Total votes: 1,362
Full Forfeit. Plus India still being there...
Full Forfeit.
Concession...
Pro, conceding does not mean you suck at debating; nor does being wrong on some points. The inability to admit fault would mean you suck.
FF and overkill. I suggest doing this debate again, hopefully you'll get a real opponent.
True full forfeit.
Gift: Affirming the Consequent by Repetition does not make something true.
S&G: I don't know if I've ever given this for formatting before, but the level of bad made it difficulty to read, rendering much of pro's case incomprehensible (I should never have to copy things to word, to fix the formatting before analyzing arguments). I suspect this was an effort to pad the arguments to make them look big, as was seen on the first point about how all mammals have four legs requiring pages of scrolling. An example of these errors is the unending streams of underlined text.
Arguments: pro made an okay argument for unintelligent design as seen with FSM, but not for intelligent design as seen with whatever religion he is. He could not find any intelligent use of legs in whales, when that structure was so much of his case. Pro could not find how Appendicitis is good, rather than a flaw. Pro's argument that everything we eat is healthy was easily countered by the number of unhealthy things we could try to eat. The owl one was another bad one, it outright requires God having no imagination (why stick with owls, and not something of a whole different form suited perfectly for the area of operation?), con's counter that selective breeding and death lead to the colors seen today was outright likely, unlike the explanation that God perfectly placed each owl and colored it individually...
Conduct: I strongly suspect pro plagiarized parts of his case, but without verification I am leaving conduct tied.
Based on the resolution being a question, I am going to assume split BoP. To answer the question favorably to their side, pro needs to show they are good or better, con needs to show they are outright not good or worse. ... Apologies if I have reversed pro and con on anything, the weird debate setup still catches me off guard sometimes.
Gist:
Con's best point could have been men like Curtis LeMay having access to nukes (how dare we not have nuclear airplanes!), but he never got that deep into the topic. As is, nukes were shown to improve our quality of life. The extreme what ifs deal with probability, to which every year without nuclear war shrinks the probability. If we take the estimated death toll multiplied by the probability, it gives us a lower expected death toll than the number of lives saved per year (neither debater did this analysis, but it’s the logical conclusion missing from their arguments). This becomes precisely zero if pro’s insistence that you can’t use past data on this.
1. death toll (pro)
Con references the death toll, which pro counters with the greater number of lives saved.
Similarly, con references potential deaths if massive numbers of them went off, which pro counters with the decreased number of wars we’ve experienced for fear of them. In R2 pro tries to counter that the very death toll he cited from Japan doesn’t matter anymore, which feels like a betrayal of his own R1 argument; it was the basis for his estimating how many more people would die if more nukes went off (for which con expertly mocks him).
2. the environment (pro)
This felt a little tacked on, given that the first point was basically we’d all be dead, so no one would care about crop failure… So con argues USA and Russia would ruin the ozone layer, but con countered with a nice short video explaining why those two specific countries do not war with each other (and why most countries do not war with each other anymore).
Con asserted against reason that nukes only increase the number of wars we’ve experienced… No, just no, the data we've been shown here directly contradicts this. The Cuban missile crisis was a close call, which could have been leveraged to a real case on the death toll, but it was wasted here (not that it can't cross lines, but the point did not have enough built up around it for such).
3. Economy (pro)
pro argued that it additionally saves us money. Because I like numbers, I’m pulling a quote from his source: “the average American taxpayer spends about $225 per year on the nuclear arsenal (sovereignty insurance), while at the same time they spend an average of about $1325 on auto insurance and $12,000 on health insurance.”
Con's counter that this adds up to a lot for any individual if he or she could receive a check for this much (not how it works...), but it fell flat as a sum applied to everyone. (peak spending during the cold war, would have served him much better here)
This topic ends up being pretty one sided, as pro needs to either prove an absolute, or K their own topic by claiming morals don’t exist at all. What pro is really arguing is a limited divine command theory, which is easy challenged by any other ethical hypothesis. … That said, the description looks well written, so this might be a real battle.
