BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
The loss of Television programming due to the Stike

We need to get back to the main argument I argue the strike is GOOD- Good for the writers to get more money and recognition and good inasmuch as people will likely do something more productive with their time. If you want to debate your tangential points defending TV in general, and about educational standards we can have a debate about that as well as a side topic. On Television and why its bad #1 Televison dramtically increases risk of ADHD in kids- this to me is a no brainer, as TV is bang bang bang so fast - not like life in general ref : http://www.whitedot.org... TV is TERRIBLE FOR KIDS- adults not so much #2 Televison promotes and legitimizes and normalizes aberrant and morally destructive behavior lets look at your favorite shows here if you haven't seen shows like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Grey's Anatomy, or The Daily Show, these shows promote and celebrate violence, death, and adultery and their main themes. the legitimization of violence and adultery in particular are BAD for society Now if you chose to defend TV with the History Channel, Nature Channel ,and such I would be more in agreement Also the COMMERCIALS are terribly annoying and disconcerting Overall, i think we are in general agreement, Rob, America is a free country and if someone wants to eat cheetos and sit n the couch watching crap- go right ahead! This is America ! cheers
The loss of Television programming due to the Stike

And where is that correlation? Cite your source. The Flynn effect shows that the opposite is true: every decade or so, the average score on IQ tests has risen by 7 points, forcing the test scoring system to be constantly adjusted to compensate. Although this is probably due to a wide variety of factors, including improved nutrition, many experts think that one contributing factor is that people are exposed much more to visual stimulation, in the form of TV, art, film, computers, etc. A well-rounded person, therefore, should not solely read books, or solely watch television and movies; s/he should do a mix of both, since each engages different areas of the brain. In any case, if you haven't had a TV in 15 years, how do you know that it is so harmful? It seems to me that it's easy to vilify something that you keep yourself distant from; closer contact demands a more nuanced view. (It is also easier to say "Bah, who needs it?" when something effects most other people, but not yourself--you aren't losing out on anything, after all.) Moreover, quality of television programming has increased rather enormously since 1992: if you haven't seen shows like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Grey's Anatomy, or The Daily Show, and instead are relying on memories of shows from back then like Full House or Saved by the Bell or MacGyver, then I don't think it's at all fair for you to judge current quality of programming based only on your own personal experience. As for the Nielsen ratings, those haven't fallen _that_ dramatically (and Fox's haven't fallen at all), and you simply assume that people are replacing that time with more productive things. Although that may be partly true, I find it more plausible that people are simply seeking other forms of 'mindless entertainment' in the interim: movies, games, and a whole world of online content. In any case, I'm not arguing that it would be a bad thing for people to watch less TV; I'm arguing that it's a bad thing for TV to lose its writers, almost the only thing giving any shows any intellectual value. As you noted, it's a free country: we shouldn't have to worsen the content of television to drive people away from it, as anyone's free to watch or not watch it when they desire. If people were reading too many books, would you recommend that we replace all the well-written books with terrible ones in order to lower readership to a more reasonable level? And yes, a lot of TV is pretty poor--but it's much better than it used to be, and will continue to improve if people continue to demand good writing for shows; in that respect, the strike, although necessary for economic reasons, threatens to set television back several years as an artistic medium. If television content is subpar, we should _improve_ it, rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater. After all, there's nothing inherent about it that makes it less artistically worthy than theater, film, or indeed any performing art.
The loss of Television programming due to the Stike

Television is for the most part, a waste of time There is a CLEAR correlation between the rise of television and a DECREASE in intelligence in the American populus. Look at test scores or any relevant measure of schools. I am not saying that everyone shold get rid of their TV, even though I havent had one in 15 years and will never have one in my house. We live in a free country I do disagree with you that the writers strike is a bad thing becuase it is clear from the nielsen ratings that people are NOT watching as much TV and thus they must be doing something else, more productive, like spednding time with family, getting outside, reading, playing games playing or seeing music, etc. And of course , we agree that the writers strike is good for the writers, who deserve more recognition and pay. And your fithermore agree that TV is "trashy" you said I will concede that most TV is pretty trashy So to conclude, the writers strike is good for the writers and to get people to stop watching so much TV and do more worthwhile things for their lives. cheers
The loss of Television programming due to the Stike

