ILP v. ILO Debate 1/5/09

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is with great pleasure that I officially announce to you the topics for the ILP v. ILO Debate as well as the date of the formal start of the Debate which will be January 5, 2009 at approximately 10:00p.m. EST. From that point, the first participant will have forty-eight (48) hours to post his/her teams thesis/introduction.

Before I get to the topics, however, I would like to very briefly reiterate the basic rules here. More detail on the rules already exists in other threads and will be available upon request.

1.) I would like to have it set up where only myself, the other two judges, and the debaters themselves (at their own respective websites) are the only ones who may post in the actual debate thread. I have already been assured this will not be a problem at ILP, but if an ILO moderator would PM me regarding the feasibility of this, I would be most appreciative.

2.) This is a 4-on-4 debate with each debater posting once per topic. If any debater posts more than once in the Official Debate Thread, that team forfeits that topic.

3.) There will be three total topics to be debated on. The winner is based on a two-out-of-three format. In the event that a team wins the first two debates, the third debate will still happen.

4.) The teams will decide on their order the debaters go in amongst themselves. Neither team is required to state who will go in what order ahead of time.

5.) Ad Hom=Forfeit.

6.) ILP posts first in the first debate, ILO posts first in the second debate, the winner of the first debate has the right to choose which team posts first in the third debate.

7.) A team may not post twice in a row, they must wait for the other team to post.

8.) I will not accept PM’s from Judges/Debaters from January 5, 2009 until the conclusion of this debate, you can send them, but they will not be opened.*

• The one exception to this rule is if someone needs to request a time extension for any reason, in which event, the headline of the PM should be, “Request for Time Extension.”

9.) The next topic will start nearly twenty-four hours after the previous topic has been concluded and judged.

ILO is bringing:

O.G.? Gift Please
SilentSoliloquy
SomeoneisAtTheDoor
Gamer (ILO Team Leader)

ILP is bringing:

Carleas
Smears
Tabula Rasa
Xunzian (ILP Team Leader)

Without further ado, I have randomly selected the order in which the topics will be debated on, and here are your topics.

Phaedrus’ Topic:

Consciousness: Does the Brain House the Mind or Does it Create it? (ILP first post)

I have decided that ILP will defend the former and argue that the Brain Houses the mind.

PavlovianModel146’s Topic:

Voting: Did Women and African-Americans Win the Right to Vote, or Was It Given to Them?
(ILO First Post)

KrisWest has decided that ILO will defend Women/African-Americans winning the right to vote.

KrisWest’s Topic:

Government: Which Government System Better Takes Care of its Poor, Socialism or Capitalism? (First Post Will be Chosen by Winner of First Topic)

Phaedrus has decided that ILP will argue in favor of Capitalism.

1/5/2009. Mark it on your calendars, ladies and gentlemen, that is when this debate will be kicked-off.

I’m taking some time off work for this one.

The last topic needs clarification as to if they are arguing about the systems manifested in real governments, or if it’s purely theoritical. If the former then it is an empirical debate and is won before it begins, if the latter then it is also won before it begins for obvious reasons.

Formal debate topics generally aren’t dichotomous but require the affirmative to argue a thesis and the negative to argue against it without necessarily offering there own. This doesn’t seem to be a problem for the last topic, but the dichotomy may cause problems for the first and second because the two sides overlap.

The two sides can overlap all that they want to, what in life is Absolute except for the living and the dying?

In my opinion, the overlap of two opposite positions is probably the closest any of us will ever get to the absolute truth.

With regards to the third topic, I may ask KrisWest if she wants to make it more specific, that’s her call, it’s her topic. You would be surprised though, I would mention, by some of the debates I have seen where a debater was debating an absolutely hopeless topic.

I would imagine, though, that KrisWest intended for the debate topic to regard the American SocioCapitalist system that we use and not Capitalism in the purest form of the word. I may be wrong though.

Isn’t that the point, they will need to overlap but cannot because the topic supposes a false dichotomy. The implication of this is that they can both prove their thesis without disproving the other sides, thus creating the potential that they will simply talk past each other.

They can prove their respective theses without disproving the other side, I agree with that much. With a debate topic such as that, however, your goal is to more conclusively prove your own thesis, it is a matter of drawing opinion.

Which is why a judge must go into the thing open-minded and work from a position that they know nothing about the subject except the basics and have no opinion. Take the debate with myself and Loren646, for example. There was a lot of overlap there and both of us were able to prove our own thesis, but sometimes a debate can come down to proving your own thesis better as opposed to outright disproving the other side.

Sounds more like a bowling match, when it ought to be a fencing match.

The topics should be revamped.

You cannot just give a position to ILP or ILO and say you defend this.

my suggestion is that you find topics tht each side actually supports, in order to have a more meaningful debate.

I understand your position.

It is my opinion, however, that the different topics are all going to necessitate different forms and styles of debate. We have a fact-based economic model debate, a debate based on historical opinion, and a debate that kind of branches psychology and philosophy, neither of which are typically exact schools of thought. I think this satisfies the ultimate goal of this excursion which is to determine (in the confines of this one event) what team consists of the superior debaters. (Again, in the confines of this one overall event)

Again, when it comes to the topics, I don’t really feel comfortable addressing the topics of Phaedrus and KrisWest as I did not pick their topics, so I will leave them to answer any questions regarding their topics.

