Ramshutu

Concession

Tie fighters

Full forfeit.

Full forfeit - but this hinges on “a straight up fight”. While Batman beat other foes, I found the argument that Batman needed preparation - thus not a straight up fight completely valid for refuting cons position.

The argument concerning caps reflexes and sheild allowing defensive nullification of Batman’s tools - the remaining balance is down to stamina - with cap beating Batman by attrition.

I would have loved to see more of an argument, but I would hand this to pro as a result of the above.

Full forfeit

Full forfeit

I vote for proifers.

Pro didn’t show up.

RFD in comments.

There was a forfeits in spirit by pro not offering any substantive an argument and merely posted at the last minute to avoid the technical forfeit is effectively the same thing. The final round was a complete wholesale deviation from adult behaviour, the whole alleged PM, and the ridiculous claims that pro affirming his position is bad conduct was petulant and childish. Not only is this a deviation from the explicit sportsmanship and conduct rule, but also the idea that affirming and suggesting vote pro is somehow an issue with conduct is an obvious attempt at trolling. In addition, it also appears to be a new argument, which in itself violates the rules.

While obviously, some of these violations are either minor, the whole point of the rules as stated are typical to allow punitive votes for anti-social debate behaviour - for which cons example was textbook.

Out of the final two rounds, Pro forfeited one round, and forfeited another round in spirit. This is a clear violation of rule 1 in this debate, and due to the final rule, this behaviour merits a loss.

Conduct: to con due to the forefeit (which merits the point), I felt pro didnt debate in good faith here - and feel that needs to be spelt out.

Arguments: Cons main argument is effectively arguing a non contradictory form of omnipotence: That logically impossible options are impossible and don’t even need to be considered. This was completely unrefuted by pro.

Pro added two semantic arguments (I wouldn’t call them kritiks upon review).

The first, is that God could just say he won’t lift the rock and it becomes unliftable. Con points out the debate resolution: that it’s not about an unliftable rock, but too heavy too lift. Pro could have put a more detailed argument to support the claim, but he didn’t, so cons rebuttal stands.

The second argument pro makes is that Jesus is God, and Jesus was human. This was the most promising, and con points out that Jesus has super human abilities. As pro makes no attempt to produce a subsequent argument, and just repeats his original, cons rebuttal stands.

Pro could have won by pointing out that Jesus needed help carrying the cross: but didn’t. Instead deciding to capitulate his arguments.

As a result, pros arguments were not just insufficient, they bordered on insulting to both the other debater, and to the reader. Pros arguments, demeanour and attitude was woefully pathetic. I am awarding argument points to con.

Tie agreed in comments.

Ugh! Conduct awarded for the forfeit.

Spelling and grammar for such gems as “Con said Mario was tha antiganus Mario Kart and Mario Party but there is no protagonist in this game because all Mario caricters.and yes Luigi was just a plalit swap of Mario he sence has became a carcter with hopes dreams and fears and Luigi is not malnutrsted because on game theory he is proven to be overweight.” Frequent grammatical errors like this, made pros argument difficult to read and harder to understand. Con didn’t have this issue.

Arguments.

Pros arguments revolves around Luigi not being mean, jumping higher, having better attack moves in one game. Cons argument is that Mario is the main character, Luigi got himself in more trouble. There were more, but I felt the arguments on both side were hard to follow and unconvincing. As a result, I can’t award argument points to either side.

Full forfeit

RFD in comments

Conduct: it’s a rap battle, both sides name called. It’s fine - geez! Tied

Spelling and grammar: no problems on either side in the context of the rap battle.

I did very much find Con harder to follow than pro - I honestly don’t care for cons style - inline links and long lines made it harder to scan as a rap, but it’s style only and didn’t substantially affect readability.

What I did have a problem with, wasn’t readability, but that I just didn’t understand the relevant of some parts. But that’s accounted for in arguments.

I did prefer pros more simple style, but did find that con had a more complex and well thought out flow and rhyming structure - but that is just for bragging rights - not for the score!