TV in excess is indeed a bad thing, but anything in excess is a bad thing. Really, TV is just a medium like any other; getting rid of it would just make humanity's creative output less diverse, and makes no more sense than getting rid of all film, or all bronze-sculpting, or all graffiti art. I will concede that most TV is pretty trashy, but that doesn't mean we should just get rid of it when it has such untapped potential for mass entertainment and education. But the real problem with your argument is that the writers' strike is not getting rid of all TV; it is just getting rid of the good _writing_ for TV! So we won't have people rushing to read books or exercise; instead, we'll just have people watching vastly more dumbed-down, poorly-written shows. Reality TV will dominate. Note that I am not against the strike itself, as I think writers deserve to receive higher wages. Rather, I am against the idea that getting rid of TV altogether is important, necessary, or particularly good. I'm not aware of any proven correlation between television and violence, or television and stupidity. (Steven Berlin Johnson even wrote a book arguing that TV is making us smarter.) And with computers and video games becoming more common all the time, getting rid of TV would hardly make people that much less sedentary.
The Earth is hollow.

This is in response to this thread: . http://www.debate.org... A brief explanation of the subject can be found here: . http://en.wikipedia.org... Hollow in this case does not refer to the fact that there are caves and mines in the outer part of the crust, but to an alleged vast central space inside making up a significant fraction of the Earth's total volume. I will be arguing that the earth, in fact, is not hollow to any significant degree. My opponent will be attempting to show evidence that it is. My opponent is welcome to either post his opening arguments R1, or to post his acceptance and await my opening arguments.
Gender equality

Gender equality is not about genders being the same but about both being treated the same way. It is about genders being equal, having equal rights and opportunities, as you have said, despite physicall differences. However, in many countries this is not the case. Women, the female gender, do not have the right to choose their husbands in Saudi Arabia or Sudan, these may be extreme cases but they nevertheless exist and so this world has not yet acheived gender equality. Some MEDCs are very close but they to mark a difference between men and women. Women are not given the same responsibilities as men. Women are not offered high position jobs even if they are more qualified. 37.1% of young women are expected to go to university compared to only 27.3% of young men, still only 6.4% of CEOs are women! Being the head of a company does not require anything physically that men have more than women yet there is no equality here.
Gender equality

First of all, there are many things in which women have advantages that men don't get. And we also can say this about men. We still have major difference in physical and emotional. We can't have equality until we all are literally equal. We have the same face, same way of thinking. Until then, the differences are inevitable. Evolution forbids genders to be equal. Furthermore, some may say they like both equally, but equality requires all of the population to be achieved. Secondly, I should add that equality is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities. And here, there is a continuation meaning equal " especially in status rights and opportunities. It is about everyone being given the same opportunities, rights and obligations despite their differences. Taking everything into consideration, I insist on that point, that women and men can"t be equal by gender, but they can have equal rights and opportunities in every sphere of life.
Gender equality

Gender is defined in the oxford dictionary as the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones). Biologically, of course gender equality is not possible until science progresses to a point were we can change the genetic structure of human beings, then we can make everyone as strong or smart as everyone else. You said that you " can"t be sure that we can achieve gender equality",. That might be true, we might never acheive gender equality so why don't we just give up now? Let women be payed 30% less than men for the same job ! NO! We can't give up because something seems too hard or too far away, we can't fix gender inequalities all over the world by snapping our fingers! As F. Scott. Fitzgerald wrote in The Great Gatsby "no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther" We need to run faster and stretch out our arms, we need to try and improve litle by little the gap between men and women. In most european countries, it used to be acceptable to have multiple wives but little by little, society changes and now it is illegal. However, polygamy is still legal in LEDCs such as India, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Nigeria and Sri Lanka, these societies have not yet adapted their societies to fully respect women. Neither have MEDC societies, America elected a president who demeans women and shows them close to no respect. The world is inequal on almost every aspect, gender inequality is no exception, this is not a "rich country" problem nor a "poor country" problem but it is somehting that people fight for and will not give up on. This is a global issue that crosses borders and time. All through history, women have been considered inferior to men, starting in antiquity. Women were locked in a room their entire lives and had very little to do, this perisited untile the middle ages. Women could now walk outside freely but their activities remained confined to household tasks which continued until September 19th, 1893 when women finally got the right to vote for the first time, in New Zealand. I think every woman, and man, today is glad that society evolved from locking women up in a room to locking them up for hysteria in victorian times to the society we have today. It's an impovement, a huge one, but it's still not perfect and we have to fight for everyone to be equal in rights, in the same country but also all over the world. Otherwise we might as well say that "all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others" and give up now.
Gender equality

