TH, as the UN, would not pursue an investigation to find and prosecute Kira, and would allow the rise of a new world.
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 2 votes and with 2 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 4
- Time for argument
- Two days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Winner selection
- Voting system
- Open
INFO SLIDE: In the crime ridden world of 2020, someone of high intellect finds a mysterious notebook that falls from the sky one day. The notebook is said to contain the power to kill anyone by writing someone's full name while visualizing their face, and after 60 seconds that person dies of a heart attack or another cause of death that is otherwise noted at the time of writing. Eventually, this person takes upon the vigilante role as Kira, and sets out to kill numerous high-profile domestic criminals, before eventually targeting international criminals and felons, in the hopes to create a better, new world for all.
RULES:
- Rounds will go as follows:
R1: Opening statements
R2: First rebuttals
R3: Second rebuttals
R4: Closing statements (no new information or rebuttals allowed)
- Terms/sources will be used with respect of the anime and NOT the manga.
- Knowledge of the anime is not required but is recommended. Expect spoilers and difficulty arguing against this motion.
- This debate is supposed to be fun, so be sure to have fun!
By agreeing to contend this debate, you agree to the rules and will have read the info slide. Not adhering to the rules will cost you a conduct point.
- The powers of Kira are more practical, and avoids martial law. Given that the world is ridden with crime, the most logical solution for the UN to come to in order to seek mitigation of a crisis like this one is to have each nation deploy reserve troops to most crime-ridden areas, with the end result being martial law. This is a foolish solution, because lives are risked to fight off violent criminals and organized crime/gang members who have a lot of power at this point, and it would require a lot of governmental and organizational funding to correctly solve this epidemic. It makes no sense to risk lives and spend money when there is a completely capable solution that would require no involvement from the UN whatsoever.
- Aside from the powers of the notebook, Kira's shroud of fear is just as effective. After many uses of the notebook, Kira will be the new law of the land. No criminal would want to be on Kira's hit list, so therefore those individuals will be incentivized to stop what they're doing. Eventually, Kira won't have to do a lot of killing in order to stay relevant, because the general public now knows that such a power exists, and that those who commit crimes are kept under a very close watch. For those who do not want to be one of Kira's victims, they will most likely go into hiding
- As long as Kira remains hidden, the possibility of a new crimeless utopia is strong. Eventually, Kira will have to finish his job. There will either be no more criminals to execute or existing criminals will stay hidden due to the fear of Kira, and so the possibility of a world without crime isn't necessarily unrealistic. Of course, this does not meant that a world like this is guaranteed to happen, because it all depends on whether or not Kira stays hidden from organized criminals, and given that he is a person of high intellect (like the info slide says) then it is highly unlikely he will be caught.
- Even if the new world doesn't happen and if Kira stops killing at some point, there is still a net benefit to society. In the event that Kira stops killing for reasons unknown to the public, the amount of work he will have done will not be in vain. Society will have been better off regardless considering the world before Kira's existence, since there will be less criminals in the world than prior.
- The opportunity to potentially have a world rid of crime is too great to pass up on. Kira's powers work effectively, and if the best case scenario does happen (where nearly all active criminals are dead and the world exhibits record low crime rates), then having that would be an excellent privilege and a milestone for humanity. The fear of Kira would be set in stone in society, and with everyone knowing that the cost of committing a crime would be death would be perfect deterrence in order for such a world to exist. For the UN to get in the way of that would be highly unwise, especially considering that the foundations of the UN were to have peace and diplomacy around the world, hence creating a "unity."
- Given the status quo, the use of vigilante justice is justified. Upholding the law within the status quo would not be beneficial to the peaceful public, since the world is already crime ridden. Therefore, it is easy to assume that those who uphold the law, such as police officers, are either not respected or have been targeted by organized crime and thus resulting in lower numbers overall. Since that this is most likely the case, new policy or enacting martial law (like I explained above), would not do anything to deter criminals. The world needs a new form of justice that will be almost certain to work at a large scale, and simply upholding the law would not do that. That being said, while the use of killing to deter crime is not an ideal, yet rather immoral one (Pro concedes this notion) sadly, it is the only probably solution that exists in this status quo. There must a fight with fire against fire.
