Tejretics

• I used to think that for social sanctions (e.g., removing people from social spaces or “canceling them,” all the way up to more serious social consequences like official reprimands on the job), due process is not necessary for allegations of sexual misconduct, and that false allegations were unbelievably rare. I’ve changed my mind now, and think due process is necessary (although sexual harassment is common and efforts to reduce it are also very important). 
  
• I had a brief period where I thought European countries, as well as many Asian countries, were sensible to ban hate speech. I now think the US system, with First Amendment-level protections, is ideal, and should be implemented across the rest of the world. 
  
• I’ve become a decent bit more “tough-on-crime.” I always used to support efforts to hire police officers, but I now think there’s a reasonable case for higher sentences for violent crimes in countries with relatively low sentences (although with substantial investments aimed at making prison a less shitty place) and substantial investments in the police. That said, I still lean progressive on criminal justice issues (e.g., support significant police reform and banning police unions in most countries, support substantially shorter sentences or no sentences at all for nonviolent crimes). 
  
• I used to think all drugs should be legalized. I now think drug use should be decriminalized, but the sale and production of hard drugs should be illegal. 
  
• I used to be heavily non-interventionist with foreign policy, broadly being anti-war, and in particular, opposing many Western/NATO efforts to get involved in international armed conflicts (such as the War on Terror and the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan). More broadly, I used to think U.S. hegemony was unnecessary. I’m now pretty convinced that U.S. hegemony is good, that the U.S. should maintain current levels of military spending, a strong NATO alliance is good, aggressive counterterrorism operations like drone strikes are probably net beneficial, and while, in general, intervention aimed at regime change seems like a bad idea, it was justified in the 2001 case in Afghanistan (despite the Taliban taking back power in 2021).
  
• While I remain very wary about the geopolitical implications of the rise of China (and support efforts to contain its rise in the technology and defense-adjacent sectors specifically, such as semiconductor export controls), I’m happy the rise of China has led to increased foreign aid spending by both the West and China, as well as domestic economic growth that’s lifted millions out of poverty in China itself, and I think a lot of concerns like “debt trap diplomacy” are wrong/exaggerated (although I do think China’s spending abroad has often facilitated White Elephants, like the SGR in Kenya). 
  
• I was pretty convinced that the Washington Consensus was good, and that neoliberalism, broadly construed, was the path for developing countries to go from poverty to prosperity. I’ve become much more well-versed in the literature now, and while I think the Washington Consensus was likely (with high uncertainty) preferable to the alternative of import substitution industrialization, pure free markets and trade don’t cut it -- some degree of industrial policy, specifically export promotion, is often necessary for developing countries to grow, especially through manufacturing. 
  
• That said, in the past few months, I’ve become a bit more pessimistic about the prospects for growth driven by manufacturing exports and infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa. This piece by David Ndii offers a compelling argument that the export- and infrastructure-led approach has failed throughout the continent, and the focus should be boosting agricultural productivity. (However, here’s a counterargument by Noah Smith, if you’re interested.) 
  

• The maximum character limit is 10,000 characters. Feel free to set an even lower one if you prefer that and agree to it, but don’t set a higher one. 
  
• Have a maximum of three rounds per debate (once more, to save time and allow the tournament to progress). 
  
• Have a maximum of 72 hours per round.
• The voting period should be 1 week. In exchange, I’ll do my absolute best to vote on every debate in the competition, unless I have some emergency, and I’ll also actively solicit votes for you. 
  

• Factory farming should be illegal. Animal suffering is the world’s most pressing immediate problem. 
  
• It sounds weird, but there’s a legitimate risk that artificial general intelligence (AGI) could cause human extinction -- I’d say something like a 1 in 20 chance in the next 100 years. There’s also more plausible-sounding risks like a sharp rise in inequality from being able to automate most tasks in the future. We should regulate companies like DeepMind and OpenAI more carefully, and fund labs working on making AI go safer. 
  
• Nuclear power is good, but overrated. The focus of climate policy should be solar, wind, and, more speculatively, geothermal. 
  
• Fracking should be legal in the US. It creates jobs and generates economic efficiency. Banning it would make energy sources more unclean and empower Russia and Saudi Arabia. 
  
