BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Bill: Banning the production of all Styrofoam packaging peanuts.

This will be a short, hypothetical debate on weather to approve the bill that i am proposing, I stand on the affirmative. It is the job of the negative to show why this bill should not become a law, and I will attempt to show that it should be a law. Here is the full bill and conditions. 1: The United States will ban all production of styrofoam packaging peanuts. 2: Fines for all violations will be determined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 3: Fines can not exeed $500,000, nor be less than $50,000 (per violation). 4: Peanuts produced prior to enactment may be utilized. Please remember that this is hypothetical, this is a bill I debated in Student Congress. Here is my speech. Styrofoam packaging peanuts are harmful and should be discontinued, which is why I firmly support this bill. Point A: Ecological dangers of Styrofoam. Styrofoam takes 500 years to break down and can cause starvation in birds and marine wildlife who mistake small bits of it for food. Styrofoam also creates 1,369 tons of waste per day. Furthermore, Styrofoam waste takes up 25-30% of our nation's landfill space. If this bill was approved, there would be less waste, leaving more space in landfills and becoming safer for marine wildlife and birds. Point B: Impacts of Styrofoam products, including packaging peanuts, on humans. Benzene is the most toxic of all the chemical components of styrofoam and is listed on the Hazardous Substances List because it is a known carcinogen, mutagen, and is flammable. Some of the effects the chemicals in packaging peanuts have caused are: convulsions, comas, death, and leukemia. Another hazardous product in Styrofoam is Styrene. Exposure to styrene has caused learning impairments, brain damage, cancer, shortened lifespan, and death. By banning packaging peanuts from being created in the future, the lives of many workers in Styrofoam factories would be saved, which shows that this bill should be approved.
Universally Preferrable Behavior and Socialism/Goverment

I've recently listened to the entirety of the audiobook "Universally Preferable Behavior" and find it fairly all encompassing. It covers four topics: Murder, Assault, Rape, Theft and how they are immoral because they require the use of force to violate personal property rights. For these reasons, Socialism and gov't in general is by its very nature immoral.
Gay is good

Marriage is for procreation and should not be extended to same-sex couples because they cannot produce children together. Allowing gay marriage would only further shift the purpose of marriage from producing and raising children to adult gratification. A California Supreme Court ruling from 1859 stated that "the first purpose of matrimony, by the laws of nature and society, is procreation." Nobel Prize-winning philosopher Bertrand Russell stated that "it is through children alone that sexual relations become important to society, and worthy to be taken cognizance of by a legal institution." Court papers filed in July 2014 by attorneys defending Arizona's gay marriage ban stated that "the State regulates marriage for the primary purpose of channeling potentially procreative sexual relationships into enduring unions for the sake of joining children to both their mother and their father... Same-sex couples can never provide a child with both her biological mother and her biological father." Contrary to the pro gay marriage argument that some different-sex couples cannot have children or don't want them, even in those cases there is still the potential to produce children. Seemingly infertile heterosexual couples sometimes produce children, and medical advances may allow others to procreate in the future. Heterosexual couples who do not wish to have children are still biologically capable of having them, and may change their minds.
Evolution has impossibilities and contradicitions.

My opponent's argument is heavily based on attacking the spontaneous generation theory. Pro has solid contentions, but I'd like to point out that they are irrelevant in this topic. Evolution doesn't propose the beginning of life, it merely explains "the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth." Therefore, his contentions hold no weight and the burden of proof is still on him.
Batman is better than Superman

This is how my 40th debate ends: Not with a bang, but with a forfeit.There isn't much left to say. I spent last round dismantling my opponent's arguments and those that he did not already concede now stand conceded via forfeit. All else being equal, the fact that Batman commits crimes while in costume and acts for selfish, violent reasons makes him morally inferior to Superman, who is guilty of no such criminality and fights selflessly for his adopted world. With that, please enjoy these How I Met Your Mother bloopers. If you've stuck around this long, lord knows you deserve them. Thanks for reading!http://www.youtube.com...;
Batman is better than Superman

