Ramshutu

Full forfeit

This is essentially a full forfeit - as Pro offers a single round of arguments, the abdicates the remainder of the rounds. Conduct goes to con. For pros forfeit.

For arguments - con raised several issues including the influence of Israel, manipulation of the US then points out the cost of the alliances could be better spent elsewhere. I don’t feel that this was particularly strong - but was unrefuted by pro. Pros opening round doesn’t list any actual specific benefits at all, merely stated he would go on to explain in further rounds (which he didn’t). Arguments to con too.

To start with, I must begin by cracking both pro and cons heads together for not defining God. That’s the first thing you need to do!

Pro. So, the main arguments.

To start with, both sides agree that the deistic god doesn’t exist - which reduces the claims down somewhat.

The primary claims made, are effectively that if God exists, we would have observed them in some way. This is based on the premise that God must adhere to the laws of physics. I think the argument behind this is a bit tenuous - but its cons job now.

God by definition - while I know what pro means, I can’t accept yet without more detail, but if not raised by con, I won’t mark you down for it.

Con starts off by pointing out pro conflates adhering to the laws of physics with logical coherence. That one may be logically coherent but be above the laws of physics.

For the wider point here, con argues that we can’t see or directly physical observe the laws of logic. Meaning that direct observation may not necessarily be a factor. This argument doesn’t feel right intuitively, as we do observe the laws of logic.

Con argues to support his point that there is a need for a lawgiver for both morality and physics.

For the issue of logic and physics - pro argues this is special pleading. I’m not on pros side on this one, the two things appear primarily facia different things - and I feel the onus is on pro to show they are the same. While I could but that God adheres to some sort of physics - that they are OUR physics in our reality, I feel is a burden that pro bears.

Likewise that claims of contradiction - I don’t feel is justified either. Con argues logic and physics are different things - you can’t call con out for contradicting himself when he’s only arguing in opposition to your own claims.

Pro does however make a good case for why God would should be observable - specifically if he interacts with space, matter and time, those effects should be measurable.

On the topic of where the laws came from - I felt pros answer was more of a non answer here. I think pro needed to hit this one head on, instead it felt more of a deflection.

On morality though, pro does much better - positing that evolution does a much better job of explaining morality in this context. Specifically that evolution of morality is beneficial as it removes factors that could be harmful to the species - I feel pro could have done more here, but he does enough.

Con goes on to excellently spot a key contradiction in pros claims - specifically claiming we can’t know properties of God - then listing the cases where pro claims the properties can be deduced. That was fairly brutal.

Saying that, con misses pros point on evolution, and doesn’t capitalize on the issue of logic vs the laws of physics.

Pro clarifies his mistake of wording here - I feel his clarification seems fairly sensible. Pro also points out how Con doesn’t deal with the evolutionary argument.

So R3 and we get the first definition of God from Con.

Con takes the gloves off here: and points out some flaws with pros position of God being subject to the laws of physics - specifically trying to wrap God in Naturalism artificially, and pointing out that logic is not subject to physics.

The morality argument is a bit more tenuous - I understand the argument, but the rejection of evolution as out of scope misses the point of the argument imo.

Now round 4. Pro starts describing what defining God into existence is. Now while I’m not a fan of cons technique - pro is effectively defining God out of existence.

Q&A:

“I absolutely believe that if God exist, then God will ultimately be detectable by human technology when it peaks.”

I feel this undermined pros argument - predicated on being detectable NOW - rather than detectable at some point.

Other than this, the Q&A is almost impossible to weigh as arguments, as the points don’t fit into the classical argument structure up to this point. They were good questions, but did not push me either way.

Assuming share BoP here: my main issues are that I felt pros argument that God must adhere to the laws of physics a bit tenuous - pro was as much defining God out of existence as Con was defining him into existence.

With the technology question and questions surrounding physics vs logic - I felt con did enough to poke holes in this central position. Without this I don’t
Feel pro can establish his case.

Conversely though, I don’t think con did enough to establish the converse either. The strongest argument from morality was severely harmed by the evolution argument.

At the end of all of this, though while I was leaning towards pro, I don’t think there’s enough for me to click left or right: it was a good debate - without enough real argument flow to make the call.

All points tied.

Full Forfeit

R1 is average other than this:

“You should turn tail and run before I'm done have my fun. 
Cause when I'm finish this blunt.  I'm donning my logical gun. 
And shooting your fallacious dispositions right in the face son. 
That's a flawless victory scored gracefully in phase one. “

Rm started well with “Fuck it, I'm goin' raw, hammer this bitch, like Art o' War,
Sun Tzu, Bonapa-rte Ali infused with Thor,” then the insults went off the rails and seemed to wander off into bizarre land.

The remainder is okay.

R2: pros insults are clever - I like the chess references but aren’t zingers. Rm again starts out with a strong opening line, and appears to degenerate into the dart rap battle equivalent of mumble rap. It’s seems geared up to make a clever rhyme, rather than to make sense as an insult.

R3 was more fun “You've been in my trap all along, you're a dangling rat. 
I actually got you to change your entire rap format. 
You gave up ground like you were a contentious doormat. 
I logically reduced you by simply projecting your poor stats. “

A mediocre rhyme combo section to be fair - it fell kinda flat before this:

“None of your imaginary pagan friends are coming to help thee. 
Your mythological dependency is probably not healthy. 
It hasn't given you the power that your crave and you're not wealthy. 
You might think your raps are subtle but you're really not stealthy.”

Not the funniest line ever told, but ups over the average of this debate so far.

RMs final round was all “I banged your mum” type insults that were the same as RM always is, using the word herbivore again. The last round is just the same as the others. No punchy insults, nothing really that interesting other than the umbilical cord reference.

I felt that WIRs quality was lower than some of his other rap battles, not as much punch as before, but RM just hasn’t found his form. He took on 18 concurrent debates - and the lack of time and effort spent shows.

This one was closer than other, so I’m not going to award arguments - but just points for word play to WIR, don’t feel that the victory is worth more than 2 points.

