To make a long story short, I find that it's human-centric. The history of how we define life starts with how we define what makes us alive, and then slowly expands as discoveries of bacteria that didn't quite fit that definition began. Some of those defining characteristics don't even fit some bacteria very well, particularly those that are obligate parasites. Honestly, though, I just have trouble understanding why this set of traits are required for life, particularly the first and third. What is so special about cellular organization? What is it about having a membrane that makes one alive? I can only understand that through the view that we are defining life as similar to ourselves. The same goes for homeostasis, which is required for the survival of membrane-bound organisms, but not for viruses. While I understand these choices as narrowing down what life is, I can only justify them if I'm deliberately trying to exclude that which does not fit neatly into these categories, though I can also argue that some viruses fit all 5.
I didn't say it was inappropriate, I said that it allows you to paint with a pretty broad brush when it comes to what counts as genetic engineering. The terminology is accurate, and i agree that crossbreeding is a form of genetic engineering - hell, my lab does it. I just think it hampers the debate to define it in this manner.
I think this would be a very interesting debate if the definitions took “genetically modified organism” together instead of defining the words separately. The way it’s defined now would encompass all domesticated plants and animals, insofar as they are genetically modified by the process of interbreeding. Defining GMOs as the collection of those 3 terms excludes the classical means used to randomly alter the genomes of plants and animals in order to get the best species for general consumption, and would focus the debate on specific insertions into the genome aimed at adding specific traits. I can see how someone might still be able to argue the Con position with the debate phrased as is, though I think it’s much more difficult.
Just to be clear about this, RM, I actually agree with @Ramshutu on this one. A new point is one that is not directly responsive to an argument given in the previous round. New data, i.e. evidence to support an argument already given, is valid in most forms of debate. You can argue that it's abusive in its own right, and I can understand that view, but there are a lot of people who would take the perspective that it's absolutely fine.
And I agree. I do, however, think there's an argument to be made about these restrictions being overly onerous. Protecting third parties from harm is not the overriding principle in all cases, since there are many actions or inactions that we largely agree should be allowed to persist despite the harms they cause to others. Whether that's true of vaccination is an open question, I'm just saying that the line isn't clearly drawn.
Perhaps not the best way to explain it, but I meant to reemphasize the difference between the link story and the impact. Explaining why the loss of these freedoms is important requires linking it to some solid impacts, which I've always found somewhat difficult. I don't think it's hard to explain why certain freedoms should exist or why the government taking those liberties away steps on some toes, but that doesn't really get down into the nitty-gritty of why their loss is very damaging. The problem, as I see it, is that you either keep it nebulous and focus on why freedoms are important, or you peel away from the issue of freedoms and focus on reactions to their loss. I'm not really a fan of either approach, and I can't do the first one well at all.
That’s usually the response I bring, but it has limitations. The other side can just say that the same argument can be used to justify much vaster and more debilitating restrictions. If it’s justified to prevent individuals from harming others by potentially acquiring a given illness or set of illnesses, then you could use that same point to force people to wear masks, take antibiotics, sneeze into their elbows and generally stay home from work when they get sick. All of those would arguably have a much larger effect on disease burdens than mandatory immunizations, but we recognize that we cannot reasonably police such actions in everyday life, and it’s not just because of backlash. There’s an inherent value to our basic freedoms, particularly when they come at the cost of certain securities. Countries have built the backbone of their constitutions on recognizing that policing the actions of the people needs to be substantially limited based on certain criteria. We might disagree about what those criteria are and about how well they apply to these cases, but I don’t think we can disagree that there are many freedoms that should not be abridged just because there’s a security benefit that could result, no matter how substantial it might be. Admittedly, I think I’m doing a bad job of explaining why these freedoms matter, and particularly if we’re speaking outside of the context of a given country’s Constitution and history, these impacts may always be largely based on how different populations view the issue, but I don’t think the link is what’s at issue on this point. It’s much more about examining why this matters than it is about explaining why these freedoms should exist.