Arguments:
While not explicitly stated, the structure implies shared BoP. I haven’t touched upon everything, a lot of items were raised that I felt were not relevant (manafort, Hilary Clinton, extra details trump lies, talk of trade), and I have mostly ignored them to summarize everything I felt was relevant only:

Con: R1 cons starts with the argument is that it’s going to be expensive, and it’s not true that Mexico will pay for it (This was a campaign lie). There seemed to be other arguments there related to trade - I honestly couldn’t follow the train of thought for these, nor were really sure how they fit the contention so cannot include them I think it was fitting into the general theme that Trump was a liar, but was mostly stumped.

R2: Pro talks about illegal immigration - but does not explain what effects are bad enough to warrant building a wall, nor how he feels building a wall would address them. He attempts to refute con on cost by mentioning the cost can be offset by repealing Obamacare - or getting Mexico to pay.

Con points out in this round that immigrants pay taxes - this provides an argument that illegal immigration provides some benefit to the government in taxes - so they are not as much of a net drain. Con also adds they support the economy, and information about criminality has been overblown.

R3: Pro argues immigrants are taking our jobs. This is his only argument relevant to the contention in this round. He implied again - without sourcing - that Obamacare would pay for it.

Con attacks the job argument - pointing out they create jobs and giving farmers access to labor they wouldn’t otherwise get - he also points out Obamacare has a net benefit - so should be left alone.

I felt that con didn’t really address that immigrants are taking teens jobs at the end of this round - I couldn’t figure out what he meant (I’m sorry), but do feel that his earlier argument (farmers and that their work creates jobs) also has relevance.

R4: pros only relevant argument in support is related to R3 - claiming as a result of immigrants Americans aren’t getting their share. He doesn’t not provide any positive justification for this.

As pro does not provide any causal argument, or any sources to support the specific claims above, his argument in support of a wall is incredibly weak.

Weighing all of this, I felt that Pro didn’t really provide a substantive argument here, mainly relying on generalities: “they are taking our jobs”, and didn’t offer a firm positive case for how the wall would help.

I felt that con threw doubt on the overall claims of pro relating to “taking our jobs”, by stressing the overall benefi - though didn’t land an absolutely knock outt. Con doesn’t quantify the benefit - which is the key problem I find with his position - but erodes pros case.

Cons argument that the wall is expensive and we can’t afford it was well argued - and wasn’t refuted by pro at all. Pro made an attempt using Obamacare, but I felt this was batted away by pro.

I would have liked to see more quantitive analysis here: if that had happened I may have awarded arguments differently. However, with the above, I felt both cons initial argument, and rebuttal was stronger and more concrete than pros - so arguments to con.

Sources: Pro offered no real relevant sources to support key claims, other than volume of immigrants - but as the sources don’t bolster the negative implications he argues - these don’t help his argument much. Con used lots of sources, most of which were not directly relevant in the same way (they are good at pointing out facts or events - but most don’t give the knockout). However: in the volume of sources a couple of key sources pop out: the costing of the wall (the telegraph link),
The taxpayer implication, the farmers link, and that they are creating jobs: takes the core claims of an arguments and throws a concrete foundation under them.

Such arguments with little argument can be challenged or batted away, but with sources, pro has to go to much more detail to refute the point: which he did not do. As cons sources laid a solid foundation (but for the love of god don’t use so many), I have to give sources to con.

Full forefeit.

Arguments: When reading this, I had the same problem as con, I found it very difficult to really disentangle the specifics of pros actual argument due to pros rambling and at times somewhat incoherent style.

At its core, pro appears to be arguing that God is defined as the ultimate truth, as the ultimate truth is defined as existence (or defined in terms of existence), and so God must exist. This appears on its face to be an incredibly poor argument, akin to “defining God unto existence”. The majority of his argument in all rounds is either this contention, or trying to use Biblical quotes to support this contention.

I don’t think either pro or con contest these definitions inherently, but as con points out in round 3, 4 and 5, just because Christianity and pro and humans have decided to define God in this way doesn’t mean he necessarily exists. It simply proves that Pro is capable of defining God in such a way that the definition implies he exists.

