whiteflame

Neither side makes this terribly easy for me, I'm afraid.

Pro's argument comes together well in the second round where I get a pretty discrete rundown of how his points gel to form a clear framework. I think Pro's first round was a little scattershot, more a collection of ideas and theories than a cohesive narrative that supported the resolution, but to his credit, Pro does manage to synthesize it pretty well. Mainly just a shame Pro doesn't manage to close out the debate as strong as he started it, with his last round largely dismissive of the points presented by Con rather than engaging with any of them specifically.

Con's argument largely coalesces in the third round, which is not too late to be considered, but does considerably weaken his points regarding how well the Christianity theming fits Neo into the box of "The One." It's also a kind of weird place to put that argument for the first time since Pro did put down some pre-rebuttal in his first round and spent much of his argument setting up a different religious lens through which to view the movies, which Con responded to by largely writing off the whole argument as Pro's headcanon. So Con didn't do himself any favors leading into that later argument.

The long and short of it is that I think Pro has the stronger argument if we're looking at which of them is set up as the most pivotal figure for fulfilling parts of the prophecy behind The One. Con argues several times that Neo fulfills that prophecy too, but Pro sets up a much more on balance comparison between the two, and while "catalyst" and "reactant" may not be the best terms to use to establish that (I know my chemistry well enough that I was scratching my head reading the parts of Pro's arguments that utilize those terms, and Pro doesn't do as good of a job as he could keeping them separate), Pro does clarify elsewhere that Agent Smith had a massive influence that Neo cannot match. I think he also sets up an interesting, albeit less direct, means of affirming the resolution through Gnosticism and Pantheism. From that lens at least, I can see where Pro is coming from pretty clearly, whereas the case Con later sets up for Christianity as a framework is more muddled and symbolic rather than directly evoking the philosophy underpinning that religion.

Where things get tricky is on the arguments about the sort of checklist for The One. Con lays out a pretty clear set of criteria that The Oracle says are required to be The One, including transcending the Matrix and Trinity falling in love with them, being in some sense born within The Matrix, and being identified by Morpheus. Those all bear weight in a distinct sense from whether or not certain names and metaphors hold up, and I think when the response to a lot of this is just "The Oracle's a liar", it just leads to more questions about what, then, are the discrete elements that define The One. Are those two elements lies from The Oracle? She clearly lied elsewhere, but it's unclear that she lied in these particular instances. Pro does manage to introduce some doubt as to whether Neo transcends the Matrix and both have claims to being "born" within it, so it mainly depends on how much weight I'm putting on Trinity falling in love with him and Morpheus's ability to identify him. I can't put much weight on the latter, mainly because Morpheus clearly does get it wrong on several occasions as both sides point out. So it really is mainly about the Trinity connection and, while I buy that that's a substantial point in Con's favor, I still end up voting Pro in the end. I think the weight of his broader thematic analysis and of Agent Smith's more weighty presence in the plot ends up doing more to support his position than Con can manage, and while I think Pro could have done a better job laying all this out in the final round, he does enough in the previous three to win my vote.

That's easy enough. Conceded.

So, this is the topic:

“Debate must be voted on basis of arguments ,not on basis of forfeiture.”

This topic is distinct from another topic that could have been given, one that would have placed the focus entirely on whether one should be able to award argument points for one side forfeiting a debate. That seems to be the focus of much of Pro’s argument, but it’s not the focus of that topic. The focus of the topic is whether a vote should be placed on the basis of forfeiture alone, without considering arguments.

Unfortunately for Pro, as Con points out, he concedes the debate in his final round. By arguing that the side that doesn’t forfeit should receive the conduct point, he concedes that a vote can and should be placed on the basis of forfeiture alone. He argues that arguments should still be considered, but for the conduct point alone, he concedes that forfeits warrant awarding it. That’s enough to satisfy Con’s burden in the debate, since he didn’t have to show why arguments shouldn’t be considered, just that forfeits should yield a point allocation. Therefore, I award arguments to Con.

His winning almost automatically grants conduct to Pro as well, since his argument demands that a forfeit result in a point allocation and he agrees with Pro that conduct is the correct place to put that.

The rules tell me to "ban" any forfeiture in this debate, so that makes the decision easy here. 50% of the debate was forfeited anyway, so technically this would count as a full forfeit under the voting standards. By both metrics, I award all points to Con.

I'll start off by stating my bias: I agree with Pro on this one, at least based on my limited knowledge of how these tariffs have affected the economy. I won't go into the "why" because, frankly, that isn't relevant to my decision.

So, why am I voting Con?

In part, I'd say it's because this debate came a little too early, and Con argued along these lines several times. Having "a negative effect on our economy" encompasses a wide variety of factors and requires some consistent shift towards the negative, not just one that happened shortly after these tariffs were imposed. And that's not an easy thing to measure. I agree with Pro that there was an immediate and obvious impact to markets as speculation led to major declines, but when the topic says "so far," it's necessarily not limited to the immediate impact of their imposition. That's part of the reason why I think this debate would have been more interesting with a broader view on the effects of these tariffs because even acknowledging that there was a negative effect doesn't mean that the net effect of tariffs have been negative. That requires a broader scope, and there have been broader knock-on effects like how these tariffs have affected supply chains and changed how other countries perceive the US as a trading partner. Those are further-reaching effects that might have done enough to satisfy the BoP under this resolution.

The other problem, though, is that economies are necessarily varied. Some companies will do very well even in a downturn, so just looking at individual stock prices or even groups of stock prices ends up being fraught. I can see why Pro wanted to focus on the broader market and why Con brought the focus to individual stocks, since the latter was an attempt to disrupt Pro's view that the broad effects of the tariffs demonstrate a clear negative effect. I think Pro needed to present a challenge to that, and one way he could have done that was flipping the script on the gold argument. One of the reasons precious metals like gold and silver are going up under this economy is the economic uncertainty that those tariffs create. People seek safe-haven assets, and since gold and silver will always be valuable, they purchase more of it and more stock in it, increasing its value. I think more discussion about the effects of economic uncertainty, resulting in part from just not knowing how to handle the up-and-down decisions on tariffs, could also have been a winning direction for Pro to take this.

