Total votes: 59
If I was to vote. I would go with RM simply for knowing how the elephant moves, even if it was only to win a debate, lol.
I will attempt to sum up the burden of proof as allowed by debart. Maybe I'll get lucky and the dictator won't come along and moderate me. But I'm not holding me breath (SUPPORT UNMODERATED VOTING)
Argument point.
Con's argument revolved around copyrights and demonetization. The driving implication is that youtube is too strict and is screwing people out of money that, in pro's opinion, they have earned.
Con linked youtube videos in order to demonstrate this point. which are essentially as helpful as any source would be in a normal debate. It wasn't enough for a source point, but it was enough for me to be compelled by his argument. I essentially agree with most everything that Con said but let's move on to Pro first.
I will admit that even still, my knee jerk reaction is to go with Con on this argument. But I must also admit that Pro's argument is both valid and highly compelling. Pro rightly points out that what Con said was not enough to warrant shutting down youtube. Pro pointed out that not everybody shares Con's position and this point is very powerful in this case since the debate is broadly about the state of youtube in general.
Pro made a strong case for the benefits of youtube outweighing the harms by stating that it's one of the few platforms that helps to promotes the spreading of free ideas.
Pro also points out that while Con finds the most popular content to be childish, that youtube was not designed for intellectual entertainment necessarily.
Further rounds allowed for little clarification and in the end, Pro ended up with his point standing on top.
Argument point to Pro.
All other points tied.
RFD:
Pro presented a good intuitive argument by pointing out that being a Christian doesn't require one to go to church. Nice semantic argument ;)
Con's arguments were either non sequiturs or already covered by Pro. Con mentioned that one doesn't waste one's life going to church. This was countered by Pro's initial statement that one does not have to go to church.
Con stated that atheism gives you a lust for life but Con does not explain why this is the case for an atheist but not a theist. Without the information. I the voter was not able to put this into context.
Con makes a comment about trying to fool God. While this point is valid. Pro never claimed this to be the case and Con did not elaborate enough for me to conclude this from the arguments alone.
Con mentions moral edicts but does not provide reasoning as to why we should follow said edicts. In contrast. Pro's argument of the Christian not have to participate in the church would almost have been a rebuttal for this if it was elaborated on.
In the end I have a decent point by pro and a point that kind of slid through for con.
So pro's argument was more intuitive and semantic ;) I award point to Pro.
SIDE NOTE: I would have addressed the forfeit round with a conduct point. But since this was a decision debate I am unable to do that.
Blahhhhhhh
Subjective
Subjective
Full Forfeit
Mehhhhhhhhh
Full Forfeit
Full Forfeit
Full forfeit
Pro forfeits one round, and offers a huge wall of text with a massive gish Gallup of claims that cannot all be addressed by con no matter how good he was.
As a result: Conduct to con.
The wall of text approach from pro is so absurd and so antithetical to debate, its hard for me to really render a cohesive verdict on every point he makes.
My interpretation of the resolution and how a reasonable person would view it, is that prescription medication is not just potentially harmful (which is trivial), but the harm is a primary usage and characteristic.
Pro focuses on side effects, that medication can kill, that the word itself has connotations of poison - but at no point attempts to present any argument that the primary characteristic and usage of medication is to cause harm.
Con nails pro to the wall by pointing out the cherry picking pro does by fixating only on specific cases, by pointing out that side effects do not always occur, and they simply may.
He argues that definition of the old word upon which pharmaceutical is based does not make it poison, nor does the companies being corrupt, and a few others. Con goes through the primary claims very well, and with far more patience then I would have expected.
Pros response was another wall of text. So badly formatted it was hard to determine where his additional claims start and rebuttals begin.
Pro offers little or no argument about the rarity of side effects, that drugs are not the top 4 causes of death (other than to clairfy), that pharma corruption is just as bad as pharm being poison - which may be true, but is irrelevant to the resolution. And to reiterate his issue with side effects.
Cons final argument round points this all out, that pros position is a collection of anecdotes, that being potentially harmful in some cases doesn’t mean it’s poison, and reiterating his case about side effects.