In other words, rephrasing Cons rebuttal in rounds 3/4/5, it is possible to define ANYTHING in a way that the definition implies it exists, but that doesn’t itself show that the thing exists. Cons patient explanation of that in his final three rounds pretty succinctly summarized this. I don’t really think pro got a decent handle on what con was actually arguing: as his rebuttal mainly consisted of reiterating his initial claim.Cons leprechaun argument was a good example of what pro was doing in general, but I felt it much weaker than it could have been - as it doesn’t directly compare the definition as truth.

Despite pro saying several that he has “demonstrated” that God is “The Ultimate Reality” the major central premise of pros argument - what he has mainly done, is gone to great lengths to show people
Define God in a particular way - that he exists is comprehensively unproven and unsupported by anything Pro said - and indeed it appeared in pros rebuttal in round 4, that he didn’t fully grasp the distinction between defining something as existing, and it existing as con was pointing out.

Cons rebuttal, while short, was devastatingly effective, because he shines a bright light on the underlying fallacy that Pro is making throughout.

As a result, con exposes that pros position is vacuous and unsupported very effectively.

Conduct: tied - but we warned with statements like this: “if Instigator continues to use a straw man, false god, or lying vanity in the place of The God of Christianity, which is THE TRUTH, he will be guilty of the fallacy of INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE(2) and there is no argument I could possibly make that would be sufficient enough for instigator to accept his argument as being invalid.” Flowery insults are still insults don’t call your opponent a liar, or ignorant out of no-where. If this was any worse, or I found another example elsewhere in your argument, I would have awarded conduct to con.

Spelling and grammar. Pro was rambling and incoherent throughout this entire debate. It was a challenge to read through everything he said, and an even greater challenge to understand it. Pros style, grammar and structure was at times nonsensical with Statements such as:

“In fact, nothing about Christianity will even make sense without this understanding. Of what profit is it to strive for dispassion and the conquering of the lusts of mind in flesh? Why not just live a life of bestial hedonism? Because if you love THE TRUTH, living for the sake of vain indulgence is in opposition to this as it makes you blind to reality.”

“So if The Most Perfect Image of God is Truth, and with The Spirit of Truth we know God through this Image, what does that mean? It means that God is THE TRUTH AS IT TRULY IS, and this is expressed through the doctrine of The Trinity.”

These make next to no sense in the context of the debate, they are cluttered and unclear and were not isolated cases: with the majority of statements made by pro adding up to make it feel like most of pros content is indecipherable word salad.

Pro’s continual and zealous over capitalization of literally every phrase he decides to attribute to God (see the second quotes comment), combined with his frequent and repeated use of different terms to apply to God that he decides to capitalize were so egregious that it almost made his entire argument unreadable.

Sources: tied. This debate was more logical than factual. Scriptural sources would count if a matter of scripture was in contention, or had supported a specific factual claim (such as x happened), but as the definitions themselves were mostly undisputed in this way, the sources presented had little
Material value to the debate.

Con could have won with the same argument on sources, if he had reinforced his main arguments, with paraphrased quotes or sources (such as a critique of this ontological argument), but as he didn’t, neither sides argument was implicitly bolstered by sources.

Cue Angry PMs...

Full forefeit

Round 1:

Pros argument in the first round is that he is a terrible person, and it would be better for everyone else if he goes.

Cons response, is pretty clear: and is effectively that this may have been true up to now, but is not necessarily true: pro could be better and do better.

I felt this fully decided pros initial point.

1:0 con

The next round, pro focuses on his specific effects: his carbon footprint being a net negative, his fiancé not being able to replace him while he is alive, and that he isn’t helping starving children in Africa.

Con points out that pro is ignoring the positive impact of his life, and not providing an argument as to why one outweighs the other. While that is a good argument, as pro offered additional specific examples, I felt that con needed to give answers in return. But as he attacks the form of pros premise: that he is unfairly weighting life and not life - I can’t give pro the win on this round, and must score it a draw.