• Gas tax holidays are bad. Gas taxes should be coupled with carbon taxes on corporations. 
  
• In general, hiring more police officers is a good idea. Most countries have fewer police officers than optimal. This might require increasing law enforcement budgets. Police over prisons is a good approach to criminal justice reform. 
  
• The current government in India has done more harm than good, both by mismanaging the economy and hurting India’s advancements on social justice. It’s quite plausible to me that even the Indian National Congress would have done a better job. 
  
• On balance, India’s system of quotas for disadvantaged caste groups has done more good than harm. 
  
• Feminism does more good than harm. 
  
• Abortion should be safe, legal, and accessible, as should contraception. 
  
• Biden is partly responsible for the ongoing inflation crisis in the US. 
  
• Developed countries should admit a lot more immigrants, including low-skill immigrants. 
  
• The War on Terror was, on balance, a success. 
  
• The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was, on balance, a good idea, even with the benefit of hindsight. Biden pulled out of Afghanistan too early, and, by cutting aid flows to Afghanistan, has since been an absolute failure there. 
  
• Biden’s response to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has been, on balance, pretty good. The same goes for Zelenskyy’s response. 
  
• Rent control is a bad idea in most cases. 
  
• Excessive zoning regulations, like the Floor Space Index in Indian cities, are very bad. Most coastal American cities are seriously hurt by it. Denser cities are both greener and more efficient. 
  
• We should ban gain-of-function research and fund the Biological Weapons Convention a lot more. There’s a legitimate risk of major epidemics or even a pandemic that’s man-made. 
  
• Developed countries are underpopulated. The US doubling its population would mostly have positive consequences. Population growth should be driven both by systems that make it easier for people to have kids (e.g., child allowances, efforts to lower the cost of living) and large increases in immigration. 
  
• Biden has done a poor job on COVID vaccines. It’s time to invest in creating cross-variant vaccines, and speed up access to nasal and oral vaccines in developing countries. 
  
• Conferences and events in US cities that continue to have mask mandates should abolish them. People can wear masks if they want to, but we’ve reached a point in the pandemic in the US where mask mandates are no longer required, and are frankly kind of silly. 
  
• Free international trade is broadly a good thing. 
  
• It is very hard for developing countries to grow through services. Export-oriented manufacturing is the best tried-and-tested model for developing countries to catch up. 
  

• The Fed’s credibility is really important for long-term economic stability. To prevent a future inflation from spiraling out of control as people and firms make early purchases to avoid the risk of future inflation, you need to believe the Fed will act. 
  
• The function of a flexible average inflation target is that, in times of low inflation, you know there’ll be high inflation in the future and hence make a bunch of purchases now. In times of high inflation, you know inflation will go below 2% in the future, so postponing some purchases might make sense if the nominal interest rate exceeds expected future inflation, even if it’s below current inflation. 
  

I assumed that the labor market will cool on its own as job openings fall two-thirds of the way back to what they were before Covid. I also assumed that inflation expectations will fall back toward where they were before Covid and that the recent good news on gasoline and other volatile prices will keep coming for the rest of 2022. Under these assumptions, which are more optimistic than the authors’ midpoint scenario, if the unemployment rate follows the Federal Open Market Committee’s median economic projection from June that the unemployment will rise to only 4.1%, then the inflation rate will still be about 4% at the end of 2025. To get the inflation rate to the Fed’s target of 2% by then would require an average unemployment rate of about 6.5% in 2023 and 2024. 

• My thoughts on trends in modern competitive debate 
  
• Any of my political views
  
• Anything about India
  
• My honest opinion of you, if I have one 
  

• I thought the plan was mostly relief—rather than leading to an unprecedented spike in nominal spending, it would probably just be used to pay off debt and supplement savings. 
  
• I thought it was pretty plausible the output gap (the gap between how much the economy could produce and how much it was actually producing -- if the gap is big, closing the gap wouldn’t cause inflation to increase) was being underestimated. After all, high inflation was pretty much unprecedented post-2008; it seemed like some combination of a global savings glut and a productivity slowdown meant consumers weren’t spending as much, while economists consistently underestimated how much more employment the economy could take without causing much inflation. I didn’t trust traditional economic models as much. 
  