Gist:
Pro started a discussion, not even really a case until con organized (and repeatedly reorganized) it; then dropped out.
1. Subjectivity
This was where I saw pro work the hardest, but when he tried to define local objective standards as truly objective (God makes something, decides what is good and bad by flipping a coin, inside the bubble it’s objective), con was able to show that this was inherently subjective from the perspective of said arbiter. Thus, pro’s big goal which he was to base his remaining case around was prevented, leaving the rest of his argument at an insurmountable handicap.
2. Morals change with the times
It was shown to be better than what an outside arbiter would predict we need, and better for us being able to understand it.
---
Arguments: Con
See above review of key points. With the assessments uncontested for the final two rounds, it would be pretty much impossible for pro to win.
Sources: Con
Pro tried to use three, but did not build them into his case (they were kind of tacked on on the end, rather than linked or referenced). Con used a ton.
One source I found interesting was the magnets one, to which I think a whole debate could be centered around. If a magnetic field can make us switch to short term consequentialism, then is that maybe an objective standard for morality? Anyway, it made me think.
Conduct: Con
Forfeiture.
Nearly a full forfeit, and pro plagiarized almost his entire argument.
Arguments: cons ended up being non-contested, and pro's were thrown out.
Sources: con gets this for identifying the plagiarism (effectively stealing all value that pro could have had there had he made proper citations). He would have gotten it anyway for unending high quality sources every round.
Conduct: see first paragraph.
Concession
Full Forfeiture.
dual FF...
It should be telling that I am not bothering pulling out my template.
Pro ended up outright schooling con on con's own propositions and what they would necessarily entail, to such an extend that con seemed unable to understand his own case but just relaunched the first cause argument without first offering any defense of it. In contrast, pro's case used Occam's Razor, which con repeatedly joked about rather than refuting the conclusion drawn (or sliced) by it. Bare in mind, the resolution was dealing with mere likelihood, to which Occam's Razor is perfect for displaying.
Sources: I don't normally give this for so few, but con's lack of any sources vs pro giving him the educational material to understand his own case is not to be dismissed. My favorite source was of course LogicallyFallacious, as it allowed me to quickly review the logical rule pro was using separate from pro's representation of his and con's cases.
Conduct: Repeated forfeiture.
Concession, so I give automatic arguments against and conduct to the conceding side (it's the one case of someone earning conduct, rather than it being a penalty).
If not for the concession, I would not be voting on this (nor reading it this deeply) due to the strength of my personal bias.
Let's see... Massive credit to con for putting his case into logical form right at the start.
Pro gets a good amount of credit for similarly listing his case in short form at the start of his round 1 (comparatively less credit, as he did not put it into a logical argument, but left it as individual clauses to be assembled later).
By the time of pro's departure from the debate, con indeed had a solid lead. This was only increased by the debate setup placing a lower BoP on him (it was not his duty to prove it should be illegal, merely that pro had not proven it should be legal).
Sources were a funny thing on this, both sides started off weak (con's first was a religious source. pro's first was a debate website). But later in the debate con gained momentum on good sources, the Alzheimer’s one being of particular note, as it frames the argument in such a way to create an emotional connection to our respected elders who by some standards are gone but we have not given up on.
Written before reading the debate: While many Christians are X (homophobic), the question is were they told to be that way by Y (the bible). Of course, Christians who are not X is not proof against Y telling them they should be… Similarly if Y tells them not to be Z (homosexual), it has little baring on the debate, as not being something and being prejudiced against other people doing it are not the same thing (unless a debater shows otherwise, which would not be impossible, but still prohibitively difficult).