Conduct: con clearly doesn’t argue in good faith - in this case I side with pro. Con simply attempts to make a semantic play for the points, which clearly wasn’t the debate that pro intended to have. However pro gets snippy and petulant - and this makes things a bit closer - but I view this sort of semantic knit picking as particularly odious.

Arguments: the resolution is clearly a bit tongue in cheek, and if it was clearly spelled out as a resolution as such I may have considered cons argument as valid. However cons semantic attack is too loosely coupled to the intent of the debate and my reading of the resolution for me to accept it unless con gives me a clear harm in terms of accepting what the resolution meant. As I can imagine a series of plausible methods of victory for con, and has pro took on burden of proof - I can’t see any reason not to accept the resolution as I would reasonably interpret it. Specifically that con is talking about deconversion.

This means con doesn’t offer a valid argument against the resolution.

At this point, i look at the debate description, then look at pro accepting burden of proof.

I look at the arguments, talking about the Old Testament being the “most common cause of conversion”, which doesn’t seem to be cover the specifics of the resolution either.

I also look at the justification - and feel that pro merely claims that the Old Testament is the most common cause - and doesn’t appear to warrant the claim that the Old Testament specifically is the not common cause. If the argument appealed to intuition I would have granted this as burden of proof.

So much as I hate awarding points to semantic trickery like this - pro didn’t do enough to meet the minimal burden of proof he set for himself, and as such I am forced to award this to RM by default.

Pro points out in his opening round the detail about how conspiracy theories can be generally thought of to be unlikely and provides key support as to why they are unlikely - in his opening round he explained issues like the government silencing everyone by the guy on YouTube who has evidence.

At no point did com address any of these: cons approach was primarily to list the “evidence” for conspiracy theories, and use marginal explanations and limited arguments to try and show that there is something to them.

Imo this misses the point: as pros opening round somewhat explains the issue with this sort of list of evidence in his opening round. Con didn’t make an attempt to show why conspiracy theories are generally likely by offering a generalized argument - but to effectively attempt to list all the individual prices of evidence for them - which falls far short of being convincing unless he also offers a slam dunk argument to show these conspiracies are definitely true even in the face of the issues pro raised in R1.

As such, with pros opening round unrefuted, and con offering no contextual or generalized defense of conspiracy theories: arguments go to pro.

Conduct: con made well over 50 individual assertions, that he provided with little logical reasoning to defend his claims - mostly in the form of (this is true - therefore my conclusion is true). This is a flagrant attempt at a Gish Gallup. Cons expectation for pro to refute all this “evidence” and to overwhelm his opponent without providing detailed arguments or reasoning is clearly grossly unfair and detrimental to reasoned debate. For this reason pro gets Conduct points too.

Pro starts off with a fairly reasonable debunking of solipsism. Firstly as a proof that reality is real (even if your not perceiving it correctly), the second is that other sentient minds indistinguishable from his own exist.

Cons primary counter argument specifically relevant to the debate premise appears to be that for things to be true, they have to be true to you; and as a result, you can’t wholly tell if more than you exists - as you existing is the only thing that can be established.

Pro starts off with picking our specific off-the-cuff claims con made, about the nature of reality. He asks con to prove that he lives in a simulation, and whether it’s a delusion (he points out if it’s consistent, it can’t be a delusion). Imo these points are side tracks.

Con rebuttal here drops a major point: who made the simulation? Without an ultimate maker isn’t there infinite regress? This seems on it face paradoxical.

The second rebuttal point, which becomes the thread underpinning the rest of this debate is the role of knowledge.

Specifically con points out that you can know that other minds within this universe exist - because knowledge is based on observation rather than certainty. It is more of a scientific approach that once you start accurately describing reality - you can form knowledge that other minds exist.

Cons reply - seems more fixated on the role of truth and certainty. Specifically arguing that we can’t tell for certain that reality exists - and only that we ourselves exist.

In my opinion this misses the point of cons opening and secondary argument: leaving these points unrefuted. Namely: that reality is consistent meaning that you can test it, measure it - and that forms the basis of the knowledge you can have about that reality: and that whether reality is as we observe or something else. Those measurements still indicate that there our other minds.

I don’t think Con is wrong here. Just that he’s arguing over pros main point. Pro reiterates the consistency of reality - and both these arguments in his follow up. There is more here - which goes into more detail about brain in vats, but in most cases they are just reiterations of the previous point.

Cons reply here - was actually more of a non response. He acknowledges the consistency of reality, but fails to target the conclusion pro draws from it: and imo the final rounds follow this same form.

My initial reading of this debate was skeptical about pros position: as he took on more burden of proof than he needed to. However, rather than this debate being fought on the battlefield of reality, it appears pro made the battle about knowledge and what it means to “know” something.

Pros case boils down to us knowing other minds exists through observation, even if we don’t necessarily know what that reality is.

In an epistemological sense, I don’t feel that con grasped the implications of this line of attack : pro effectively pushed con into the position where he was required to refute empiricism - which he did not.

As a result, pro did enough to actually show I know other minds exists in the same way I know gravity exists. Cons response is mainly aimed at requiring knowledge to be certain to be knowledge - and he doesn’t do enough to either establish this, or refute cons argument about practical knowledge in reality.

As a result, pro set a premise where I know other minds exists, because knowledge is based on my observations of reality - rather than having to be absolutely certain: and cons didn’t make much of an argument in this reality that for me to be able to know something, it must be certain.

There may have been able to be more of a Clash about the intent of knowledge, or making a special case about philosophical knowledge in this case, but as there wasn’t, I have to award arguments to pro.

Full Forfeit

Full forfeit

Full forfeit

This is basically a full forfeit with con forfeiting all but one round.

Pros major issue about psychologists being able to study the tapes for understanding and research purposes was unrefuted by con - this is a major unconverted benefit which appears to be an excellent reason even were I to buy all cons other claims.

Arguments to pro.

Conduct to pro for the forfeit.

