Total votes: 27
Giving it to CON for the simple reason that they made arguments and PRO didn’t.
CON did mention actual problems with PRO’s proposed resolution such as there being law abiding citizens who wont and haven’t vote for Trump and that Trump himself is a felon but the main issue is how this debate unfolded.
Even if CON forfeited the last round and didn’t say anything it would be a tie since PRO didn’t take advantage and decided to ask random survey questions which looked like PRO was trying to conduct an interview not a debate. If PRO said anything related to the topic I would have considered that only and not the last round of CON.
Im not too familiar with the site policy so moderators can decide if this is a last round sweep or it’s unfair of CON to post something in the last round only.
Either way, even if PRO couldn’t respond to CON in the last round I have nothing to compare it to from PROs side since he also didn’t present anything before the last round assuming CON wont show up at all.
Concession
Concession
When it comes to debating what’s possible and what’s not I think the win will most often than not go to the person arguing as PRO regardless of the debate being serious or not. Absolute knowledge is very hard to prove for basic things that we experience let alone for something like this.
PRO states that there is a possibility that Savant is not human and is a robot/bot/AI (along with other more unrealistic beings).
Now I think in 2024, the existence of AI is pretty common knowledge and advanced AIs have wide range of capabilities. PRO states that there is no evidence that Savant is human based on the lack of personal information we have about him (true but in my opinion wont change anything even if we had it because the information could be fake). This is a weak argument but it serves its purpose to just present the idea that the possibility exists and from now on I don’t know how CON could have even proven absolute certainty.
CON’s whole argument is based on Captcha and that if Savant is a member of the website he had to pass it which proves that he is a human.
The obvious problem as PRO mentioned is that bots and AIs are capable of passing through those captchas pretty easy. I don’t really need sources for that claim because I consider it common knowledge. PRO still provides sources tho with studies done on this topic that clearly state that bots are capable of passing through captcha with high accuracy.
CONs rebuttal to PROs arguments is solely focused on sources and that they are not reliable and “seem ridiculous”. I don’t see however how CON justified those claims.
CON: “because it starts with "study shows"”
“Its from 2013”
“Argument from authority”
“Are you smarter than a robot? Study finds bots better than us at passing CAPTCHA tests”
- I don’t see a problem with how this article starts. Sure the author of the article might’ve missed an “A” infront of “study” but he wasn’t the one who did the experiments and it’s laughable that CON tries to dismiss a whole article because of a missing “A” and not engage with the actual content.
The articles contained the actual studies done and experiments made by scientists which prove PROs claims.
Only one source was from 2013, the others were from 2023. Even if all were from 2013 that means nothing. CONs objection is that captcha has been improved since then and? AI has been improved too arguably way more than anything else. And where is CONS source that captcha has been improved? Based on PRO sources AI can still pass captcha today.
His other objection is that one of the articles is making “an argument from authority” but fails in that (which is good if they were making one lol). In the article there were many scientists quoted not only the one he couldn’t find and there were also linking the studies done which is way more important.
Another interesting thing from the same article, that debunks the idea that captcha has evolved so much:
“But there’s a problem with designing better CAPTCHAs: They have a built-in ceiling. “If it is too difficult, people give up,” Cengiz Acartürk, a cognition and computer scientist at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, tells Inverse.
Acartürk and his colleagues conducted a 2021 study in which they scanned the brains of volunteers…”
(They also link the study done so its not argument from authority which CON still doesn’t know what it is).
Those are also interesting statements from CON:
“Sure, there is a 0.0000...1% chance”
“Just because a possibility of something is given…”
Well if CON agrees the possibility is given and theres a small chance (doesn’t matter how small) the debate is won for PRO. But that part of the debate is not too significant for my decision since legibility was not great and somewhat confusing.
CON also very desperately tried to defend Captcha with nothing but assertions that it proves someone is human “regardless of anything”. This phrase “regardless of anything” and “please understand that it works regardless of anything” has been repeated like 200 times and CON just doesn’t understand that you can’t say something works regardless of anything even when someone shows you a direct example of that failing its purpose. Just because something passed captcha and is human ACCORDING TO CAPTCHA does not make it a human. AI doesn’t turn into human once it passes captcha just because captcha thinks that was a human.
“There is no flaw in this, please understand."- sad attempt to save his case without actually acknowledging the flaws of captcha presented to him.