Gist:
Pro all but conceded at the start of R2 (“Yes we should avoid it, but it doesn't mean that we should be a homophile” he repeats this under other phrasings, to just we shouldn’t ourselves be homosexuals, but we should also not be homophobes according to the bible). … From there the debate is largely con trying to show that God (or at least the bible) too isn’t homophobic, which is a nice bonus, but a little off topic. The debate ends with pro making a point that we should act out God’s punishments, but this was not supported with biblical evidence; and it came out of left field.
1. Leviticus
Y says kill Z. Con counters by reminding us (with two biblical passages) that the bible says everyone is a sinner who will die, so argues that one particular sin and death is no different. The death spoken of us not a literal one. There’s some talk of capital S sins, and Occam’s Razor, but none of it gets past con’s initial counter.
2. History
Irrelevant side point (a group of Christians were X, which does not prove they were obeying Y). This is an appeal to tradition, without supporting the reason behind the tradition. As con puts it “Also, the Catholic Church is not equivalent to the Bible.”
3. Matthew
A little biased here, as Matthew is my gold standard for biblical books. Con used Matthew to show that we’re explicitly told not judge others (which combines nicely with the previous bit that we’re all sinners, otherwise it might fall flat). Pro agrees.
4. Seven Deadly Sins
I could see the start to an interesting point forming here, but it needed a lot more support (I hate saying more biblical passages, but pulling the line from the bible about the sin of lust would have been a great starting place to make this a real contention).
---
Arguments: Con
See above review of key points. None of pro’s contentions held against con’s rebuttals. The most important two are biblical passages, and con clearly won both.
Sources: tied
Debate never left the bible.
Spelling and Grammar: tied
I could imagine someone assigning this, but pro gave fair warning that English is his second language, so errors are not malicious.
Conduct: tied
No personal attacks or any other problems stood out.
Conduct for repeated forfeitures.
Arguments for the absence of even the outline of a case to attempt BoP. Conversely, con had no duty to disprove what had not first been suggested.
Repeated forfeiture, leaving too large a gap in material for pro to catch up in any logical universe.
Note: This is a troll debate. I don't normally cast ballots on rap battles, but with the forfeiture con gets the points without question.
Conduct for forfeiture.
Arguments to pro for just how well his song selection in R3 matched his personality... In case anyone can't tell, that was a joke. The missing round means if the other two are tied (or even were pro pulling ahead slightly), con has a decisive victory in the third.
Doing a little vote experiment, trying to better follow the precise requirements set by admin (not sure if I’ll like it, but giving it a spin on a less important debate).
The important thing is I am giving each argument a score ranged (1, -1). A score of 1 is a slam dunk for pro, a score of 0 is a dead tie, and a score of -1 is a slam dunk for con.
I. Arguments
a. Survey Main Points:
1. The Kalam Cosmological Argument -0.25
Giving this 0.25, which is to say more than a tie, but it does not go anywhere expect building some confidence that there could be such a thing as God. Pro’s rebuttals fail heavily, but this argument does not go toward proving the precise God in question within this debate.
2. The Moral Argument -0.50
This boils down to “infer that something, or someone, created standards.” Pro did not refute this, merely asserted that it was incorrect (he could have pointed out differing moral codes, or various other tactics... even a reminder that it does not verify the big capital G.).
3. The Proof of Jesus’ Divinity -1.0
I was grading this at a -.75 prior to seeing pro’s reply. Pro’s reply was predicted and pre-refuted within con’s case, and worse was far weaker than con’s own, it was as if pro committed some type of reverse straw-person against himself.
4. Cain’s Wife 0.25
Con countered this by explained where Cain could have found a wife, and I am unsure why he defended the grossness of Cain apparently hooking up with his sister (or why she’d want to marry a murderer). Grading this above 0 as the timeline here is pretty hard to believe, and a small bit of credit for the humor.
5. Dinosaurs 0
They support nor harm neither case. Perhaps had pro not forfeited he would have made a nice joke about Pandas not existing.
b. Weighting:
See scores above.
c. Results:
-1.5, so con wins by a lot.
