Personally, I’m not sure on the moral question. I have a lot of problems with the arguments of both sides, though I think MisterChris does a good job of representing the pro-life argument. My issue is mostly with finding an objective point at which a unique life (and yes, I’m not just talking about personhood) begins, and I think both sides struggle hard to justify choices that fit a specific narrative rather than engaging with the scientific facts that underpin their choices, but that’s just me. That being said, the moral argument is a lot easier for pro-life debaters than for pro-choice debaters. Lives lost is such a huge and easy impact, and it’s a given. Everything else can get a little muddled if you’re not careful.
Ragnar tackles it differently than I would, but he engages quite a bit harder on the issue of personhood. I can’t speak for how he’d make these arguments, but if you look back at prior debates of his, he’s largely argued that uncertainty should favor a lack of personhood. I’d like to see how he’d engage with this uncertainty principle argument.
The way I’d do it is largely not to engage on it. Essentially, the uncertainty principle is a moral framework based on a lack of knowledge. We can’t know, ergo we may be doing harm and not be aware of it. I’d refocus the debate on what we do know, including incidence of abortions (if illegal abortions are super safe as Chris said) and how they’re affected by punishments/investigations being unclear (the claim of miscarriage would allow many to get away with abortions if they’re not actively investigated). Morally, we as a society may do something “wrong” (i.e. make abortion legal) to prevent greater harms from trying to do it “right” (making abortions illegal). Essentially, I’d focus on the mechanisms used to implement what MisterChris argues for in this debate rather than the perceived outcomes of those actions.
As for defending third term abortions, I actually find that absurdly easy. Almost all of those cases involve physical harms to the child or the mother. A woman doesn’t carry a child that far to term without wanting it very often, and the number of boxes you have to check to get a late term abortion with most providers is not insubstantial. As for the rebirth argument... it came up late and leaves me thinking that the whole debate doesn’t really matter (why care about any suffering or death if we’re coming back later?).
Not sure if you’re looking at a different debate than I am, but the one I found with Roy did not have unassailable arguments. I’ve seen very few debates where the arguments were so good that finding the chinks in the armor was incredibly difficult, and these points really aren’t that strong. Not even really up to Roy’s standards.
Not sure how RoyLatham’s argument is so airtight (haven’t looked at it in a while), but even if it is, these are two different debaters. I don’t think we should assume that Sum1’s arguments will resemble his, and even if they do, that Ayyantu can’t effectively handle them.
...honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is very winnable for Con. I’d personally prefer to debate Con, though I think Pro’s arguments are a little easier.
Haven’t seen someone do something like that in written debates, but I have seen it live. Essentially, the goal is to point out that the system itself is so incredibly flawed that it needs to be challenged to the point of breaking. That’s actually taking it quite a bit further than you’ve suggested, and yes, it leans hard into arguments that fraud is a necessary challenge to an already broken system. However, it’s hard to apply here because you would essentially have to argue that the current system is breaking down because of charter schools, rather than that you will overwhelm the system somehow.
Yeah... I have thoughts on this, but I think I'll keep them from bleeding into the comments. Looks like we'll have at least a couple of follow-up debates on this topic, so I'm looking forward to seeing how those play out, but I would be interested in doing one myself at some point.
I’m sure it would have depended on the debate topic, but in general, setting RoyLatham as the bar is setting it about as high as a bar could go on DDO. Also, for the record, happy to have you debating on this site, Danielle. Never got the chance to debate you on DDO, would be great to have that chance here sometime.
Oh there’s tons to cover here and both sides could build a solid case, but going down the rabbit hole of “what makes a human” is just asking for trouble outside of an out and out abortion debate (and, honestly, even then I have issues with it). Focus needs to be on the major comparisons, not on establishing uncertainty.
You absolutely could have, though I think you need to keep the focus on global warming and really emphasize how actions we take now are yielding consequences that can’t be reversed. Really getting into just how great of a problem global warming represents and hyping that harm, as MisterChris did with abortion, would have been a good start. Even better would have been to include a large argument about life on this planet and how anthropocentric views have led humans to view all other life as dispensable. Hype the importance of other life, and use the all life has meaning viewpoint of the pro-life movement to help build it.
