whiteflame

My ratings are all in the comments. By a score of 61 to 60 (close one), I favor Pro's choices. These are all good battles. I've seen all but one of these shows, and they all have exceptional battles.

Not much to say here. From the outset, Pro's position seems impossible to uphold. His argument is, and I'm quoting his first three sentences here:

"I am not arguing here that there is any particular system currently devised which is superior to science, I don't know of it if it exists. I am arguing that science is not the ultimate system, as in the best possible way to discern the truth. There are numerous flaws/shortcomings with scientific methodology and I will attempt to prove that there is clearly room for a better system to be created."

As Con either argues directly or insinuates throughout the debate, this is a bit of a confounding position. Pro wants to establish that science isn't better than some unknown (and perhaps unknowable) system of discerning what the truth is. Con points out that it's entirely possible that we will never know how to establish things like the true nature of reality, so if that's the case, is Pro even comparing against something that could plausibly exist at some future date? I don't see it. Pro's argument requires that a method for establishing truth exist and be usable to some extent, yet he never establishes that it's even possible. It's also unclear how science is incapable of incorporating other methods of establishing truth, since science is only limited by our current knowledge of how truth should be established (inductively). That really hampers Pro's argument.

Meanwhile, Con's points go wholly unaddressed. He provides solid arguments on empiricism and the incorporation of improvements in validating truth (as mentioned above), as well as the reality that there are unknowable truths. Empiricism alone tells me that science has a capacity to establish truth that other available methods simply cannot match. Even if I buy all of Pro's arguments, it just tells me where flaws exist in the ability of science to discern the truth currently - it doesn't tell me that science can't evolve to fit a new paradigm for establishing truth. That's sufficient reason for me to vote Con.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Mwn5fqefLFhv_dlBxBhm9ET0ABqX7MhN9OTSIpXYCzI/edit?usp=sharing

You know what's missing from this debate? Context. All the arguments of each side should be placed into some clear context, something that answers the resolution clearly. What does it take to do that? Well, if you're presenting an ethical argument, as is common throughout this debate, you normally want to attach some clear value to that argument. I kind of see a value from Pro, but only if I squint. Con puts a value on suffering, though it's unclear why I should weight suffering heavily in the debate beyond simply stating that the suffering of one can be used to justify the suffering of others, which just compounds the problem. You have to tell me why suffering matters most, not just proclaim again and again that it matters. Pro's value is extremely unclear. He seems to argue in the end that meat affords us energy and vitality (unwarranted and unsourced claims that come too late for me to factor them in anyway), but that's not really an ethical argument. Instead, Pro is challenging based on real world value, and I have no clue how to weight that value against an ethical argument. Take the time to explain why your arguments matter, both in the context of the debate and in the context of comparing it to your opponent's arguments, don't just tell me that they do. That lack of context really shows in the end of the debate when neither side sums up their arguments, nor is any weighing analysis done. Both sides just treat it as another round in the debate. It doesn't help that there's just so much left on the table in this debate. Both sides engage very little with the nutritional debate and neither side even touches on the environmental arguments, two of the most concrete points on this debate that either side could have easily used to carry the debate.

So, let's take it back to what was actually done. Con's argument almost solely amounts to an attack on the ethics behind eating animals. He argues that it imparts suffering, which he justifies both by arguing that we mistreat animals and by killing them. Pro does point out that the former is unnecessary and can be avoided, though the lack of a clearly elucidated counterplan beyond a suggestion that it might exist means Con's argument still holds water, particularly as his case ends such suffering completely. The justification for the latter is kind of weak, as Con largely justifies this based on others feeling a sense of loss upon the end of that life. On that basis, if I suffer from watching a rose die, then that rose's death similarly causes suffering. The death itself seems non-unique to all lifeforms, as Pro argues, and while it can be argued that death is a form of suffering, Con doesn't do enough to show that it is.