However, I would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have concerning my topic.

So, I’ve heard. I appreciate any suggestion as it relates to my topic and would consider changing my topic after putting it to a vote with the other competitors and judges.

Regarding the topics of the other judges, whether or not they would be receptive to suggestions or willing to change their topics is not for me to answer. My initial model for the debate gives the judges the opportunity to choose their own topics and such is not a right I would be eager to take away.

I tell you what I might throw out there, provided it will not change the timetable for this debate, what would you think if ILP were to choose a topic and the side they intend to defend, ILO did the same thing and then the three judges agree on a third topic and decide (by way of two-out-of-three vote) which side each site would defend?

Technically, you can. In fact, if you have ever been in a debate club and have had competitions with other debate clubs, that is how it is usually done. Generally speaking, you do not get to choose what you defend, but again, I will discuss with the other judges whether or not we wish to adopt the format as defined above.

That would be easy if we were talking about a one-on-one debate. It becomes much more difficult in the context of a four-on-four debate.

First of all, it would require everybody on one side to agree on some particular item. Secondly, it would require everyone on the opposing side to disagree with that one particular item. When you take two teams of four and you are needing three topics, basically it would be very hard and would require extensive conversation that WOULD likely change the debate timetable for four people to find three topics they all simultaneously agree on while the other four people must disagree with the position of the first four on all three topics.

I have sent the following PM to the other judges, their responses, however, will be private unless they (individually or collectively) decide to make them public:

After a quick response, by way of majority rule Option 2:

2.) We can allow ILP and ILO to each choose a topic for this debate and to further choose what side of the topic they would like to defend. Together, we can come up with a third topic that we all unanimously agree on and then put to a vote which side each site will defend. The vote for what side each site would defend would be best two out of three.

Passes.

ILP Participants, please have prepared your topic and what side you will defend by January 2nd, 2009, 10:00p.m. EST.

This will require that each of you individually verify the topic in this forum.

In the event that you have not satisfied this requirements, your topic and what side you will defend will be chosen for you.

OR…

even cooler…

would be if you have THREE teams…

one with only ILO, one with only ILP, and one composed of both…

ILO argues for a thesis, ILP for an opposing thesis, and the combo for the antithesis.

Some ideas might be…

free will / sovereignty / both
blind faith / absolute certainty / all knowledge is varying degrees of faith and only God is omniscient
perfect God / hopelessly imperfect people / perfection includes grace

<just being obnoxious on vacation, carry on…>

<'course, if you took me seriously, zoot and I could compose the “both” team, if he’d have me… but I don’t think I have the time for it>

The 1st of May!?

Nice topics though

Since Carleas is out of town until the 6th, that might be a problem . . .

I managed to hunt down a computer. I hereby agree to let our team leader vote for me, as I’ll be in various degrees of incommunicado until then.

The 5th of January - it’s in the American format.

Given the differences between the two sites, we talked it over and decided that “Archy vs. Anarchy” would be a relevant topic, with ILP defending the ‘archy’ side. You can formulate that in rigorous debate style if you’d like.

Judging:

I just thought of something. We want to make sure none of the judges lay back until every particular debate has already been decided before giving their judgments, so I have drawn randomly and figured out the order that the judges will post their decisions:

Debate 1
Phaedrus
PavlovianModel146
KrisWest

Debate 2
KrisWest
Phaedrus
PavlovianModel146

Debate 3 (By Default)
PavlovianModel146
KrisWest
Phaedrus

In the interest of fairness, I’ve offered tips at ILO on how to defeat the ILP team. I think it only proper to do the same here.

Basically, to win, one must know your opponent’s weaknesses.

The ILO team is
O.G.? Gift Please
SilentSoliloquy
SomeoneisAtTheDoor
Gamer

O.G likes to introduce contraversial/radical ideas to a debate as to challenge ideas he considers dogmatic. To defeat this, whenever O.G makes a claim, ask him how it relates to the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11. He will cease any attempts at rational argument after that.

Silentsoliloquy is a bright young lady who is sometimes given to stumbling around ideas. Rather then engage her in a sincere debate and possibly risk her finding the precise meaning that applies to the terms she wants to use, instead dazzle her with compliments and offer her candy. Warning, she may ask to live with you after this.

SIATD lives to argue, and he is quite adept at breaking down huge posts into single lines of arguments, thereby negating each sentence’s meaning as part of an overall argument. Combat this by beginning each of your sentences with a letter that, when broken down into multiple quotes, will spell out the words SIATD IS A WEENIE. The astute judges will notice this, think it incredibly clever, and give you extra points.

Gamer, while possessing a great intellect, is hindered by the fact that he absolutely refuses to ever disagree with anyone about anything. In your arguments try to show that A is relative to B, so that Gamer will not only agree, he’ll then argue on your behalf that everything is relative to C and D as well.

Hope this helps.