I'd say my main problem with your case is that you didn't go hard enough. I get that there's a strong incentive to roll with a case that causes the least possible harm to liberty (I'll come back to that), but I feel like you either need to go full bore and argue that vaccinations need to be the main priority or else you just don't gain enough solvency. Despite what I said in this debate, I think the case can be made that we can either reach herd immunity with many of these diseases or get so close to herd immunity as to not matter. Trumping up the importance of essentially eradicating these diseases within the US is a lot stronger than stating that we're getting some minor improvements to childhood vaccination rates. The main barrier to making that kind of argument is the generally low level of harm caused by these diseases individually, and I think the main way to get around that is by talking about trends and the potential for much higher death tolls and other harms. But to do that in enough detail, you really need to focus on a specific vaccine or set of vaccines rather than hitting them all at once. Doing that made your case sound overly generalized, and the impacts didn't sound as solid. You really need those points to counter issues of side-effects, which are honestly not that huge given the potential scope of the problem with diseases like measles and pertussis (incidentally, I find that MMR and TDaP are the easiest to argue for on debates like this), particularly as they apply to the immunocompromised.
When it comes to tackling my case, I think the first thing you have to do is nip the liberty argument in the bud. Admittedly, the argument is somewhat difficult to counter, especially if you're going full bore and requiring everyone who can to get vaccinated, but I think I've come up with an effective response by simply stating that it's impossible to quantify, especially compared with a quantifiable loss of life and quality of life. I think also clarifying from the outset what makes an instance where loss of liberty is acceptable and why is important. You kind of did that later with the comparison to drunk driving, but I feel like the link was tenuous. I’ve gone with traffic laws, the allowance of drug tests, and taxation in general, all of which reflect a shared responsibility that overrides personal liberties for the common good. All of this does a pretty good job at least introducing doubt into the liberty argument, and provides a basis for supporting a policy that may seem severe and a huge step beyond what’s been done before. All of this is also somewhat necessary to counter the backlash point, because a lot of the liberty argument is building up an important link story: that the negative response is justified and righteous. Challenging that underlying assumption knocks at the backlash point by allowing you to say that these are just a bunch of people who are too self-interested to see the basic facts of how they’re harming others, and that their threats of retaliation are no better than retaliating against any supposedly oppressive laws that are there for a basic public good. Admittedly, there’s the medical aspect to it, but I’ve found that that’s easy enough to get around by just fining anyone who is actively afraid of or otherwise unwilling to get vaccinated. Fines go to medical subsidies and therefore improve access to medical care. Sure, there will still be some backlash, but this doesn’t force anyone to get vaccinated just because they see their doctor.
Lastly, on the lack of a case, your best bet would have been to present something in R1, but lacking that, I think there were some available outs in R2 and R3, though all of them would have required that you stick by generally making vaccination mandatory. You could have argued that the same system currently used in schools (i.e. doctors notes) could be used by the government to monitor vaccinations, and that updates on vaccinations would be required at the usual times (e.g. tetanus after 10 years). That would have knocked out my point about enforcement, as the only thing remaining would have been which agency would be in charge, which really doesn’t have any weight to it. You could have argued that the fine I mentioned above was obvious enough that it should have been assumed, meaning that dissenters won’t get jailed to nearly the extent I’m suggesting, and those that do get imprisoned for failing to pay the fine deserve it for willingly putting others at great risk. That just leaves the “who pays?” argument, and I think you could have argued that there are enough governmental and non-governmental organizations that would step up to help with this, particularly as it’s such a huge public good, which means most of the poor would be covered through subsidies from one source or another. It would have been better to simply state that the government was covering everything from the outset, but that requires it be stated in R1.
Realized I never offered this, but as I said, I’m actually solidly for your side in this resolution, and I’d be happy to discuss what you could have improved, both in your case and your responses.