Was going to continue into the other categories, but I am already sick of this experiment. Pro offered no real case of his own, and made slightly amusing remarks instead of countering con's case.
Technically both sides full forfeited (all, or all but the first), but pro did so slightly less
I would give this to con for superior conduct, but they expressed opposition to that in the comment section. So tie.
Con forfeited less.
Concession.
Concession... Con, I hope you're doing at least semi-okay.
Con forfeited less.
Context plays a crucial role in interpreting debates. The resolution is technically true, if there’s people invading Africa right now (or anywhere else), they should be removed. However, this is not what the arguments proved to be about.
Gist:
Pro never attains BoP to show an actual benefit even for people who would be living in the content of African after all the human rights violations (their loved ones being kidnapped and deported, and a bunch of strangers who have just been kidnapped and imported from the rest of the world suddenly showing up). Nor even that there are any active invasions.
1. Tourists
I think this was pro trying to show a problem, which is vital for a problem needing to be solved.
Pro argues that Africans should get rid of any tourists (anyone visiting but not born in Africa) because such people are not contributing, they bring no money or other “tangibles” with them.
Con ties this back to the resolution by suggesting the related word of invader was intended, and showed the low likelihood of undocumented invasions happening right now; so turn suggested the word “occupier,” but then suggested that isn’t an active problem right now (at least not from those outside of Africa itself).
Con protests that he never mentioned skin color: “No, I never said anything about disliking someone's skin color. ... Yes, deporting people who live in Africa that aren't Black is exactly what I'm saying.” He then insists any black individuals living (and likely native) in places outside Africa, should be forced to relocate (kidnapped?) to Africa... Con goes on to make various racist Gish Gallops, including against blacks (apparently they breed like rabbits and will be too busy doing that to have any emotion about deported family members...).
2. Human Rights
Con interprets that pro wishes to deport people not based on if they were born in Africa, but instead based on if they have certain skin colors. He wisely used MLK as a source for authority against this racism. Mention of gay murders and acid attacks with the assertion of them being no problem (or less of a problem?) in South Africa where the European cultural influence is stronger.
The source on Cannibalism was from a /questionable/ site to say the least. Please don’t pull that ever again.
3. Rwandan genocide
Brief mention by pro, along with the UN stopping it. I expected con to do lovely things with this thread, given the history that lead to this, but the point was dropped leaving it actually in con’s favor...
4. Burden of Proof
Glad someone brought this up early... It gets the heart of what was missing across very well.
5. Vampires
Awesome. I wish pro was correct on this, and I am quite uncertain why con would want to refute it.
6. Egypt
I haven’t a clue why this kept coming up. Assuming pro is correct about people being that bad at geography, where was this point supposed to lead? The AND is missing.
7. Unification
One asserts that it is bad, the other that it is good. Strangely the person asserting that it is bad, is the one who wants to unify Africa by getting rid of anyone not pure enough...
8. Pagan Holidays
Not sure what this has to do with the debate.
9. Zimbabwe
Con brought this up in the final round, it would have been a seriously powerful point any time earlier in the debate, as it shows the damage done by the same brand of racism to which pro subscribes.
---
Arguments: con
See above review of key points. Pro did not prove a benefit to the proposal, and con proved massive harm.
Sources: tied
Both sides executed this poorly. Once when pro was trying to spam some quick links, he included one on Africans committing human rights violations as proof of African society being better than the oppressive rest of the world. Con used a source to which the website used a modified swastika for its icon...
Conduct: con
Pro accuses con of having personally murdered hundreds or thousands of people: “So, you being a part of the most genocidal group of people in history is trying to school me on human rights?”
I am trying to make sense of it in my head, but I think it goes back to the vampire point (did con could serve under Hernán Cortés? ... Or using the genocides listed in the debate, most happened so long ago that con is unlikely to be alive if human after partaking; the most brutal of these being the Rwandan, which was carried out by black people in the name of race against black people).
