oromagi

PRO left himself wide open by assuming that perfection is inherently good. PRO never defined who got to press the button when so really the only consideration on the table is a kind of wish fulfillment with the question of who defines perfect (and so sets the limits), left unsaid.

Think of all the literature that warns against wishing. I like CON's point that one man's perfect is not another man's but CON needed to lock down PRO on definitions. Maybe perfection somehow balances every man's perfect. CON needed to take some time to establish that this one person's personal perfection, imposed on others.

The best counterargument might be that perfection precludes necessity and necessity is the mother of invention and invention drives all human history, human progress.

Give a caveman his perfect button and he'll get a fat rabbit for dinner every evening and a fat wife and child and never stalk the mammoth herd with stomach rumbling, never learn the advantage of tribes. Give every caveman a perfect button and history essentially stops at a relatively unimpressive version of perfect.

PRO kept things vague and CON made the mistake of living in PRO's vagueness. CON should have worked the resolution to some unethical or impractical effect and then shut down our assumptions that perfection is good.

Interesting topic. Both sides kept it pretty light but ARGs to PRO.

full forfeit
fluff that falafel, Florence

concession

concession

concession

PRO offered a resolution with little room for conflict: art is either dedicated to some special purpose or else to express contempt or disregard for the dedication to special purposes. By such terms, a stop sign is sacred art. Nevertheless, PRO set out his argument with eloquence and erudition.

CON's instinct to attack the definition is correct but CON's arguments quickly devolve into semantic jibber-jabber. For example, art is for war and war is not a person therefore art is not sacred. But PRO did not define art as exclusively dedicated to a person, art can also be dedicated to a purpose and war is certainly chock full of purpose. To challenge PRO's thorough argument, CON needed to give us a superior take on sanctity or profanity. CON tried to argue that because that because the universe is without purpose any reaction within that universe is likewise purposeless but CON failed to demonstrate with any proofs that the universe is without purpose and so fails to persuade this voter.

PRO correctly calls non-sequitur and jauntily refutes the jibber-jabber. CON extends the meaninglessness of existence/ neurons firing randomly argument which I would have like to see PRO address more directly but PRO correctly advises CON that such an argument falls far outside the range of PRO's discussion and (this voter adds) remains unproven.

Argument to PRO

PRO pulled a variety of classic and well established artistic perpsectives to reinforce his case. CON offered a few sources but using a children's definition for creativity hurt the case and no evidence was offered for the only argument with any legs: that the universe is devoid of meaning.

Sources to PRO

Conduct to PRO for 3rd round forfeit.

concession

Fluff for fritters

full fits for seizure

Marxism-Leninism is a political ideology developed by Stalin and used to provide some thin philosophical veneer to the dark brute overlordship of totalitarianism. Both Marx and Lenin would happily kick anybody in the balls for suggesting their name in association with a governing philosophy that ultimately proved fairly indistinguishable from the Hitlerist brand of authoritarianism that Hitler called Fascism. Although PRO forfeits the debate, this VOTER adds sources to CON for the egregious mislabeling and conflation of Communism with Marxism-Leninism. Two very different things.

reason for decision in comments

full forfeit. PRO made a complete, well sourced argument to which CON made no effort to reply.

Full forfeit, essentially. PRO made no presentation. CON gave us two reasonably funny memes- I assume the kitten is the L'il Bub in question.

PRO failed to make an affirmative case proving that an incestuous marriage is "just the same" as gay marriage. As far as this VOTER is concerned the conflation is oxymoron. Marriage is by definition a legal and/or sacred bond that must meet certain basic conditions, the most basic of which is proof of no incest. There's no such thing as incestuous marriage in any practical sense, right? CON explained the obvious difference between the two and even went on to make a case for gay marriage as an improvement on inbreeding. PRO says fine, let's side the question of children aside from the question of marriage (a mighty big ask) and just examine whether a childless incest is just the same as gay marriage. I agree with PRO that CON dodged the question but PRO is neverthless focusing on minority cases when "just the same" already stands disproved and undefended.

POINT: CON

I would have given SOURCES to CON as well as argument had this been a 4 pt debate.

ARGs to CON for PRO's concession
CONDUCT to PRO for CON's forfeit as well as concession

Full credit to PRO for troll smiting

A good start in R1, but ultimately a foul frankfurter.