Overall, I think Con does a better job explaining how all the negative effects Pro lays out are, at the very least, uncertain or unclear. Con suggests there might be positive impacts to come with regards to trade deficits, but doesn't really demonstrate any positive impacts of these tariffs yet. Still, as he points out, that's not his burden. All he had to do here was introduce enough uncertainty to make the effect of those tariffs look like a mixed bag, and just looking at the arguments presented in this debate, I think he accomplishes that. Pro's focus on the initial impact of announcing and imposing tariffs just doesn't do enough to overcome the mixed impact of their role on the economy since then, particularly in the stock market.

This debate ends rather early and neither debater seems to recognize why.

A lot of this debate seems to be focused on a different topic from the one I see at the top of this page. If the topic was "The right to hate speech must be limited," then a lot of this debate would remain valid and be the focus of my RFD, but the topic doesn't include the word "hate". That's important because all Pro had to do here was demonstrate that there are any instances where the "right to speech" (which I interpret to mean all speech, not just hate speech) must be limited. And Con concedes that there are instances like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater that should not be allowed, as well as restrictions that already exist under the law that should be enforced. He ends up doing a bit of Pro's work for him.

I get why this happened, especially since Pro's argument was significantly broader than these instances, but his burdens in this debate didn't require him to win all those points. Con could have argued that Pro's burdens were higher, but to do that, he would have had to argue that we should interpret "right to speech" differently from the plain meaning of those terms. I think Con's arguments against limiting certain types of speech are valid and could have won him the debate if it had been reframed to focus on those types of speech, but given a lack of different framing, I end up awarding the debate to Pro.

Also, I agree with several of the comments on this: it's best to just ask people to vote on your debate and not tell them how to think about the arguments presented before they take a look at it. Let your arguments do the convincing @jonrohith.

Given the single round forfeit by Con, they only got to present an argument in the final round of this two-round debate. Con’s arguments may be better in that second round, but since it is the final round, Pro never got a chance to respond to it. Presenting your entire argument as the last post in a debate is inherently unfair to Pro and thus, I don’t consider those arguments. Con had the opportunity to present them earlier and surrendered that opportunity by forfeiting.

So Pro automatically wins arguments so long as he makes any points in support of the resolution. I’ll pick him up on algae tanks, which demonstrate that there could be a replacement for forests.

Conduct to Pro for the forfeit. No points for legibility. No points for sources because, despite their presence in the debate, Con’s sources do not function so long as his arguments are not a factor.

Getting this in under the wire.

I'm awarding the win to Pro on this one. I think he lays out a very clear case early on for how Buddhism yields a more fulfilling life for the individual, which necessarily can and does extend beyond them. Con's response is that things can still be bad anyway, which may mitigate that positive, but it doesn't do anything for his case. Also, maybe don't end the debate by saying that Christians can meditate too since that implies that Buddhists having it as a core precept is a positive. Con's kind of giving up that point in the end, and with no direct responses to much of the concepts Pro presented in R1, that puts him in a bad spot.

Con's case on this point doesn't work so well in his favor, either. I get the point on charity, but a) it seems like there's a mix of good and bad things that Christians have done for the world at large, even if this one is just a straight up good, and b) for all you keep stating that it is consistent with leading "to a more fulfilling life," I don't really see it. It leads to a more stable and prosperous world in general, sure, and it might improve the lives of others, but I needed some clear reframing of what makes a "fulfilling life" specifically, not an assertion in R2 that more people living longer and better lives necessarily makes those lives fulfilling. The term has a meaning that you're not digging into and I think Pro does a better job setting up what that looks like. The same is true for Con's prosperity argument. Lastly, the point about the afterlife is an instance of trying to add in another term to the resolution. It specifically says "life" and arguing in the final round that "afterlife" suffices isn't going to work for me. You could argue that life is made more fulfilling with the promise of that future afterlife, but not just that the afterlife being a better experience supports the resolution as described.

As for truth, I end up siding with Pro here as well, in that I think both sides don't do enough to support the historical truth of their respective religions. Nothing here suffices as any kind of historical or scientific evidence beyond assertion. Con can't just keep arguing that the Shroud of Turin or eucharistic miracles exist and are evidence without any kind of sourcing and hope to meet his burden. I disagree that uncertainty affords him a "50/50 chance" that anything he's suggested is true - you don't automatically get a coin flip probability just because it cannot be proven either way. And the existence of cardiac tissue in communion wafers is only ever going to suggest the possibility of a miracle, not serve as proof thereof.

Also, yes, I'm awarding sources to Pro. Much as Con gave some responses on these points, a lot of these arguments stand and those responses don't exactly flip the sources in Con's favor. The support for Pro's case lends him more support in the "fulfilling life" department by making this not just about his opinion, whereas much of Con's perspective comes down to personal preference.

R1 -

Christian (FC), Quality (AR), Descriptions (FC)

R2 -

Christian (FC), Quality (FC), Descriptions (AR)

R3 -

Christian (AR), Quality (AR), Descriptions (AR)

No conduct violations as described, so score's an even split according to the ballot instructions. Enjoyed listening to these.

Forfeited and then conceded by Pro.

This debate ends up pretty lopsided, particularly after Pro starts shifting the goalposts in R2. When he argues that Christians must effectively and solely be working toward not just their own best health interest, but the optimal means of achieving it, he effectively cedes the point about alcohol. Even if Pro had somehow proven that there was an optimal drink, he shows no evidence whatsoever that Christianity demands imbibing that specific drink, nor does he demonstrate anywhere that I can see that it's outright sinful to be imbibing suboptimally. It doesn't help that Pro is not responsive to indicators that Jesus himself behaved suboptimally in this respect, which suggests that there's wiggle room involved at minimum, nor that there are clear benefits to drinking alcohol, which suggests that it may be unclear what is even optimal or why.