There is not enough detail here to cast a vote either way. While I admire your enthusiasm of both sides. Facts should be presented, you should provide sources to warrant your claims, and you should try and explain how your different values and arguments contrast.

This seemed to be like both sides were giving a short, undirected opinion at each other, more depth is needed.

I thought wrick had slight better rap, as type 1 had a better showing than normal but went downhill fast, this wasn’t WIRs best battle though - but will give bonus points for type 1 running away.

I can only give a marginal victory though. As type 1 had a few good disses in R1, but the second and third stanza of WIR just beat it out (lol at the trump Mexican bride bit)

The last battle I spelt out what I like and don’t in these, I won’t go over it again:

“I should have killed before, but I thought only a beating was in order. 
This time I'll jack your as proper and leave you naked at the border.”

Love this, context is good -spelling bad, but the joke and the rhyme gel.

The middle kind fizzled a bit, there were a couple of bits that were okay, but I vote on combos :)

“How can your audience like your work when they fall asleep first. 
In a way you're like me, cause your gift is a curse. 
Being clever don't matter if you can't appeal with a verse.
But I learned my lesson and if you don't your fate will be worse.”

Love the opening of this, it was cutting - but the remainder was just adequate. Need that first bit at the end.

RM:

Telling my I'm clever, and then saying 'whatever, if you can't appeal with a verse',
Is like loving a nation's weather and saying 'fuck your windspeed', bitch you think it hurts?

So, this is the issue I have with some of RMs recent raps. It seems like the effort was on trying to find something in the middle of the sentence to rhyme with clever rather than having the insult make sense. The simile is bad.

First/cursed/hearse again feels forced and just bottom shelf insults. Basically rapping that your great and he’s going to die.

And this:
“Cause you're doomed to forever get better at repetitive delicate terrible bars I rip to shreds; 
It's imperative that your peril is inevitable, see a therapist you 'special fool'.”

Just feels all over the place.

R2.

First stanza I loved the goku reference. And the dime willing to invest was just great.

The remainder there was nothing stand out, but only the “pun gent” line fizzled imo. The rest was just just okay.

RM:

Saying you're competitive, like which dude here's the better bitch?
Fuck off get stung in nettles, Wrick, I'm that straight from the bottom, make my tea on stove; top-ranked debater, I'm gettin' rich,

This just didn’t sting or gel.

“Tellin' your structure's clever, whatever my flow's wetter, stitch your open wounds over broken bones, heart ceases, pass-out seizure as you get an epileptic fit,”

And again, this just seems to be saying he’s injured, it doesn’t seem contextually insulting.

“Writhe in pain as you strain your brain to cope with no anaesthetic, if you thought I'd hesitate at your pathetic parade of 'gave' instead of 'given' bullshit grammar-for-rhyme trades you're as inutile but self-adoring as a 2019 ISIS terrorist.”

Ao the parade / gave / given / trade was a neat rhyme - but let down by the poor overall insult.

R3:

First stanza forgettable.
Second stanza - first line is funny and topical, but the rest is just okay.
Third stanza was hilarious commentary on RM explaining.
Fourth was okay, nothing special.

Fifth - boom, that was just amazing. In my opinion this was the best part of the battle, continuous repeated rhymes for added impact and flair.

Final stanza kinda let it down though.

RM: “Shit, why don't you go 'n' sit in hope the cow got a flu, so you have something to beef with that doesn't let madman leave you six feet underground, fool!”

I like the play on words here, but for the rest, there’s little topical or relevant to his rap. There’s a few references and turn backs (the less is more), but it just seems more of the same.

In the final round, the insults were a bit better : but the rhymes were patchy. With a few more fizzles (combatant, savageness): there weren’t any real cutting or hard insults again though.

Because of this: I felt pro was substantially better in this battle. The Insults were better, and much funnier. The rhymes were okay, with a few knock out rhymes mentioned above.

In terms of points - 7 points would be a knock out, 1 would be a marginal win. I would say this is in the middle, so will go with 3 points.

It’s hard to boil this down to the issues that are specifically different between the two sides.

Both sides appear to acknowledge that jail time shouldn’t necessarily be set for drugs, that misusing drugs cause social harm and harm above the level of individuals (such as crimes).

Con appears to be arguing for a scenario with illegal drugs and less harsh penalties - and pro appears to be arguing for the same but with drugs legal.

Both sides need to clearly demonstrate to me what bad things will happen if drugs are legalized (con), or what bad things happen with drugs being illegal that won’t happen if drugs are legal (pro).

To start off with: Con almost completely nulifies every benefit pro listed by agreeing that drugs - whilst remaining legal - should not be treated as harshly.

Pro specifies that legalization would eliminate dealers - and that harmful drugs wouldn’t be sold by dispensaries - a point that con points out would likely not eliminate dealers. Con clearly show the harm here - that lack of appropriate legislation may hinder the states ability to response in these cases.

Con elaborates on specific harms by showing a social impact of drugs, and impact to those around them - but this appears to be an implicit argument that having the drug illegal eliminates these harms: which he didn’t support. Con could have argued that drugs remaining illegal would reduce their use and impact - but he didn’t. I don’t believe pro disagrees with the harms con outline , but feels this is misuse and should not be treated as a legal issue. A part of his case is arguing that being illegal gives the ability to offer assistance and deal with the problem.

This wasn’t the sum of what was said, but there was a lot of talk of morality, whether drugs harm the individual or a wider group, and others that I don’t feel we’re particularly useful in eliminating harm.

Given that both plans were almost the same, the main elaborated difference here was that in cons plan, the illegality is used to provide help, and target drug dealers. Pros argument that dealers would be eliminated was well undermined by con.

The criteria for this debate appears to be who has the better plan. As the plans are mostly for the same, I feel the additional benefits con listed were *just* enough to make it seem like a better plan, and to effectively demonstrate a clear harm of pros plan. As a result, while I could have potentially awarded this as a draw I think dealer aspect, and the aspect around forcing treatment raised by con were sufficient to tilt the needle his way.

