RESOLVED: The phrase "Equal Opportunity" refers to probability, not possibility.

In the past round I took an “A to Z” approach which I feel showed how equal opportunity refers to probability, not possibility. Con has contented many of my individual statements but in his attempts to convey an overall message, he seems to be just repeating the same arguments that do not refute any of the main points I have made. I am not going to feed into an unproductive quote battle, and thus I will simply focus this last round before our concluding statements on the main points that Con must provide answers for in order to win this debate. Measuring Opportunity This is the main point I have made which has not been refuted. First of all Con and I agree that an opportunity is almost the same exact thing as a possibility. The only difference is in what you focus on when using the word. But the main question is: How do you measure a possibility without referring to probability? Throughout the round, Con made many attempts to answer this question which all fail. Below are as many of them as I could post without being repetitive: “Counting is measuring. If I count 3 beans, the measure of the number of beans is 3, if I have 3 beans, and the guy across from me also has 3 beans, we have an equal number of beans. Capiche?” No. I was not talking about measuring the number of possibilities, or in this case “beans”. I was specifically talking about measuring a possibility, as in singular. Counting the number of beans is not the challenge I posed, measuring one single bean is. Capiche? “If there are 100 possible outcomes, 10 possibilities for rain, and 90 possibilities for sun, than the probability of rain is 0.1 (10%), while the quality of the opportunity of rain is 10.” This makes absolutely no sense. Con is simply using the word “quality” to hide behind probability. According to this statement they mean the same exact thing, all he did was use move the decimal place over and call it something else. “You claimed equal opportunity was referring to probability, when in reality it was referring to the quality of the opportunity. Both had equal opportunity in the sense of quantity, but not in the sense of quality. The circumstances changed, thus the quality changed.” This claim was in response to a question about my baseball analogy. Con here is stating that both teams did not have equal opportunity to win the game in the sense of quality, because the circumstances changed. Con has of course yet to make any distinction between quality and probability. But at another point in the round he did attempt to do so: “to measure quality you can count the favorable circumstances.” If counting the favorable circumstances is how you measure quality then there is no difference between this and probability, because that is exactly what it leads to. The circumstances that changed in the analogy were (1) that the freshman team gained a 4 run lead and (2) it was late in the game. These circumstances were favorable to the freshman team because it now gave them a better chance of winning the game. That is what a favorable circumstance does. If it does not raise the odds of the end result being favorable, then it would not be a favorable circumstance. That's about it when it comes to addressing this crucial point in this debate. I think it is obvious from the start that you can not measure a possibility without referring back to probability. And since we both agree that equal is a measurement, there is no way for Con to win this debate without showing how this can be done. The only way for Con around this would be to argue that Equal Opportunity is referring to the number of possibilities as he has on occasion. But if opportunity = possibility, then this is literally saying that possibility = the number of possibilities. This is clearly an absurd argument. This argument might work if the phrase we are debating is “Equal Opportunities”, however that is not the case as the resolution clearly states. And just to go further into it, this entire discussion began with a dispute in another debate which was about whether Americans have an Equal Opportunity to succeed. Success was defined as moving up in ones social class. In this case success was the possibility(singular), and the many different circumstances and number of ways one can succeed are all factored into determining the quality of that possibility. In other words, how likely it is, in other words the probability of it becoming reality. Communication Con claims that my “Mary is a beautiful girl” analogy is a red herring and nothing more than a ploy to distract from the debate. However Con gave absolutely no reason why it was a red herring and apparently just expects the readers to agree because he said so. The last time I checked, a debate about what a phrase refers to is a debate about communication. Therefore demonstrating that a phrase containing an adjective followed by a noun focuses on the adjective is clearly a relevant point. Con has made no attempt to refute this so I see no reason to continue this point. Conclusion The three main points that have been established throughout this debate are as follows: 1. Opportunity = Possibility. Con has made this clear many times. 2. Possibility can not be measured without referring to probability. 3. The phrase “Equal Opportunity” focuses on “Equal”, which is a measurement of the Opportunity(Possibility). With these three points established Con can not win this debate. He has one more round to successfully counter them.