Con 2: 1

Round 3. Pro doesn’t seem to offer any additional argument or justification for the contention. He focuses on talking about himself, and poor decisions, and impact: but fails to explain why these events and actions necessitate or warrant him killing himself.

Con, having spent time being Pros counseller, despite saying not he wasn’t continues in this vein: despite pro making clear he is arguing whether he should, rather than whether he wanted to. However, after 90% of the round, he drops the killer argument again: this time phrasing it much better. The scenarios where suicide occurs are suboptimal as pro is measuring value based on past actions, not potential. That is a killer argument and wins this round.

Con 3:1

Round 4.

Pro again continues to throw the same argument out - that he’s done bad things without justifying the debate contention. Indeed it’s not clear how most of this fourth round is relevant to the debate topic at hand, and is more self-flaggelation for no debate purpose.

Con reiterates his position of suboptimality.

From this point on pro offers no new arguments and so con wins on arguments.

Conduct to con: this is a shitty troll topic, and the very debate contention denigrates this whole website, and is a childish attempt at attention. It shouldn’t even be up here - the very nature of this debate existing and the topic is so troll like that it warrants conduct loss to pro for posting it in the first place.

Full forefeit

Full forfeit

Arguments to pro: pro offered a significant amount of argument data that needed a rebuttal from con - even from the first part - That Ahmed didn’t make the clock and seemingly was intentionally trying to stir trouble was unrefuted. Con capitulated his side of the debate by offering no rebuttal or defense over and above s line or two, and thus pro was left unrefuted.

Conduct to pro for cons forfeit.

Sources to pro: pro sufficiently defended his claims through sources, and attempted to establish the factual basis (including linking Dawkins, and a variety of interesting media), con offered nothing.

I consider this a technical forfeit by con.

Full forefeit

So starting with arguments.

The relevant arguments put forward are:

Con:
1.) slows down the line.
2.) It makes you fat
3.) It’s hot without ice

In my view, ,9$ didn’t provide any support for (1), con said that it would substantially slow down the people behind you: but failed to really quantify what that would be - even concluding it would only add a few seconds. This argument was not convincing.

(2) Con mostly contradicts himself - he claimed it only added a few sips, so the idea its an appreciable boost in calories so as to make you fat. Con can’t have it both ways.

(3) con argues that drinks are warm without ice, that’s the only genuine argument I found that con really put forward - but he didn’t support it with source, or any specific claim. How warm? How much below room temperature? 10 degrees c? 20? There is a big difference. It takes 20 minutes to drink Soda? According to who? I’ve never taken that long - my food would be cold by then too if I did. Because of this lack of information cons argument here is thoroughly unconvincing.

Pro made a lot of arguments that con successfully argued (in my view), should not be considered as they are irrelevant to the contention. What he argued was:

(1) You get much more drink.

Pro cited a source here that basically pointed out that you get far less drink if you order ice - I feel this argument was pretty convincing due the source, and as per cins own admission of 50-75% ice.

(2) and it’s not as gross because of the bacteria

Com claimed that (2) was ice machines only, rather than in fast food outlets - this was untrue. And as such this was a really convincing point made by pro that was left unchallenged.

Con goes on to reinforce that it would drive drinks prices up. He offers no real convincing argument or justification for this, despite one of his main claims is that it only gives you a few more sips, and takes a few more seconds. This sort of self contradiction massively games pros position, effectively shooting him self in the foot.

While I didn’t consider most of pros points directly (as con convinced me that they were not directly relevant) - one thing in pros argument really stuck for me, pro argues that fast food companies should cater to customers special demands - or it will drive customers away. This is valid - and issues such as the time taken to serve drinks with no ice - and the temperature are forms of actions the fast food company could take, and so this helped a bit - with pros emphasis on the company facilitating special orders eroding cons argument that special orders not being facilitated causes problems.

That being said, this was the icing on the cake. The only arguments presented:

Do I want a cold drink? Or more warm (of an unspecified temperature for a time that con didn’t support) drink that has a lower bacteria count than toilet water. For me - it’s obviously the latter.