Nowadays, the term gender equality is widely used, but I think that sometimes people can mixed it up with the term equality of rights. In my opinion, gender equality is one of the most important aspects of life, where women and men receive equal opportunities and responsibilities in various spheres of life. Can we achieve gender equality in our everyday life? Let"s try to puzzle it out. First of all, let"s analyze the description of gender equality, men and women should have equal opportunities and responsibilities in various spheres of life. If we take into consideration the gender equality in the family. Modern families refer to this question with loyalty. We can"t observe such families now, where women are only sitting at home and taking care about children and men are working and have the role of breadwinner; women try to have upper positions in the society and have better perspectives in their life. I think, that here it is more suitable to use the term equality of rights, instead gender equality. It makes sense, that there will be the definite responsibilities in the family, with which men or women can better cope with. If we speak about gender equality in the workspace, that is the most vexed problem in our society. On the one hand, according to stereotypes, referring to women and men, many employers don"t want to pay the equal salary for the equal job. And in many cases women get lower salary, in comparison to men. On the other hand, the legislation of some countries can"t afford big salaries for women. And here we once again can observe the situation with the question about equality of rights. To sum up, I would like to say that I can"t sure that we can achieve gender equality, because men and women, essentially, are different by nature. They can"t be equal in gender. And if we speak equality, I think that it is more suitable to use the term equality of rights between men and women.
Resolved: God is more likely than not to exist.

This debate is about God's existance. RulesFirst Round is rules and definitons by Pro and acceptance by Con. Second Round is for Opening arguments, no rebuttals. Third Round is continuing of Opening Arguments. Rebuttals are permitted. Forth Round is for Rebuttals. Fith Round is for rebuttals and conclusion. No trolling. No Kritiks. No CounterplansNo Sparks Arguments. No semantics, the definitions provided shall be the definitions used throughout the debate. No profanity. Burden of Proof will be shared. Sources may be placed in the comments section if need be. Minimum ELO to vote is 2000. Deviations from these rules shall result in forfeiture of the Conduct point or the debate by the said violator. DefinitionsGod - the omnipotent, omniscient, intelligent creator of the universe. Likely - probably. Existent - having being; existing.
Abortion Should Be Mandatory

I will finish my argument by proving that my plan for extinction is better than my opponent's. "Preferably, these dissenters must be educated to genuinely accept their Lord's will, as any coercion or murder on our part would only add to the ambient evil we're trying to remove. " There are two problems with this point. First, it would be virtually impossible to convert every human to Christianity. If they don't believe in God, then they will not accept the theory you propose. Next, if the most evil we can do is remain on the Earth, then other evils we could do would be somewhat justified if we were contributing to the most good we can do. "You correctly point out that this doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but such behaviour would also stir up unneeded resistance and reprisals. " The resistance would also be with mass abortion. Virtually everyone would oppose the idea of mandatory abortion, and nobody would follow the rule. Those same people would protest until the law is repealed, because they would want to have children sometime. "There is also the issue of thoroughness - what good is it if the entire civilised world snuffs it, if there's a small tribe in some tropical island that is allowed to go on with their sinful existence? Thoroughness is a challenge, and a huge mass drowning event like the one you mention will require colossal organisation: universal participation is hard to ensure. " Likewise, what good is it if the entire civilized world aborts, and there's an undiscovered society or a third world country that doesn't get the message? Any feat that requires the cooperation of every human will need similar organization. So our plans are equal on that point. "Instead, I predict a long and arduous process of education, cultural acceptance and controlled population decline. " Like I said before, worldwide conversion to Christianity would most likely not happen, and the result would be a more harmful effect on the environment than my plan. "Yes, there will be an environmental cost, but the Earth has billions of years to recover. And God presumeably has an infinite amount of patience. " Not that long, actually. The sun only has about 5.43 billion years left, so the Earth only has a few billion years. Surely it would not be good if all that time is spent reversing the effects of humans. So in conclusion, I have shown that abortion should NOT be mandatory, because my plan is more efficient and environmentally safe.
Abortion Should Be Mandatory