As for sexual activity, there's not much to say here. Pro tried to alter one of the terms in the resolution after the fact and calls out Con for sticking to it (by the by, I'm giving Con conduct because of the repeated statements that Con's arguments somehow signified that he is autistic. If you don't like the argument, fine, but making a personal attack like that isn't going to net you points). Even absent that, Con effectively demonstrates (and Pro never responds to this point) that married couples are encouraged to perform sexual activities with each other that are not just intercourse. Pro kept responding to this by saying it was wrong out of wedlock, which is not responsive. The resolution says "any sexual activity other than sex," and Con provided other sexual activities in detail that fit that description.

Ergo, Con wins on both these points.

Only Pro posted songs and Con forfeited. Love those vibes.

Pro knows his femboys. Also concession.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ndrD5_x-jcez4IzaqP-GgVA3UdB1-RS4lhp5QNvZhCc/edit?usp=sharing

RFD in the link. Happy to take any questions about it.

RFD here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DMqtVbQtLq2fP1vuo3cRZeDpDqJTzFEB1oV_cLoPOEs/edit?usp=sharing

Solid debate, guys. Might not be the best person to judge this given my lack of foundation in the material, but I found my view swinging each way at various points through the debate. Tough decision in the end.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vi7wGmJhi7kMUBxz_QbRrAFPgo3m4zjKqmz3-7vnoXI/edit?usp=sharing

Long story short, I think a lot of the debate got mired in definitions, which ended up making it harder for Pro to focus on the more vulnerable elements of Con's argument. Given the burdens of the debate and what Pro had to do to meet them, Con only had to win one argument, and I think he did with the 13th Amendment.

Going to start by sharing this: https://www.youtube.com/live/76y3Wygnehc?si=PwIsYB1IkB25JTQo
It's a long-form video that's basically a lesson on the topic of how altruism is selected for in populations. I'm not using it as a basis for my vote on this debate, and I know it's a long video, but it's worth the watch as it provides not just a logical support for Con's position, but evidence to support that logic that is rock solid.

As for the debate itself, I think Pro confuses defining altruism in such a way as to make it nigh impossible to achieve and altruism simply being impossible to achieve. There's a difference because the definition provided - the act of doing something that has no Benifet to yourself to only benifet others - isn't an accurate definition, which may explain why Con finds it so confounding. If you squint at it, it's similar to a definition I've seen before for the principle of altruism, but notably, Pro avoids providing the zoological definition (which is the one discussed in the video above) that has a more direct association with evolution: behavior that benefits another at the expense of the individual. The problem here is that talking about altruism from the stance of a principle doesn't really jive with a topic regarding the theory of evolution as true. If you're going to put your topic in the context of the biological, you should probably keep all your terms in a similar context, otherwise you're twisting the definitions to fit a very specific narrative that never really comes together because the definitions don't fit together.

Nonetheless, there's not too much to cover here since I don't think Pro does enough to support his position. Pro simply asserts that everyone is thinking of some personal benefit resulting from their actions out of necessity, as though evolution demands that humans only consider personal benefit with every action, though I don't see support for such a broad assertion. The notion that selfish desires of some kind must exist for every action committed for the benefit of someone else remains an assertion in the end despite Pro's repetition of it, and I think Con does enough to show that not all human actions necessarily have a evolutionarily programmed instinct as their base cause. Since the resolution is absolute, Pro gave himself a high burden of proof that he did not satisfy with his given arguments. Hence, I vote Con.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jQFd2KK-zf4agZvV_v_cDJkxmn8YzEvEEEba8bQDYM0/edit?usp=sharing

Don't give out many tie votes, but here we are. The tl;dr: there are two separate debates going on here, you both won the debate you were having, but neither of you did enough to explain why your vision of the debate was paramount. You both argued well, just too bad there was so little cross-talk.

Given the full forfeit, the debate obviously goes to Pro. Since Pro requested some feedback, I'm also going to provide some here:

There's a lot of focus up front on how this plan will be implemented. I do think it's important to set a clear line (saying "16-17" leaves it somewhat vague and makes the question of why you'd set that limit all the more nebulous since you're giving a range rather than a specific age), but regardless of the age you set, it's important to recognize how your policy affects outcomes. You're suggesting a ban implemented via a set of fines. Considering you're talking about children who are most often lacking a steady income, it could be argued that the burden would fall on their parents rather than the kids themselves. Also, much as I agree that vendors could be targeted to prevent distribution, you talk a bit about flavors and don't mention how these are marketed. Part of the regulations that were placed on cigarettes were the result of noting how certain advertisements were clearly meant to entice kids to smoke. I think you'd have to do something similar with vaping and e-cigarettes.

As for the health hazards, I think you lay them out pretty well. When it comes to providing your sources, it's a good idea to make sure your reader knows what sources apply where, either by hyperlinking in the text itself (I saw you did that in R2) or by providing some kind of footnote system to reference. I'd also suggest focusing more on statistical data and comparisons to cigarettes, since a comparison to something that is already banned for this age group makes for a stronger case and the numbers can do more to establish the weight of your impacts.

I vote for the Talented Mrs. Ripley, though we do not talk about her third movie… the horror…

Kidding aside, Pro conceded the debate in R2. I agree that the topic could have been worded better - absolute terms can be much more easily defeated.

Concession outweighs desire to end in a tie.

Considering that Con only posted one round and that that entire round was AI-generated, while Pro posted two rounds with his actual arguments, this is pretty lop-sided. I consider Con's side a full forfeit, and thus vote Pro.