ARGs to PRO for CON's concession
CONDUCT to CON for concession

This VOTER enjoys the topic of time travel and thanks PRO for instigating on the subject, however I think the formulation of this particular thesis doomed PRO's prospects from the start. PRO's made a gigantic claim- that time travel to the past can only always be a bad idea - knowing that no real evidence could be brought to support that big claim. By setting the standard that all time travel can only be awful PRO gives up a huge amount of grown to CON. All CON has to do is show that maybe time travel might be some improvement on awful.
PRO weakens his case further by bringing up the subject of benefits but then rapidly dismissing the many obvious potential benefits which are the subject of countless sci-fi stories. PRO starts by saying "you couldn't do anything good" but then raises educational benefits and resource harvesting in contradiction to that claim. I think PRO could have made a strong argument from these elements by starting with the perils of paradox and then moving on to the ethics of taking such a risk at the possible expense of the present timeline. The argument was implied but an explicit case against world-ending technology might have been a viable approach.

As is, CON only had to establish the benefit fantasized by fiction forever- thedo-over. Just think of all the popular movies about getting a shot at correcting some big mistake- A Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Life, Back to the Future, Groundhog Day, Terminator, Edge of Tomorrow we humans clearly crave this potential and fantasize about it often. CON easily hands us one great reward and successfully argues that the potential risk scenarios are both various and indeterminable.

I was disappointed by the shortness of the debate and the depletion of energy on both sides for the second round- mostly just re-iteration on both sides. Perhaps PRO already understood how little ground he gave himself to argue.

Arguments to CON. All the rest about equal

I'd recommend to PRO to use highlighting as well italics to show the opponent's prior arguments although if he'd done so in this case, the brevity of PRO's rebuttals might have been emphasized to some unflattering effect.

I hope there will be more debates on the subject of time travel. Thanks to both debaters for their engagement with that subject.

Full forfeit

Full forfeit

Conduct to PRO for concession
Debate to CON for concession

I think PRO had an opportunity to argue that EIT have already desisted since the vague euphemism for torture is left undefined but CON never followed thru on what might have been a winning point.

Args, conduct to PRO for a short, congent, mostly uncontested argument

Full Forfeit

CON's single argument was weak in reasoning and effort. PRO showed that the defined term is sometimes used as asserted by thesis. The fact that some others don't use the term that way in no way refutes the validity of that usage by some. ARGs to PRO.

If one gladiator stands in the coliseum while his opponent pees his own breeches than slits his own throat, the less wet swordsman obviously wins the day. PRO offered a well researched opinion in good faith and CON only replied with ad hom and bad faith only- worse conduct than forfeit and absent any assertion relevant to topic. One of the few efforts on this site that could have been improved by full forfeit.

PRO's argument was far superior but if this voter is reading the user ban logs correctly then one known former debater (username:Human) was composing both sides of the argument, therefore PRO's superior argument was not the outcome of a contest but manufactured by deception. BOTH PRO and CON cheated were the same user and alike in bad faith argument. Therefore, tie for equally atrocious conduct.

full forfeit

PRO offered a fulsome, thoughtful argument which CON disrespectfully refused to engage. Double secret extra conduct points to PRO

full forfeit

full forfeit

for fullfit

full forfeit

full forfeit

CON offered a solid argument in the face of full forfeit. Nice.

ARGS to CON:
Even generically the popular argument "disaster X is punishment on people Y" should always fail. Even before the blanks are filled in, God is made racist, punishing sins by phenotype rather than individual deeds. Even before the blanks are filled, the haters are stuffing profane words in the mouth of what should be sacred. PRO offers no assertions or evidence, just racist insinuation and invective.

CON is to be applauded for responding contemplatively to angry screed.
*whites are less impacted than other phenotypes
*children are impacted in spite of blamelessness
*the Earth is not destroyed
*Yahweh has promised not to destroy the Earth

PRO begins R2 with "this debate isn't really about racism" and then irrelevantly bitches about white people for the rest of the round. PRO is so obsessed with talking about his fear of white people that he forgets his thesis

P1: God is punishing whites
C1: Then how come asians have it worse?
P2: CON is denial about the evil of white people, let's make a list of grievances.

CON correctly calls PRO's non-sequiturs, racism, unreason, and hypocrisy. Aren't we supposed to proving that PRO has special insight into God's intent? PRO never got started on proving God is punching people, PRO's only interest seemed off-topi e proving that white people merit the punch

SOURCES to CON:
As PRO explains: " I never speak in an absolute manner, so no data is needed"

VOCABULARY to CON
The European race has singlehandedly destroyed the earth and its people, which can't be debunked
Either PRO doesn't know what "destroy" means or PRO doesn't know what "debunk" means

CONDUCT to CON:
DART CODE of CONDUCT reads:

3. Hate Speech

Slurs or invective against an entire class of people (such as racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, transphobic, ageist, and ableist slurs, or slurs against religious, political, ethnic, or national groups) are prohibited when aimed against other users. Whether aimed against other users or not, hate speech is treated as aggravating factor in weighing moderation responses to other violations of the COC. Disagreement over what constitutes a religion, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc., is not a legitimate excuse for hate speech.