As for addressing abortion, you needed to throw him off his rhythm. This isn’t about changing a policy regarding abortion, just about whether abortion is a greater issue. What does a world where abortions don’t happen look like? Deaths will still happen in droves, but how? Food security and poverty would actually come into play here. Addressing loss of life as an issue, regardless of when or how it happens, would have been a good direction. If we’re just shunting these people into a system where they suffer and die, are we really doing anyone more favors? Also, overpopulation and global warming have some nice connections you could’ve gone for.
Huh, just realized I forgot to add points to the RFD when I cast it. Will try to get it removed and replaced, same text, though.
I think the best place to start for any sci-fi debate is to clearly establish what the differences are from the outset. Grounding your world gives you and your opponent concrete details to work with, and much as you don't need to prove that these things are possible as Oromagi said, you do at least have to establish what they are and state that they are, essentially, givens in this world. That gives you the ability to craft solid advantages, and it could be built around a game plot, but as the game probably leaves out many of these details, you'll have to fill in some gaps.
As for stressing the power of fulfilling dreams, I don't know if I would have gone that direction, largely because it's hard to impact those out. However, I think there are lots of ways you could insert memories to make peoples' lives better. Things like exposure therapy could be dramatically shortened and, for conditions like PTSD, made a lot more effective if you're careful about how you manage it. You also have to be aware that the tool can be used in extremely negative ways, so it's mainly a matter of assessing what that means. You could argue that people should be able to choose their memories, taking the libertarian ideal that what we would consider to be bad choices are theirs to make regardless. You could even argue that, in the same way that a doctor has a duty to those who are dying to provide them with a less painful option for death (which appears to run contrary to the "never do harm" principle), doctors have a duty to see to the psychological wellbeing of their patients. We do that with drugs all the time, often doing more harm in the process. Why is modifying their truth any worse?
I think his point is that he designates them as a race that Ragnar himself wouldn’t apply. What that race is seems entirely beside the point because we can’t peer into Trump’s head and determine how he thinks about this particular issue, and I sincerely doubt that Trump has specified in these speeches. If you want to argue that this isn’t racism from your view because you don’t agree with Trump on this designation, then that’s fine, but Trump himself has levied both that claim and the associated one about them having superior genes. That’s a link Trump himself made very clearly, so I have a hard time understanding how that view isn’t inherently racist, given the connections he’s making rather than your own views.
Questioning basic suppositions we make in debate is fine, but there’s a format for doing that and it’s not just putting out a series of questions. Questions alone do nothing for you in a debate. You need to take your view that your opponent is making fundamentally flawed assumptions and use it to challenge their mindset directly, rather than just pose questions. It’s called a Kritik, and it’s a lot more involved than what you’ve been trying to do. If you’re really this focused on challenging your opponent’s assumptions rather than responding directly to their arguments, I urge you to read up on the tactic. Here’s a pretty basic rundown: https://mbhsdebate.wixsite.com/debate/kritik
Seriously, dude, if you're going to learn anything from these two debates learn this: questions aren't arguments. You don't give yourself offense by introducing doubt, and no matter how well phrased a question is, it's not going to accomplish anything more than minor mitigation. It's a debate. Present arguments.
This isn't so much an issue of bias or personal views as it is an issue with how you engage with your opponent's arguments. What you should take away from this debate, and hopefully bring into your other debate with Ragnar, is that you have to interact with the arguments your opponent presents you with. Arguing that there are better ways for him to present his arguments and sources isn't going to benefit your position at all.
And, though I don't want to get into it too deeply so as not to influence the debaters, the view that being Jewish is a race was a central part of Hitler's efforts. You can argue that being anti-semetic isn't inherently racist, but Hitler's own efforts to classify Jews in this manner simply sets him (and, unfortunately, many others) apart from what should be basic knowledge.
I agree that being Jewish isn’t a race. That being said, there are Jewish groups that are racially distinct from others. Ashkenazi and Sephardi are two such subsets, and they are racial groups. So it’s important to distinguish them from Judaism as a whole, but the debate is still relevant.