Pro only has the argument of defeating Russia, which he never really impacts out. Meanwhile, the economic effects that Con brings up and the nuclear impacts are better weighed and largely go unaddressed due to those forfeits. Con outweighs Pro.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ppTaynxNwq_BgyoFDJ-iHLcwvzdSUVggXmUFp-2nRiE/edit?usp=sharing

I'll admit, my thoughts on this one got a bit jumbled, took a while to disentangle them. Hope the RFD makes more sense than it initially did in my head.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pPhrTTUvy7qNY3sYNsPDVlu3g-B-f2yjHFaUyhS0F8g/edit?usp=sharing

Good points made by both sides, though I think there should have been more of a shared set of knowledge about these two fighters up front. Would've made this more focused and, potentially, introduced more opportunities to make the fight a bit more even. Tl;dr: Aang just has a bigger set of tools at his disposal and it's unlikely that Naruto's strength and durability would be enough to secure him the win.

Well, I haven't done an intense RFD in a while, but it felt like this one earned it (hence the delays on posting it). Let me know if you have any questions. Really solid debate by both sides.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KtgIdfp9WgKOlHRt2MCWENA5H9-joBej805xXlpupao/edit?usp=sharing

There's not really any weighing analysis of the presented points by either side, so the best I can do is some side-by-side comparisons of the presented positions and how well given points stand in the end.

Pro argues that it's better to do PPG because it affords injured players a chance to compete. He argues that the threshold of 58 games is fair because it reaches a threshold of 70% of games, and that wins within those games imply a greater scoring capability than would be captured in an average across all games. He presents a link and asserts that the winners of this title are all deserving.

Breaking this down, I think Pro's first point is his strongest, but needed some more analysis to increase its weight. In particular, I think some analysis of the pressure athletes would be under to return to the court before they are fully healed would have made this point stand out more. The remaining points seem rather arbitrary, as Con points out. Pro tries to justify this by saying that it's "a significant sample size," but since that's also a bare assertion, I don't have any reason to favor it. Similarly, the link doesn't establish anything positive or negative about that list of scorers, so just saying that they're "pretty dynamic scorers" doesn't do anything to help your position.

Con argues that PPG is misleading, that durability should be a factor in determining the scoring title, that 58 games as the baseline could be used to game the system, and that there have been instances where players did not get their due as a result.

The first point isn't particularly strong since it's unclear what "misleading" means in terms of harm. Is it that fans are confused by the result? Players? Coaches? Does it being misleading somehow affect outcomes? I end up buying Pro's point that this is an issue of semantics. If it's been known and accepted as is for years, then the actual harm of the terminology being a little wonky isn't clear. The second point suffers from a similar problem to Pro's first until it gets into the 58 game threshold, which I'll get to shortly. It's unclear from Con's argument why durability should be under consideration. Con mentions socialism and puts "load management" in quotes, but he doesn't explain why toughness is a meaningful metric. Con also says that it's beneficial to be "playing through his injuries", which is unjustified and seems counter-intuitive, especially when we're talking about the most dynamic scorer and not the MVP, as Pro points out. The third point is more meaningful, especially since we get a concrete example, but telling me Michael Jordan won the award 10 times instead of 11 doesn't seem like a massive loss. It helps that Con provides a link here that suggests greater harm affecting more people, though Con really should be doing more than just pointing to a single player to make his point.

That just leaves Con's main point: that players might game the system. I think this does have broad implications for the NBA, so it clearly has a potential for high impact. The problem is that is comes off as just that: potential. If players are "using the games against top defenses as rest days" or sitting out games they could easily play in for spurious reasons, then there should be evidence that that is happening. What I see is data that shows that some players are winning the title with lower numbers of games played, but that doesn't demonstrate the point that players are gaming the system, it just suggests that there could be gaming happening.

And this is where that lack of weighing analysis gets tricky. Pro's main point is that giving injured players a chance to get the title is a net positive, which is good for some players, but Pro doesn't spell out any broader implications. Con's main point is that players might game the system and that sometimes that results in some worthy players losing out on the title, which does have a more solid impact given that there is a list of actual players who haven't gotten the title as a result of the PPG system, but Con implies a much broader effect than he demonstrates.

I end up voting Con by a narrow margin. I think Pro's argument had the most potential, but it just comes off as "let's give injured players a chance," which is a nice sentiment, but not a potent impact sans expansion. It doesn't help that I don't get discrete examples of players who have been helped by this, just the suggestion that there are many. Meanwhile, even if I don't fully buy Con's argument that players are gaming the system, at the very least I have a concrete set of people who have been affected by the PPG system in a way that does not reflect their record, so I can see an actual harm. That admittedly lower impact harm beats Pro's potential benefit.

Not a lot to say on this one. The lack of sauce from Pro definitely didn't help his case since he needed some support for a lot of the claims he was making about how debaters are being negatively affected by the awarding of conduct. That might be true, but if you want to balance that against the claims your opponent is making, you need to establish how big of an impact that is and I don't see that happening anywhere.

Meanwhile, Con's impacts are just more striking. Preventing tied debates, addressing bad behaviors, and providing an avenue for more detail in votes are all relatively simple to weigh out and understand, yet I don't see a lot of response from Pro beyond "arguments can address this." At a certain point, you're just creating a multifactorial category for voting that includes conduct, which doesn't seem better. I need to see a balance between those two positions, but I don't really understand how you could meaningfully factor conduct in and still assess convincing arguments without weighing one more than the other, potentially turning the three argument points into the only conduct allocation and exacerbating all the problems Pro presents.

Also, since I'm voting this way, it seems only fair that I give Pro conduct. Con proved that conduct should "effect" your points in a debate, and he forfeited a round, so here we are.

Round 1: Con
Round 2: Pro
Round 3: Pro
Round 4: Con
Round 5: Pro

Pro takes it 3-2.

Stand out tracks for each side:
Pro - Moonbeam by Waterflame x F-777. Jived hard with this one from the opening beats and it was just a great time throughout.
Con - Distance by Apashe ft. Geoffrey (VOLAC Remix). While HALUNA's vocals probably stood out the most across the songs you posted, this was my favorite marriage of vocals and electronica.