As a result, despite the near indecipherable mess that was pros argument - con clearly casts sufficient doubt on the resolution, and clearly refuted the bulk of claims.
Arguments to con.
All other points tied.
undecidedly undecided
emptiness and stuff to fill word limit
Concession
On the Fence
Concession stand.
couldn't grasp it.
Hmmmmmmmmm.
Too much left unresolved. Too many Bibles, not enough evil measurement tools.
Undecided and stuff to fill the word limit
I could go either way here.
On The fence
I couldn't see a sufficient resolution for either side. It's a huge subject. Kudos to the debaters.
Couldn't decide either way. It probably doesn't help that I don't have a horse in this race.... so to speak.
Pro's argument was that what we perceive is real, which is an assertion of the debate topic as well. This means that pro's support for the topic was the topic itself and it was ultimately circular. Pro does mention at the end that there is a second possibility, but fails to properly consider it. This was a missed opportunity by pro that could have been a potential proof by contradiction.
Con's argument first provided firm definitions for perception and reality that matched their general usages.
Con does a proof by contradiction by showing that in Pro's Model, realities would all have to be different. Pointing out this contradiction was huge.
Con wrongly points out that Pro had no expectations for results. This was not true as Pro did claim two possibilities which shows expectations. I was looking for con to point out there being more possibilities. Con missed the mark here and lost a chance to gain more ground in the debate.
All of the following rounds were blank, so judging from the initial arguments. I am forced to give Con the point since his first counterargument destroyed Pro's initial position and Pro never posed a rebuttal to muddy the waters.
All other points tied.
Concession
Full Forfeits
Full Forfeit
Concession
4 fit indeed
Argument point:
Round 1 Pro began with a claim and an imperative
1. The evidence says the simplest explanation is no God.
2. I would like you to tell me which god you believe in.
Only the first statement is relevant to BoP. The second one is more of a suggestion of how Con might try to refute the first claim, so it's arbitrary.
Pro did not make any attempt to provide support or elaboration of his claim.
Con's opening was a counter argument stating that Pro had committed an argument from ignorance fallacy and then presented the positive claim that it is impossible to disprove the existence of a god. Con makes no direct attempt to support this claim, but rather presents an amended version of the Kalaam that had the god assumption added in the conclusion by definition.
Con wrote the amendment clearly enough where I could intuitively connect the dots, but semantically speaking, the structure was invalid. Con should have use extra premises two draw the god by definition conclusion after presenting the Kalam in order to create proper logical entailment. This somewhat hindered my ability to accurately interpret the data.
Round 2
Pro uses the long description in an attempt to justify his R1. In my opinion, it would have been more productive to put the main premises in the opening argument for better clarity. Pro's long description defines the argument, but does not provide the evidence for his claim.
Most of Pro's rebuttals revolved around claim that the premises were not sound because they made extraordinary claims, but Pro did not explain why this was the case.
One key point Pro made was that The Kalam only points to an uncaused cause and not god specifically. This was important because Con had not properly connected the god assumption as I pointed out before.
Con makes some good counterpoints, but misses the mark as a whole, Con claims that god isn't proven of not being outside of time and space, but provides us no reason as to why this is problematic or even possible. This bordered on incoherence.
Con falsely claims that he need only rebut arguments that Pro makes, this is not the case, Con must make relevant positive claims that are defeaters to Pro's claim, otherwise, Con can never score better than a tie.
Following Rounds.
At Round 3, the arguments starting to circle the drain. No new points were introduced and Neither side attempted to elaborate or amend their initial arguments.
This one is tough to call because I'm not sure either side met their burden. In the end, I am forced to side with Con because There was sufficient reason to show that Con could call the source of universe God regardless of what it was. This may be defining God into existence, but Pro's topic and opening statement invited the opponent to define god and Pro presented the argument as being all inclusive (saying there's not evidence for any God) So Con ultimately defeated Pro's position. Just barely though.
All other points tied.
RFD
Argument Point.
Con's argument was to source bible verses in order to show biblical examples of god selecting people for heaven and proofs of free will. Con's argument rested upon the argument that Calvinism is a violation of free will, this argument seems intuitive to con's statements.