Pro even turned R4 into a string of Ad Hominems (earlier he was at least directing his attention to arguments, rather than the person making them).
The worst action of con was a certain link, which was in all likelihood accidental (and as he was not making the claims of that site, it goes to affect the reliability of sources, rather than his own conduct).
Normally I give conduct for concessions, but conceding while trying to insult someone for being better at the shared hobby makes no sense. If smarter people routinely disagree, maybe there's some truth to what they say.
Weird one, as con concedes the debate, but then pro forfeits the remaining three rounds. I could be wrong, but I'm going with a conduct only award.
Plagiarism. ... Oh and the other side did not plagiarize.
In brief: Looks like an attempted noob snipe, but it missed by a mile.
Arguments (AI):
Given that RM agreed to the terms of the debate outlined in the description (including a clarification on who was who), and proceeded to immediately concede the debate in R1, this goes to AI. The debate never goes back on topic after that, so RM has no points made for his side of the resolution; whereas AI’s points were left utterly uncontested.
The single argument is straight forward, morals are not infallible unless you exclusively obey divine command theory, which kind of says we should not try to understand morals… But again, uncontested, and at least on topic.
As for mechanical aspects of this site: It was off topic within this debate. Start a debate on it with a moderator if it’s such a problem.
Note on debate descriptions: Troll debates are not moderated, so it makes intuitive sense that votes ignoring a troll-strain in a description would not be punished. I as a voter do enforce descriptions, as it says when creating a debate “Detailed description which may contain any important information about the format, the rules and etc.” Granted I generally view violating rules there as a conduct only issue.
Conduct (AI):
R2, RM choose to repeatedly insinuate that AI blind, and further that it would be a bad thing about him or her were that the case. This was done as a tactic to not engage with the debate subject.
Comparatively, AI accused RM of not reading before accepting, which I doubt is true, but RM choose to present himself in a manner to imply the truth to that statement. This was done to try to get the debate back on topic.
AI did briefly fall to RMs level (a reverse paraphrase of RMs statements against the blind, in this case because RM said he needs an aid to read for him, he said the same about RM), but it does not hurt as bad because it was with the clear intent of getting the topic both of them agreed to debate to actually happen.
S&G (tied):
This leans slightly in favor of RM for catching the mistake, and for awkward formatting, but nothing was bad enough to interfere in understanding the debate.
For formatting I suggest only using the indent for larger chunks of text; such as quotations which go across multiple lines. And yes, of course be careful in regards to selecting pro and con before instigating a debate, and if accepting one make sure it's one you are actually interested in debating.
It would be really wonderful if pro is correct (except about monkeys... no one believes we came from literal monkeys, nor that they lack emotions), but he failed to support it with evidence. Con even pointed out what evidence would be enough, and it wasn't a high standard.
So pro's case boils down to he doesn't understand the mechanisms of a theory, therefore a wholly different and unrelated hypothesis must be true. Con counters with an explanation for that theory, and a reminder that the hypothesis is not supported by anything more than hope. He further uses evidence to disprove pro's false beliefs about monkeys.
I should also note that the resolution was so unclear that con had to explain its meaning. This may be some language barrier.
ARGUMENTS TO CON.
The 10th source lending authority to the universal common ancestor was particularly good, as such infers that if we were the point to it all, the rest wouldn't be hanging around, and certainly not in such a variety of shapes unrelated to anything which could become human... As for pro's Marxism source, I am not sure what that was trying to prove (it feels like maybe it was to say that communism created us? That can't be right). ... For the standards, con used a ton of sources to add authority and show research on the issue in question, whereas pro barely had anything, and nothing which advanced his case. SOURCES TO CON.
S&G TIED (I'll admit that I liked pro's opening layout, it was very business professional)
Con did not forfeit, pro did, so CONDUCT TO CON.