I think this debate could have been much easier to argue (and judge) if there was some agreement regarding what else is available to the persons with each of these items. Maybe it would have made more sense if it had been clarified up front (and both sides should have worked on this) what someone would “usually” have access to in order to determine what’s missing from those circumstances and how these particular items could fill those needs. If someone has regular access to clean water and an assortment of pots and pans, then the kettle doesn’t serve much of a unique function. If someone has regular access to the internet or a library, then a single school book doesn’t serve much of a unique function. At several points, both sides try to dictate what should and should not be considered “usual,” but the scattershot approach makes it very difficult to come down on a single view, which is what makes deciding this so difficult. Different circumstances change the game dramatically.

And here is where I’ll address a couple of niggling issues brought up by Con. The possibility of selling an item does seem outside of the scope of this debate. If it was within the scope of it, then Pro could simply establish that he had the most expensive dildo and/or kettle as his items, which would likely price higher than the book, and afford him the ability to buy everything he could ever need. It breaks the structure of the debate and I think Con had to do more to justify doing so. Similarly, while it could be argued what the background of the individual with these items would be, I think the fact that they have these particular items doesn’t imply anything about the individuals who have them. It may be more likely that someone who has a school book is a student, but the absence of a book doesn’t make them less likely to be a student. More importantly, since the debate is over whether these items improve their circumstances rather than an array of other factors that could also influence their outcomes, it comes down to the use of those items, not assumed other factors, to determine who wins this debate.

It also doesn’t help that there seems to be a split between arguing about basic survival and facilitating a generally improved lifestyle. Neither side makes any effort to weigh these points against one another, so you’re inviting your voters to weigh in. To me at least, survival seems like the most basic element here: if a person dies because they don’t have one of these items on one side, then that impact matters most to the debate. Both sides treat the threat on one’s personal safety as though it is an ever-present concern, so protecting oneself from active threats of death as well as being able to prepare sustenance are the more pressing concerns established in the debate, and therefore the ones I view as highest impact. So while sexual gratification, family structures and sex education may be important for mental health and wellbeing, and while STDs affect long-term health, they are minor impacts in this debate. Similarly, while reading a book might offer numerous avenues to success, those benefits are all so long-term and tenuous that they end up being minor. If there had been more exploration of the dildo as a tool of self-defense or if the specific contents of the book could have been discussed as a means of survival, maybe these would have remained important. Absent any argument that these benefits outweigh the much more pressing concerns I’ve mentioned, these two vanish into the background.

That just leaves the cooking implements. Both can sterilize water (the kettle is made specifically for that purpose, but the skillet can still perform it), so that’s non-unique. Both have issues with cleaning – a kettle requires more intensive cleaning, whereas cleaning a skillet can impact the skillet’s span of usefulness. The kettle can potentially be used as a means of training, though this is a long-term survival issue and the amount of benefit you can get from it, given the possibility of breaking the kettle or spilling water during training, is unclear. Both can cook different things, though the skillet is more diverse in terms of what you could prepare with it. In terms of self-defense, the kettle does retain heat for longer afterward if it has water in it. Still, the shape and size of the skillet does lend itself better to self-defense as demonstrated in the video, even if not everyone could wield it well (the same problem exists with the kettle – it’s not exactly simple to wield a kettle full of hot water without burning oneself, and even then, it wouldn’t constantly be under heat).

I end up voting for Con. The skillet has the edge in variety of food preparation and self-defense. If longer term issues were better weighed against these, they almost all favor Pro, but given that we somehow have to arrive at a point where the dildo can provide all those benefits, it’s not enough to outweigh Con’s benefits.

These are generally pretty subjective for me. Suffice it to say that, while I think both sides had some solid barbs, it seemed like Con ran out of his best after the first round whereas Pro was prepared with quite a few, all of which were specific and many of which were biting. I won’t speak to the rapping itself, but Light had Lelouche’s number over much of this rap battle. That Shirley line, in particular, was brutal.

Simply put, Pro gave himself a near-impossible burden of proof and didn't achieve it. Con successfully showed that chess doesn't meet the bar of the "highest form of intelligence" via his analysis of what specific elements make it disjointed from any evaluation of individual intellect.

There's not too much for me to cover in the case proper because it's mostly conceded by the nature of Con's case. There is no disagreement in this debate about whether a zygote has personhood. The debate becomes entirely semantic: does the phrase "begins as conception" contain within it the zygote? I'd say this argument falls apart in three distinct respects.

First, the lack of response to the definition Pro provided at the beginning of the debate. Pro quotes it twice within his argument, and I don't see any response from Con on that front. If you want to argue that the definitions of specific terms like "at" preclude it being defined this way, then I think you need to directly address that definition. State clearly that his definition as written is incorrect or incongruous with the topic. You seem to be alluding to that position, but I don't see Con ever stating that that's his argument or challenging the definition as given by Pro directly and in full.

Second, the distinction that Con is using regarding the amount of time spent in a given process just doesn't work. The only distinction that's being made is based on how long the length of time involved is, and it honestly doesn't make a lot of sense as a basis for distinction. A moment may be distinct from other periods of time, but that distinction seems arbitrary.

Finally, I think as soon as Con conceded that Pro's interpretation was common usage, he lost this argument. If you want to make this kind of technical argument and really work hard to establish that there are specific meanings to word that are unalterable for the sake of common usage or other reasons, then you need to have an alternate standard. I didn't see one, and frankly, I bought more of Pro's interpretation on the context as well. The kinds of absurdities that Con suggests would occur in language if we allowed it just don't stack up.

As such, I vote Pro.

So tempted to give this debate to Pro because Con blasphemed against pineapple on pizza... truly, the travesty is dismissing the miracle that is Hawaiian pizza. Unfortunately, the topic of this debate is not a scathing rebuke of Con's anti-taste tendencies, so I must sally forth into the morass that is abortion.