• Even if it was stimulus, I suspected that monetary policy would successfully partially offset its effect on an output gap, without too much hassle or major rate hikes. 
  
• I thought some of Blanchard’s predictions, like <2% unemployment to accompany the high inflation, just seemed pretty intuitively implausible. This turns out to be a problem with traditional models in general: the U.S. has >3% unemployment, but still has pretty high core inflation. 
  

• Three rounds
  
• 8,000–10,000 character limit
  
• ≥ 72 hours per speech
  
• No pre-fiat kritiks
  

• I tend to be quicker to discount bare assertions than many other judges on here. Some people think that’s a good application of tabula rasa judging. Others don’t. 
  
• I don’t default to utilitarianism when weighing arguments. I’m personally pretty consequentialist, but what ethical framework to use is up for debate, and I won’t insert my ethics into it. 
  
• I think good debating involves having clear, logical warrants for arguments and having empirical evidence. The two aren’t substitutes for each other: they’re complements. Lots of judges will vote on a statistic. I might vote on a well-defended study, but I’m unlikely to vote on a single statistic. 
  
• I will read your sources. If you cite a source and claim it says something it doesn’t, I’ll treat it as a bare assertion. However, I won’t credit you for anything you don’t say in the debate (e.g. if your source makes a different argument, or if your study has something in-built which preempts your opponent’s challenge to the study, I won’t credit it unless you bring that up to defend the source). 
  
• I’m less likely than the median judge to vote on a pre-fiat argument, such as a K. I’m willing to do it, but you probably have to meet a higher bar with me (at least unconsciously) than most other judges. If you’d like to win me over as a judge on a balanced topic, the best way to do so is to make clearly topical arguments. 
  
• In normative resolutions, I’ll default to assuming the BOP is shared unless stated otherwise in the rules or discussed in the debate. In fact-based resolutions, I’ll assume the BOP is on the side making the fact claim unless stated otherwise in the rules or discussed in the debate. However, I treat the burden of proof as up for debate: if you convince me the BOP is on one side, I’ll vote that way. I’ll note that debaters on DDO/DART tend to overrate the importance of who has the BOP – the BOP will only ever decide a debate if it’s basically a draw. In general, it’s a good idea to have offense regardless of who the BOP is on – because if you have no offense whatsoever, any standing piece of offense from the other side is enough for you to lose even if they have the burden of proof. 
  
• I will flow the debate, and read the entire thing (not just skim).  
  
• I will not assume a debate takes place in the U.S. unless it’s in the resolution, the rules, or (implicitly or explicitly) agreed upon by the debaters. 
  

1. Stricter animal welfare regulations, including a ban on CAFOs, battery cages, fast-growing broiler varieties, and factory farming more generally, as well as government subsidies for plant-based meat and other alternative proteins. 
   
2. Reform the US political system, by abolishing the filibuster, making DC and Puerto Rico states, creating independent redistricting commissions, abolishing the Electoral College, and adopting ranked choice voting for most elections.
   
3. Substantial efforts to reduce global catastrophic risk from emerging technologies (e.g. invest in AI safety research, increase BSL-4 security standards, invest in gene sequencing and vaccine capacity for future pandemic prevention, regulate antibiotic overprescription), but also from weapons of mass destruction (primarily a foreign policy problem, so I won’t talk about that in too much detail). 
   
4. Substantially (in the range of 2x–3x) increase legal immigration into the US (of both low-skilled and high-skilled workers), and give amnesty to and create a path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants currently in the US. Also significantly lower restrictions on goods and capital mobility, though these are less important than labor mobility. 
   
5. Efforts to reduce global and American environmental pollution (and mitigating their effects), including substantially scaling down the use of coal power, significant clean energy subsidies to reduce solar and wind prices in international markets (as well as subsidies for advanced geothermal energy, which is especially promising), clean energy R&D investments, carbon pricing (and raising the gas tax), expanding the use of other alternative energy sources (e.g. nuclear power, more fracking), and a nationwide lead cleanup. 
   
6. Adopt a better macroeconomic stabilization policy, with automatic stabilizers, the Fed adopting an NGDP level target with a “whatever it takes” approach to get there, and staffing the Fed with economists committed to full employment, while preserving Fed independence. Some bureaucratic reform is probably also good (e.g. separating out the financial regulation and monetary policy functions of the Fed).
   
