Trent0405

Full Forfeit.

This debate really boils down to how literally one wants to interpret the resolution. Pro argues that money can buy happiness both literally (through the purchase of dopamine) and vicariously (through the purchase of goods that bring us happiness). After getting pushback on the dopamine argument, Pro never revisits it, so I will not consider that point when determining my vote. Other than that point, there was a bit of back and forth over Con's coffee maker analogy. While I personally found the analogy dubious, non of Pro's retorts adequately rebutted it. He kept reasserting that things you buy give you happiness vicariously, but that does not address the analogy. Indeed, something can give you happiness like a coffee maker gives coffee, but buying a coffee maker does not suddenly provide the coffee, it is just a vehicle to create it. Pro's inability to address this analogy is why I am siding with Con.

ARGUMENTS

I don't really have much to say about arguments. Pro builds a decent case which rests on Trump's proven track record with the economy, his hardnose approach to immigration, and Harris's checkered history, among other points. I have a hard time giving any credit to Con whatsoever because he never builds out any cohesive narrative with his huge catalogue of facts. He addresses the 'what' but seldom touches on the 'why' or 'how.' In contrast, Pro bolsters his points with specific examples, including Harris's failed withdraw of Afghanistan, her administrative incompetence regarding the border crisis, and Trump's consistent streak of low unemployment. Pro then elaborates further and tries to either explain the significance of his argument (why the issue he is discussing should be considered important) and/or draw a comparison between Trump and Harris. There is little to say about Con's case because it never really goes beyond a loose collection of facts with no clear direction.

SOURCES

Con decides to build his case with a gish gallop of completely unsourced factoids. While he does go back to retroactively source his R1, he makes no effort to establish which sources substantiate which claims. Pro's sourcing was not perfect, but it was obvious he at least tried to format his sources in a manner which was both convenient and eye-pleasing.

LEGIBILITY

Putting one line in between each and every sentence, as if the one line constitutes a paragraph, makes Con's argument practically unreadable at points.

Full Forfeit.

Full Forfeit.

ARGUMENTS

1. Mob Rule and Representation.
Con really invests a lot into the idea that direct democracy through an RCV system will lead to communism and tyranny. He fails to prove how simply having people directly pick their leader, as opposed to electors which represent the people, will produce these conditions.

In contrast, I am ultimately left with the impression that the Electoral College (henceforth known as EC) only represents a small set of states: swing states. As a result, almost all campaigning occurs in swing states, as Pro points out. While Con points out that swing states change, I wouldn't say that proves the EC is representative.

Con tries to assert that the EC will undermine the power of small states, but Pro points out that small states don't receive much attention in the EC either. I am torn on whether the increased weight small states have in the EC is good or not. Pro points out that this is unrepresentative, while Con asserts that it helps balance the power between large and small states. These are both fair points and I am not given a good reason to favour one over the other.

Constitutional law is also brought up by Con. It is a good point, but he never directly cites anything from the Constitution. Further, all of the points which supply a Constitutional basis for the EC are addressed by Pro in the aforementioned discussion about mob rule and representation.

2. Political Diversity
Pro makes a point about political diversity, which is ultimately dropped buy Con. Basically, Pro argues that an RCV voting system allows voters to express their support for less popular candidates without screwing over a similar candidate who has more support.

3. Conclusion
Con's central argument about mob rule and the rise of communism through an RCV system is never developed. I don't know how these points link, and neither did Con's opponent. Pro's points about representation and political diversity were either not addressed at all or addressed with content which had already been addressed.

LEGIBILITY

Despite Con's protests, I actually thought Pro's points were easier to understand and formatted better. It is not enough to assign the point, however.

CONDUCT

Con was quite hostile at certain points in the debate. He also put paraphrased points into quotation marks. If that wasn't enough, he forfeited the first round.

ARGUMENTS

I am going to reduce this debate to three main points, as I feel these three points do adequately encapsulate the meat of this debate.