Thanks a lot for the vote and the feedback! I had a plan for how to capitalize on the liberty impacts, though honestly, I still struggle with weighing more philosophical arguments like these.
You know a word that never once appeared in your argument? Monism. I can see some points in your argument that do challenge the views presented by bsh1 in that argument, but a large part of what makes an effective response is clearly articulating the points in the argument you are attacking and how your points function against it. To a large degree, you're expecting your voters to do that for you. The arguments, at least as I see them, are generally meandering around a point rather than addressing it straight up. And you take a lot of space to get down to the point you're trying to make, so much so that I often feel like I'm losing the point on the way to getting there. I get that you have your own style and that I'm more into a formalized view of how arguments are displayed, but honestly, I feel like a little structure in your responses could have made your R2 a lot stronger.
It is certainly difficult at first, though I have to admit, those are the most rewarding instances. With a few exceptions, I've garnered the most from trying to understand the other side on topics that I feel very strongly about. I learn quite a bit from the experience. Strange thing, though, is that I can usually find a solid repository of arguments for that side. Most of the sites I've looked at on the topic have made pretty awful arguments, so I had to mostly derive my own.
Agreed. I think this is a fascinating debate. I'm actually taking devil's advocate for this one because I'm solidly on the "Pro" side of this debate, but I do feel there's a lot of good ground to cover on my side.
Admittedly, I'm a little biased (since it's my style), but I like the format for your R3. I'd spend a little less time on the line-by-line, though, and focus more on the comparison of impacts. Weighing arguments is something I'm always looking for in a final round, and usually the side that does it more earns my vote for a reason.
To make a long story short, I find that it's human-centric. The history of how we define life starts with how we define what makes us alive, and then slowly expands as discoveries of bacteria that didn't quite fit that definition began. Some of those defining characteristics don't even fit some bacteria very well, particularly those that are obligate parasites. Honestly, though, I just have trouble understanding why this set of traits are required for life, particularly the first and third. What is so special about cellular organization? What is it about having a membrane that makes one alive? I can only understand that through the view that we are defining life as similar to ourselves. The same goes for homeostasis, which is required for the survival of membrane-bound organisms, but not for viruses. While I understand these choices as narrowing down what life is, I can only justify them if I'm deliberately trying to exclude that which does not fit neatly into these categories, though I can also argue that some viruses fit all 5.
Yep, I remember it well.
I noticed, doesn’t seem like it was much of a debate, though. Be happy to debate you on it, though. I’d argue they’re alive.
I didn't say it was inappropriate, I said that it allows you to paint with a pretty broad brush when it comes to what counts as genetic engineering. The terminology is accurate, and i agree that crossbreeding is a form of genetic engineering - hell, my lab does it. I just think it hampers the debate to define it in this manner.
Let me know when this is finished and I’ll post a vote.
I think this would be a very interesting debate if the definitions took “genetically modified organism” together instead of defining the words separately. The way it’s defined now would encompass all domesticated plants and animals, insofar as they are genetically modified by the process of interbreeding. Defining GMOs as the collection of those 3 terms excludes the classical means used to randomly alter the genomes of plants and animals in order to get the best species for general consumption, and would focus the debate on specific insertions into the genome aimed at adding specific traits. I can see how someone might still be able to argue the Con position with the debate phrased as is, though I think it’s much more difficult.
That’s... not helpful.
Name who? The styles of debate where this is allowed?
Just to be clear about this, RM, I actually agree with @Ramshutu on this one. A new point is one that is not directly responsive to an argument given in the previous round. New data, i.e. evidence to support an argument already given, is valid in most forms of debate. You can argue that it's abusive in its own right, and I can understand that view, but there are a lot of people who would take the perspective that it's absolutely fine.
And I agree. I do, however, think there's an argument to be made about these restrictions being overly onerous. Protecting third parties from harm is not the overriding principle in all cases, since there are many actions or inactions that we largely agree should be allowed to persist despite the harms they cause to others. Whether that's true of vaccination is an open question, I'm just saying that the line isn't clearly drawn.