Your point here is confounding. Ragnar did provide his own analysis and conclusions regarding the content of those arguments. He does this thing called "summary" where he takes the main point of a long article, scales it down to the most relevant parts, and presents it as support for his side of the debate. Within the debate, your argument largely appeared to be that that support was insufficient to prove racism, though you never directly addressed any of those links nor did you substantially challenge the conclusions your opponent came to, despite repeatedly questioning them. Questions aren't arguments. You needed to engage with your opponent's points, challenge his basic suppositions and, yes, challenge his sources (or, at minimum, what his sources mean). If you don't do that, you can't expect to win a debate like this.
I have mixed feelings about this separation, but I do believe that efforts to entirely separate the artist from the art miss the point. There is a question as to how much of a role the artist should play in the assessment of their art when they do something well after the fact, but I don’t think we can or should ignore the relation for things they did during its creation, particularly if they continue to engage in those actions. The art itself is, undeniably, tainted by their actions.
Can try to get through it this weekend.
Personally, I’m not sure on the moral question. I have a lot of problems with the arguments of both sides, though I think MisterChris does a good job of representing the pro-life argument. My issue is mostly with finding an objective point at which a unique life (and yes, I’m not just talking about personhood) begins, and I think both sides struggle hard to justify choices that fit a specific narrative rather than engaging with the scientific facts that underpin their choices, but that’s just me. That being said, the moral argument is a lot easier for pro-life debaters than for pro-choice debaters. Lives lost is such a huge and easy impact, and it’s a given. Everything else can get a little muddled if you’re not careful.
Ragnar tackles it differently than I would, but he engages quite a bit harder on the issue of personhood. I can’t speak for how he’d make these arguments, but if you look back at prior debates of his, he’s largely argued that uncertainty should favor a lack of personhood. I’d like to see how he’d engage with this uncertainty principle argument.
The way I’d do it is largely not to engage on it. Essentially, the uncertainty principle is a moral framework based on a lack of knowledge. We can’t know, ergo we may be doing harm and not be aware of it. I’d refocus the debate on what we do know, including incidence of abortions (if illegal abortions are super safe as Chris said) and how they’re affected by punishments/investigations being unclear (the claim of miscarriage would allow many to get away with abortions if they’re not actively investigated). Morally, we as a society may do something “wrong” (i.e. make abortion legal) to prevent greater harms from trying to do it “right” (making abortions illegal). Essentially, I’d focus on the mechanisms used to implement what MisterChris argues for in this debate rather than the perceived outcomes of those actions.
As for defending third term abortions, I actually find that absurdly easy. Almost all of those cases involve physical harms to the child or the mother. A woman doesn’t carry a child that far to term without wanting it very often, and the number of boxes you have to check to get a late term abortion with most providers is not insubstantial. As for the rebirth argument... it came up late and leaves me thinking that the whole debate doesn’t really matter (why care about any suffering or death if we’re coming back later?).
I'll see what I can do, got a couple of debates to vote on before this one.
I haven’t given his points a thorough read yet, but he does look strong. Doppelgänger, eh? Have to see about that.
Might take me a bit, but I’ll get through this.
Only one I could find:
https://www.debate.org/debates/School-uniforms-should-be-required/1/
Not sure if you’re looking at a different debate than I am, but the one I found with Roy did not have unassailable arguments. I’ve seen very few debates where the arguments were so good that finding the chinks in the armor was incredibly difficult, and these points really aren’t that strong. Not even really up to Roy’s standards.
Not sure how RoyLatham’s argument is so airtight (haven’t looked at it in a while), but even if it is, these are two different debaters. I don’t think we should assume that Sum1’s arguments will resemble his, and even if they do, that Ayyantu can’t effectively handle them.
I’m sure you’ll manage just fine. It’s a well trod topic with a lot of room for diverse arguments on both sides, depending on where you put the focus.
...honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is very winnable for Con. I’d personally prefer to debate Con, though I think Pro’s arguments are a little easier.