On that front... yeah, this isn't much of a contest.

Pro gets lost in an argument about why abortion is immoral, and that's a problem for reasons Con mentions several times. First and foremost, that does not establish that abortion is not healthcare. Pro's only argument to this effect is that it ends the life of the unborn and therefore is not care for them. As Con points out, that doesn't mean no health care is occurring or that the mother isn't receiving said care. You can argue that it's immortal for the mother to receive said care at the cost of the unborn, but that argument could not affirm the resolution, which is not an on balance statement - it's an absolute.

Similarly, while Pro does establish multiple times that the Bible is anti-murder and, at least to some degree, anti-abortion as a result, it's not sufficient to sell his argument that abortion is murder, particularly as Con makes the argument that what is moral is what's best for the majority of parties involved. Rather than arguing that there's a great moral value to more of the unborn living out their days post-birth, Pro makes the perplexing choice of saying that all of the unborn go to heaven and then just... saying murder is bad anyway. There's a guarantee of heaven for every abortion. There is a far lesser likelihood of heaven for everyone else. Pro had to argue that there's some good that is being lost that eclipses the gain of certainty regarding heaven. Pro doesn't do that. Again, this is an absolute: even if I buy that there's a decent chance that abortion should be defined as murder, Con makes a significant case against that, so at the very least there's uncertainty in Pro's assertion.

Ergo, despite his truly deplorable conduct and terrible sense of taste, I vote Con.

Frankly, I think this is pretty lopsided. Pro basically ignores anything and everything about Light except the very broad strokes, so the details are rendered irrelevant almost from the outset, which is disappointing. More on the frustrating side, though, is Pro's decision to retroactively modify the resolution in his second round, and then accuse Con of doing the same thing in the subsequent round. It's honestly baffling because Pro does not, as far as I can tell, state in his first round his interpretation of the resolution beyond just including it verbatim. He then goes on to argue in subsequent rounds that only his opinion really matters... or I guess my opinion as a judge? I honestly am having a hard time deciding which he's going for. If it's the first, that only Pro's opinion on this matters, then I don't know why he's bothering to argue the rest. It doesn't matter, right? Pro's opinion is decided and that, according to him, ends the debate. He "selfishly" (I don't understand how it's selfish) believes that Light shouldn't kill people. That's not really a moral framework, but it's something, I guess.

Meanwhile, if Pro really is focused on audience interpretation of what they selfishly believe, then I have trouble understanding why that yields a vote for Pro. I'm a voter. I've been told to embody my own selfishness in my vote. I don't want bad things happening to me. Fine. I've also been told that Death Note isn't real, so Light's not coming after me, so he's not unjustified because he could come after me. I've been told that other people might come after me following his example, but Con presents data that suggests the opposite and I don't see a response to that data. So if I'm being selfish, I want more violent media because that is an effective outlet for people who might otherwise pursue violent ends. My selfishness, my aim to protect myself, yields a vote for Con.

And none of that even covers the utilitarian angle from Con. I'll note that he's the first to provide an interpretation of the resolution and burdens, so if the issue here is that someone is trying to reinterpret the resolution by adding words, while I could say that both sides have done a bit of that, Con is also the first to do it and arguably is justified in clarifying the resolution in the absence of any clarity from Pro. More importantly, I don't see an adequate response to utilitarianism. Pro's response starts and ends by arguing that people are selfish and don't act in a utilitarian manner. Fine. Is and ought are two different things. The reality that people won't act in a manner that follows utilitarian ethics when presented the opportunity in many cases doesn't mean utilitarian ethics is wrong, it just means we tend to act selfishly. Appealing to common choices doesn't demonstrate an ought to me. It doesn't explain why we should be selfish, it just tells me that I am more likely to be selfish. I can agree with Pro's position that selfishness is more common and that even Con is a flawed human being who doesn't adhere to utilitarianism while still seeing it as a strong justification for Light's actions. And if, as Pro suggests in R2, there are no lives saved and there is no utilitarian benefit to be had in the Death Note world, then utility only matters insofar as people commit violent acts in the real world more or less based on Light's character. And, again, as Con pointed out, the data correlation suggests less.

Ergo, whether I'm being selfish or embodying utilitarianism, I'm voting Con. All that leaves me with is whether I should just go with Pro's opinion because... I guess he has it? I'm not sure, and every time he keeps mentioning how it's either his opinion or the voters', it just confuses me further. I'll be selfish and value my opinion above his, which, again, yields a Con vote. Also sources to Con for actually providing some insight into Light as well as data to support his argument.

There really isn't much to this debate since neither side is challenging the others' arguments. The only real question is whether Pro or Con have the framework right. Pro's framework is that it should be based on how such a person affects the society they are in. Con's framework is that it should be a question of whether it is preferable for the individual with the powers. I don't think either side made all that convincing of an argument for why their view should be preferred outside of resolutional analysis (Pro basically just says that it's going to affect the broader society, Con says it won't, and the hypotheticals just balloon from there). So, I'll focus on the topic.

"It is preferable to have Batman's Skills than to have Superman's Superpowers"

That's not particularly clear. Much as Con ends up pointing to it in the final round (too late) to argue that "preferable to have" implies a "for the individual with these skills" somewhere, that doesn't seem like a better approach than "for their society." Neither seems clearly implied. What Con fails to mention, though, is the extended resolution in the description:

"Resolved: Given an "otherwise Average person" (they are well meaning, not a villain!), it is better that they have Batman's skills and abilities, than to have Superman's powers. Assume this is happening in the real world."

This not only challenges Con's approach to the resolution, given that it is now referring to an external "they," but places it in the context of being an average person in a broader society. I think there is a case to be made here that even this framing should place focus on what is better from that average person's perspective, but I needed to see that laid out and in Con's first published round. In the absence of that, and without either side giving me much in the way of further resolutional analysis, all I see is the societal context of that average person. And given that Pro's the only one really arguing from that perspective, I vote Pro.