Pro's arguments mostly amount to mitigation of Con's points, arguing that other life has just as much value despite a lack of sentience. However, mitigate is all these points do. Pro doesn't try to argue that, by setting the standard at sentience, Con is devaluing lifeforms that resemble humans less. He simply argues that they're all the same and that there's no harm in losing one life vs. another. The major problem with this argument is that it largely ignores suffering, and while Pro claims that other organisms can suffer, he never supports this with any evidence. So Con is still winning something on suffering. Even if I buy that Con is being arbitrary in defining what life deserves recognition in this fashion, I don't see any harms to his being arbitrary. Meanwhile, the lack of support condemns many of Pro's arguments to being solely based on logic, which are largely challenged by a similar degree of logic from his opponent, often with evidence to back it up. Con may not always summarize what his evidence provides, but at least he provides it. Lacking that, Pro's argument largely looks like opinion, and for all his claims that he has more objective arguments, Pro's points largely fail to provide anything beyond his personal views on life and how it should be characterized.

That leaves me with little to do but vote Pro on both arguments and sources. While Pro may believe he's winning the majority of points on the flow, even if that's true, he's not winning the debate because his argument largely lacks offense. Winning a debate with pure mitigation requires more than this, as Con clearly showed that we should at least ascribe some value to suffering, and Pro largely accepts this by stating that we can reduce suffering and claiming that other organisms suffer. Con could have done a much better job framing his case and putting the arguments made back into the context of the resolution, but at least he sets up something clear to support with his argument. Pro grants too much of it to win. Much as Con presented his actual stance late in the debate, Pro's stance being largely "Con is wrong" does him no favors.

To put it simply, this was a debate between one side constructed largely of logical assumptions and another constructed chiefly of actual evidence and support.

Pro's case largely amounts to statements about what sounds logical or illogical when it comes to disease and illness. The questions he poses from the outset are... interesting, but that's about it. None of them accomplish the goal of meeting his burden in this debate, which is to show that viruses can't exist. I'd like to emphasize that middle word: can't. Pro's goal throughout this debate seems to be aimed at introducing doubt, arguing that there are a series of alternative causes (e.g. diet and toxins) that cause all illnesses, though at best, that would only support the aim of showing that viruses do not cause the ailments he's pointing to. Can't implies that the existence of viruses is an impossibility, and while the logical tack does start down that road, Pro's efforts here largely seem to ignore evidence and just point out what he feels are logical impossibilities, regardless of what is known.

Con's case focuses entirely on what exists, and he goes into great detail regarding why Pro's alternative explanations simply do not suffice as meaningful challenges to a variety of diseases. Con points out that much of Pro's case is based on assertions that simply fail to meet any standard of proof, introducing nothing more than minimal doubt into the examples Con presents. It doesn't help that much of Con's support for the existence of viral diseases and their distinction from diet and toxins is either dropped or asserted as incorrect, rather than addressing the substance of Con's points. In particular, the point about repeated infectivity and transmission between organisms are basically dropped, both of which at least seriously challenge the notions that diet and toxins are responsible for these diseases. Much of Pro's response to direct imaging of viruses is to dismiss it as faked, though that once again sets the standard rather high for him to prove that it is true. He largely asserts this is true without support, or utilizes YouTube videos and other poorly-supported sources to make his point for him.

All of this leaves the door open for an easy Con win. He clearly shows that a virus can exist based on this evidence. Even if I buy much of Pro's logical argumentation and dismiss the evidence that Pro challenges directly, I'm still given enough reason to believe that Pro hasn't eliminated all possibility of a virus being the cause of every illness discussed in this debate. That's sufficient for me to vote Con, regardless, because if it is possible, then by definition, viruses can exist. So, even if I'm buying very little of Con's argument, any amount is sufficient to negate the resolution.

I will also award conduct to Con, as Pro repeatedly insulted him and others, calling those who believe in viruses “complete idiot[s],” calling his opponent a “dumb arse”, and stating that he has no logical capacity.