Pro simply makes the bold assertion that God is speaking through him and declares that Calvinism is true. Pro also supported this by showing that God has predetermined knowledge, although pro did not show motivation for god to violate free will.
After con rightly pointed out that pro had not supported his claim. Pro finally went on to provide biblical sources, which are key to this debate. This prevented pro from losing outright. However, Con routinely rebutted all of these points by pointing out that Pro had not shown examples or motivation for any impositions of will. This ended up being key for the winner to score the BoP
In the end. Pro was never able to show motivations or examples for impositions on will and therefore, I award the argument point to Con
Tied in sources and grammar.
Pro's conduct in this debate was unsavory at best, but I wasn't sure if it should qualify as being excessive or not, therefore, I begrudgingly give a tie for conduct.
Full forfeit
Argument point
Pro offered no main argument other than to point out that BoP was on Con.
Con said;
"On July 16th, 1968 a complaint was filed with the New York City Commission on Human Rights alleging an unlawful discriminatory practice in violation of the Administrative Code of the City of New York; Specifically, that Fred Trump (Donald Trump's father) refused to rent an apartment to a man because he was black.
A hearing on the complaint was held on October 31st, 1968, before the commission, at which time testimony and evidence were received. The commission found that respondent Fred Trump engaged in an unlawful discriminatory practice in violation of the Administrative Code of the City of New York.
https://www.clearinghouse.net/chDocs/public/FH-NY-0024-0055.pdf
On October 15th, 1973, the Nixon administration's then acting Attorney General Elliot Richardson filed a complaint on behalf of the United States against Donald Trump, et al, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The complaint, inter alia, alleged the following:
1. Trump Management Inc. was a New York corporation doing business in the Eastern District of New York, managing and operating numerous apartment buildings, totaling at least 14,000 dwelling units in the New York area and elsewhere. (These facts were not denied in the Trump's answer to the complaint - https://www.clearinghouse.net/chDocs/public/FH-NY-0024-0018.pdf )
2. Donald Trump was president of Trump Management Inc. and was responsible for the policies and practices of Trump Management Inc. (This fact was not denied in the Trumps' answer to the complaint - https://www.clearinghouse.net/chDocs/public/FH-NY-0024-0018.pdf )
3. Donald Trump, et al, through his actions and those of his agents and employees, discriminated against persons because of race in the operation of the apartment buildings, among other ways, by:"
Con shows evidence that formal charges were brought up against trump, but I see nothing about a guilty verdict. Let's read on.
As his arguments pile up, Con shows that there is a consistent pattern that is in line with the agreed upon definition of racism for this debate. Because of the sheer amount of evidence of racist behavior, Con establishes a solid base case, let's see if Pro does anything to negate it.
Pro replies by saying that the civil rights act hadn't kicked in yet, but this is not sufficient because the legal guilt and innocence is not part of the resolution. Pro even admits to the incident cited by Con being true, a fatal concession. The rest of the debate is largely semantics and doesn't change the resolution at all. Argument point to Con.
Condcut to Con for the first round forfeit by pro.
All others tied.
Argument point.
Pros argument was that seemingly selfless behaviors were actually selfish in nature. Pro main points are: Pleasure and Gain, Preservation, Public image, and self image. While this does account for the model without selflessness, it does not rule out selflessness. Let's look at Con.
Con makes an intuitive argument concerning selfless behavior in babies. Pro responded by casting doubt saying that we can't know if they're being selfless, but this also brought Pro's side into question as well, I believe this maybe the fatal error for Pro. But I'll read on.
Con then shows that Pro's 4 standards can have contradictions and Pro made no effort to provide a standard for handling this.
Con then points out that Pro has not proven the argument which is true at the moment.
Pro then goes onto completely sink his own argument in round two by saying
"According to you, babies will "altruistically" share with others. While this may appear to be the case, I'm not sure that babies have a clear conception of their actions' effects. I would call these actions arbitrary at best since they're not really done to be kind. I've seen babies do kind things when asked, which might indicate selfless action, but I think it's more of a social construct of "mommy asked, so do it." Babies can't really be asked their motivations, so you'd have to do more extensive research before you convince me on this one."