Perhaps not the best way to explain it, but I meant to reemphasize the difference between the link story and the impact. Explaining why the loss of these freedoms is important requires linking it to some solid impacts, which I've always found somewhat difficult. I don't think it's hard to explain why certain freedoms should exist or why the government taking those liberties away steps on some toes, but that doesn't really get down into the nitty-gritty of why their loss is very damaging. The problem, as I see it, is that you either keep it nebulous and focus on why freedoms are important, or you peel away from the issue of freedoms and focus on reactions to their loss. I'm not really a fan of either approach, and I can't do the first one well at all.
That’s usually the response I bring, but it has limitations. The other side can just say that the same argument can be used to justify much vaster and more debilitating restrictions. If it’s justified to prevent individuals from harming others by potentially acquiring a given illness or set of illnesses, then you could use that same point to force people to wear masks, take antibiotics, sneeze into their elbows and generally stay home from work when they get sick. All of those would arguably have a much larger effect on disease burdens than mandatory immunizations, but we recognize that we cannot reasonably police such actions in everyday life, and it’s not just because of backlash. There’s an inherent value to our basic freedoms, particularly when they come at the cost of certain securities. Countries have built the backbone of their constitutions on recognizing that policing the actions of the people needs to be substantially limited based on certain criteria. We might disagree about what those criteria are and about how well they apply to these cases, but I don’t think we can disagree that there are many freedoms that should not be abridged just because there’s a security benefit that could result, no matter how substantial it might be. Admittedly, I think I’m doing a bad job of explaining why these freedoms matter, and particularly if we’re speaking outside of the context of a given country’s Constitution and history, these impacts may always be largely based on how different populations view the issue, but I don’t think the link is what’s at issue on this point. It’s much more about examining why this matters than it is about explaining why these freedoms should exist.
I'd say my main problem with your case is that you didn't go hard enough. I get that there's a strong incentive to roll with a case that causes the least possible harm to liberty (I'll come back to that), but I feel like you either need to go full bore and argue that vaccinations need to be the main priority or else you just don't gain enough solvency. Despite what I said in this debate, I think the case can be made that we can either reach herd immunity with many of these diseases or get so close to herd immunity as to not matter. Trumping up the importance of essentially eradicating these diseases within the US is a lot stronger than stating that we're getting some minor improvements to childhood vaccination rates. The main barrier to making that kind of argument is the generally low level of harm caused by these diseases individually, and I think the main way to get around that is by talking about trends and the potential for much higher death tolls and other harms. But to do that in enough detail, you really need to focus on a specific vaccine or set of vaccines rather than hitting them all at once. Doing that made your case sound overly generalized, and the impacts didn't sound as solid. You really need those points to counter issues of side-effects, which are honestly not that huge given the potential scope of the problem with diseases like measles and pertussis (incidentally, I find that MMR and TDaP are the easiest to argue for on debates like this), particularly as they apply to the immunocompromised.
When it comes to tackling my case, I think the first thing you have to do is nip the liberty argument in the bud. Admittedly, the argument is somewhat difficult to counter, especially if you're going full bore and requiring everyone who can to get vaccinated, but I think I've come up with an effective response by simply stating that it's impossible to quantify, especially compared with a quantifiable loss of life and quality of life. I think also clarifying from the outset what makes an instance where loss of liberty is acceptable and why is important. You kind of did that later with the comparison to drunk driving, but I feel like the link was tenuous. I’ve gone with traffic laws, the allowance of drug tests, and taxation in general, all of which reflect a shared responsibility that overrides personal liberties for the common good. All of this does a pretty good job at least introducing doubt into the liberty argument, and provides a basis for supporting a policy that may seem severe and a huge step beyond what’s been done before. All of this is also somewhat necessary to counter the backlash point, because a lot of the liberty argument is building up an important link story: that the negative response is justified and righteous. Challenging that underlying assumption knocks at the backlash point by allowing you to say that these are just a bunch of people who are too self-interested to see the basic facts of how they’re harming others, and that their threats of retaliation are no better than retaliating against any supposedly oppressive laws that are there for a basic public good. Admittedly, there’s the medical aspect to it, but I’ve found that that’s easy enough to get around by just fining anyone who is actively afraid of or otherwise unwilling to get vaccinated. Fines go to medical subsidies and therefore improve access to medical care. Sure, there will still be some backlash, but this doesn’t force anyone to get vaccinated just because they see their doctor.