One last note. Pro says he has worked with in an electron microscope lab. I feel the need to point out that, even if this is true (it’s impossible to verify), Pro is speaking from his own authority rather than an independent one, which means any statements made based on that authority are tainted by his biases and desire to win this debate. I will say that I, too, have worked in an electron microscopy lab, and have images of my own purified virus particles (with all 11 criteria Pro listed) available if Pro is interested in seeing them, though I highly doubt he would take even that evidence seriously. My impression is that Pro’s views are so strongly held that meeting any set of criteria will always be insufficient, regardless of whether Pro himself sets them.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yhiUgLHz8BZFDdRl_P9x-OSFo333pRlDKSzvI7EYACI/edit?usp=sharing

I feel like this debate went off the rails early and kept shifting further off the rails as it went, the reason largely being Pro’s case.

What does the resolution require of Pro? It requires that he support an increase in the funding for the US military. Granted, this also allows Pro to argue what the US military would do with THAT money. Notice the word in all caps.

What does Pro do with his argument? He states that it’s past time that the US acted to combat certain nations in the world. There’s much hay made over which nations this applies to (and this is why Pro should have stated his case very clearly up front, though I’d say this is only part of the problem). Pro also argues that these should be joint efforts with NATO, and that robot soldiers should be developed.

There’s a problem here: what the resolution requires and this spate of arguments do not line up. Remember the specific phrasing for what the resolution requires of Pro – he’s talking about increasing the amount of funds going to the military (not clear how much in the way of funds, but hey, no one seems to care… for some reason), not reallocating money currently available to the military. To my mind, that is extra-topical, i.e. it goes beyond the bounds of the resolution, and therefore shouldn’t be counted. So, when Pro talks about shifting hundreds of thousands of troops from one location to another, I’m honestly just perplexed. What does that have to do with increasing military spending? I suppose you could argue that that increase is necessary in order to make such an effort plausible, but even if it is, that still runs hard into extra topicality. You aren’t debating what the military should do with the extra money, you’re dictating what the military should do, period. You set this topic. Stick to what you set.

In fact, I think I’m being generous by characterizing this as a topicality issue. Pro spends absolutely no time in his argument explaining why it is that extra funds are required in order to carry out these gargantuan troop invasions (note that these far outstrip D-Day, which comprised fewer than 200,000 personnel from multiple countries). Setting aside the fact that many of those 2 million soldiers Pro’s case is entirely reliant upon are not just a homogeneous pack of trained, outfitted troops capable of carrying out such an operation (seriously, this sounds insane, and I’m shocked the basic logistics were never questioned), if all of those soldiers are currently available, what is stopping the US military from invading these countries? Literally the only inherency Pro’s case is removing is a lack of financial support, yet he doesn’t explain why suddenly being flush with cash will suddenly make these invasions feasible. Con could have spent the entirety of the debate arguing that everything Pro is trying to do is non-unique to a world with more funds for the military, and almost all of Pro’s case would have basically been nullified. Pro could potentially have argued that those funds would make an invasion better somehow (I suppose that’s the point of the robots), but he spends scant little time doing that.

And that leads us to the robots. This is such a blipped out argument that it hardly functions. Pro just says that robot soldiers can be made, including zero warrants or evidence for that claim (seriously, show me a damn picture of the Skynet-driven robot apocalypse in Terminator, at least), and that having them solves for loss of life. We get no concept of what these soldiers will look like, how they will function, what kinds of roles they will play in combat, how many soldiers they could potentially replace, how much they will cost to make, why only the US will have them, or… well, basically anything else about them. Pro mentions this once in R3, using all of one sentence to explain an argument that requires far more. Con spends more time here.

