Instigator / Pro
0
1488
rating
1
debates
0.0%
won
Topic
#3253
travelling east worse for jet lag
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 8 votes and with 56 points ahead, the winner is...
Username
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- Two hours
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- Two months
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
56
1593
rating
9
debates
77.78%
won
Description
No information
Round 1
Forfeited
I interpret the resolution to mean that traveling time zones eastward makes jet lag worse than traveling time zones westward. This is the only possible interpretation because any other res is indefensible and there is research to support the affirmation of my interpretation.
I’m not going to argue that the resolution is false but rather that it is bad for debate.
Definition of truism by google: “a statement that is obviously true and says nothing true or interesting” [1].
Marriam Webster: “an undoubted or self-evident truth” [5].
Interpretation (my theoretical interpretation of how this debate should function): Debate resolutions should not be truisms
Violation (how you violate the interpretation): The notion that traveling east makes jet lag worse (typically) is not something that is legitimately disputed anywhere. The resolution is the consensus among medical experts [2] and mathematical research has come out essentially proving that this is the case [3] by analyzing the delay that your internal clock experiences when traveling more time-zones eastward [4].
Standards (reasons for the interpretation):
- Strat skew - Truisms are unfair because they disadvantage the side that argues against the truism.
- Truisms kill any education or knowledge that we get from debate because truisms definitionally are clearly true and don’t add anything to the practice.
They can’t get out of this by saying that you don’t have to accept the debate because making resolutions as truisms encourages the proliferation of more truism debates. More debaters will take the opportunity to gain an easy win which leads to the front page being flooded with unfair rounds that detract from debate’s educational value. It also leads to more tricky resolutions that are not necessarily truisms; these debates are created for the same purpose as truisms and thus fall victim to the same theoretical violations as I’ve just detailed. There are debates on this site Aff tried to claim victory by not reading his opponent’s argument (the resolution stated that their opponent couldn’t prove to them that they know anything) and debates where the instigator would set up rules that punish their opponent for acceptign the debate.
Also, another pre-empt: no, I don’t reinforce this behavior by accepting the debate because I’ve never seen a theory shell on this site before and shells give debaters a way to fight back against abusive resolutions.
Voting Issues (justifications for the values (fairness, education) that provide the basis for the standards):
Fairness - Debate is a competitive activity; fairness is required or else the competitive activity would not be evaluateable (if that’s a word)
Education - The things we learn from debate are one of the benefits that we take out of the debate space in the real world. If we learned nothing from debate, it would be an isolated and pointless activity.
Paradigm Issues (some other theoretical issues that I want to clarify, including how the judge should evaluate my argument):
Drop the debater - They should lose this debate because of their violation. This is because 1. It deters them making debates like this in the future 2. The existence of the debate is contingent on the resolution so if the resolution is abusive then there’s no other way to check it than to have them lose
They can’t win by proving that the res is good for debate because this rewards them for making an abusive resolution.
This argument has offense regardless of whether you use competing interpretations or reasonability, so I don’t really need to delineate between them; the judge can evaluate the shell using either mechanism. Regardless, reasonability is probably better generally because using competing interpretations typically leads to debaters using theory against small levels of abuse.
SOURCES:
Round 2
Forfeited
Extend all arguments. Source for [5] since I forgot it: Truism | Definition of Truism by Merriam-Webster
Round 3
Forfeited
Extend. They have the sole BoP as they instigated the debate and are making a positive claim. They have made 0 arguments so far, which is another reason to vote Con.
Round 4
Forfeited
Extend. There should be no new arguments in the final round.
Round 5
Forfeited
Extend.
Crystallization
You can vote on:
- My argument (the theory shell), implying that that the resolution was abusive and thus Pro should lose due to Drop the Debater Paradigm Issue that was warranted and conceded
- The the shell itself was dropped and cleanly extended throughout the round, even if you don't like the shell itself
- That my opponent never presented an argument or defended against the charge that the resolution was abusive despite having sole BoP
- Supplementarily (is that a word?), that my opponent forfeited all their rounds (which is poor conduct)
Any one of these issues is sufficient to negate. All of them together is beyond sufficient.
Vote Con!