Arguments to con. All other points tied.

Affordability

Pro argues it’s cheaper. Initially con argues that 7.75 is less than 7.35 - which is odd. There doesn’t seem to be any argument that it’s cheaper as a whole. Cons argument is that it’s only cheaper for some people, and doesn’t appear to fully thrash out or explain what that means or how he knows that.

1-0 pro.

Universality

Pro argues healthcare would be available to everyone. Cons counter starts off trolling - indicating that the planet is overpopulated - I’m going to reject that one right now as wholly irrational

Con also argues that it private healthcare produces more choice, and is better quality. He also argues that you don’t want equal access (with his hobo example). Con doesn’t provide any warrant for this last point - or any real reason for me to accept why treating both individuals rather than just one is beneficial.

Pro argues that the choice for standardized medicine is better - people aren’t restricted to coverage and could go to other locations. He also points out innovation isn’t due to privatized medicine but other factors. Cons response here really starts becoming speculative with a series of what ifs that pro deals with by using Canadian example. Con launches into a rant about wealth redistribution that pro mostly bats away with pointing out that this is what taxes are.

Pro rounds this off by pointing out the issues with access, bankruptcy, etc that indicate that there is lack of benefit in the current system.

This one really boils down to con asserting that the rich shouldn’t pay for the poor. And poor people shouldn’t give any access to healthcare if they can’t afford it. Pro points out that tax is effectively doing the same thing. While I would liked to have seen a better defense by pro - con doesn’t really give any deep argument to sink my teeth into. The harms pro shows clearly outweigh the simple loss of cash to people who have money that con indicates.

Pro 2:0

Quality. Pro argues life expectancies indicate healthcare isn’t a barrier - and argues that there’s no evidence that socialized medicine causes a lowering of quality. Pro does offer a contrast between death and wait times for some procedures. Pros examples indicate fully national healthcare systems have equal quality

Cons seems to be mainly to cast doubt on the conclusions without really offering anything to tell me that the healthcare system is poorer in nationalized systems.

Cons argument merely serve to break the link between all statistics and the quality of healthcare. Pro seems to be showing that countries don’t have a significant impact when on national healthcare and that’s good enough for me. Con can’t simply say all the cases where it appears better are due to other factors, and all the cases where it appears worse are due to the system. Con doesn’t do more than muddy the water.

Pro 3:0

Arguments to pro.

Full forfeit

Conduct to pro for the forfeit.

Arguments. While both sides gave me reasons why one is better, neither side really gave me any framework to determine who was right. It’s a common problem - but essentially part of the argument should be what constitutes being better, and why.

My issue here, as a result, is that both sides gave reasons as to why one was better than the other: but any attempt to weigh this would be completely arbitrary without a framework - especially considering the arguments being made where themselves subjective (such as being chilled - or that best is more completely matching the genre).

Rules: One must accept my given definitions of racism, and provide BoP that Trump has said or done racist things.”
Pro clearly states the rules of the debate are that con must show that Trump has done racist things. The racist things con mentions are clearly uncontested by pro, and pro simply attempts to backpeddle on the rules of tbe debage by changing the goalposts.

I am sympathetic to one debater changing or challenging the rules during a debate in the following scenarios:

- it can be shown that there is a clear harm to either debater if the rules are accepted as is (IE: the rule makes the debate logically unwinnable)
- the rule is obviously being applied in a way opposite or contrary to the way a regular person would interpret the rules. (IE: the rule is being used in a way contrary to its intent) and thus needs to be clarified.
If neither of these things are true here - pro does not show that the rules were misinterpreted, or that the interpretation of the rules makes the debate resolution unfair - I am forced to judge the debate on how a regular person would interpret the rules.

I am of the view con must show that Trump has done racist things to negate the resolution as per the stipulated rules. He has done this, by citing an extensively sourced example of Trumps racial discrimination in the 1960//70s. Pro does not contest these things happened, nor that Trump was responsible - merely that they don’t count. As shown above - these do count according to pros own rules. Pros only response is to present a short list of all the not racist things Trump has done, even if true - this doesn’t negate that Trump has done racist things - which is the condition for victory as specified by the rules.

While con didn’t waive the final round as stipulated - pro effectively forfeited two rounds - then attempted to simply change the rules in his final round.
The forfeits here are much more series than cons final round clarification (he made no new arguments), and the attempt to argue con should be held to a different set of r

Firstly - please try and maintain consistent formatting : it makes my job much easier!

For abortion debates - normally the only important argument is the discussion around what rights an unborn child should have, why, and how this can be measured - these are all normally boiled down to arguments concerning “person hood” or “humanhood”.

The remainder of the discussion about the morality and generalized utility of abortion is often just talking over one another’s disagreement of this basic fact. If I agree that an unborn baby does not deserve to be treated as a person - then abortion is moral - or not if it does.

So this is the part I will focus on - and unless this is firmly established one way or another - I won’t deal with other arguments either way.

So let’s begin!

Pro: pro argues that the treatment of a fetus as less than human is due it not being sentient, conscious or being able to feel pain.

Cons states that babies are not fully conscious and are not born with autonomy.

Pros counter here with the following quote was excellent: “This is the same reason why we don't value micro bacteria, as micro bacteria has no intelligence and no sentient, this is why as a society we've come to the conclusion that micro bacteria cells aren't worth saving. “

Cons argues that consciousness and the ability to feel pain change and can change during our lives - (like his grand mother).

Con argues that the “potentiality” of a fetus renders it murder.

Con argues that there is more to humanity than those things - there is an appeal to the universe here - that we’re lucky to be here, and no one should be derived of that right.

Pro argues that just being knocked unconscious doesn’t mean there is not a response to pain.

There’s some talk about the meaning of life, con talks about the relative value of different types of life

For potentiality - pro argues that if the potentiality argument applies then why not masturbation. Pro asks what is it that gives life its value.