Lastly, on the lack of a case, your best bet would have been to present something in R1, but lacking that, I think there were some available outs in R2 and R3, though all of them would have required that you stick by generally making vaccination mandatory. You could have argued that the same system currently used in schools (i.e. doctors notes) could be used by the government to monitor vaccinations, and that updates on vaccinations would be required at the usual times (e.g. tetanus after 10 years). That would have knocked out my point about enforcement, as the only thing remaining would have been which agency would be in charge, which really doesn’t have any weight to it. You could have argued that the fine I mentioned above was obvious enough that it should have been assumed, meaning that dissenters won’t get jailed to nearly the extent I’m suggesting, and those that do get imprisoned for failing to pay the fine deserve it for willingly putting others at great risk. That just leaves the “who pays?” argument, and I think you could have argued that there are enough governmental and non-governmental organizations that would step up to help with this, particularly as it’s such a huge public good, which means most of the poor would be covered through subsidies from one source or another. It would have been better to simply state that the government was covering everything from the outset, but that requires it be stated in R1.
Realized I never offered this, but as I said, I’m actually solidly for your side in this resolution, and I’d be happy to discuss what you could have improved, both in your case and your responses.
Thanks a lot for the vote and the feedback! I had a plan for how to capitalize on the liberty impacts, though honestly, I still struggle with weighing more philosophical arguments like these.
I'll be working on it this weekend.
Yep, pretty short. I'll likely get to this tonight.
If that helps you, I would accept that. I would completely understand.
You have my condolences. I'm very sorry to hear about that. I wish you the best in your time of mourning.
Not sure if I'll have time, but I'll try.
Alright.
I'll see what I can do. This week's kinda nightmarish.
You know a word that never once appeared in your argument? Monism. I can see some points in your argument that do challenge the views presented by bsh1 in that argument, but a large part of what makes an effective response is clearly articulating the points in the argument you are attacking and how your points function against it. To a large degree, you're expecting your voters to do that for you. The arguments, at least as I see them, are generally meandering around a point rather than addressing it straight up. And you take a lot of space to get down to the point you're trying to make, so much so that I often feel like I'm losing the point on the way to getting there. I get that you have your own style and that I'm more into a formalized view of how arguments are displayed, but honestly, I feel like a little structure in your responses could have made your R2 a lot stronger.
It is certainly difficult at first, though I have to admit, those are the most rewarding instances. With a few exceptions, I've garnered the most from trying to understand the other side on topics that I feel very strongly about. I learn quite a bit from the experience. Strange thing, though, is that I can usually find a solid repository of arguments for that side. Most of the sites I've looked at on the topic have made pretty awful arguments, so I had to mostly derive my own.
Agreed. I think this is a fascinating debate. I'm actually taking devil's advocate for this one because I'm solidly on the "Pro" side of this debate, but I do feel there's a lot of good ground to cover on my side.
You can post your argument any time.
Admittedly, I'm a little biased (since it's my style), but I like the format for your R3. I'd spend a little less time on the line-by-line, though, and focus more on the comparison of impacts. Weighing arguments is something I'm always looking for in a final round, and usually the side that does it more earns my vote for a reason.
I will get a vote up on this as soon as possible, plan to read through it over the weekend.