By saying that the behavior was arbitrary, Pro is essentially admitting that it's not selfish which indirectly concedes the debate topic. Not only did Pro not retract or amend this statement, but Pro actually goes on to assert the same thing again later on in the debate. This combined with Con's initial critiques is enough to aware the Argument Point to Con.
Tied in all others.
Full forfeit.
Argument Point:
Pro made 3 shallow but highly intuitive points in the opening and con replied with an intuitive non sequitur.
Pro:
1. There was precedent (pro cited sandy hook)
2. Reasoned that we could censor some of it.
3. appealed to the value it could have in the psychology community as far as studies.
This seems like a sufficient practical appeal assuming there are no counter arguments for it. Lets look at Con.
Con said:
"The tapes could be corrupted. You never know where those tapes have been. Also, if someone that would like them to look guilty to prove some sort of point they are easily manipulated. This would also stir up more controversy and bring up bad feelings for the families involved. Why bring that up? Such a horrible occurrence that day. This is like having them relive this again, and I don't see any point in doing that. Why not just appreciate the children of today?"
First con says the tapes could be corrupted. this argument seems like a non sequitur and did not move me to reconsider pros initial appeal.
Con appeals to propaganda by saying that somebody could misuse the tapes for their own end. This was not intuitive because we obviously don't hold this standard for other tapes so con did not explain this enough for me to accept it.
Con appeals to the families involved but the argument was short and provided no support for itself. At best, this was enough for me to consider a possible extra factor but Con did not take this to it's logical conclusion so I couldn't accept it even if I wanted to.
Overall, Pro made a barely sufficient practical appeal which seemed reasonable to me and Con's arguments did nothing to diminish this.
Grammar Point:
Spelling was roughly equal. My motivation for awarding this point is due to the vastly different structures of the arguments. Pro's argument was arranged in bullet form with each premise properly separated. This made it extremely easy to read and comprehend.
Con's entire statement was in one paragraph and mad no effort to separate points. This required me to do extra leg work to ensure that I was reading the correct amount of points on con's side. This was actually so bad that the last few sentences are ambiguous as to whether they're one consolidated point or a bunch of mini points. This was extreme enough that it had an effect on my ability to understand con's argument so the grammar point goes to pro.
Conduct goes to pro based on the forfeits from Con.
Sources Tied.
Reason for Argument
Con says:
"Senator Fraser Anning was assaulted last month by a 17 year old named Will Connolly. The reason why Will chose to assault him is because Will disagreed with Fraser Anning’s opinion. During his speech regarding the Christchurch shooting, Fraser Anning was struck in the back of the head by an egg. After the ordeal, multiple people wish for Fraser Anning to be fired from the senate."
All factual so far.
Con says
"This debate will be based on whether the egg attack was justified, and if Will should have thrown the egg at Fraser Anning.
Firstly, I do not agree with Fraser Anning’s comments about the shooting. However, freedom of speech is a human right. Fraser Anning was simply stating his opinion regarding the shooting, as many other people have already done. "
fair point.
This last one's too big to paste. But basically Con's position is that if one of them is to be punished, the other one should also be punished. Con's arguments are lacking many details here. Con leaves out the age of the attacker which is important in this case and leaves out the fact that an adult assaulted a minor with unnecessary force of what was essentially just a prank. I don't see enough here to say that it's not justified. Let's look at pro's argument.
Pro Said:
"A far right senator called Fraser Anning (69) was hit with one egg while being interviewed by the media. The person who threw the egg was a 17 year old boy called Will Connolly. Sure I wouldn't want society to be okay with wasting eggs as throwable objects or even be violent but to say Will is not justified by Fraser’s tweets making up conspiracies linking Muslims immigration to what happened at the NZ shooting is absurd.
The tweet that Fraser Anning on the day of the Christchurch mosque shootings was "Does anyone still dispute the link between Muslim immigration and violence?""
So here pro enlightens us on more details that con left out. The comment made was a horrible one which some people might say incites violence. Inciting violence is not the same as exercising free speech. This really helps bring pros case home as he also mentions the age of the child and the reasoning behind the attack itself. Pro also correctly points out that this was "one egg" over one persons head and that is hardly comparable to the violence inciting speech and the assault on a minor.