- Con must show you all that vigilante justice such as Kira's is unwarranted in the hypothetical status quo. He must show why there is no good reason for the actions of Kira to persist.
- Con must also warrant UN involvement, and show that the UN is the most capable in intervening and pursuing justice against Kira. Furthermore, he must provide an alternative solution to fixing the status quo that does not require Kira, and thus allowing the pursuit of Kira.
- Con must also show you that crime will still be present in a world where Kira is present. The end goal of Pro is to show you that Kira can be effective in pursuing his agenda, and in order to falsify this, Con must show you that Kira has every likelihood of failing at this agenda.
Crime in 2017: Final Analysis establishes that any claims of a nationwide crime wave are unwarranted. Compiled by a team of economic and policy researchers, it confirms predictions from the Center’s December report, Crime in 2017: Updated Analysis.
“Crime rates in American cities once again declined in 2017, and remain near historic lows,” said Ames Grawert, senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Justice program. “Contrary to President Trump’s rhetoric using the threat of rising violent crime to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment, our data show low rates of crime across the country. There are still communities like Chicago and Baltimore struggling to control violence, but rather than resorting to fearmongering, leaders should instead embrace and promote smart policing and real reforms that make all our communities safer.”
Some key findings from this analysis include a 2.1 percent decline in the overall crime rate of America’s 30 largest cities since 2016, as well as a 1 percent decline in violent crime and 3.4 percent decline in the 2017 murder rate.
Chicago and Houston saw some of the largest decreases in murder rates, which fell by 12.3 percent and nearly 17 percent respectively. Chicago’s decline partially offsets its recent increase in homicides. Cities including Baltimore and Philadelphia saw a rise in murder rates for 2017.
Click here to see more of the Brennan Center’s research on crime rates in America, including an analysis of historical crime trends from 1990-2016, available here. And, click here to read more about the methodology behind the Brennan Center’s crime analyses.
For more information or to schedule an interview with a Brennan Center expert, contact Rebecca Autrey at rebecca.autrey@nyu.edu or 646-292-8316.
###https://www.brennancenter.org/press-release/crime-remains-historic-lows-america
Dude no one needs a super hero crime is at an all time low nuff said https://www.brennancenter.org/press-release/crime-remains-historic-lows-americaCrime Remains at Historic Lows in AmericaJune 12, 2018New York, NY – Crime in America’s 30 largest cities remains near historic lows. The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law published its final analysis of crime data from 2017 today, showing an overall decrease in violent crime and murder since 2016.Crime in 2017: Final Analysis establishes that any claims of a nationwide crime wave are unwarranted. Compiled by a team of economic and policy researchers, it confirms predictions from the Center’s December report, Crime in 2017: Updated Analysis.“Crime rates in American cities once again declined in 2017, and remain near historic lows,” said Ames Grawert, senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Justice program. “Contrary to President Trump’s rhetoric using the threat of rising violent crime to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment, our data show low rates of crime across the country. There are still communities like Chicago and Baltimore struggling to control violence, but rather than resorting to fearmongering, leaders should instead embrace and promote smart policing and real reforms that make all our communities safer.”Some key findings from this analysis include a 2.1 percent decline in the overall crime rate of America’s 30 largest cities since 2016, as well as a 1 percent decline in violent crime and 3.4 percent decline in the 2017 murder rate.Chicago and Houston saw some of the largest decreases in murder rates, which fell by 12.3 percent and nearly 17 percent respectively. Chicago’s decline partially offsets its recent increase in homicides. Cities including Baltimore and Philadelphia saw a rise in murder rates for 2017.Click here to see more of the Brennan Center’s research on crime rates in America, including an analysis of historical crime trends from 1990-2016, available here. And, click here to read more about the methodology behind the Brennan Center’s crime analyses.For more information or to schedule an interview with a Brennan Center expert, contact Rebecca Autrey at rebecca.autrey@nyu.edu or 646-292-8316.
all you need to do is adopt the policies we did in the real world without the danger of that book going into the wrong hands, bette rsurvailance bigger prisons better response times, more cops less guns, unless the laws of your world dont mesh with this one, we can use real methods to solve the problem
the book is too dangerous to have in private hands
we cleaned up the real world we can clean up your little delusion
This voter is not familiar with the anime "Death Note."