I had imagined that, upon reaching the end of Pro’s arguments, I would find something solid to support the resolution and then would have to spend at least some time on Con’s points. But I don’t. His argument ranges from extra topical to lacking any and all inherency to barely mentioned points he never supports. Con talks about moving the goalposts, but Pro seems incapable of deciding what a goal even looks like in this debate. I think Con could have pointed a lot of this out, rather than getting bogged down in the details of Pro’s case. The shifting ground of Pro’s argument is still reason enough to award conduct to Con, though, so I do include that. Pro’s failure to meet his burden automatically requires that I award the debate to Con.

This is relatively straightforward. Con allowed Pro to dictate almost the entirety of the burdens of the debate, basically stating that all he has to do is show that a) a democratic system is the best possible system (conceded by Con), and b) that that system is best served by mandatory voting. Pro spends way too much time on the former in his first round, perhaps under the impression that Con would argue this differently. Pro then argues the need to have a mandatory system, examining the importance of being informed (and that the consequences of not being informed will eventually lead people to keep informed), the nature of democracy and why it's facilitated by more voting, and arguing that a democratic system lacking a mandate might as well be oligarchic. Some of these are a little short on explanation, but the points basically stand unopposed, largely because Con fails to address them in any meaningful way.

Instead, Con's argument seems to buy into a lot of what Pro is arguing. He talks about the dangers of uninformed voters, which he is correct would increase with a mandate. However, Pro points out that there's a tremendous incentive to be informed for the sake of electing leaders who aren't going to cause you a great deal of harm. I can still see problems with that argument, but I don't see Con pointing them out. Con does make the argument that the fines associated with the mandates will still unduly harm the poor, arguing that getting to the polling place itself may be difficult. I think this is Con's strongest point, but he doesn't do much with it, leaving its impact largely up to interpretation. I buy that there is a harm, but what makes this point less meaningful is the lack of some broader issue to attach it to. Con is telling me about what is, effectively, the death of democracy (or at least its corruption). Pro, you have to tell me about classism. Give me another value to challenge Pro's. Without it, I can only say that this is a minor, largely transient issue.

Besides all this, both sides seem stuck on this argument that mandating nations are better/worse, though it seems like neither side is garnering much from this largely correlative comparison.

With all these points taken into account, and though I think Pro is hyperbolizing a bit with his arguments, I can't do much else but vote for him. Mandating voting has clear benefits to democracy as a whole, and supporting such a wide-reaching value with the promise of representative leadership that actually cares and has real purpose and power to change things is simply unchallenged. I will, however, award conduct to Con. Pro was advised to waive the final round, but instead inserted a remark regarding new arguments (just FYI, I see rebuttals, not new arguments). That's not waiving the round in its entirety, so he loses the conduct point, as per the rules.

Con's argument meandered mostly incomprehensibly to a point that doesn't appear to directly answer the resolution he posed. It seems like he had about half a dozen half-formed arguments placed in his posts, each of which is made all the more difficult to understand by strange phrasing and regular use of caps lock.

Pro doesn't really argue his side of the resolution, only arguing that Con hasn't really done his job supporting his side. As Con did not do much to address the resolution in the first place, Pro has an easy time convincing me.

This was a frustrating debate to read, mainly because it's not clear what the basis is for evaluating who is a better debater. Pro did about as much as possible to shoot himself in the foot on this issue because the debate description yields no standards by which we can assess who is better, and by yielding his first round, he offered Con the opportunity to do so uncontested.

Admittedly, Con doesn't do much better. In fact, Con makes a mistake that dogs him the rest of the debate: he argues that the rating comparison between him and bsh1 constitute a reason to vote for him. Pro jumps on that point, arguing that the ratings comparison on DDO favors bsh1. Con then has to backpedal and argue that it isn't just about the ratings, talking about how those points were acquired and how that affects our perception of who is the better debater. But all of that is deeply subjective, and Con manages to throw out some points that show that bsh1's rating is well-earned on DDO.