7. Criminal justice reform, including abolishing for-profit prisons, lowering prison sentences across-the-board and abolish mandatory minimums (especially with nonviolent crimes), reforming the bail system, investing to make prisons much more humane and rehabilitation-focused, and the decriminalization of many nonviolent activities that contribute to widespread incarceration (e.g., decriminalize sex work, end the War on Drugs). Also hire more police officers – deter crime through police rather than prisons (while engaging in police reform, such as more representation on police forces and banning police unions). 
   
8. Increase investment in antipoverty programs, including significant EITC expansion (possibly restructure it to function more directly like a negative income tax), a universal child allowance, Medicaid expansion, and making section 8 housing vouchers an entitlement for the poor. Also protect poor workers by abolishing occupational licensing, raising the federal minimum wage (and perhaps tie it to local housing costs), and making unemployment insurance more generous.
   
9. Significantly relax land use regulation, including federal transportation funding to incentivize cities to abolish zoning ordinances and increase housing density, banning rent control, and reducing the reliance on public housing to house low-income families. More housing density should be accompanied by better transport infrastructure and street lighting. 
   
10. A health policy focused on the supply side – invest in health R&D and innovation (including anti-aging research). This is a good set of health policy recommendations. On the demand side, reduce the reliance on employer-provided health insurance, either through something like allowing people to buy into Medicaid, “universal catastrophic coverage,” healthcare vouchers, or substantial HSAs. My guess is that US healthcare prices are unusually high because of high demand for healthcare (driven by America’s high GDP), rather than traditional explanations from progressives (e.g., high market power on part of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries). 
    

• Governments should actively prevent gentrification.
  
• The NSA should alert software manufacturers of all zero-day vulnerabilities it finds in order for them to patch these defects.
  
• In cinema, creating new lead characters for minorities (e.g., Black Panther, Hancock) is better than recasting existing roles played by members of social majorities with minority actors (e.g., Ghostbusters, The Little Mermaid). 
  
• The United States should break up Amazon.com, Inc.
  
• Newly established governments in postconflict societies should adopt truth and reconciliation commissions. 
  
• Payday lending should be illegal.
  
• It would be preferable to the status quo if national legislatures reserved seats for politicians under the age of 30.
  
• Countries should ban the practice of “bride importing.”
  
• A world where people took in their elderly parents would be preferable to one where they supported them to live separately. 
  
• China’s attempts to become a dominant global power are regrettable.
  
• Charities and humanitarian organizations should not use graphic images of suffering in their ad campaigns.
  
• The glorification of soldiers as heroes does more harm than good.
  

• South Africa should forcibly break up exclusive Afrikaaner enclaves.
  
• Protections of international law conventions and treaties should not apply to combatants from terrorist organizations (e.g., prohibitions on torture, prisoner of war status, guarantee of post-conflict release).
  
• Governments should implement substantial measures to impose long-termism in corporate investment culture (e.g., minimum holding periods for shares, yearly rather than quarterly financial reporting, long-term executive compensation plans).
  
• Megacities should be granted autonomous control over their economic and social policy (e.g. immigration, health, criminal justice) with national taxation policy remaining under the control of the federal government.
  
• The United States should actively disengage from Syria.
  
• Developing countries should privatize their state-owned enterprises.
  
• The World Health Organization should adopt a convention which bans the sell of drugs with high resistance tendencies (e.g., antibiotics) to countries which do not comply with WHO guidelines regarding their medical and agricultural use.
  
• Governments should significantly increase their use of big data-based predictive models in decisionmaking to replace human judgments (e.g., criminal justice policy, allocation of healthcare resources, housing development).
  
• Governments should require that all financial institutions back up all deposits with an equivalent value of government-backed safe assets.
  
• On balance, humanity will likely be worse off 100 years from now.
  

• BBC News
  
• Al Jazeera
  
• Reuters
  
• The Economist
  
• The Wall Street Journal
  
• The New York Times
  
• The Financial Times
  
• The Diplomat
  
• South China Morning Post
  
• The website of the Council on Foreign Relations (https://www.cfr.org)
  
• The website of the Brookings Institution (https://www.brookings.edu)