(there may be errors, if anyone needs anything clarified or expanded just let me know. This debate going about a week with zero votes seems wrong, so knocking this out while getting ready for sleep)
Really thought this would be a troll debate about how she doesn't exist... Nice surprise.
Pro does a nice opening, but falls flat after that. He overall makes a good case for the writing not being as good, but fails to show her as someone who would choose the path of peace when given the chance.
Con uses a long list of her actions, to suggest her underlying growing madness the whole time, plus her consistent use of terrorism to get her way. Most telling was her insistence that she can do no wrong, and that in her hands crucifying a political activist could not be considered a crime. This is classic virtue ethics.
Where pro could have won was reminding us of her liking her own loyalists, and in the episode in question intentionally murdering countless of them as they stormed the city.
Conduct for forfeiture.
Forfeiture.
Basic rule of debating: Don’t make someone else’s case for them!
S&G: tie
Leans in pro’s favor, but not by enough to take the point. The big thing I would say (to con) here is organization was lacking; I should not have had to dig with CTRL+F to find if argument lines were continued.
Sources: PRO
I hate to say this was by magnitude, but the lack of counter evidence (a single propaganda source in the final round doesn’t count) made it unquestionably in favor of pro. Trump’s white genocide support tweet was the biggest damning one which could not be out argued. R1 sources were just spammed in there at the end, so were not given any weight.
Arguments: PRO
Below I’ve reviewed the different argument segments. Pro showed that Trump is more racist than not, whereas con proved that not every case where Trump seems to be acting racist is necessary due to racist intent... Had the dropped points been argued even to the level of being tied, the issue could have been confused enough to deny pro Burden of Proof; but such did not occur.
So were I con, I would have reorganized pro’s points into categories (such as nicknames and actual actions, or by racial groups), then rewritten it into logical rules of inference such as Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens, to then intercede against the flow of logic.
1. Miss Housekeeping: pro
Dropped.
2. Korean-American intelligence analyst: pro
Dropped.
3. Elizabeth Warren: PRO
Dropped. ... Then rebounded with con trying to prove Trump is superior for his greater amount of Native American blood, for which the Cherokees apparently support him.
4. Mexicans "rapists," "drug lords," and "criminals.": PRO
Con disputed this by saying some are good people, and used the idea that Trump’s fear is generally correct even if the magnitude of it gets misquoted by omission (that would still be racism, but okay...). Pro points out that this leaves a racist belief that the majority are to be feared, then used statistics to further prove the irrationality of the fear. Con counters that anyone (legal or not? I’m forgiving the missing qualifier, but be careful of that) who crosses the border is a bad person...
5. ban on all Muslims: pro
Dropped. ... Somehow came back near the end because Trump failed... Con held off his best point for the final round (when it could no longer be responded to), that Muslim could be defined by religion wholly separate from race; which had it been earlier in the debate could have given him this point (assuming it was then not countered by pro).
6. white nationalist tweets: PRO
I agree with con on the definitions, except for the fact that they came with the “white” qualifier. Bernie Sanders is technically a nationalist, just not a white nationalist. Pro explained this at length when requested, then linked the tweets (never ask someone to give you a source unless you know you can beat it...). When you retreat something from someone named Genocide, you are making an active informed decision to advertise (thus promote) their cause.
Attempting to move the goalpost to other people, is so common that it’s boring. Start a debate about Obama and Clinton if you like, but when discussing Trump the comparisons only hurt him.
This somehow ended on a note that we should pity him for people trying to suppress his freedom of speech...
7. black voters: CON
Some context could have shifted this, but... If pointing to statistics when speaking of problems made someone racist, pro would be damned due to point 4. On this, Trump targeted them as a voting group, and used race, but did not indicate any superiority or inferiority by race rather than opportunity. Sleezy sure, but con showed that this was not proof. ... Trying to prove the democratic party is racist with this point, is getting off the topic (make a debate on it).
