Total votes: 1,368
Concession.
Concession. Also a much better setup and R1 than last time.
An angle I am surprised is not being raised in these debates, is pleasure for women.
Null......
The debate is a truism, for which con attempts to move the goalpost but fails to list any reasons why his standard should be preferred. Had Con done so, his proofs would have won out.
Massive BoP failure (which con highlighted), followed by forfeiture.
The very premises pro tried to use, reminded me of the one great scene from a Uwe Boll film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt_tv7t79WY
Forfeiture.
Wish I could penalize conduct, even while the mild insults made me laugh.
The debate was conceded, and reduced to a foregone conclusion due to only one side making a case. That said…
Con is only right about Red Pill predating Andrew Tate (and maybe the blue pill stuff, never heard of it before).
Red Pill 💊 stems from incel culture, it is not about self improvement, because women suck and won’t suck on you no matter what unless you were born muscular with a 12” erection which took the doctors eye out. Basically what con refers to as black pill. They openly believe women are a type of non-sentient animal, etc.etc. Usually some racism tossed into the mix just so they can complete failing to be more than a bad stereotype.
Black Pill refers to the conclusion for Incels of killings themselves. Studies on this cultural subset are inclusive, but Incels praise those brave enough to go swallow the black pill.
Con basically argued because they contradict each other, they can’t be said to contradict each other since they’re different.
Pro on the other hand shows the main contradiction in their lore, and defends with a movie series analogy to confirm continuing works in the same field can disagree and be disruptive due to their contradictions.
Pro goes on to show another example with Adam’s baby mammas, which con uses an appeal to not understanding it so it must be wrong…
Easy pro victory.
Nice short debate.
The way the debaters argued this reminded me of sociology vs psychology, or macro- vs micro-economics.
While this gets over applied to writing, the beginner rule of show don't tell comes up. Pro tells us that Les Mis has more and better characters, and yet only names Jean Valjean; along with it showcasing 1830's France... But what about 1830's France? And How did Jean Valjean reform? Right now, he's no better defined than Christine.
One of the few notes is that it's longer, which gives more time for character growth but not how it actually took advantage of that.
The Phantom by contrast has details about the lead character and his actions... At least enough to spur an emotional response.
Plus the details on the opera house made that seem like an additional character. And while I'll call BS on the historical angles and talk of a real ghost, said BS set the scene quite well and went unchallenged.
Without more to go on, the Phantom easily takes the win.
...
Side note: Length can be a tricky thing. Die Walküre takes 5 hours, What's Opera, Doc? Retold it in 7 minutes and IMHO did it far better.
https://vimeo.com/444002896
This is very close, I suspect with a third round pro could have sealed it.
R1 Pro gave a definition, which con flipped to define Pluto as a type of planet.
R2 pro came back to say that type of planet is not really a planet, but did not expand upon why beyond a cherry-picked dictionary entry. Con came back with an analogy about humans being able to be short part of the usual criteria but remain human.
The debate is left begging the question of why is a dwarf planet not a type of planet? Without an answer to this, con takes the win.
...
If redoing this, I advise changing the resolution to an Ought statement. Dictionaries are ever changing, so how we ought to classify Pluto is of more interest than how some people currently do today.
Unfortunately this is "A joke debate on whether Barney the purple dinosaur is the devil or not." I would prefer one aimed at yours truly.
Style
Con's description of a raided clown closet, reminded of the Lame Master from the most recent disaster of an episode of Doctor Who (https://www.cbr.com/doctor-who-modern-classic-doctors-clothes-bbc/), but I see no problem with the purple of the bowties, since bowties are cool... That said, the devil is likely hot tempered, and the opposite of cool, so it seems plausible that he would never wear one.
Spectrum
"The devil is far too clever, and would not have to resort to monotonous repetition."
Sounds like good advice for people throwing to insult each other online. So very much of it feels like spam of the same ten or so words over and over again. Hopefully the devil would do better.
Stoned
So much room for some fun rebuttals, such as "if you love your work, you're always happy, and the devil clearly loves torturing people". But alas, it was simply dropped.
666
Pro resurrected the old meme.