My first instinct is to vote based on ratings. It's clear by the end of the debate that both sides regard ratings as important and representative of how good the debaters are, even if there's some nuance and uncertainty to what those scores represent. The problem is that neither side really justified the usage of ratings, and by the end, both sides seem to acknowledge that that nuance is really all there is to the question of what makes the better debater. The numbers themselves fall away, and we're left with the basic question again, to which I have no clear answer. Both sides present reasons to believe them, but not based on any objective measure or clear criterion. Maybe an extra round or two could have made more sense of this, but I'm left looking at the resolution rather than the arguments at the end of the debate, and that's not a good sign. I can't answer that question cleanly or clearly, and despite Pro's desire to have the last word, he does little to clarify how my vote should go. Given that uncertainty, I say that it's unclear who is the better debater, which means my vote defaults to Con.

I had considered making a much longer RFD, though in this case, I don't feel that that is necessary. Frankly, Pro is just leaving way too much on the table with his responses, and it cost him dearly. The easiest place for me to vote is on the Kritik, as Pro largely leaves this untouched, choosing instead to post a dismissive couple of points in R2 that simply don't do him any favors. The point about theistic and atheistic predictions has nothing to do with defining what God is, it's just a statement that we can argue about how the world should appear. So this point is in no way responsive to a K that focuses entirely on our ability to define God directly. Similarly, as Con points out, the ontological argument in no way combats this point, nor does the statement that "we can know God's existence through both pure logic and through empirical evidence." All of this just blatantly ignores the text of the K, which leaves me to do little but weigh the Kritik, which functions a priori in the debate. Even if I accept the ontological argument, a K, by necessity, comes before any discussion of whether God exists, even through this lens. I buy all of the impacts and the voting issues and, without even considering their weight, they automatically force me to pull the trigger for Con.

For the sake of argument, though, I will say that I felt many of Con's other points were under-covered, misunderstood and mishandled. Particularly the argument over omniscience and omnibenevolence are quite convincing, largely because Pro's own arguments barely cover omnibenevolence as a factor (and seem to ignore the inherent discrepancy between free will and allowing evil, which is a point he largely drops). I either buy that free will doesn't exist, in which case I buy the omnicience point, or I buy that free will does exist and necessitates that objective evils occur, which means I buy the omniscience point. Even if I buy every point Pro has made, simply by buying one of these two arguments, I'm forced to agree that whatever deity is possible is not logically capable of carrying one of these two traits, which means it doesn't meet the definition Pro established at the beginning of the debate. That's also sufficient reason for me to vote Con.

Wanted to make this short, but ended up having quite a bit to say.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13MFeTQ8B-nIflORdA3s0mFbC1kGp7pqoM75ZIrPOaQs/edit?usp=sharing

For the tl:dr, I found that the debaters largely argued past each other, there was too little discussion on the framework for the debate, and almost no weighing analysis. What's left on the table largely favors Pro in terms of raw numbers and impact, so that's where I vote.

Not much of a debate, so not much to say. Con's argument basically functions as a statement that we have a system in place that would function as a minimum wage through labor for the government. Pro's response comes too late (final round responses are generally bad form), but the argument just doesn't do much for me. Basically, he's just stating that this would provide a form of the minimum wage, though it's unclear how it actually benefits beyond providing more people for construction work to rebuild hurricane-damaged areas. Setting aside the fact that not everyone can work in construction, that all such disasters would only need short-term work (and therefore result in short-term employment), that they would require people to move far away from homes and families, and that the government cannot endlessly employ such a large population at such wages (all of which were points Con could have made, but likely didn't have the space to provide), Con's just getting no offense on this point - he's just reproducing status quo through a different means, perhaps slightly improving on minimum wage for an uncertain length of time.

Pro's case allows for the same kinds of wage increases through the minimum wage. He also makes a convincing case for both boosting the economy (locally and nationally) as well as the increasing number of jobs. Both probably could have been challenged in a more meaningful way if space and more rounds had allowed, but Con's response doesn't challenge Pro's reasoning, and Pro's final round reasoning was a solid rebuttal to that argument that provided more detail on how the minimum wage functions as Pro claims. Even if I am affording Con some offense through his argument, it comes almost entirely as assertion, whereas Pro's comes with clear warrants and evidence. That gives me enough reason to side with Pro.