“Trolling, defined as the act of provoking and harassing others for personal amusement”
CON did not challenge that definition by PRO so I will go by it.
CON did not challenge the morality argument or the consequences trolling might lead to which is equal to conceding to everything PRO claims.
CON argues that trolling is part of free speech but by the definition he accepted PRO shows that its against the law with minor objections by CON. The problem here is that CON didn’t challenge the definition of trolling and it was very easy for PRO to show bullying/harassment is not legal.
“My mother caused me harm when she told me the tooth fairy wasn’t real.” This is not your mother harassing you for her amusement (so by the definition not trolling and the example is irrelevant)
The debate goes on a little off topic talking about personal character and then gets back on track talking about “Hate speech is not mentioned in the First Amendment itself. “
PRO provides sources and explains what is not included in the first amendment which CON agrees to and just says that PRO is pro-censorship and wants a dictatorship. Not a great way to end the debate for CON.
Both agree hate speech is not in the first amendment and hate speech is not protected. CON thinks trolling should not be included in hate speech but he never challenged the definition of trolling so bullying and harassment is easily defined as illegal therefore trolling is illegal too. PRO shows many forms bullying can occur online (stalking etc..) and cause psychological harm which is illegal.
PRO won the legal knowledge battle by utilizing sources and explaining them. CON provided no sources for his claims.
While BK rarely does serious debates (from my observations) he doesn’t refuse to engage with the other side and a simple objection from CONs side could have started the debate and developed it into something productive or serious (as CON wants).
Yes, PRO did start with nonchalant statements that can be barely considered arguments but by the 4th round he presented enough of those to consider them an argument even if a bad one.
This is a different case than CONs debate about R.Kelly where the other side simply refused to present better or any arguments. Here BK just didn’t try much but participated and CON could have refuted his statements which would’ve turn this into an actual discussion.
Full forfeiture
No show from both sides.
Forfeiture
Mods might delete this vote but I see it like this:
BoP: Entirely on PRO.
PRO didn’t present any sensical arguments and failed his BoP. CON had nothing to rebut in the first round since it was just a random statement that had little connection to the resolution and had no explanation at all. Even a tie is a gift for PRO.
Conduct goes to CON because PRO refused to elaborate and debate the topic he initiated and just presented his friend’s mixtape?
CONs forfeit is not an actual forfeit just a result from PROs lack of interest to debate seriously.
Pro briefly argues that governments making decisions based on logic is better than based on religion because it oppresses people from different religions (which is the smallest problem with theocracy but sure thats a reason too). Pro could have presented more comprehensive case but Con’s responses are nonsensical which lost him the debate in my opinion.
Con, just like Pro states, argues that “if someone is acting out of personal belief, they are acting out of religion. This, of course, is absurd”. Pro is obviously right. Not everything you believe in is a religion. Believing the tomatoes you have in the fridge won’t grow legs and escape in middle of the night is not a religion.
Con tries to redefine “religion” very poorly and makes absurd assertions that are simply false and unjustified. Even if we go by Cons absurd definition of religion Con still didn’t address why it’s better for the government to act based on “beliefs systems” and not based on logic.
Also Con forfeited a round, did not engage too much with Pros objections, and simply stated his position again by repeating what he said in the last round:
“Religion is a belief system.
Point blank.
Case closed”
“Point blank” is not an argument.
PRO forfeited every round
PRO provided better arguments with sources
CON capitulated in Round 3
No significant differences in conduct, legibility or sources. If there was a point for entertainment I would give it to PRO for his interesting phrasing sometimes.
Reason for argument point:
*In the comments *
Even though PRO forfeited 2 rounds, CON didn’t capitalize and failed to present anything in rebuttal
The leaf is superior for combat situations because it helps with the actual combat not just merely escaping like CON pointed out or trying a fancy uppercut.
I guess this is a situation where there's no true winner and loser so a tie looks good to me
Forfeiture
PRO did not engage with any arguments
1. PRO’s source is not reliable
2. PRO’s whole case is a subjective opinion, copied and pasted from a random person’s comment on Quora
3. PRO does not give any analysis to what he presented
4. PRO’s argument does not address “Anyone who is not a Christian” but only some atheists
5. PRO fails his BOP
Insufficient evidence from PRO
Both forfeited after the introduction
Full Forfeit