Arguments: pro

Sources. The lack of sources caused cons arguments about calories and temperature to lose weight In my assessment. Pros source on bacteria was fundamental in presenting his case - so source to pro. If con had presented actual data here, this could have been flipped.

Conduct: cons insulting language, repeated use of the word “fat ass”, “retard”, and specifically the comment about sterilization do not belong in debates - even though they were not specifically aimed at anyone: and are far more substantial an infraction than anything con said. Conduct to pro.

Spelling and grammar: cons spelling and grammar errors were frequent and noticeable: “cupe” for cup “a few second delay” instead of a few seconds; “this loss of customers mean less” Instead of “this loss of custom means”, “This means  when you order a drink with no ice, you rudely force the people behind you to wait longer for food, and potentially cause a longer line to form driving disloyal customers to the fastfood chain next door” needed extra commas. “looking to shove as much excess calories”, should be as many,

That’s just one of the first paragraphs.

I felt cons language and grammar was troublesome throughout in this same way which substantially effected the readability throughout. S&G to pro too

Full forfeit

Full forfeit.

Arguments.

Reading pros argument, it’s not wholly clear what pro means by luck, by this I mean that while he touches on the definition as “whenever a less probable outcome occurs”, it’s not structured or presented as such. Most of the open seems only marginally related to the proposition - limiting variance, and talking about the impact of luck is unrelated to the proposition - so pros open is effectively defining what he thinks luck is - and that’s a reasonable open.

Cons initial open was pretty sensible - that “luck” exists as a concept - but isn’t an actual object or force. This seems to be agreeing with pros definition of luck and saying that exists- that’s not a good start. Con appears to argue that pro has to prove the entire deterministic view of the universe wrong to prove luck exists - that’s horrible goalpost moving.

Pro then reiterates his definition - but should have called out con for basically conceding the debate in the second sentence of the first round.

Con then talks about randomness and the argument takes a turn for the esoteric. I’m not detailing this round from con as it largely doesn’t address the point in contention - that luck exists, he claims it is not a real extant thing, but then argues it is a thing. So far this appears to be in line with how pro is defining luck - so con is effectively arguing luck is what pro said.

Pro mostly just reiterates the same problem, and there was a little back and Forth after this that fit the same mould.

The whole point of this debate is that luck exists - pro argues luck exists as an abstract concept - con agreed luck exists as an abstract concept - by default Con effectively concedes the whole debate on that point alone.

Sources to pro - definitions cited effectively demonstrate that luck as he is defining it abstractly does exist - and con agreed. Pro could have just used that definition source and said nothing else.

Why do these not get deleted? Seriously “full forfeit” now appears in my predictive text.

Full forefeit

1.) KCA

Pro established his Initial BOP with this, but con blew the KCA out of the water; expertly justifying is the logical flaw - both that it is textbook special pleading, and circular based on definitions. Pro never gets close to addressing this, and mostly chooses to simply reiterate the form of the proposition. Con hammers this home in the final round.

This argument devastates pros first position. The quantum fluctuations argument simply knocks it out of the park by providing a factual refutation of the premise pro states is self evidently true.

1:0 Con

2.) Morality: I didn’t feel pro really hammered this home, his justification of this point felt a bit laboured and unconvincing as I felt he didn’t justify the objective part of the morality well enough by showing it is indeed objective (transcendental), he made an argument though - which needs to be rebutted (but doesn’t require a strong one).

Con does this pretty well by providing an alternative explanation of morality, the homeostasis argument is actually - pretty good way of describing right and wrong without God, and I felt con did pretty well here. Primarily though, con pointed out something that I didn’t notice (i write my critique as I read the debate), namely that pro did not establish that such laws necessarily come from God. Pros follow this up in a way that largely misses that point and attempts to reassert this initial contention, mostly re-enforcing by asking who created it - an implicit follow on from the successfully rebutted KCA

I felt con won this part too by really showing the fundamental premise is faulty, or unproven - and following it up with a naturalistic argument.

2-0 to Con.

3.) thomastic argument.