RFD given here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jVxP1adCyjBcL1B1GpKCW4XeCzZv93yVZQHWyI2wwWA/edit?usp=sharing

Let me know if you have any questions or issues with it you'd like to discuss.

Nothing really to add. Seems like it could have been a good debate, but it’s a FF from Pro.

Much as I could bring up dropped points, this really comes down to whether Pro has a case or not and... yeah, I don't see one. I understand that you missed the first round, but you have the burden of proof to demonstrate that the resolution is true. Simply saying that laws shouldn't be based on subjectivity and that the unborn have the capacity for development aren't affirming the resolution. You can't just stop at responding to your opponent on this - you have to establish your case, build an argument that there it is objective to say that abortion is murder and that the capacity for development establishes it as such. Pro's responses didn't do that, so he fails to meet his burden.

The topic is "Ben Solo should return," which is pretty specific insofar as it tells us what should happen, but pretty broad in terms of what that means. I think Pro's correct that there should be a both a means by which Ben Solo can return and a reason for him to return, but Pro notably provides very little in the way of reasoning as to what's likely to happen should he come back to the series. Instead, much of Pro's argument focuses on how he could return (so that's one part of it), and how his death was a negative for the narrative surrounding his character, i.e. by preventing further exploration of elements like the dyad, abruptly halting the hopes of his parents, snuffing out the Skywalker line, and providing a cynical means for redemption. I don't see much analysis of what the series is likely to do now that his character is back in the story. I get some of that in R3, where Pro argues that it could allow for exploration of the WBW (doesn't seem specific to the character) and that Ben could then "grapple with his horrifying decisions, witness the Resistance and those around him who were victimized process those decisions," but there are two problems with this. First, it's presented for the first time in R3, making it a final round argument that does allow some response from Con, but is nonetheless pretty unfairly positioned to afford him minimal response. Second, all of that seems like Pro's imposition of what he wants on the character. I buy that they would likely continue the dyad and even the exploration of the WBW would necessarily have to happen if he returned from there, but it's up to Pro to justify why Ben would interact with the Resistance and face accountability as a foregone conclusion.

Coming back to the issue of how he could return, I do think this is a double-edged sword for Pro. I don't think there's any argument that can be made that a fictional character in a universe where other characters have had fake out deaths could have themselves had a fake out death, and with the WBW in play, there is clearly some wiggle room when it comes to the act of physically dying. Like Con, I don't buy that the lack of a Force ghost opens the way for this to happen, and I do think it opens a novel route to return from death that has not been presented just like this before (even Ahsoka isn't a 1-to-1 comparison).

The problem is that if I buy that Disney can revive this character in this way, I also have to buy that those very "discordant" issues that have accompanied the Disney sequels are likely to continue with Ben's survival. And that's a problem for Pro's argument. He says that "allowing a story that fills some of the gaps with Ben Solo is nothing but an opportunity for repair and growth," but seems to simultaneously acknowledge that Disney has a bad track record when it comes to making fulfilling narratives. Con notes several times that the efforts to bring back certain characters, particularly Palpatine (who gets referenced as a major example of a character similarly returning from the dead), have had substantially negative effects on the narrative of the series. So while I agree that the way Ben was taken out of the series was negative for a variety of narrative reasons, I'm not seeing a good reason to believe bringing him back will improve upon his or the general narrative of the series.

So, the best I can do is point to the exploration of the dyad and the WBW, and I have to compare them with broader effects on the lore of the series that result from Ben having even less basis for returning than Palpatine. Since neither side is particularly forthcoming on the impact level (why should I care so much about any of this?), I'm forced to look at things from my perspective. The dyad and WBW can potentially be explored through other characters (Ahsoka already did some of the latter) and I just generally have trouble seeing either of them as important when compared with setting an even broader standard of who comes back and from what. While revival of the supposed dead happens with some regularity, I can see bigger problems with people just generally mistrusting anything that looks like a death on screen. While the lore the Disney cannon may not be "borderline unsavable" as Con claims, the concept of a relatively untrained Jedi managing to reach and return form the WBW does present its own set of questions that I think have broader effects on enjoyment of the series as a whole. Therefore, I vote Con.

Really don’t know what Pro was trying to do here. If you’re trying to define the circumstances of European colonists acquiring Native American land as something other than stealing, then it has to be clear what the distinction is. The problem is that Pro multiple times and through his own argument acknowledges that this meets the definition of stealing, he just argues that it also meets the definition for other terms and that, in some cases, those other terms are considered paramount. Even if that’s accurate, that does not mean that stealing did not occur, which is the case Pro had to make. Con showed that, via broken treaties at minimum, land was stolen from the Native Americans, though honestly Pro’s whole case was effectively turned against him, leading me to vote Con.

I'll keep this brief.

The long and short of it is that the existence of a creator deity is not sufficient to affirm the resolution. The burden is heavily on Pro for this debate, as he has to defend the existence of a deity that meets the definition presented in the description:

"A person without a body (i.e., a spirit) who necessarily is eternal, perfectly free, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, and the creator of all things”.

Pro's opening arguments potentially demonstrate some of this, and I could go into specifics about how well those points work, but that "perfectly good" point is the basis for Con's arguments on the problem of evil, and is at greatest issue when it comes to determining whether Pro sufficiently demonstrated that a god that meets all these standards does exist.

And that makes the lack of rebuttal to Con's final round pretty glaring. I recognize that you were only allowed to respond to points presented in the second round in your final round, but with such exhaustive counter-rebuttals and with Pro having the greater burden, the lack of response does Pro no favors. I buy that it's necessarily possible to make normative judgements that don't require that God be the arbiter of what is moral, I buy that a deity would be able to circumvent all manner of alternative means of circumventing cascading harms, and that if the probabilistic argument favors Con on this issue, then he necessarily takes the debate. There's potentially the interesting issue of whether said deity has an obligation to stop evil, but whether that's true or not isn't particularly relevant when the problem is the lack of support for that "perfectly good" segment of the definition. Even if god lacks that obligation, Pro would have to demonstrate that a perfectly good being would not have to act in a manner that does not stop or prevent suffering in instances like John Wayne Gacy. I don't see any demonstration of that, nor do I see Con argue that the kind of suffering inflicted in this instance is not evil. It also doesn't help that Con's argument about the probability of an evil god vs. a good god demonstrates that there's no greater likelihood for either one that Pro has demonstrated.