Out of all of this, what pro does well, is provide me a good reason why I shouldn’t necessarily treat an unborn child as having all the same rights as a person. The appeal to microbes together with sentience showed to me that there is a key difference that allows us to treat life differently based on how what it is and what it does: if an embryo is functionally equivalent to something we treat differently - why not treat it differently.

The only real argument from con was relating to potentiality - and in my view what con was missing is a clear line between when potential is just potential - and when it makes something equivalent to a full human. Pro pointed this out, after some prompting.

What thus meant, is that con primarily gave reasoning to support his position based on what appeared to be arbitrary and subjective determinations. Where as pro used more specific comparative examples.

Out of this, pro did not show that the unborn had no rights at all - but gave me a baseline of how to view where those rights are.

Reading through the arguments provided - cons primary arguments are all predicated on his position that unborn children are not simply blobs of cells”, and that they deserve protection due to the rights established by the arguments I mentioned, and as I do not feel this was established by con - most of cons objections to the 5 month limit fall away as not established.

Con does raise some practical issues with abortion: specifically related to trauma - specifying that regret is present at a rate of 31%, and 11% being prescribed medication. Together with an increased risk of psychosis. Con would have done MUCH better had he gone into much greater detail here and broke down the sources and the outcome - without this, it’s almost a throwaway accusation without any detail on the harm caused - this meant pros response comparing it to the outcomes of pregnancy sufficiently muddied the water for me to not accept it.

As a result Arguments to pro - all other points tied.

I felt both sides had a lot of rhymes that didn’t really fizz too well, with insults that didn’t seem particularly topical or innovative. I need something a little more interesting or funny that. “I’m awesome, your dumb” to vote on these. There we’re a few topical insults - captain jack for example - in the opening round, but most of the rest made me groan.

It was all pretty even back and forth until the final round: I don’t know whether to assign con points - or a councillor - it was messed up, weird and hilarious! Intestinal tangulation was a particularly interesting rhyme.

On these grounds, I would have assigned con one or two points if this was a 7 point system - but I have to assign a winne - and so that’s con here.

In the first round, pro manages to offer some basic arguments in favour that everything is made up of particles. This fulfills his initial burden of proof.

The rest of the debate revolves around examples that con gives relating to things in the universe that are made up of particles.

1.) fields

This was probably the best part - basically talking a lot about wave particle duality. And the nature of quantum theory. A stand out quote here in round 2 from con was:

“How would the particles interact at a distance without a medium or something else connecting them?”

I think pros responses get lighter and lighter on this, his round 3 appears to deviate towards hand waving. Con doesn’t address the specific claims but does drill home the issues with particle interactions and explaining that particles are just the description used for probabilities and continuous waves.

Pros seems to admit he is unable to explain particle interaction, and at this point there is mostly just a back and forth.

Pro is arguing that everything is a particle - con that it’s a wave - ironically neither side fully realizing that this is the whole point of quantum theory!

2.) Quantum strings

Con offers the examples of quantum strings, as strings not particles. There is little challenge to the proposition itself, mostly challenge of wording - that strings are themselves fundamental particles.

This really becomes a semantic battle over what pro meant by particles - and whether strings would count under this description.

3.) abstracts

Con starts arguing about abstracts being not made of particles. The strategy was mostly to ridicule pros argument about abstracts, and give a couple of examples of paintings and spacetime.

If con wanted to nail pro to the wall - space time was where he could have done it. However the argument here fell too far short for me to grant it. Pro was mostly dismissive and just argues space time was an abstract - though could have been nailed on it.

Arguments summary:
In my view con does not press the advantage on waves or space time enough to win. On abstracts and quantum strings, I felt pro clearly had the better of con. Pro raised a couple of great contentions about quantum waves - that did enough to cast doubt on in he contention, but not enough to prove it in his favor.

As a result: I must award arguments as a draw.

Conduct: the conduct here was disrespectful throughout. Both sides had a part to play, so I won’t award it one to one side: but I will say that pro was worse, and I came close to awarding Conduct to con.

All points tied.

Full forfeit

Full Forfeit

Full Forfeit.

Full forfeit.

Full forfeit

1.) pro must outline what the analysis of capitalism is by Marx (he only vaguely does this).
2.) pro must show this analysis matches the reality of actual capitalism (he barely - if at all does this).

Con points out that pro hasn’t established his position - and I agree. Therefore I cannot award arguments to pro. However con has to make a case also that marx was not accurate - this was marginal only by con. Con argues that the objections Marx raised are issues with humans in general not with capitalism.

As he mostly just asserts these, just as he accuses pro of doing - I have scant reason to rule in cons favor either. As a reader I’m left with not knowing whether Marx was mostly accurate or not - so I’m forced to award arguments as a draw.

Conduct - I normall award points automatically for the forfeit - but as con was petulant, and didn’t raise an argument in round 1 - this balances out, so I am forced to award conduct as a tie.

Interesting debate.

This debate was fairly tactical, with con actually making a pretty decent counter plan.

The only difference between the two positions is effectively that pro feels that women shouldn’t be shamed for being topless, and con feeling that they mostly shouldn’t, but the ability to do so should still not be precluded - as shaming serves a valid purpose.

Jumping in: this is a debate about whether social control through shame is valid. Cons argument is that exercising social control via social norms is acceptable.

Pros main argument - is effectively that social norms are arbitrary and subjective - and tantermount to bullying. A primary point made, which I feel most relevant is that if there was some way that control over individuals was objectively necessary for moral reasons - which this is not.

My main issue is that much of cons argument is talking about the social repercussions and appeal to our own sensibilities : in particular social situations as in courts, no shoes - shorts - or service. In my view, however, I don’t think con does enough to tie these requirements to shame. While I can accept pros arguments that shame is a mechanism of control - I can’t buy that his examples of control are or should be enforced by shame, which is mostly what pros final round convincingly argues.

As a result, arguments to pro.

Conduct to pro for the forfeit.

Arguments.