Con retorts that fans of the devil are obsessed with that number, suggesting Barney being more likely such a fan than the real McCoy.
Disguises
Pro details the devil can disguise himself as an angel of light, then uses Barney's incompetence at such as proof he's the devil... Like stepping on a rake, this walks into con's implicit logic for Barney being too incompetent to be the devil.
Con insults pro's eyesight for this failed comparison.
Barney ruined a generation
Apparently Barney caused a whole generation (including a couple celebrities) to be liberal.
BTW, Demi Lovato is pretty good in concert.
Con defends the celebrities with mistaken identity, tying to the previous quip about eyesight. He then agrees with Barney sucking, but uses that to leverage how the devil is probably offended at the comparison.
...
In addition to the forfeiture, con both made me laugh more, and had better logic. So by every standard he takes the win.
Concession
Concession
Basically a bunch of special pleading, including that pedophilia is or was normal if the pedo is sexy... 🤢
Full vote at:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/4533/comments/54806
Full forfeiture
Concession. Hopefully con will have time for a rematch when they're done moving.
Even while I agree with con (save in there being only one sex), they presented their argument as a final round blitz which could not be responded to.
beyond that, neither did particularly good, merely asserting their opinions.still , pro sitting there unchallenged for so long makes them win by default.
Seems like pro was just helping con with his homework… looking at just one of the points, con refutes himself with the dangers of childbirth, and then without any evidence calls himself wrong. Pro explains that con was originally correct, citing historical death rates.
Con showed that it was not premeditated (as pro's definitions required) due to accidental pregnancy, at which point pro dropped out of the debate leaving this unchallenged.
Pro does a good opening explaining that Islam means submission and peace, and is therefore superior to any other philosophy one might embrace. He goes into great detail about such things as how Muslims wake up, bath, eat, etc. It needs to be said that there can be too much detail.
Con counters with Buddhism, which is based on improvement from within instead of surrendering to external forces. They also have a focus on non-violence, and have some cool stuff that someone need not fully commit to Buddhism to receive benefit from.
Hell vs. Reincarnation:
This argument initiated by con stood out as high quality. One religion uses fear to coerce actions or be forever punished, the other believes in a cycle of rebirth we can eventually grow past.
Medicine:
Pro claims Buddhists are against use of medicine, opting to instead rely solely on thoughts and prayers (err, meditation and mindfulness).
Meditation:
Pro is able to edge out here on the comparisons, given that meditation is good, and Muslims meditate at least five times per day.
Non-violence:
Con uses Buddhism being non-violent, and pro counters with a wiki source for them being just as violent as any other religion. Pro weirdly goes on to cite how Buddhists don't kill animals, which is clearly in favor of them being far less violent (I get the point here was to make fun of Buddhist rhetoric about animal ancestors in the cycle of rebirth).
This line by line rebuttal to everything (even con stating how he would try to argue), is just too painful for me. Voting just conduct for the forfeiture, per the automatic loss rule.
Both agree it exists. Pro argues that given that it can be explained, it ceases to be a reliable statistic. Con argues it remains a statistic, with the social interpretations of it being outside the scope of the debate.
Ultimately, pro falls short of BoP in showing how said statistic is unreliable for what it measures. Were the resolution that statistics can be misused he would win. As is, conflicting sources on it would have been the way to go.
I will note disagreement with con that this debate is just over if it exists or not; my BMI from six months ago is unreliable to present conditions, a debate on that would be stretching to be said to be about if BMI merely exists.
Con takes this easily by using pros own definition, and within context of that showing some of that range not connected to biological sex. Pro tries to defend that they’re either stupid or other names for male or female; but this doesn’t refute his own definition calling out the social range.
This one stuck with just those who have seen God’s face and lived.
Con defends by citing one passage from much later that adds an explanation. Pro accuses this of being another change away from what the earlier books stated.
Con insists pro is cherry picking, not giving enough surrounding text so that it misleads the audience. Pro states he has read it and requests con show what part of the context from those passages is missing; which con then refuses to do.
Cons explanation of what constitutes missing context (things like /I’m dead lol/ cutting out the lol) supports this outcome, as he shows context is given close to the text; not several books later in a series.