I read this a couple of times, and this seems mostly an argument based on an asserted premise. Reading it twice, pro didn’t fully justify the premise and simply relies on asserting it. I noticed that pro appeared to drop it. Con touched about the rebuttal but I won’t score this one.

So at half time, pros position has effectively been destroyed. But con has to support his position to the same degree. So on to cons point.

4.) Omnipotence problem 1+2

So, con was rather verbose here - essentially pointing out that there a number of contradictions with a typical definition of Gods omnipotence. He did a good job of this - and pro largely objected to this by arguing that such contradictions are not limitations as they are impossible. Pro seems to fundamentally undermine his own definition - by arguing that limitlessness has limits - as Con pointed out. For me, pro implicitly destroyed the definition of omnipotence as defined and as I understand it - effectively arguing omnipotence as defined can’t exist, and therefore God as defined in the details can’t either.

Con 3:0.

Note: con wins arguments at this point. All pros points are destroyed, and con offers one unrefuted argument.

5.) temporalness/spaxefjme. Con offers my favourite argument against a creator - how can a God create something if there may not be a before in which something did not exist. He does his via cause and effect, time in general, and it being impossible to “create” without space time (a flavour of the first).

He offers sources to provide evidence that this is the case. Which for me is a massive slap sunk for con.

Pro offers no rebuttal 4:0

Conduct to con due to pro forfeit.

Sources to con: i almost awarded this as a tie. But as con had the only real example of evidence that flat out cut down his opponents key premise (quantum fluctuations), and supported his own premise with evidence to support it - the inflation science link. I felt that Pro didn’t cite any compelling evidence for the contested premises in even close to the same way. Those two sets of sources were knockouts in my view. The reason I considered a draw was that con didn’t present too many other sources, whereas pro tended to offer a lot of sources, but mostly to reiterate portions of the rationalist argument - rather than backing up the premises.

Full forefeit.

FUll forefeit

Conduct to con: This debate was an exercise in semantic f**kwittery, it was presented as a reasonable debate, and as such it appears pro deliberately set up through the use of definitions and the specific rules to be excessively unfair to whoever accepts the debate. As such, this warrants a loss of conduct points. Bad form pro.

Arguments to pro. The individual definitions pro set up initially in the debate, almost tender the debate proposition tautology. Pro proves the locations are in the east and west, and by the chosen definitions, observers see the sun rise there. At this point pros arguments are merely reinforcing that tautology - there’s not a lot more to pros position other than arguing that Japan is in the east and LA is in the west. Pro establishes that with his sources and literally did not need to do anything else to establish the premise.

If con attempted to mount a poor defense primaril by haggling over whether calling. Japan and la as east and west - but as pro showed they are accepted as east and west by the definitions - he’s proven his contention.

Literally the ONLY way con could have won on arguments here, is if he had argued the definition of “in”, and attempted to argue that while the sun rises FOR observers in the east/west, the “in” refers to the direction of observation - which is always east/west. As con does not do that. He loses.

This was a horrible debate, and pro should feel bad about himself. If I could have awarded -5 conduct points I would have.

Forfeit and concession by pro

Full forfeit - but pro indicated a tie due to acceptance.

Full forfeit

Full Forfeit

Troll debate: con wins as he’s the only one that really provides an argument.

Full forefeit

This is a troll debate. Con offered an actual argument, and justification as to why the words should remain. He gets the clean sweep, as this is a troll debate, pro could have won by out trolling - as Con has a better argument, supported his position, and took control of the debate by painting con into a corner he couldn’t troll out of: he gets the full win.

Both voters declared a tie.

Full fordeit

Proboffers a substantive argument about flow, and does well to cite specific lyrics and explain their quality. Con on the other hand offers no real rebuttal, and no real argument other than a very generic defense, pro wins on both weight and quality. Conduct for forefeit, sources due to citations and link provides for his lyrics, which are the whole crux of his argument.

Full forefeit

Conduct for forefeits.

Conduct for forfeit. Arguments as only con made a real argument that moved out of unsupported and subjective opinion (about grosses), and sources to con: as his source supporting his claim made it the only real argument made in the whole argument.

Both sides forefeit.

Full Forfeit