Even when not directed at fellow DARTers, hate speech is considered poor conduct.

THBT: it is IMPOSSIBLE to BAN EXPERIMENTING on/of ANIMALS

CON concedes ARG, ARGS to PRO
PRO had 5 good relevant sources, CON had none
CON forfeited the majority of this debate and made no effort, conduct to PRO

THBT: IF YOU are a PARTIAL OWNER of a COMPANY, then YOU MUST PUT EFFORT into MANAGING IT

CON1: CON offers a simple syllogism to conclude that less than 100% of OWNERS do any MGMT
PRO1: PRO tries to move the goalpost- from subject=OWNERS to subject=employees, from object=MGMT to object=any work
CON2: Shuts down both moves

The rest of the debate is repetition.

PRO never directly attacked CON's syllogism or offered some convincing counter ARG to CON

THBT: HOSPITALS DIRECTLY CAUSE OVERPOPULATION

PRO1: Hospitals are not to exist because it cures people who are meant to be dead.
CON1:Buildings don't cure people, drs and nurses cure people. overbirth caused by lack of contraception and education is the direct cause of overpopulation
PRO2: Any pop that would have died w/ out hospital intervention count as overpop. Hospital support most births, which even CON says causes overpop
CON2: Adaptation is legitimate strategy, adapted pop is not overpop. Education and contraception would prevent births, with or w/out hospitals

ARGUMENT to CON: PRO needed to define terms up front, particularly what makes a life illegitimately long "meant to be dead" PRO never took on education and contraception argument which was entirely convincing as a root cause.

SOURCES to CON: CON used PRO's sources against PRO- always devastating. PRO offered no citations for R1 then used sources in R2 to were more in agreement w/ CON than PRO

Good engagement on both sides, good topic

full wtf- the unicorn of apathy

DOES a GOOD, PERFECT MAN STRUGGLE with EVIL

Before the debate begins, PRO has introduced a couple of problem impacting clarity.

PRO suggests dual subjects, both GOOD and PERFECT humans. GOOD is committed to doing better each day. PERFECT is never failing to do better each day which suggests contradiction: if a human is perfect on Monday, there is no room for improvement on Tuesday and so that human cannot do better and by PRO's definition is neither good nor perfect any more.

PRO's thesis is never clearly stated. The title is formatted as a question and because instigator is PRO, we infer that the thesis is
Both good and perfect humans struggle with evil

STRUGGLE is insufficiently defined as combat.

EVIL is defined as enticement, power, pride, and possession and also the opposite of GOOD so good can be additionally defined as revulsion, weakness, shame, and poverty.

PRO argues even God struggles with evil, the battleground being the free will of humans. All humans are continuously tempted, PERFECT humans resist temptation without fail but yes, that's still a STRUGGLE

CON intelligently goes after PRO's highly personalized definitions. Better is relative to condition ands unspecified. CON faults PRO's standard as too generic and the main verb "STRUGGLE" as insufficiently defined. The vegetarian fox makes an excellent metaphor.

CON's approach is smart but is not going to win this debate because CON accepted the debate with these terms pre-defined.

"the challenge is to conduct this debate purely from the limited definitions of all terms defined herein"

Normal debate conduct suggest that acceptance of the debate implies agreement to pre-defined terms & definitions. This VOTER tries to maintain an open mind to kritiks of inadequate or offensive pre-definitions and PRO's definitions are wide open to criticism- not rooted in dictionary definition, not sourced, self-contradicting and (as PRO concedes) limited. But for CON's kritik to win the day, I think CON needed to BOTH fault the definitions as unsourced and inadequate AND provide new, well-sourced definitions that makes PRO's thesis fail.

CON's argument is very good; GOOD/EVIL too vague, STRUGGLE is a much more inclusive word than mere combat. HOWEVER, PRO explicitly stated that these definitions stand. This debate can only be conducted by the terms defined (and so should never have been accepted).

Therefore, ARGUMENT to PRO.

This VOTER is sorely tempted to award sources to CON, since the debate depends on definitions that would not stand up to cross-reference In spite of the deficit of sourcing in DESCRIPTION, however, PRO uses many sources of good quality in the debate itself while CON uses no outside source. I expect that was a stylistic choice since CON's positions are in agreement with many reliable sources. CON desperately needed to bring dictionary definitions to bear against PRO's personal definitions. If CON had elected to show that his position is much better supported by scholars and philosophers than PRO, this VOTER would likely have awarded the point to CON in response to PRO's made up definitions, (and so, tied up the debate).