Pro commits to a tactic of spending a round on setup before getting to any point. Which gave con ample opportunity to disagree with any of it...
Pro gives a list of 6 items...
1. Con shot himself in the foot at the start of R3, with a bad attempt at poisoning the well saying pro made up the bible quotes. Pro defends that poisoning the well is off topic, leaving which is the holy day a contradiction. Con goes heavy on this, so I googled if the quote is in the bible or not, it is.
2. Con hurts himself with formatting; following "#2 “ The Permanence of Earth" through the debate should be an easy task, instead it's stuffed in the middle of other points. A thematic reply can be good, but it hardly would have been difficult to block quote him. I will say that pro is reaching a bit with this one, as the Earth having been unchanged through the ages, doesn't seem to imply an absolute forever.
3. Ok, con really really shot himself in the foot, showing Exodus to be internally inconsistent (citing the New Testament to defend the old, has quite the time gap before it was corrected).
"In Exodus 32:20 "And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.""
"But back up to verse 11 "And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face". "
4. Con does better with the chariots example, as God not using his power does not deny said power. Pro lazily extends.
5. Con echoes my thought in defense of the eye for an eye. It was pretty clearly Jesus directly saying we should update that and not be so vengeful. Pro defends by leaning on semantics; I find it questionable in strength, yet also plays against con's own argument about God's face in Exodus (always good to use a Catch-22 on someone).
...
The organization con used in R5 hurt my eyes to look at. At this point he had attempted to win by saying pro lied about the bible, and failed; right there that would be enough to make an award against him.
Con be like… https://youtu.be/WeYsTmIzjkw
Concession.
For comedy he rescinded it but it was clearly a joke.
Forfeiture.
Forfeiture.
Concession... Not that it matters, given how the debate was going.
For this debate the description which includes "and to the way in which it was carried out" is key to pro's victory. That opens the door to Russia drafting their people and the death toll suffered by them needing to be justified. Without this, he indeed would have been moving the goalpost to off topic areas. As is, it hurts con having tried to dismiss so much, since it leaves them implicitly against his case that he'd even need to try striking them from the record.
Con excels at pushing for the subjective nature of justified, which since BoP is on pro would favor con if we can't say if it's justified or not.
I should say that I get what con was going for with using the USA as a point of comparison, even if it got long winded.
Con also does quite well showing that the invasion didn't happen out of nowhere, there were clearly warning signs. Pro did well against this with building a case for Russia routinely flip flopping (such as how they'd never invade Crimea, and then did just that...).
The Crimea one favored pro, due to having easy access to sources which show that Russia was the baddie in that. I will add that I enjoyed the joke comparison to Kim Jong Un. Con trying to dismiss this and more since the sources are biased against Russia, doesn't close the gap to showing better evidence that Russia was well behaved there. As for Ukraine being against free press, that's not a comparable level of crime, even while it's useful to show that they're no angels.
The pathos appeal issue is an interesting one. Hard to weigh lose of human life in an emotional void. We should be able to at least separate Russia's history of genocide in Ukraine from the current conflict. Of course disagreeing with calling an invasion a full scale invasion seemed quite odd.
Forfeiture.
BoP failure. Con was able to counter everything with the fact that different people have different preferences, and a lack of benefits shown in throwing those out. Pro eventuality brought up STDs, but I could not understand where he was going with it; and there was also something about ho men prefer more experienced partners, which kinda goes against the grain of the resolution. Further con pointed out different sexualities, which invalidates the resolution when considering it would force lesbians to date men.
Also, it wasn’t until R2 that it became clear this about about sex instead of the number of kills.
Need I even say it? Forfeiture
Really like pro's framework opening, setting the stage for an easy to weigh scale.
Defense:
Having T in NATO means T is not with Russia or other enemies. ... Apparently T doubled its trade with Russia since Russia's invasion of Ukraine (a country that was trying to join NATO).
It keeps T and Gr from fighting.