Resource Consumption

It seems both debaters accept that these immortal people will not need to eat or drink. In Pro's final round, he tries to backtrack, arguing that immortal people will still need to eat because "[their] subconscious will always want to keep [them] alive." If he brought up this rather vague retort in his R2, I'd be more sympathetic. But the fact it was brought up last minute and he failed to elaborate beyond this leaves me unmoved. In contrast, Pro does successfully argue that immortal people will be permanent blights on other resources. Immortal people will still leave a carbon footprint, occupy real estate, buy clothing, and of course, fart. Nonetheless, I have to contrast this with the fact that immortal people will presumably not need food or water to sustain themselves. I am torn on this point, though I do slightly favour Pro's case simply due to the fact that immortal people will need to consume indefinitely. That being said, whatever ground edge either side gained here is lost later in the debate (see "What Does it Mean to be Selfish?").

Natural Right

I did not understand Con's point here. Pro points out that pursuing a natural desire is not mutually exclusive with being selfish (uses tax avoidance as an example), and never gets an adequate response.

What Does it Mean to be Selfish?

This is the point I had to think the most about. Pro supports a very broad definition of selfishness, which as Con points out, could be applied to practically anything. Pro tries to spin this as proof that Con agrees with his side of the resolution, but Con affirms that the broadness of the term kills any objective basis for using the word. Of course, Pro notes that dictionaries exist to provide an objective rubric for situations like this, but when you blow out that rubric to encompass any and every action that a person could ever do, the supposed objectivity of the definition loses its power.

In the end, both entertain an incredibly broad definition of selfishness. Pro uses this to support the idea that everything is selfish, while Con uses this to point out that the term can never be used objectively if the definition is so open to interpretation. In the end, I am left kind of agree with both of them. Sure, everything is selfish, but in the words of Buddy Pine, "when everyone is [selfish], no one will be."

CONDUCT

Con wins due to an unfortunate forfeiture from Pro.

ARGUMENTS

For one, I thought Pro did a good job of defining SMV early in the debate. He intelligently expanded the definition to encompass a man's alpha energy and "game," which might be confused for genuine personality. He intelligently points out that women will even fall in love with serial killers if they are attractive enough.

The real meat of the debate is set up by Pro when he challenges Con to propose one woman who demonstrates a genuine dedication to a man's personality, and not their SMV. Con makes a good effort of meeting Pro's challenge, but only two of her examples carry any weight for me. The other examples were just rich, famous men with sub-par looks, which does not adequately debunk Pro's conception of SMV, which is more dynamic than just physical attractiveness.

The two important examples were Adriana Lima and Never Give Up's (henceforth known as NGU) wife.

For Lima, she fell in love with a man who was high status, being tall, athletic, and famous. However, she stated that she loved him because of his sense of humour and intelligence. Admittedly, it does seem like Lima prefers famous men, but I am not convinced by Pro that it is the only thing she considers. Pro does challenge the sincerity of Lima's statements regarding Jaric, but I don't really see why I should believe she was insincere when Jaric is poorer and (probably) less attractive than Lima. If she only cared about SMV, why would she date a man who seems to be less attractive and wealthy than she is? This really does undermine Pro's claim that Lima was insincere in her interview, which was already a baseless claim to begin with.

NGU was Con's best example. NGU is a self proclaimed ugly guy, but he still found love. NGU's wife only seemed to find him "kinda" attractive, which indicates that some other characteristic (presumably his personality) made him appealing. Pro rightfully points out that the invocation of the word "kinda" indicates that NGU's wife does value attractiveness, but that does not fulfill his burden of proof. Ultimately, I am left with the impression that NGU's wife fell in love with NGU primarily due to his personality. Pro tries to claim that NGU's wife is a narcissist, but he never justifies this assertion. Further, if she fell in love with NGU because he was easy to manipulate, I fail to see how this fits into Pro's SMV paradigm.

Basically, most of Con's examples of women who fell in love with men due to reasons other than SMV fell short, but the two she elaborated upon were great! Con adequately proved that Lima cared a lot about characteristics other than SMV, even if her love of Jaric may have been informed by his height and fame. Further, I also believe that Con proved NGU's wife fell in love with NGU because of NGU's personality. Did NGU's wife consider NGU's SMV? Maybe, but the fact that she considered factors other than SMV fulfills Con's burden of proof.