In subsequent rounds. No more main points were introduced, rather, there was much contention over the main points. Con use hypotheticals and other examples and pro kept rightfully stating that there needed to be something to support con's claims. The debate fizzled out into rebuttals which in my opinion makes them more difficult to follow.
In the end, Pro had shown using current events that there was a public outcry for this boy and that his egg prank ultimately was a form a political protest and therefore justified.
All other points tied.
Reason for argument points.
Pro's side:
"All Christians believe in one or more of the Christian tenants objectively centered around magic. Though the attributed tenants differ from denomination to denomination, every known denomination subscribes to at least one or more magical Christian tenant. Whether it's Jesus's resurrection, Creationism events, a thought policing dictator (God), answered prayers, talking snakes and donkeys, burning bushes, a staff parting a sea, a global flood, walking on water or turning water to wine, they all are considered by definition to be magic.
Nothing in our observable reality demonstrates magic is real. Furthermore, holding a belief in it, despite contradicting scientific evidence and observation, is absurdly disjointed from reality. Nonetheless, Christians still believe various magic based tenants of Christianity".
Pro established pretty clearly in my opinion that all Christians, at least subscribe to the basic tenants of Christianity. Pro rightly points out that Christians essentially belief in some kind of magic. This is enough in my opinion to warrant that Christians can adopt mass delusions since Pro also rightly points out later that the views tend to be idiosyncratic.
Con's argument had three main prongs. First that Christians weren't idiosyncratic, second that magic isn't magic if it's real, and third that some Christians use metaphors, I didn't find any of these arguments strong and pro showed in future rounds why this didn't follow. Con did a little to show that views weren't idiosyncratic, but not enough to stop mass delusions. Pro also pointed out that there is scientific evidence for mass delusion which helped his case quite a bit here. Con's critique of magic was more a definitional trick and not really practical or in tune with reality. Furthermore, con's examples came from the bible which would have been fine except Con did nothing to support them further aside from assert them ad infinitum. On the metaphors, the problem was that Con was referring to a fringe group and did not make a strong enough effort to show how this could refute pro's claim.
In the end, Pro came out on the winning side of the argument point because pro did not rebut the points enough in my opinion. Pro still had plenty of room off of his initial claims to show his argument reasonable.
Tied on all other points.
Completely unproven by both sides. I found no reason to even remotely regard one single argument.
full forfeit
full forfeit
full forfeit
Full forfeit
full forfeit
Full Forfeit
Reasons for Argument Point.
Pros side
1.Affordability
Pro pointed out that the common critique of affordability is contradicted by economists and even referenced the Washington post which strengthen the argument quite a bit.
2.Universailty.
Pro provides some nice sound societal oughts, but I would have preferred more steel manning here. Pro makes an appeal to necessity, citing problems paying off debt. Decent argument, but could have been stronger.
3.Quality
Pro established a standard for quality which seemed somewhat reasonable but sounded like a tournament system at best. Decent but could have been better.
Finally pro makes an argument about how we can reduce wait times. It seems pro covered the quintessential prongs on the healthcare argument. Let's see what con did.
Con had no actual opening statement, but rather immediately Jumping on pro and attempting to rip him to shreds. Ultimately, Con's point boiled down to the bold statement that a privatized system was better. Con gave little evidence for this, went on a rant about
"C) Privatized healthcare provides more consumer choice and is less overwhelming of a burden on medical establishments. With national healthcare, far more people will be relying on the same institutions for their healthcare, which means longer waiting lists and less diversity of healthcare options. Private healthcare creates a market for different methods and philosophies to compete rather than the monogamous state-run healthcare system you are advocating, thus it creates more opportunities for new techniques to develop and for businesses to flourish whereas a national system would stifle innovation and kill business for those who aren't working for the national system."
Even though Con is rebuttaling, Pro had already addressed these critiques in round 1 and Con keeps up this pattern of unwarranted contention without ever providing a starting point for an argument. Since Con was arguing for privatized health car, I think Con came up weak.
Ultimately, Pro covered the 3 major prongs and Con did nothing but deny while producing no justifications for his own position.
All other points tied.