It's good to see that my opponent and I, being both reasonable and pious men, do not disagree on the heart of the issue, and instead have only to quibble about the small detail that is the title of this debate. You are quite correct in your assertion that abortion alone is not an effective strategy to achieve our joint aim - which is nothing less than the noble pursuit of a wholly moral world. I must concede, that in my haste to finish my last post (even the greatest of men have to hurry for dinner time) I outlined the problem in all its theoretical aspects, but left the practical concerns of policy making woefully incomplete. Any actual campaign of omnigenocide would indeed have to take into consideration everything you brought up - conflicting opinions being the most major problem. Preferably, these dissenters must be educated to genuinely accept their Lord's will, as any coercion or murder on our part would only add to the ambient evil we're trying to remove. You correctly point out that this doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but such behaviour would also stir up unneeded resistance and reprisals. There is also the issue of thoroughness - what good is it if the entire civilised world snuffs it, if there's a small tribe in some tropical island that is allowed to go on with their sinful existence? Thoroughness is a challenge, and a huge mass drowning event like the one you mention will require colossal organisation: universal participation is hard to ensure. Instead, I predict a long and arduous process of education, cultural acceptance and controlled population decline. Yes, there will be an environmental cost, but the Earth has billions of years to recover. And God presumeably has an infinite amount of patience. Given such a strategy, I have to reassert my position that mandatory abortion is one of the most useful policies in our arsenal.
Abortion Should Be Mandatory

Thank you evilkillerfiggin for starting this debate. I'll split my response into different sections for easier comprehension and reference. =The Problem================================================================== My opponent states that to do good, we (humans) must leave the Earth, which can be done by aborting all children. However, this is not the most efficient way to rid the planet of humans. For one thing, everyone will have to wait out the rest of their lives, continuing to do whatever we do that is bad for the earth until everyone dies. I'd be sitting here for about 65+ years emitting carbon dioxide, feeding landfills, and numerous other harmful activities. This will make the Earth take even longer to recover and will be unsafe for the environment. Also, pro-life activists would protest and ignore the law. If half of the world is pro-life, for instance, then the law would really only affect half the world. This is also inefficient because the entire world is not simply one country. We would have to convince every other country to abort their children. =The Solution================================================================= Because mandatory abortion is very inefficient at bringing the human race to extinction, I propose that abortion should NOT be mandatory. Instead, every human in the world should go to the nearest body of water, bathtub, etc. and drown themselves*. This will not only be faster, but will also be safer for the environment, and will not anger pro-life activists. The whole world could be rid of humans in a matter of weeks. =Just in case I don't make next round========================================= Just in case, I'm going to refute some possible arguments. Now obviously, one may wonder, who would willingly drown themselves? It doesn't matter, because whoever doesn't obey the law would be killed. This obviously is not right, but who cares about morals when the goal is to go extinct anyway? We wouldn't be alive to worry about it a week or two later. Furthermore, what about the people who are enforcing the rule? What if they don't drown? Well, there's the same problem with mandatory abortion. Who is to stop everyone from having a child sometime in their life? Any problems you could encounter with my method are also problems with my opponent's method. =Conclusion=================================================================== I doubt my opponent will disagree, because here I am agreeing to the fact that humans should leave Earth. However, I have shown that by my opponent's own reasoning, my method is more efficient and safe. I have proven that abortion should NOT be mandatory; rather, that everyone should drown themselves*. So at this point, there is little choice but to vote CON. * Please don't actually drown yourself. That wouldn't be good.
Abortion Should Be Mandatory

It's come to my attention that a great deal of creationist Christians are against abortion: this is an inherently contradictory assertion, as I intend to show. Consider: God is of course omnibenevolent (ie, everything He does is good.) We know that God created the Earth, and He saw that it was good. Ditto with stars, seas, animals, etc. So, we can say that the Earth and everything on it (barring Man, who we'll come to later) is, as a creation of God's, inherently good. Now we come to His sixth day's work: Man is a creature with free will. That means he has the capacity to do good or evil. It is patently obvious to even the most casual observer that this second ability of Man's has been exercised to quite an impressive degree, over the years. But that's not how it should be: we should, naturally, strive to do good. Thus, the most good we can do is to remove ourselves from the Earth - for the Earth alone is inherently good, while the Earth with us on it is marred by evil. I shall reiterate myself in debate-friendly bullets: * God created the Earth and everything on it, and He saw that it was good. * Man can do both good and evil. * Thus the Earth without Man is wholly good, but the Earth with Man is only partly good. * Man should aim to be wholly good. * Thus Man should aim to remove himself from the Earth. I henceforth propose that, as a moral necessity, abortion must become mandatory, and that this mandate must be enforced all across the world, effective as soon as possible. From the argument above, I have proved that no creationist Christian can consistently disagree with mandating abortion. From experience, I highly doubt any creationist Christian would have any moral qualms about enforcing their mandates all across the world. Therefore, I await a response with a definite air of smug satisfaction. NB: If you are not a creationist, and thus object to my first premise, then you are obviously beyond help. Time spent debating me on this matter would be better used in praying for your soul.