T contributes soldiers and such. ... Apparently T receives more military assistance than they give, which they then use for genocide. ... Wow, pro comes back with other member nations doing war crimes and being supported by T in this as a good thing, and I am buying it (it's evil, but a sound point). Further, T is the second largest contributor. ... And wow wow wow, con comes back with pointing out that maybe the USA should be kicked out too for failing to live up to the values of the organization.
T is allied with ISIS, and can veto new member states joining NATO.
Trade:
T being in NATO helps trade routes. ... Apparently they would likely still trade with Europe, and are trying to get into the EU.
Tradition vs Costs of Kicking T out:
Con does well pointing out the length of time is not too meaningful to the question of continued membership, but pro comes back pointing out how difficult it intuitively would be to kick them out. Pro also points out the harm of the public perception of kicking out a 71 year member state. ... Con defends with a point that for NATO to be meaningful, continued membership should not be guaranteed if you're too far opposed to NATO.
This is damned close until pro's final round.
Con made a really good point that the resolution is not about kicking Turkey out, but a question of the current value in their membership. Until this was said, I did not see the distinction, yet it's a valid one. It's one step less in the conclusions. After this is raised, pro continues to talk about what would happen if T were kicked out, which, I would do the same (it's somewhat mitigated, but it's still on target).
Pro's twisting things with the 1915 genocide, confused me quite a bit for the relevance in the debate, since con had not mentioned said genocide. I was leaning towards making this vote a tie before that, but it's just too desperate of a gambit. Because they have a history of doing bad things, we shouldn't consider the harms to security by them doing more bad things today? That's the best sense of this I can make.
I'm left to consider that their continued presence is more of a hindrance than a benefit; but the cost of kicking them out would fairly likely make it not worth revoking said membership (the points that they're already teaming up with ISIS and Russia, very much favor con).
Full forfeiture.
Good setup regarding what it means for shared BoP.
Pro make a good case that scientists can be mistaken. And then builds that social pressures gagged scientists regarding Covid.
Con builds a case that there's a ton of misinformation, and combatting it is good. He turns the covid point, by showing news media spreading misinformation about it (technically disinformation but this debate seems to treat the terms as synonymous); this bridges into the benefit of fact checking (and connects to earlier points that increased trust in scientific institutions is good).
He goes on to make a good counterpoint about how governments have defunded scientists since long before the term misinformation was in common usage.
Pro then tries to move the goalposts, which is all but an implied concession that the benefits outweigh the harms. To use vacines as an example, if someone started a debate arguing that vaccines are harming people, and then cited the injections being painful and asked all the benefits to be ignored, it'd not hold water. Similarly, with a shared BoP how would the con side even be expected to argue as more than just rebuttals without listing benefits?
They go on to assert that con has not proven false information to be bad to begin with... Honestly, I do not see much potential for the debate to recover.
Pro goes on to add that government funding for science is minor... Kinda stabbing himself in the foot for the political side to this.
Somehow the debate starts talking about Biden...
Con gives a simple and intuitive definition, turns the scientists can be wrong point around since scientists should listen to subject matter authorities, not politicians (who apparently don't really affect their funding) nor media hotheads. He defends the goalposts by pointing out that benefiting scientific progress is the opposite of harm, therefore cost/benefit analysis is valid. He does standard expansions of his stuff and defenses thereof.
Pro tries to double down on benefits to harms not being tied to this debate, and that we can't really know what's true and false anyways...
Arguments:
A debate can and should be held that gagging discussion around covid was a net harm. When applied to the larger topic of science in general, it doesn't come close to comparing to the benefits.
Forfeiture.
Forfeiture
Forfeiture
Forfeiture
More forfeiture.
Forfeiture
pro treated this with video game logic, wherein supply lines do not matter. Con easily countered with Songun nations not feeding their people or their armies. With the focus on Sun Tux’s bit about how best to win at war is to not even fight a traditional conflict shows the most likely tactic Libertarians would take in the opening of said conflict; basically resulting in what we’ve seen over time with North Korea startling themselves.
Pro would have done well to show the Swiss having bad policies which lead to famine, or actual sources which show North Korea never suffered such as he asserted. With sources challenged but challenged so weakly, con is able to take sources with his evidence of North Korea’s great famine in the 90’s.