8. supremacists were morally equivalent to the people resisting: pro
Dropped.
9. “some very fine people" among white supremacists: CON
Con counters that the media removed context. After awhile pro makes a solid point about Trump supporting some antisemitism from the night before... I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt, that he may not have known (this debate is about if he’s racist, not if he’s a buffoon).
10. discriminated against black people in his apartment building: CON
Con countered this with suggesting it was about if an applicant listed welfare as an income source, not race, and the race was never proven. I hate nit-picking, but this point became about evidence, which was mentioned but not provided (it may have been to another point, such as the R1 source spamming, but was not tied directly to this one).
I usually refrain from awarding points on the topic of abortion, due to my strong bias (in short: I’m opposed to slavery). This debate looking at the legal merits apart from any moral implications, falls outside the majority of my bias.
Arguments (pro):
Simply put, his legal case (I. Violates the Constitution) went wholly uncontested. Since both debaters agreed to a debate on legality rather than ethics, con’s counter case of morals (basically sidestepping the topic with an attempted K) is actually off topic to be disregarded. I do agree with con dropping pro’s third point about the bible, as that is the same as con’s whole off topic case...
Sources (pro):
Some real information tied to the debate topic vs off topic propaganda pages...
Pro used the LATimes to show that the law was outright legally ruled unconstitutional. A couple quotes from this by itself could have won the whole debate.
S&G (con):
The coherence of pro’s case was initially damaged by a hilariously bad definition for abortion. This is easily forgiven, but it was caught by con, and is the one place I can give some credit for effort.
I should also point out that pro at times randomly went into all caps for extended amounts (use bold or italics, a word here and there, but not any whole sentences). I did not spot such mistakes within con’s case.
Conduct (tie):
Terribly off topic arguments are bad arguments, questionable conduct, but not in itself enough justification to award this. A single profanity (one not even aimed at anyone) is also not a conduct violation.
Concession
Forfeiture.
I really dislike voting with this many points toward one side when the other made a solid effort... I wish I could balance by awarding say 1 point for arguments instead of 3 (can't be done, but I can daydream)
Conduct (Fran.):
Virt. forfeited a round… And no, the dropping of another round does not hurt conduct (it still hurts arguments, but that’s a whole other thing).
Oh and Fran. did not forfeit (it still annoys me that this needs to be listed).
S&G (Virt.):
Fran., I strongly advise writing your future arguments in MS Word or another smart text editor.
1. Missing characters (most often apostrophes), problems with your/you’re distinctions, capitalization abuse, missing spaces between words, etc. Examples “NO CANT” “he didn’t won fairly” “COMBINED. No race here. Just nonsense for democrats.” (that one doesn’t make sense as separate sentences, nor if the periods were changed to commas). “impending?But” even were the periods fixed, this just doesn’t make sense as the separate sentences there that one doesn’t make sense
2. The commonality of these errors kept pulling me from the debate.
3. In comparison: the other side used great formatting to make the debate easy to follow.
Sources (Virt.):
Fran. started this on a low note. Sources should never be a strawperson fallacy video, it hurts the credibility of the side using it especially when a point is made that it is the only source needed.
Virt. Started with giving definitions (honestly those should have been in the description), setting himself as a voice of reason (it’s not that he necessarily is, but he postured himself as such given that neither side’s arguments make sense without this). Then repeated source after source to support the presence of voter suppression. The 6th was of particular weight, given that a real judge ruled against what was happening (they’re more knowledgeable than any of us on this, so great and valid appeal to authority). I also do give extra credit when someone is able to call back to their same sources between rounds (it speaks of the reliability of sources, and avoids source spamming).