CONDUCT to CON

Both debaters gave good game and demonstrated fine conduct and engagement. This VOTER looks forward to reading future debates from both.

Both PRO and CON violated the terms of the debate but CON is the more forgiven since his approach was a kiritik of those terms while PRO's over-reliance on those terms to win the debate merits a higher standard of conduct. CON was quite right to fault PRO for "referencing God no more than 14 times in both answers, with 5 actual cited references" PRO did well to acknowledge errors on both sides but PRO's violation is the more grievous because PRO wrote the rules and won significant benefit from those rules in ARGUMENTS.

RFD in Mayberry

full forfeit

ARGs to CON: PRO's argument was essentially a string of non-sequitur. Between the cats having babies and men lifting cars, PRO asserts that the power of love is proof of soul without any kind of evidence.

Conduct to CON for forfeit

concession

Weak effort by PRO- hard to understand why PRO engaged in the first place. PRO accepts the debate with the thesis defined, refutes own thesis in the first sentence (19%+ men on welfare) and then denies that thesis in the second sentence: "Women get all the welfare and then spend it away, this was my main argument, not that poverty only exists for men but that a society never lets a women fail." PRO seems to be concerned that women spend more of the family budget than men although men earn the lion's share of that budget. The dynamic is instantly explained by the division of unpaid labor within the household- child raising, grocery shopping, cleaning, maintenance, elder care, etc., but PRO never addresses this primary, essential consideration. It's like complaining that a male duck has to collect all the larvae and seeds while the female just hangs around the nest all day. Poverty and public policy hardly enters into consideration at the level PRO is arguing. By R2, PRO argues that

(1) his claim is satirical in intent (which the absence of any humor or irony refutes) but also
(2) that society" tries it damm hardest to let women not fail" (without any evidence to support this empirically false claim) but also
(3) PRO concedes

rough.

Arguments to CON.

Full forfeit.

full forfeit

PRO argues the current conventional rejection of LTV.
CON concedes the irrelenvancy of LTV as economic theory but argues that Marx considered an LTV an ideal, not a "factual proposal"

CON offers no documentation but only argues that Marx was probably smart and therefore unlikely to be wrong, therefore Marx must have not invested in LTV with conviction so much as speculation. Well, this VOTER is no economist but he's pretty sure Das Kapital places LTV at the center of Marx's argument for the undercompensation of the proletartiat.

PRO is only arguing that LTV is incorrect and has made no assertion about Marx's state of mind. Therefore, CON's main argument is rejected as non-sequitur. PRO correctly points out the non-sequitur and correctly notes that CON has conceded the debate. All the rest merely circled this frame. Arguments to PRO.

Sources to PRO- If CON's whole argument relies on the degree of abstraction Karl Marx brought to his theories of labor then CON would do well to back claims with some evidence. Marx is a thoroughly biographied and considered subject- if there's any truth to CON claims than there should be plenty of research to cite. CON gave us assurances rather than evidence and lost the argument for it.

RESOLVED: The minimum wage should be abolished

PRO as instigator has superior burden of proof here. No specific govt. is id'd although most modern governments implement some form of minimum wage.

R1-PRO argues supply and demand. When labor is not demand the value of labor must drop- minimum wage builds a floor for that drop beneath which job opportunities are lost.

R1-CON argues all human labor is worth at least minimum wage. Abolished minimums creates jobs without fair compensation- so either nobody does them or the disenfranchised are compelled to participate in an unfair system.

R2-PRO counters that 12 years of schooling teaches no useful skills worth compensating.

CON correctly points out that school- literacy, math has value

PRO asks how immigrants are hurt so long as their participation in unfair systems in voluntary. CON counters that voluntary slavery is still slavery.

PRO argues that millions of people are unemployed but takes us to a Wikipedia article that describes full employment at around 5% and current unemployment rate at 3.5%- better than full employment (in spite of major increases in minimum wage in many states and local municipalities). Further the wikipedia article shows that minimum wage is 44% of what it was 50 years ago but employment levels are about the same. PRO argues that abolishing minimum wage will drop unemployment to at or near 0%. CON wisely argues that PRO is contradicted by own source.

ARGUMENTS to CON.
SOURCES to CON. Sourcing was scant but PRO contradicted his own argument with his sources and CON capitalized so sources to CON.

I would have awarded CONDUCT to CON in response to PRO's generalization about Indians as ignorant (they don't know better) but CON responded with a generalization regarding the unemployed as "drug addicts." So both sides stepped off the high ground there.