This is a good old fashioned definitional argument. It mostly comprises of both sides covering the definitions

1.) idiosyncratic

Con argues that as there are 2.3bn Christians, the belief cannot be idiosyncratic. Pro argues that it can be considered idiosyncratic to christianity. Con argues that the definition used by pro is being applied far too broadly - and that other definitions clearly imply that 2.3bn people believing the same thing is not “unusual”.

I think con did better on this point, if felt like pro was very much stretching the definitions used.

2.) contradicted by reality.

Con has two main thrusts - that in Christian majority countries the reality is christianity. The second is that the religious believes are nominally unfalsifiable so they can’t contradict reality. I am not going to consider cons argument against atheism - even if I accept it, it doesn’t prove or refute the resolution so I would consider it non topical.

Pros response is to point out some claims are falsifiable and where they have they have been falsified - and specifically lists a series of the more major ones. I also particularly like the collective delusion argument - for me this leads me to believe that the definition of “accepted reality”, is more rooted in objectively demonstrable reality, rather than any false constructed reality shared by many.

Con raises a definition objection here that pro is arguing against his own definition - I felt pros definition or collective delusion was somewhat more convincing than an appeal to the dictionary - however pros argument that the literal biblical beliefs are not commonly held by even “most”
Christians. This negates much of the falsification pro was raising.

3.) Christianity is explicitly excluded from delusion.

Con cites some specific diagnostic criteria, while pros response is to outline a series of whacky behaviour (speaking in tongues, believe they have witnessed miracles. This point ties in with a few others I will cover in a second.

4.) Magic.

A big part of this debate was characterization of miracles, about the violation of natural law. I feel that this is where pro did a little better. While I feel the term magic was a little bit ad hom, he did a good job of covering the seeming “magic” in miracles based on core Christian beliefs (such as the resurrection), and did well in my view to paint them as absurd - cons primary response was what felt like a shady non response - talking about magic only as an apparent influence: in my view if explliarmus worked in the real world - I would categorize this as magic.

Conclusion.

I’m going to start with the most broad definition of this debate resolution - that many or most Christians are deluded - and believe in whacky and irrational claims.

Even If I start here - I feel pro falls short on two points:

A.) That enough Christians hold this irrational belief. I feel pro relied too much on implying that all Christians hold these beliefs in the way he claims.

B.) That the belief is inherently held irrationally - rather than just a belief that isn’t paid too much attention - to the point we could consider it irrational.

IMO con was sufficiently good to prevent pro from establishing even the most limited form of the resolution - and I believe pro was a victim of his own narrowly defined resolution.

Arguments to con: all other points tied.

Full forfeit

Full forfeit.

Arguments.

Just to be clear here for everyone:

I am looking for funny insults. I will always prefer imaginative disses that make me laugh over calling someone a cuck. Forced rhymes that do not appear to have a valid context will lower your chances of winning, as will examples of rhyming fizzles which feel too forced and not close enough. Flow is okay, but I’m going through your rap in my head, so most of the time the rap flow is simply how easy it is for me to pick up, and will never beat out insults.

Overall: Pro was much more simplistic until round 2. Cons issue is that while he has the flow and the more complex structure, he strikes out and fizzles a number of rhymes, with a substantial number just feeling so forced they harm his rap.

Words like implore and abhor - in my opinion - just feel like trying to complete the rhyme, whilst feeling shitty and out of place.

Saying it that, while I prefer pros rap by far, it was fractionally more simplistic, and while it didn’t fizzle as often there were still bad points - I don’t feel pro deserves to win by six points in total - the disses and word play were better - but the rest of it was fairly balanced.

Sources/Conduct: this is disses and word play. To be honest - I treat these as part of the same category. If a diss doesn’t rhyme, it’s terrible, and the ability to use word play to form disses are strongly linked as part of the battle itself, so I’m going to deal with them together.

Pros disssa was more relevant here throughout, he’s witty - with context and made me chuckle a couple of times with the following lines:

“You're a Solipsist, So you can't even argue with yourself.”
“Imma do this Hitchens style and crush you bottom to Top. 
“I'm like gravity bitch, there ain't a beet I can't Drop.”
“You make appeal to tradition fallacies, Just a shallow deflection. 
You might deny that you like my flow, but you can't hide your erection. “
“Your raps are too drawn out, learn to write more succinctly
You're writing for you instead of sending a message distinctly”

The interplay with the disses and context, using debate phrases and terms together in the rap battle was much better than cons.

While RM launched some disses, they all felt middle of the road, forced or lacking in context. The closest it felt Rm got was “You “R” a “Peepee” and you smell of shit, look at the title of this; learn to spell a bit,” it felt like he missed a major opportunity to land a blow.

Grammar: so WIR starts of with just a shade more than 1 rhyme per line - Rational has higher - at around 2 and 3, but I discounted fizzle failures like “predator” and evil/devil/rebel. WIR ramped it up in R2 to 2 rhymes per line, and in RMs final round, his rhymes per line drop to 1. The important part of this is that RMs lines are generally much longer. Without counting words and rhymes (I started in round 1 counting 19 - then stopped due to time - I’m not counting them any more), the fizzles, the longer lines and the good R2 vs bad R3 gives me the impression that WIR landed more rhymes per word, but it wasn’t obviously titled extremely to one way or another.

Pro offered a reasonable starting point for why the police police are necessary. Cons counter is initially to try and change the debate topic, then amounts to little more than assertion in the final round.

The idea that police sometimes go to far was intuitive and reasonable: and while minimal - no argument at all was offered by con prior to a final round that pro was unable to reply to. As a result, arguments must go to pro.

Conduct to pro also due to cons forfeit of round 1.

Full forfeit by con.

Sorry for being the last minute. This has been one of my lower priority debates - that suddenly became high priority! I’ve ready it about 28 times individually over the last month lol!

So starting off, pro does a good job of framing the issue as public good vs individual rights.

Pro also sets up a number of interesting examples of different cases where liberty vs public good, has come out on the side of the latter.

That’s sets up the debate well for me, giving me a clear idea of what this issue is about, and how to weigh it.