Yup, that's pretty good.
I'll give it a read later when I have a second.
Haven’t seen someone do something like that in written debates, but I have seen it live. Essentially, the goal is to point out that the system itself is so incredibly flawed that it needs to be challenged to the point of breaking. That’s actually taking it quite a bit further than you’ve suggested, and yes, it leans hard into arguments that fraud is a necessary challenge to an already broken system. However, it’s hard to apply here because you would essentially have to argue that the current system is breaking down because of charter schools, rather than that you will overwhelm the system somehow.
Yeah... I have thoughts on this, but I think I'll keep them from bleeding into the comments. Looks like we'll have at least a couple of follow-up debates on this topic, so I'm looking forward to seeing how those play out, but I would be interested in doing one myself at some point.
I'd be totally willing to take you on with this topic, though that will have to wait until after I've moved, so a couple of weeks.
I have thoughts, but I don't want to hand out arguments to either side, so I'll just see how things go.
I’m sure it would have depended on the debate topic, but in general, setting RoyLatham as the bar is setting it about as high as a bar could go on DDO. Also, for the record, happy to have you debating on this site, Danielle. Never got the chance to debate you on DDO, would be great to have that chance here sometime.
I can try, not a lot of notice, though.
I’ll get to this.
Pretty sure this has more to do with Your Name than Freaky Friday.
Speaking my language, and I’m a fan of the movie, so let’s do this.
Yep, sounds about right.
Oh there’s tons to cover here and both sides could build a solid case, but going down the rabbit hole of “what makes a human” is just asking for trouble outside of an out and out abortion debate (and, honestly, even then I have issues with it). Focus needs to be on the major comparisons, not on establishing uncertainty.
You absolutely could have, though I think you need to keep the focus on global warming and really emphasize how actions we take now are yielding consequences that can’t be reversed. Really getting into just how great of a problem global warming represents and hyping that harm, as MisterChris did with abortion, would have been a good start. Even better would have been to include a large argument about life on this planet and how anthropocentric views have led humans to view all other life as dispensable. Hype the importance of other life, and use the all life has meaning viewpoint of the pro-life movement to help build it.
As for addressing abortion, you needed to throw him off his rhythm. This isn’t about changing a policy regarding abortion, just about whether abortion is a greater issue. What does a world where abortions don’t happen look like? Deaths will still happen in droves, but how? Food security and poverty would actually come into play here. Addressing loss of life as an issue, regardless of when or how it happens, would have been a good direction. If we’re just shunting these people into a system where they suffer and die, are we really doing anyone more favors? Also, overpopulation and global warming have some nice connections you could’ve gone for.
Yep, nice debating you! I do think this is a great topic, lots to explore.
Thanks, Ragnar!
Huh, just realized I forgot to add points to the RFD when I cast it. Will try to get it removed and replaced, same text, though.
I think the best place to start for any sci-fi debate is to clearly establish what the differences are from the outset. Grounding your world gives you and your opponent concrete details to work with, and much as you don't need to prove that these things are possible as Oromagi said, you do at least have to establish what they are and state that they are, essentially, givens in this world. That gives you the ability to craft solid advantages, and it could be built around a game plot, but as the game probably leaves out many of these details, you'll have to fill in some gaps.
As for stressing the power of fulfilling dreams, I don't know if I would have gone that direction, largely because it's hard to impact those out. However, I think there are lots of ways you could insert memories to make peoples' lives better. Things like exposure therapy could be dramatically shortened and, for conditions like PTSD, made a lot more effective if you're careful about how you manage it. You also have to be aware that the tool can be used in extremely negative ways, so it's mainly a matter of assessing what that means. You could argue that people should be able to choose their memories, taking the libertarian ideal that what we would consider to be bad choices are theirs to make regardless. You could even argue that, in the same way that a doctor has a duty to those who are dying to provide them with a less painful option for death (which appears to run contrary to the "never do harm" principle), doctors have a duty to see to the psychological wellbeing of their patients. We do that with drugs all the time, often doing more harm in the process. Why is modifying their truth any worse?