Pro really bit off more than he could chew with this resolution. He had a really tough case and Con made him pay for it.

SOURCES

Sourcing was bad on both sides, though Con did better. The disparity is not great enough to justify assigning the point.

ARGUMENTS

Basically, Con tries to kritik the resolution of the debate. Effectively, Con asserts that because some terrorism in the world is not attributable to America, America cannot be responsible for all terrorism. The problem is that this kritik relies on an obtuse interpretation of the resolution. The resolution does not specify that ALL terrorism is a result of America, it simply implies that you could charge America (presumably the American government) with terrorism. I think this is the only fair interpretation of the resolution as it is written.

Pro puts forward a case which basically points to America's role in many events which led to the loss of life or grievous human suffering. He particularly emphasizes America's role in the Middle East (invasion of Iraq, support of Israel, invasion of Afghanistan).

Con changes tune in his R2 rebuttals. Instead of following through with his kritik, Con points to America's role in securing peace around the world. While this argument does mitigate the power of Pro's case, most examples of American terror brought up by Pro go completely unaddressed. I am left siding with Pro because a country abating terrorism in some circumstances does not preclude them from also spreading terror.

SOURCES

There were many extreme claims that Pro made where a source would have been helpful. If you want to say America lied about 9/11 to justify blowing up Osama bin Laden, go for it, but know that an extreme claim like that is going leave people wanting to check your work. Pro also linked to a Google search in his R1. Con definitely did better regarding his sources, but the disparity is not great enough to justify assigning the point.

LEGIBILITY

Where to begin. Spelling, grammatical, and formatting errors/inconsistencies make Pro's arguments nearly unreadable at times. There are probably a dozen or so blatant in Pro's first two sentences, which I will paste below:
"America is the land which is counqure by the terrorists , pirates , brutel , Greedy , hungry peoples and european nations . The land of America colored by the innocent blood of Native americans."

Full Forfeit.

Concession.

I think the big problem with this debate was a lack of sources. If you want to prove that Trump will win because of his superior grasp on policy, go for it, but you have to justify why policy matters to voters. Con starts going in the right direction in round three when he cites Trump's ability to appeal to certain demographics, but this is the only point Con offered that felt faithful to the resolution of the debate, and it just came far too late. Other attempts at directly assessing Trump's electability felt equally hollow. For example, saying "[Trump's] speech is persuasive" is so vague that it cannot constitute an argument without further substantiation, which is not offered.

Pro's arguments were more relevant to the resolution, but he never adequately establishes the irrelevance of policy in determining electability. Doing this would have been a good debunk to Con's case. Pro does gracefully note that "the average voter is a retarded piece of shit with horrible understanding of politics and shitty sensibilities," but he never substantiates this claim with a source/anecdote. Basically, why is Kamala being a black women more relevant to electability than policy? Pro never adequately addresses this question. That being said, Pro does talk directly about electability. Con does not do this, and thus, it is ultimately incumbent upon Con to justify the significance of policy in discerning electability. Pro's arguments about Trump's polarizing presence in American politics, Kamala's identity as a woman running for president, and the unique dynamic created by her being an ex-prosecutor and Trump being a felon were Pro's strongest points.

In short, Con's case needed a paragraph justifying why policy matters when determining electability. This was never supplied.

Full forfeit.

Full forfeit.

Full forfeit.

Full forfeit.

Con never made an honest attempt to argue his side of the resolution. His only points went unsourced and ignored all of Pro's case. In contrast, Pro put forward a good case for the role of religion in building societal cohesion and standing as a bulwark against extremism.

Sources to Pro for the aforementioned lack of sources from Con.

Conduct to Pro for Con's lack of effort and, in effect, resignation from the debate before it even started.

Full forfeit.

Concession.

Con puts forward an unorthodox definition of a free market, but instead of supporting his definition, he just conflates two meanings of the word "free." This is why Pro offered a definition of a "free market," a well established concept in economics, while Con simply defined the word "free," which can mean a wide variety of things depending on context. Hence, I will accept Pro's definition for the purposes of voting on this debate.