As such, I vote Con. Good debate, though. I think this might have been more interesting if the definition wasn't so specific and multifaceted.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OeG7sXs7flNcpz10YpyANIzX8v0W8CHuK5rhVlcD95k/edit?usp=sharing

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10Cl335wqe2lqnXWR8x4ePvEKfqTUBUUmgh4vluwFqBk/edit

Let me know if you have any questions.

"I don't care anymore, have a free unrated win."

Was going to read through this and post a more detailed vote, but if that R2 from Con isn't a concession, I don't know what is. Also doesn't help that Con's second round was, essentially, just a posted forfeit with no contribution to the debate, which meant Con only had one round of substance. If Con is fine giving Pro a "free" win, so he gets arguments. Could probably give conduct too, but at least Con announced it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XSTWIyY2dQfTWxMR75N0La52ySOLVJFCpuQ_PDoL1ao/edit?usp=sharing

Good selections by both sides, loved listening to these.

Pro sets a criterion for interpreting the resolution that can be written as "only silly people would vote Con." Con says we should all be silly. I see no reason not to embody that.

There really isn't much for me to say here. I've read through his arguments on similar debates before and there isn't much different here. He establishes that legalization improves outcomes for users by showing that the legal market would produce safer drugs, going through the chemical basis for the difference.

By contrast, Con's arguments focus entirely on a comparison to alcohol, which is notably not backed up by any sources. The case he's making has some potential merit: legal alcohol causes a lot of deaths, ergo legal heroin could also cause a lot of deaths. What's missing from this argument are the warrants for these points. It's not enough for Con to argue that legal alcohol causes deaths - if illegal alcohol caused greater numbers of deaths (Pro argues that prohibition had terrible effects resulting from contamination), then arguing that making it legal increased the damage alcohol causes is just wrong on its face. It's not enough to simply state that legal alcohol is dangerous; you have to compare the danger posed by illegal alcohol to that of legal alcohol. Pro is the only one I see doing that, and the case isn't favorable for Con. Similarly, it's not enough to argue that legalizing heroin is automatically going to cause a great deal of deaths simply because legalizing alcohol did. They're different drugs. Con had to establish the harms resulting from heroin, not merely coast on the known harms of alcohol. Finally, if you want to make the argument that the regulations that currently apply to alcohol and cannabis represent a unique harm when applied to heroin (which I believe is Con's point, if I'm reading him correctly), then that point needs to be warranted. What is it about existing regulations for these drugs that would make them more damaging when applied to heroin?

Con's case is a lot of suggestion and assertion, but lacks any meaningful support for his central claim, while Pro's case has a great deal of unaddressed material and support for his claims. As such, arguments and sources to Pro.

Fundamentally, the biggest question is this: when does a representation of capitalism in SK become accurate? There necessarily must be a point where a portrayal of that system becomes accurate - any point before that is necessarily inaccurate. That's a pretty straightforward scale and the most important thing for both debaters here to define.

So, how does each side do this?

Pro makes it rather clear that exaggerating elements of the primary message necessarily slips into inaccuracy, regardless of whatever else the story may do correctly in its portrayal. He points out several examples of exaggeration in the story, which Con largely concedes as exaggerations. So if Pro is correct in his framing of the debate, he wins.

Con also makes a pretty clear alternate framework that includes a checklist of items the show must include for SG to be an accurate portrayal, and this list is largely dropped by Pro. So if Con is correct in his framing of the debate, he wins.

While there are other reasons I considered, there's one central reason that makes the decision for me: I know what Pro's threshold is, whereas I'm uncertain where Con's resides. Both sides agree that SG has a primary message that relates to capitalism and the harms it causes in SK, so both sides agree regarding what issues could and could not be exaggerated under Pro's framework, even if there's disagreement regarding whether that framework is valid or what details can be exaggerated. The problem with Con's framework is that I don't know why this particular checklist of items is both necessary and sufficient to establish accuracy. Con keeps telling me that every example Pro mentions is unimportant, while these are important. I can agree that these themes are bigger picture, that they are more important as take-aways from the SG story, and that they are relevant to capitalism in SK. Assuming these are sufficient, how many can I take away before SG becomes inaccurate? Why doesn't the exaggeration Pro cites detract from their relevance? I agree that they make watching SG more engaging, but that doesn't support their accuracy. I think Con came up with a good set of reasons why certain elements of SG are accurate representations of capitalism in SK, but having individual accuracies in its messages and even being broadly relevant does not establish that the primary message of SG as a whole is accurate. Without a clear bar on which to weigh that accuracy more holistically beyond a few examples that largely just establish what falls solidly into either camp rather than what is close to the line between accurate and inaccurate, I have to go with the clearer metric, and that puts me in Pro's camp.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xj6CGLcLVPaADISnQKLxi8tnfmPCzc1v3xTt8zqfbpY/edit?usp=sharing

Not an easy decision for a bunch of reasons that I probably explained in too much detail, but here we are. I think both debaters did a good job presenting their points, but you both could have done quite a bit to make this a much simpler debate to judge by focusing on the bigger picture and how this debate was likely to be evaluated (or explaining how it should be).

TL;DR: I think a lot of the technical issues don't end up being important to the outcome of the debate, as it still comes down to a straight up evaluation of the net benefits of Pro's case, and, due to a combination of Pro doing more work on the impact level and a shared assumption of solvency, Pro comes out on top in a narrow decision.