I think his point is that he designates them as a race that Ragnar himself wouldn’t apply. What that race is seems entirely beside the point because we can’t peer into Trump’s head and determine how he thinks about this particular issue, and I sincerely doubt that Trump has specified in these speeches. If you want to argue that this isn’t racism from your view because you don’t agree with Trump on this designation, then that’s fine, but Trump himself has levied both that claim and the associated one about them having superior genes. That’s a link Trump himself made very clearly, so I have a hard time understanding how that view isn’t inherently racist, given the connections he’s making rather than your own views.
Alright, then you’ll keep losing debates like this the same way. If you’re good with that, then hey, I won’t stop you.
Questioning basic suppositions we make in debate is fine, but there’s a format for doing that and it’s not just putting out a series of questions. Questions alone do nothing for you in a debate. You need to take your view that your opponent is making fundamentally flawed assumptions and use it to challenge their mindset directly, rather than just pose questions. It’s called a Kritik, and it’s a lot more involved than what you’ve been trying to do. If you’re really this focused on challenging your opponent’s assumptions rather than responding directly to their arguments, I urge you to read up on the tactic. Here’s a pretty basic rundown: https://mbhsdebate.wixsite.com/debate/kritik
This'll take a day or two, but I'm on it.
Read through it. Going to need to chew over this a bit, probably will read through it again to come to a decision, might not happen til the weekend.
Seriously, dude, if you're going to learn anything from these two debates learn this: questions aren't arguments. You don't give yourself offense by introducing doubt, and no matter how well phrased a question is, it's not going to accomplish anything more than minor mitigation. It's a debate. Present arguments.
Sure, I’ll give it a read and a vote.
This isn't so much an issue of bias or personal views as it is an issue with how you engage with your opponent's arguments. What you should take away from this debate, and hopefully bring into your other debate with Ragnar, is that you have to interact with the arguments your opponent presents you with. Arguing that there are better ways for him to present his arguments and sources isn't going to benefit your position at all.
And, though I don't want to get into it too deeply so as not to influence the debaters, the view that being Jewish is a race was a central part of Hitler's efforts. You can argue that being anti-semetic isn't inherently racist, but Hitler's own efforts to classify Jews in this manner simply sets him (and, unfortunately, many others) apart from what should be basic knowledge.
Alright, but the question of whether his views on Jews also make him racist is also relevant.
I agree that being Jewish isn’t a race. That being said, there are Jewish groups that are racially distinct from others. Ashkenazi and Sephardi are two such subsets, and they are racial groups. So it’s important to distinguish them from Judaism as a whole, but the debate is still relevant.
Your point here is confounding. Ragnar did provide his own analysis and conclusions regarding the content of those arguments. He does this thing called "summary" where he takes the main point of a long article, scales it down to the most relevant parts, and presents it as support for his side of the debate. Within the debate, your argument largely appeared to be that that support was insufficient to prove racism, though you never directly addressed any of those links nor did you substantially challenge the conclusions your opponent came to, despite repeatedly questioning them. Questions aren't arguments. You needed to engage with your opponent's points, challenge his basic suppositions and, yes, challenge his sources (or, at minimum, what his sources mean). If you don't do that, you can't expect to win a debate like this.
I have mixed feelings about this separation, but I do believe that efforts to entirely separate the artist from the art miss the point. There is a question as to how much of a role the artist should play in the assessment of their art when they do something well after the fact, but I don’t think we can or should ignore the relation for things they did during its creation, particularly if they continue to engage in those actions. The art itself is, undeniably, tainted by their actions.
Yep, I did. Should have enough time to type that up tomorrow.
This would be Ragnar's.
Looking forward to debating you on this.
I’m tempted. I’ll think about this one for a bit and, if no one has accepted, I might take you on.
Pretty good for such a short time frame.
Got through it faster than I anticipated.
Can’t promise I’ll finish this tomorrow, but at least by Monday you’ll have a vote.
Thank you for voting!
I appreciate that you're still willing to vote, but if you have a lot going on, don't worry too much about it. Life's more important.