What pro goes on to do is an excellent explanation of why vaccination protects the public health - specifically by describing why someone being vaccinated or not has an impact on other people - specifically the concept of herd immunity.

The impact to other people is also quantified with the health risks of the diseases.

I don’t believe con challenges the facts of infection in this debate that I can see: so I will take these as uncontested until I read more.

Given this, pro gives me enough to show that the harm inflicted by not being vaccinated clearly overrides the impact from personal choice.

So, on to cons counter argument:

Con main approach appears to be to argue that just imposing a mandate doesn’t increase the amount of vaccinations.

It appears con implicitly concedes that more vaccines are good, and primarily just attempts to argue that it can’t be shown that a mandate will be effective.

Con cites a number examples to support his position where a mandate was ineffective, and a lack of a mandate was effective.

Pros counter was not only to pick apart the examples: and show things were not as pro claimed - including Slovenia - which pro showed actually did have higher vaccination rates.

Pros main thrust for effectiveness was related to the tax strategy to enforce the mandate, which in my view pro appeared to explain exceptionally well.

A large portion of cons counter was related to compulsory vaccination not being the same as mandated vaccination - I feel it’s up to con to show how the results of one are inapplicable due to the substance of the differences given that pro points out that while there are differences - these are mostly as one extends the other. Given the tax argument though, I don’t really feel this argument holds much sway any more.

The main points I took here are that it’s essentially agreed that having more vaccinations is a benefit, and the taxation argument from pro was sufficient in my view to reasonably conclude it will induce additional uptake. This was well summarized in round 4 by pro.

I felt that cons argument relating to the mandatory vs compulsory was appeared to be somewhat splitting hairs - and it wasn’t entirely clear what I was intended to take away from it as a voter: the two are not the same but one is mostly an extension: given that pros mostly established via the taxation argument that his policy will lead to more vaccinations, its not entirely clear to me the point of this.

If pro wanted to point out a key difference to show the difference would cause a unique and substantial harm, or that a benefit of one would not apply I could analyze this, but to be honest - this whole line mostly felt like a side track whose relevance wasn’t wholly clear to me.

In terms of backlash - I side with pro that con has to provide a demonstrable reason why a substantial backlash would occur - and more specifically describe what the harm of that backlash would be. I agree with pros treatise in the 3rd round that con provides mostly speculative arguments as to why it would be rejected, the legal aspect of it, in my view, would be covered by pros fiat - the same goes for whether states will enforce them.

Cons example of Italy was well batted away with pro showing vaccination went up - despite being popular.

I would agree with pro here that con hasn’t shown substantial harm from a backlash - and hasn’t indicated the level and severity of a backlash and why it’s possible. As a result, I can’t accept this argument from con.

In terms of counter plans - better enforcement, I feel pro did better by arguing that his plan is still better given examples of where there is stricter enforcement of laws in California.

In terms of public awAreness - I side with pro here again that pro doesn’t offer details of how this counter plan could realistically be expected to be better than pros example. The lack of details here mean that I can’t assess the plan.

Sure, it’s a possibility that this could be the case - but it would depend on the details.

So given this, I felt that while con took the right road - he did not do enough to mitigate the benefits of pros plan.

I feel con could have done better trying to argue the benefit would be marginal vs the loss of liberty, or focusing solely on some specific counter plan. I would also like to encourage everyone to make use of bold headings!

Winner: pro.

Full forfeit

Pro r2

Pro notes the private sector has failed to meaningfully engage about climate change - have acted dishonestly, and repeatedly attempted to mislead about the dangers of climate change.

Pro points out that the Paris accords and Kyoto treaty appear to have failed - and that the biggest polluting countries seem to be the ones that push back the hardest.

Now - thus far I have two issues with pros argument. Firstly that he didn’t show that the dishonesty of oil companies is inherently due to capitalism. Secondly, he mostly implies rather than warrants government intervention is due to capitalistic interests.

Con r2

Con changes the agreed definition with no argument or context. I’m willing to entertain definition changes - but not by fiat like this.

Con talks about socialism. This doesn’t appear to be topical.

Con argues that capitalism produced equipment that has been used to detect climate change - I think this can be true even if capitalism cannot deal with climate change.

Capitalism could produce instruments that detected that the earth would be sucked into a black hole - but not necessarily to deal with it.

It’s not clear from arguments whether he’s claiming NASA is an instrument being fought over by capitalism, or there is a fight to provide instrument - the latter appears more contextually correct, the former makes no sense to me.

The rambling story about pre capitalism appears largely non topical and is not being considered.

Finally, simply copying and pasting quotes with no specific context or argument of your own, is bad form. Considering no other real argument was made - I’m only going to accept them with minute amount of warrant and weight them very lightly.

Pro r3.

Pro points out BoP is shared, and that con adjusted the definition, and moved the topic onto capitalism vs communism. I concur with pro that this is not topical.

Pro also does a good job of addressing cons largest contention. That capitalism supplies eauipment, this was a prima facia bad argument - but pro does okay batting this away by pointing out innovation isn’t limited to capitalism, I think the premise that you’d have innovation without capitalism is fairly valid. The second part was less good - it wasn’t fully clear to me what pro really intended here.

However pro does contrast that while capitalism creates a good environment - it also hinders action. That’s a better argument here.

I won’t consider the rebuttals to cons arguments that were not topical, but what pro does do here, is point out multiple examples of instances where capitalism exploits during emergencies: imo together with what he’s stated about the energy industry, this erodes the possibility that Capitalism will deal with climate change.

Con r3

Cons first argument here is that capitalism will necessarily deal with climate change as late as possible. This isn’t quite his argument, his argument was that they will deal with climate change when there is an economic incentive. Con doesn’t provide an argument that convinces me, or any argument at all - that the point of actions for capitalism is this side of the 1.5 degree line of the full resolution.

Pros whole shock doctrine from the previous round is that the economics are more likely to exploit scarcity than it is correct the error due to simplicity preemptively refutes this.