Pro puts forward an effective case arguing that free markets decrease prices, give consumers power, and subvert the inherent inefficiencies of government control. Con never really offers a response other than his ranting about the definition of a free market. Other than that, he just gets outraged at the idea of a society with no taxes without any substantiation as to why taxes are important. Pro responds by simply pointing out the dubious morality of taxation and the possible substitutes to government programs financed through taxation. These rebuttals are never addressed.

Basically, Con drops all of Pro's points and never offers a case of his own.

Even with Pro's forfeitures, Con never took advantage of Pros absence to put forth a well structured argument. Both sides offered a pretty simple case with little substantiation, but Pro's case was clearly better thought out. From Pro's arguments, I can glean that humans will be able to outsource many tasks to AI, thereby allowing humans to specialize in creative endeavours. Con's response about the loss of human braincells and the threat of an AI takeover have no logical reasoning or evidence to back them up. Moreover, Pros response to these critiques, that humans have a long history of killing each other, is good enough to debunk Con's idea that greater AI control will lead to more death and suffering.

Full forfeit.

Full forfeit.

Pro gets very close to slam-dunking this debate. His definition of suffering includes death, and it is not hard to argue that if a human is born, they will inevitably die. This argument does indeed accomplish the task of proving that suffering will always occur if birth occurs. Where Pro's argument loses its power is in the case that a person dies before they are born. If this can be shown to happen, which Con does, then there is really no way to prove that birth is the origin of suffering. That word ORIGIN is very important here. If the debate resolution was simply that a person who is born will always suffer, I probably would've voted Pro in this debate. However, the inclusion of the word "due" implies that being born and suffering are causally linked. What Con was able to prove was that existing is the true origin of suffering, and because existing precedes birth, a person born will always suffer, but a person who suffers is not necessarily always born.

Basically, Pro's conflation of existing with being born is a critical error that he accepts as such. He asks Con to reinterpret the resolution, but Con does not do so. Given that Pro himself was the one who equated being born with existing, I think this debate should be redone with a resolution that better describes Pro's beliefs.

For a debate like this, a higher character count is really needed. The use of ellipses throughout the debate made it quite illegible. Other than that, I am glad Pro decided to join the website, and I hope to see more of ToLearn's debates in the future.

This debate was about as lopsided as it gets. Pro offers a comprehensive case, ranging from America's geopolitical leverage over her Eurasian rivals (Russia and China) to the lives of everyday Americans through the positive downstream effects of trade. Pro also brilliantly rebuts one of the most obvious possible counterarguments to his case, that being the environmental effects of human activity in the Arctic. Instead of just arguing the environmental effects would be minimal, Pro is able to argue that an American military presence in the Arctic would allow America to furnish the resources needed for to pursue green initiatives. Pro drops all of these points and argues for greater U.S. military presence in Asia and Europe. Ignoring Pro's rebuttals to this, which were also dropped, Pro's first round argument already addressed how the Arctic was inextricably linked to U.S. tensions with Russia and China.

Pro also offers great citations and compelling evidence throughout. Con doesn't even attempt to cite his statements.

SAY A PRAYER AND TAKE YOUR VITAMINS!!!

Both sides put up an interesting case, and each had their own challenges, but as I see it, Pro edged this one out.

Pro starts off, as one would expect, listing all of the economic, political, and military resources China has at its disposal. To counter this, Con outlines an 8-step plan to infiltrate China with Americans, causing internal strife which can be exploited by the United States to destabilize the country. In response, Pro takes down every point Con offers relatively well. Most importantly, he questions how practical it would be to promote mass immigration into China without sparking suspicion, and that the Chinese (taught to hate the Americans) would naturally be weary of any and all American activity in the country.

The main problem Con had, more so than anything Pro said, was that he never really explained how the U.S. could reasonably achieve any of the steps he listed. This leaves his case feeling rather hollow, and given that he dropped Pro's refutations, I cannot say Con's plan satisfied his BoP. It is easy to say: "Do A, B, C, and D and China will fall," but it is significantly harder to elaborate upon the mechanics of A, B, C, and D. This issue followed Con throughout the debate.