Admittedly, I'm a little short on time, so I won't be able to post an exhaustive vote like usual. In this case, however, I don't feel that's necessary.

The framework debate, almost entirely alone, decides the debate for me. Due to the lapse in R3 (I'm really not sure why Con chose to eschew that round almost entirely), Con didn't get an opportunity to address the framework arguments Pro presented in that same round. What comes in the following round is simply too little too late, and basically just involves Con referring back to his statements on consequentialism in R1. That's not enough, largely because Con doesn't ever take the time to spell out what he means by consequentialism, except to say that the ends should be preferred to the means, though he does not examine anywhere in the debate why that would be the case. Pro spells out much more clearly what consequentialism actually looks like, and explains how it's in conflict with other facets of Con's framework, which he also characterizes with more clarity than Con. Con puts some response on the latter in the final round, but it's late, and I have to disregard it. Pro is the only one that's doing any meaningful framework analysis beyond vague statements about what should be preferred, and since I can't nail down what Con's framework is and what I can nail down appears to be in conflict, I am forced to default to Pro's framework, which receives a lot more explanation and support.

That leaves us with the Land Ethic point, an argument that receives quite a bit of backing from Pro's monism contention, to which I receive very little response beyond some misrepresentations of what monism is. Pro's arguments on this front stand largely uncontested. The only point Con has that might function within this framework is the notion that harming the environment leads to more benefits for the environment later, but I see Pro effectively addressing that by pointing out the extinction problem (which provides a clear and impassable upper limit for human advancement, and thus limits the benefits we can provide to the environment) and, more importantly, the lack of clear means to prevent ecosystem/biosphere collapse, leaving nothing to save.

In terms of general feedback, I think Pro handled this pretty well on the whole, though I probably would have focused more on Con's notion that more tech = better environment. I'm surprised the issue of damage to the ozone layer (which seems impossible to repair), in particular, didn't come up. Still, I think you hit enough points, particularly on pollution and its shorter term effects, to challenge the notion that it's fundamentally beneficial.

Con, you were strangely both overly focused and overly scattered. You had a lot of points that you didn't spend any time supporting, just claiming you could support it. When you got into depth on an argument, you spent so much time there that you missed opportunities to address the arguments Pro was bringing to the table. You don't need to go into the kind of depth you did in many of your arguments, particularly if you just present some evidence. I would have loved to see a series of examples of how resource extraction has benefited the environment, and focusing more on how there are ongoing harms to the environment that only tech can fix (and how we're on our way to fixing those problems) really would have helped your case. I felt like the entire conversation regarding humans being natural was mainly an annoying distraction from a case that otherwise made some decent points. Even if I bought it, it was pretty clearly a Kritik, so I would have invalidated it anyway.

Pro sets up a rather clear equation on which to base his comparison, explaining that by turning each of the fractions he's presented into a decimal, you can find that adding them together leads to a number that is not 1, in spite of the fact that adding those two fractions together does result in 1. The difference is infinitesimally small, but it does exist. He's essentially stating that the number 0.000r is equivalent to 0 for the same reason. While I understand Con's responses regarding the need to round in order to get a real number, I don't think that's necessary when you're comparing what is, effectively, an unmeasurable quantity. That's what Pro is doing with his argument, and while I think he could have defended it better, I don't think just railing against the lack of rounding suffices as a reason for me to vote Con. I do think there are ways to challenge this that involve more complex math, but those aren't presented, leaving me with little choice but to vote Pro.

RFD given here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q3rJX6vngQp0JCAX6g5W60teuooe5yaQ2D-iTlLFKeQ/edit?usp=sharing

RFD: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zYgdLhLOBbe18hvhz_1leW9KqvmMLV1zJ9BqIe5-MJQ/edit?usp=sharing