Ramshutu

The winners are:

(All voters) $50 Mikal

(Wylted voters) $25 GreyParrot

Selection done by random selection (screenshots in discord)

The Brave Republicans showed - again - how they are fighting for the little guy - by voting to strip out a cap on insulin prices in private insurance.

I guess $35/month insulin costs just make those poor people lazy.

Edit: “Semitism” god damned iPhones.

This is not to say that Anti-Semitism is valid; but the basis behind it is the claim that there is an over representation in key areas of employment and power.

Is that claim actually true; and if so what are the causes?

More importantly; if the underrepresentation of blacks compared to whites is indicative of  systemic racism - on what basis could we rule out the same if there is a positive true over-representation of other races compared to whites?

Again - this is not to say the claim itself is valid; but to be able to effectively combat anti-semitism, it’s pretty critical to have an answer to that question.

Finally coming November 18, 2021 is the amazon Prime adaptation of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time; you can catch the trailer here:

The book series Predates game of Thrones (and has a lot of the same themes and maneuvering), but far more based on magic - which is explained amazingly well.

I’ve been waiting for this for decades!

Just trying this one out.

This is a roast thread, and works as follows:

- You can roast me in whatever way you feel is funny or appropriate.

- You May not roast or insult any other individual in this thread - just me.

- For each roast you post, you are giving me (and me alone) permission to roast you once  in return. I waive personal attack liability; roasting me waives yours once.

- Anyone else can rate individual roasts.

- You can post as many roasts as you want.

- Roast with the most upvotes wins a chufty badge.

- Brutal is better; but at least try to be funny.

- Apparently naughty words are bad: so please use creative vulgarities, or star words.

- Use common sense; Show the mod team we deserve nice things.

Eg:

“Hey, Ramshutu; isn’t this thread going to take time away from unceasing effort to get the last word in every other f***ing thread you’re in?”

“F**k you Ramshutu, at least I can write 6 words in a row without using 18 semicolons.”

Wanted to call out RM for a counter vote bomb in the last few minutes of one of my debates; it was super classy, respectful, and I very much appreciate it.

There is no band wagon to be jumping on, I have got through my release cycle - and I am now bored!

Ask me anything: ask for jokes, witty out downs, incantations; etc.

Hi Everyone. 

Some work is going on to improve the Help Center, and while we can obviously make the changes we think are necessary, this is something that maybe better off inviting requests and submissions. This will be an area for Q&As about the site and

technical aspects rather than focused on debate resources and information for now at least.

With that in mind:

This is more related to technical support - debate resource links and faqs are for other threads.

I think I shared this ages ago on DDO, but is worth restating here as it’s an interesting argument. Here it goes:

With the presupposition that God has the power to create the universe as he chooses, and is smarter than Humans:

1.) Religions all state that God has a generalized set of goals for the universe, and inherent properties (just, loving)). If a human can postulate a better universe that better matches those properties and fulfills those goals - that God does not exist.

2.) The goals and properties of the gods of all current human religions can be better fulfilled with a different universe that humans can think odd - therefore those Gods do not exist.

And the final speculative thesis:

3.) There are no goals and properties one could speculate of god for which this universe is the most optimal solution. Therefore no Gods exist that match the listed presuppositions.

Starting in two weeks - I will be hosting a (hopefully) monthly roast.

A roast will be a debate between two individuals where the goal will be to insult a third participant primarily, their opponent secondarily, then any other consenting member after that.

The roast will be a judge debate (so no ELO), and the judge of the roast will be the roastee - Who will decide which person has the best insults.


Anyone can consent to be a roastee - and only consenting roastees may be insulted. If you consent as a roastee - you are also eligible to be selected as a roaster. You may not participate as a roaster unless you agree to be roasted yourself.

The roastee will be selected by popular vote of participants based on the list of participants. Roasters will be determined by Ramshutu with input from partipants.

A minimum level of participation of 4 debates or 200 debates on DART is required to be the subject of a roast debate - but you may participate as a roaster.

To sign up, please post verbatim:

I consent to be insulted as part of the Dart roast group.

Also - add your preference as to whether you’d be interested in being a roaster participant.

You may post the safety word Chihuahua in this thread or anywhere if the insults or roasts are too much, cross a line - or are substantially more than just an insult. This will be like an emergency brake on a train - but misuse, or use just because you have no sense of humour will cause you to be removed from the roast group. 

You can withdraw consent at any time by posting: “Chihuahua - I remove consent” if you remove consent during a roast - you will be removed as a roastee for 3 months. Or 3 roasts (whichever is longer).

Ramshutu will keep a list of Participants.

So, we had Type1 creating dozens of debates, then forfeiting.

We had Wrick it Ralph starting and accepting dozens of debates, and has now conceded a bunch.

We have sparrow and Joshua Whatshis name forfeiting accepting and starting multiple debates.

We even had RM who basically hoovered up every debate he could find, and ended up forfeiting the last rounds in a dozen.

Should we consider a limit on concurrent debates - at least temporarily until we have an increased number of participants and debaters - for the purposes of improving content?

Hi everyone, just gauging interest in a possible feature for automatically determining a winner if there is a forfeit.

Many debates have rules specifying a forfeit is an automatic loss, and waiting for an opponent to forfeit multiple rounds can be frustrating. I was hoping to understand if people would be interested in an option when creating debates to make forfeits garner an automatic loss. 

This would work along the following lines:

- A check box will be presented giving the option of “auto loss for forfeit”

- this will only be available on 3 day rounds (so you can’t trick an opponent with 12 hour debates).

- when accepting the debate, this option will be prominently displayed as being active for the debate

- if either side forfeits the opening round. OR forfeits 2 or more rounds, the forfeit will be followed by immediately moving the debate to finished, and the winner is the non forfeiting side.

note: it is obviously that numerous options concerning when to trigger a loss could be made. The intent here is to simplify a debate win in scenarios where one side is not participating. The 2+ Forfeited round after the opening is there so as not to penalize genuine or unavoidable forfeits.

Any thoughts?

I hearby formally challenge RM to a rap battle. 

If he’s brave enough to let me go first!

In light of recent posts, and the general rise of Pseudoscience - from flat earth, creationism, the food babe, fad diets, anti-vax healing crystals and energy channeling, the importance of being able to navigate the sea of woo and pseudoscience is more important than ever.

What techniques do pepppe follow to recognize pseudoscience when they see it?

in most debate tournaments I’ve seen, debates are able to see information about the judges, with paradigm information about what they like to see, and how they render decisions: there are a variety of examples (such as tabroom) that allow debaters to get a feel for what the expectation is from judges they’re assigned, and how they can win a debate.

i get the feeling that something similar can be useful here, especially as I’ve had people basically argue as if being a game theorist is the only legitimate way of judging a debate. 

So, I would like to see some additions to the CoC - not to change the voting regulations, but to clearly add:

- What the intent or “spirit” of a given criteria should be used for. 

- A possible explanation of what happens if someone violates the CoC but meets the spirit - or vice versa. 

I ask this because there have been several discussion and disagreements on the fundamental meaning of some of these conditions, and if everyone is assuming the intent is something else, everyone will be meeting the CoC but all implicitly different reasoning.