Con argues that the entirety of pros second pillar isn’t due to capitalisms failures but “government being incapable of harnessing sufficient equipment”, cool! What does that mean? Why do you say that?

Remainder of RfD in comments.

Full forfeit! (200th vote! Whoop!)

https://www.debateart.com/debates/644?open_tab=comments&comments_page=1&comment_number=2

Full forfeit

https://www.debateart.com/debates/655?open_tab=comments&comments_page=1&comment_number=27

Pro concedes that the white privledge outlined by con in the opening round doesn’t exist, but focuses on inherent advantages from whites, from intelligence, to inherent wealth. The best specific argument pro makes is relating to being born in poverty, and the generational impact.

Pro could have gone much further here in order to demonstrate this, but imo, he did enough to convey the point. This is not argued or refuted by con in his next round.

In fact, my issue with cons rebuttal is that doesn’t directly address most of what pro argued: cons argument here is primarily that white wealth isn’t inherited - which is only part of pros point (though I couldn’t see an obvious source for cons claim), and that the lives of black people are improving economically. This may be true, but con doesn’t explain why this means thr advantage pro explains doesn’t exist.

The resolution is “white male privilege” - con barely covered the white part - pro barely covered the male part - but I felt pro did much better here conveying the specific advantages afforded to white men, and was danced around by con.

Arguments to pro.

“You talk about dicks a lot, so it logically followed..
That they're your favorite things, and without them you wallowed.
In fact you are what you eat so you're a dick and you're hollowed.
In fact you broke the world record in terms of quantity swallowed.. “

My favourite diss here, cons we’re pretty good: disses to con.

Metaphors puns, I thought the physics side was good from pro - nothing con aside came quite as close. Puns to pro.

I preferred cons rhymes, the Flow was similar, though maybe a little edged out by pro, by ok balance imo cons rhymes were more enjoyable than pros.

I felt con was far more cutting than pro. Conduct to con.

Pros arguments are that Hillary is corrupt, that she was basically a Republican, and that her Policies wouldn’t change much.

Cons co need is that Hillary’s been investigated so much, there can’t be anything substantial there, and there could be with Bernie.

Con also pointed our corrupt presidents haven pretty good.

Con pointed out being centrist and mainstream isn’t bad. And as a result Hilary would be able to pass more of her agenda than Bernie.

Pros rebuttal is that Bernie hasn’t
Needed an investigation - and Hilary has.

Con argues that Bernie’s plans are actually unpopular when analyzed. He points out Bernie has been arrested, and the loan default investigation.

He points out that Hillary was being investigated by the GOP not for wrong doing, but for political reasons.

He points out weapon sales are normal.

Finally con points out that centrism is better than progressivism - as it allows legislation to be passed and goals to be met.

All this is unrefuted by pro - so arguments to con.

Conduct.

“fondling the wrinkled nutsack of war criminal super-beorgiosie psychopaths”

“Her policy is to fidget-fuck around with Obamacare and the shitty education system”

Pro is profane and rude throughout, and forfeited his round. Arguments to con.

Pro set up basic logic reasoning for why the immaterial doesn’t exist, and can’t be shown. Not a great start, but enough to meet his initial burden of proof.

Con argues that knowledge is immaterial, he doesn’t explain why he comes to that conclusion, or the reasons that he can consider knowledge immaterial rather than a product of the material brain - he just seems to clip in the conclusion somewhere around in C4.

Pro casts doubt by stating that knowledge is a mere product of the material brain and con has to show they’re separate.

Cons final round does a little bit better, showing that emotions and feelings are interpretations and thus non physical. It’s unrefuted due to the conflict. So arguments have to go to con.

Conduct to con for forfeit

Pro

Every time we touch: posting happy hardcore in an EDM debate should warrant immediate forfeit. No.

0

Black and white: felt a bit odd, the upsamples voice always do that to me. This wasn’t terrible but i didn’t feel the build up was great, and the hook was forgettable:

3

More you know: I’m not a big fan of this guy. The hooks sort of catchy which earns better points, the rest of the song Is forgettable:

5

Let’s go: not my favourite CH song, but this wasn’t bad. Catchy hook, reasonable build up.

6

Jammu: the generic sounding EDM again - but this is redeemed a little bit more by the catchier hook:

5

Con:

Superman: this started off okay, but ended up sounding like scooter with the hard drum beat. Hated this one

1

Red forest: this was pretty good, nice relaxed chill track, nice break down and build up (for a chill track), not bad.

7

No more: a pretty generic filler song imo. It’s okay, but has very little to distinguish it from the 8492 other songs of this sort of style:

3

Crash: was this the same song as the previous round? Hard to say! Again, very generic sound and hook. Instantly forgettable:

3

Blue light: not a fan. It felt like this song could have been better, the song seemed like it was going to launch into something better and never did.

4.

Pro: 19 Con 18

No matter how much I want to give this to pro, I can’t. Con gave clear reasons why we shouldn’t consider the example of the hogan twins, and stated that free will isn’t necessarily true as our moral imperative doesn’t mean much.

However BoP is shared here, and con offers nothing of his own - so it’s not possible for me to award him arguments.

This was very close though virt - stop forfeiting rounds!

Arguments: tied.

Conduct.

Final round: “Jew”

I shouldn’t need to explain how egregious Racial and religious slurs are in a debate. This is so outrageous it outweighs pros forfeits. What is wrong with you con?

Conduct to pro.

“You got dropped by Alec in a majority vote
I guess you could say that you dropped the ball, sunk the boat
The joke I see in this battle is your attempt to be the next reincarnation of Eminem MBut you're just Stitches, a wanna be Eminem with a twisted fantasy for them (referring to his girls)”

With this awesome set: A nice Cabernet came out of my nose. Supa just shoved his brick in your face, now what ya gonna do with it?

Nothing much else jumped off the page, other than RM admitting to sucking virts balls. I found sups rap, probably a little
Technically inferior, but far, far more cutting insults, and entertaining.