PRO describes a totalitarian fantasy of epic proportions- a single anonymous individual's judgement is substituted for all the legal systems and scholarship and courts and police in the world. Crime and criminality is not defined but this all powerful super-assassin best guess seems to be the only definition of crime that matters and the judgement of criminal applies to most of the world, apparently. PRO offers a world where one anonymous individual has the power and self-justification to kill without discretion or oversight or checks and balances and actually defends this world as preferable to the (presumably) democratic and processes of the United Nations.
PRO seems to presume that Kira would necessarily be successful in suppressing crime, ignoring the scale of the problem. Even if Kira takes no time for criminal investigation, forensics, witness interviews, mitigating circumstances and just devotes all 243,000 minutes of the average person's waking life to killing people he is pretty sure are bad guys, that's only a few hundred thousand criminals dead in a world that's chock full of criminals. PRO compares the crime plague to the Black Plague so let's say 50%- 3,750,000,000 individual criminals. Best case, PRO's ubermurderer can take out 6 one-thousanths of 1% of the criminal problem. What's PRO's plan for the rest of the criminals? Who vets Kira's definition of crime. What if Kira thinks not wearing a hat is a crime or not shaving a beard? Who would tell Kira he's wrong?
Obviously, the world's response to an anonymous sniper who kill by face and name would be to stop naming people, changing and covering faces. The human response to an anonymous tyrant is counter-anonymity.
This voter hates the world PRO describes and his hideously anti-democratic superhero. I suppose all superheroes are anti-democratic to a profound degree, Nietzsche's superman=ubermensch=" Deutschland, Deutschland über alles" (Kill Bill's contemptuous superman speech) but PRO's notion of justice is deeply depressing
NEVERTHELESS,
This is PRO's game. PRO made the rules. This VOTER agrees with just about every argument CON makes but CON's argument fail to engage PRO's set up. R1, CON argues that PRO's fiction does not reflect the real world which is true but breaks the dynamic of a hypothetical discussion. R2 argues that superheros are unnecessary antidotes to crime. Again true but not engaged. R3 and R4 correctly call the whole dynamic dangerous but never bothers to get into why.
PRO set up a fairly arguable hypothetical situation that CON fails to discuss. So argument to PRO as well as conduct- CON did not follow PRO's reasonable debate format
Interpreting the resolution:
The generic world government would be better served by not seeking to prosecute the wielder of the Death Note
Gist:
Con dropped pro’s argument to run a K, but the K missed the target leaving pro’s six major points wholly uncontested.
Suspension of disbelief
The first sentence in the description informs us what basis things are assumed to happen in. Arguing that the world should not have acted against Kira in 2019, doesn’t touch on the crime ridden world of 2020 in which this debate is focused.
Arguments:
Some credit to con for engaging in the debate without just copy/pasting lines from sources. However, the crime data he cited from 2018 and 2017 is grossly outdated, we could not have predicted the crime wave that was to start in October 2019! That those changes worked for awhile, did not stop the criminals; it’s like con is struck in the past...
I do generally agree with con that we should deal with poverty (and ideally not by means of the Death Note), and train better police. Pro even built into his case that Kira might just stop one day, and implied we should press our advantage.
A good counter case could have focused on Kira needlessly targeting police officers, and possibly the corruption of power clearly manifested in the uncontrolled criminal activity around the world... Heck even a ‘we should take it for ourselves, and use it to end poverty’ would have been at least potentially valid (if still unlikely to win).
Conduct:
“the hypothetical world you created in your brain is silly so is a book you can right names in” unwilling to engage in the debate as agreed, and insulting the very foundation of it, merits the penalty.
I somehow doubt any are as good as the anime, though.
There are three different movie interpretations of it.
Interesting debate. I've watched the anime 3 times and the movie once (liked the anime better).
Nice job. I suggest opening this one up again for a higher tier opponent (set the minimum rating to 1500...).
Bump for voting.
the book could fall in the wwrong hands
Then why did you accept?
i'm confused
Ergo, Kira warrants involvement of the UN lol
The UN is passive as can be, of course this is a true resolution. They don't have any morals whatsoever, other than making sure no one in the world is too pissed off and powerful at any given time (in relation to others).
Awesome debate idea!
Sincerely tempted, but don’t have the time right now.