Con changes his tune in his second round, arguing for cooperation with other countries in Asia to bring China down. However, Pro offers a satisfactory rebuttal, pointing out that China's political and economic leverage over Asia would make orchestrating a unified front to bring the CCP down quite challenging.

Conduct to Pro for Con's forfeiture.

All in all, a fun debate. I personally love playful topics like this.

This debate was effectively one about where our definitions should come from. Pro basically argues that chess is a sport because it is treated as a sport and because the definition of a sport, broad as it may be, encompasses the game of chess. Con leans on the origins of the word, the fact that the term sport loses much of its descriptive power at the limits of the definition (thereby requiring a new word, cogni), and that the very existence of this debate calls into question whether chess is or is not a sport.

There isn't very much to talk about with regard to Pro's case because Con basically agreed with all of his points. Con choosing to emphasize the origins of the word is interesting, but he undermines his own argument by talking about English as a fluid and ever-changing language. With Con admitting this fact, he has to prove that one should ignore the flexibility of the English language and refer to a word's roots, but this groundwork is never established.

Con also creates a cumbersome burden of proof for his case. Instead of arguing that the word "sport" does not apply to chess, he takes the more complicated position that the word "sport" ought not be applied to chess. Though, Con does put in a good effort, proposing his own replacement to the word "sport," "cogni." The main issue I had with this argument was, as pointed out in the debate, that "cogni" can very well overlap with the term sport. While Con does a good job arguing that his word better describes games like chess, he struggles to establish that "sport" and "cogni" are mutually exclusive terms.

Con is able to string together his best point when he talks about the implications of this debate's very existence. He basically states that the existence of this debate reflects the fact that chess doesn't satisfy the common conception of a sport. This is a good point because it begins to approach the question of why a new term ought to be created, but again, I am left wanting a little more. Even if I accept what Con said, I still don't know why the term "sport" and any replacement term cannot comfortably overlap. Sure one might have more descriptive power or specificity, but why does that mean that both words cannot apply? Again, I really like where this point was headed, but I felt like it just needed a little more work to go seal the deal.

In short, while Con made some convincing points, Pro's case was left practically untouched and Pro did a good enough job of poking holes in Con's case. Pro accomplishes this by discussing the flexibility of the English language and the lack of mutual exclusivity between "sport" and "cogni." Con had the much tougher case to argue, and while he did a good job, he fell just short, in my opinion.

Basically, Pro was never able to establish the definition upon which his argument rests. Con did a good job of outlining his conception of the word "murder" as a purely legal term in his first round. Pro doesn't contest this until the final round, and at that point, by virtue of not criticizing the definition before, Pro tacitly accepted the definition. Therefore, this debate is, in my mind, strictly about whether abortion satisfies the legal requirements for murder. In regard to this point, Pro never truly offered a meaningful argument, while Con clearly cemented the legality of abortion, necessarily meaning abortion is not murder. To his credit, Pro did attempt to deconstruct the idea of using the law as a measure of what does or does not constitute murder. However, all of Pro's retorts were either unclear or blatantly contradictory. For example, Pro initially alleges that the law is not subjective, and when challenged by Con, Pro admits that the law is subjective but insists that there is an objective basis to the law (without ever explaining what that objective basis is).

This next point does not have much to do with the legality of abortion, and therefore has little bearing on my vote, but I thought I would comment on it considering the debate was so short. Con attempted to compare preserving human hands to a fetus. I understand the basics of Con's point, effectively arguing that the mere presence of a human cell does not represent a "person" worthy of the right to life. However, I think Pro did a good job of clarifying that the presence of a human cell is not sufficient to attain the right to life. Rather, Pro asserts that it is the potential to become a person (through uninterrupted or manipulated processes). Pro offered two responses to this, one being that human hands can be cloned and become a PERSON, which is a claim he never really supported properly (I know he linked a YouTube video, but it wasn't particularly illuminating). He also argued in the final round that fetuses do not develop independent of external resources, but Pro never really seemed to disagree in his previous arguments. Pro very explicitly referred to external INTERVENTION, which I interpreted to be a reference to an action on the part of another agent to disrupt the development of personhood.