Arguments (Virt.):
So here’s the big thing, if the tactic was used but did not really impact anything, it was still used. It need not even be done by race (it’s more likely to be done by education and income levels… it’s not like white people write in white ink and black people in black… we should all fear the unseen blue people!). It was however proven to be done against people who vote by mail, and the resolution is written as an absolute.
note 1: Given how the rest of this vote has turned out, I kind of want to leave arguments a tie, but it is the one thing that absolutely has to be graded to grade anything else.
note 2: I suspect the resolution may have been written to address a different premise than what Fran intended it to be.
C1 (Fran.): “A democrat Lost.”
This goes to Fran., but has no impacts. That either side lost does not mean anything about the topic, as one side was guaranteed to lose (okay technically in a billion such elections there might be a tie, but that is getting into an absurd area of consideration).
C2 (Virt.): Conflict of interest (AKA “Observations about the Election”)
This went unchallenged. Virt set this up successfully as a premise to use for later arguments, but by itself it does not gain ground. Things can be sketch as hell, but not in itself prove much. … I do give credit to Fran for using my favorite rebuttal “irrelevant.”
C3 (Virt.): MAIL Ballot Tossing
Virt. proved it was done to massive levels, coming to about 10% of votes that were mailed in, on an election that was narrow to only 1.5%. Fear of criminal aliens did not undo what was done. Interestingly Fran’s source could have been used to explain what was expressly pointed out as unexplained and suspicious, but what I read in the source does not matter, what is cited from it is all that does.
Had that 10% been proven to be a normal amount of rejected votes, this would not be such a decisive argument.
C4 (tie): Exact Match Rule
Over 50k voters suppressed. A judge had to intervene against it… It feels wrong, but I can’t say if it was or was not voter suppression given that neither debater advanced it after their original comments on the subject.
Forfeiture.
Forfeiture.
Forfeiture.
All kudos points to con! (seriously, it wouldn't be a bad additional point category...)
Arguments to pro. More or less this was dealing with a truism, to which con needed a hard K, or to bring on the laughs.
Math (pro): 2+2 reliably equals 4. This is the most important area of contention, to which con had the general duty to disprove (or at least to cast doubt).
Biology (tie): Amusing side node, but it doesn't hold actual weight toward the resolution without more put into it. Why 2a+2a=2k doesn't actually line up, for starters where did the adults disappear to? Con could have used historical information that women die in childbirth decreasing the overall number when adults are combined, but the follow through was missing.
Abstract (tie): Had con pulled Numebrwang (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0obMRztklqU) on this, it could have gone somewhere... But his end proof is that 2+2=2 because he said so, is just a weak assertion. Defining things however you want, and making a point of that, leaves any sane person not questioning that classic math is a better way to do it, leaving the original answer unchallenged.
How con could have won?
Most easily just showing that Americans suck at math (this debate was on standard american mathematics taught in school, given our nation debt we clearly can't balance a checkbook) ... Otherwise, quoting René Descartes; Quoting George Orwell and applying that we live post 1984; or likewise quoting certain modern thinkers (ideally with appeals to authority for their universities) who insist we cannot obey objective science due to racism. Bad math could have also done it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVI5s6CyoUY).
Concession.
Basically no contest. Pro had no real case of his own, and chose not to refute any part of cons (he did attempt a very weak K via moving the goalpost).
Pro's opening case is two words, not enough to give him BoP, barely enough to make an assertion.
Con's in depth case on ways the subject of this debate could do something (seems not just un-impossible, but outright likely). For the criteria, I'll just use #7, RM could fake the evidence. This went uncontested. Pro tried a weird it hasn't happened yet so it will never happen, but this debate is not about history but possibility.
Sources were used by one side to show how easy proof would be, and they were left uncontested and with no counter evidence. The digitaltrends one showed how easily a program could identify matching works of the same author.
Forfeiture. ... Good luck if opening this challenge again for another contender.
Forfeiture.
Got to respect the concession with a favorable conduct note...
Con proved pro was speaking in gibberish. Pro then failed to demonstrate that a "belt of bowl" is a real thing. S&G due to the poor S&G being used successfully as an argument impacting the debate.