crime is. I will factor this into the arguments.
None of those items on the list were the cause of me awarding your opponent the win.
“why do you think I exempted God from requiring a creator?”
Because you said “This Entity (God) would be an uncaused Cause”
Hard to have a creator if you had no cause...
I literally spelt out what you need to do to win my vote - by proving fake news. If you want to ignore the logical problems with your position and namecall - be my guest.
If you want to go through the debate and not prove it - also be my guest. If RM doesn’t pick up on you asserting bad facts, then you can still win.
Take a stab at how likely you think that is, given where RM is on the leaderboard and given that it is impossible to underestimate how intelligent he is - especially at picking out subtle meaning and details from what people place in debates.