Pro's first argument is basically a write-up on the contradiction of individual rights and human rights. He constructs a compelling case for mandating the equitable distribution of resources as a means of serving the public good. Where Pro falters is in his advocacy of communism as a liberating force, and then immediately referencing North Korea as an example of communist ideals in practice. As one would expect, Con highlights the repressive nature of North Korean society. Con's main response in round one was an argument in favour of private property because, in his view, there are enough resources to go around. I think the main problem with Con's argument was twofold. First, Pro did a good job of cementing the fact that a constant state of abundance cannot be assumed. Therefore, Pro argues that the equitable distribution of resources would alleviate the plight of the disadvantaged when there is no abundance. My second problem with Con's argument was that he never really established that communism would be destructive in a world with abundance. Rather, his arguments seemed to merely prove that communism would be less efficacious in a world of abundance than it would be in a world of scarcity. Much of the debate also centred around what societies are and aren't socialist. In the end, Pro convinced me that countries like America, Canada, and Japan satisfied many aspects of his definition of communism, which effectively boils down to "communism = welfare state." However, Pro did himself a disservice by focusing so much on property rights, because as Con points out, many repressive countries (he lists the Soviet Union) were avidly against property rights. Ultimately, I was convinced that The most successful countries of the modern era integrate communist principles (as they're defined in this debate) into their societies through their welfare state. That being said, I am not convinced that the wealthiest countries in the world share the communist perspective on property rights. This topic brought out another key contention in the debate, the definition of communism. On this issue, I will say just one thing: I understand Con's frustration with Pro's unconventional definition of communism, but it is well established that definitions pre-defined in the debate description override definitions derived from intuition or the dictionary.

In short, I think Pro was able to make an interesting case in favour of equitably distributing resources for the purposes of looking after the disadvantaged. Con never made a concrete response to this, other than with his argument from abundance, which as I previously explained, is stained by two big flaws. This is the primary reason arguments are going to Pro. The rest of the debate was about what societies are communist and what constitutes theft. With regard to the presence of communism around the world, I thought Pro did a good job of proving that the modern day welfare state is fundamentally communist, while at the same time, I thought Con did a good job at tearing down North Korea and combatting the idea that countries today share a communist (again, as it is defined in this debate) property rights doctrine. I view this as a pretty even point. The argument over theft was fairly boring. Instead of proving why the theft in question was justified or not, it was just about throwing around the label and hoping the moral baggage associated with the word would constitute an argument. Because neither side gave me a good reason to care about whether communism necessitates theft, I am not considering this point.

I am giving Con the conduct point because Pro basically resigned from the culminating rounds of the debate.

In my opinion, most of this debate was not germane to the subject of discussion. Instead of arguing the legality of restricting guns, most of it seemed to be oriented around two main points:
1. The purpose of the Second Amendment
2. The practicality of removing all forms of gun control.
I feel like one of the debaters could have tried to make the first point relevant by reconciling the wording of the Second Amendment with its original intentions, but neither debater accomplished this, in my opinion.

As for the meat of the debate, Con effectively referenced an 1876 court ruling which clearly empowers state governments to impose restrictions on different types of arms. In his response, Pro effectively concedes the debate when he admits that the states are empowered to pass gun control. In admitting this, I, as the voter, can only side with Con. The statement "all gun control is unconstitutional" is simply not true when one observes the power of individual states to pass gun control legislation, as Con argued. Pro attempted to respond to this point, but it kind of confused me. He insists that "they [the government] may only do so [legally pass gun control] through a constitutional amendment, which has not been done," even though Con clearly outlined how the Supreme Court gave an interpretation of the constitution which empowered the states to pass gun control. I feel like a prompt along the lines of "all federal gun control measures are unconstitutional" would be a more interesting subject for a future debate.

Full Forfeit

Full forfeit

Absolutely riveting.

Concession

Full Forfeit

Concession.

Full Forfeit

OMG, stunning content, I will never be the same after reading this.

Full Forfeit.

Forfeited Fully.

Concession.

Concession.

Concession.

Concession

Full Forfeit

Excessive Forfeiture

Full Forfeit

No meaningful argument was presented by Pro.
Conduct for the forfeiture.

Vote In Comments.