Rebuttals 1. Motivations It cannot be said which ulterior motives are brought into each superhero's thought process during their decisions. Superman was a product of him being raised by good American people. Superman was sent off to a distant planet by his parents with hope for a better life. Superman has grown and changed by the influence of the society around him. Superman works alongside the government and rules and uses his powers to enforce the law. Now, we all know that even though certain things are encouraged and said to be right by society, they are not correct. Now, as you say that what each superhero is fighting for matters, this cannot matter less. A prime example in American History to show that this is false is the story of one of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln. Not many people know that Lincoln was a racist individual. But despite of this, Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves for political and moral reasons, and this turned out to be one of the great changes in our country's history. Batman does have feelings of vengeance and anger because of his childhood, but helps Gotham despite all of this. Furthermore, Batman has every motivation against good, to do evil, but goes against this, and fights crime, not because he is fighting against evil, but because he is fighting for good. Also, as said above, Clark Kent was raised by two farmers of modest means and becomes a good person, whereas, Bruce Wayne became a good person without any parental guidance. 2. Stranger As said, Superman has no obligation to help the people of earth, which is true, and he also has no reason to go against the people of earth. On the other hand, Batman has no obligation to help his people, but has every reason to go against them, because they betrayed him in the past. The fact that Batman spends his fortune fighting for the people of Gotham who betrayed him is far greater than someone who has no pull toward either side. 3. Harm being done It is said that Batman breaks the law and is a criminal, which is true. Batman goes outside the law to do the right thing and to ultimately do good things for people. Instead of letting things happen, Batman does break less punishable laws, to stop dangerous criminals from breaking serious laws. Batman fights the crime that the law cannot, and ultimately makes things better in society. Batman is not only a superhero, but he is also a relatable human being. As said in The Dark Knight Rises, "A hero can be anyone, even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy's shoulders, and telling him the world hadn't ended. " The idea is that anybody can do the right thing in life, no matter how extreme or how hard it might be. Whereas the dream of being Superman is out of reach, the dream of being Batman, somebody who does the right thing and helps people, is real for anyone who believes in it. References (these explain things pretty well) 1. . http://popwatch.ew.com... 2. . http://www.cracked.com...
Batman is better than Superman

Batman is a better superhero than Superman. Although, if the two did fight, Superman would win, Batman is by far a better person and superhero. Superman was born with superpowers, meaning when he came to Earth, one of his obligations was to fight crime. Everybody knows that if they woke up with superpowers one morning, they would have to be a superhero or supervillian. Batman, on the other hand, is a multi-billionaire. Bruce Wayne is one of the richest men in the world and can do anything with the money that he has. Although he can do anything with all of the money that he has, he chooses to fight crime for the good of the people. If you ask anybody in the world what they would do if they won the lottery and won millions of dollars, their answer would not be, "to go out and risk my life to fight crime." This is why Batman is morally, ethically, and all around the best superhero, and better than the best known superhero, Superman.
Mind was the last thing to come into existence

In this debate I will argue against the current understanding of the universe, which explains that energy came to existence first followed by matter, followed by life, followed by mind and consciouness. Our current understanding of the origin of the universe holds that it emerged in a big bang 13.7 billion years ago from nothing. There were no initial conditions, inherent nature, order, purpose, design, or underlying non-physical existence from which the big bang emerged. The early universe emerged from nothing having a single unified force, from which four fundamental particle-force fields emerged through spontaneous symmetry breaking and froze to form matter, stars, planets, organic molecules, living cellular organisms, and later into humans with brain and nervous systems complex enough to generate conscious behavior. This view describes the sequence of existence in an order where energy comes first, followed by matter, followed by life, followed by mind and consciousness. In this view, consciousness is an emergent property of random bits of matter/energy that bind together from physical processes into unitary biological organisms. But how can a conscious observer having a free-will enter the closed chain of cause and effect remains unexplained. However if we try to reorder the sequence of existence giving consciousness and mind the first position instead of the last, the problem could be solved, as in that case consciousness is not created and remains there from the beginning till today. This view could in a way be helpful in developing a unified theory where all diversified forces of nature gross and subtle are unified by transcendent underlying conscious force which is higher than ordinary waking state of consciousness.
Mind was the last thing to come into existence

1.Mind remains active during "brain death" when there is not neural activity and the EEG IS FLAT that directly proves mind and brain are not one. 2.A "causal correlation" is one which suggests that two things are related by a cause-and-effect relation. It does not make the two things one and the same. Moreover, it does not tell anything about which is the cause and which is the effect. In the case of mind and neural activity there is such a relation. This means either (1) mind is the cause of neural activity or (2) neural activity is the cause of mind. The fact that mind continues even when there is no neural activity refutes the second proposition thus automatically upholding the first. 3.What I said about layers of consciousness is a neuroscience fact. I tried to simplify it for better understanding of my opponent. But his reasoning seems to be clouded by his "instinctive will to win", so I failed to convince him. 4.I will discuss that in the end. 5.No theory can be called a well established theory in absence of supportive evidence which is logical and convincing. We do have a free-will, that is an established fact and you need to come up with strong evidence to disprove that. 6.The study was done in a similar manner to your suggestion and Dr. van Lommel did check the medical records, so the study was a scientific one. In the end I have a few suggestions to give to my friend (pro) and he can either accept or reject my suggestions, at his own "free-will". Firstly, I want to clear his notion that all people want to win. Take me for example; I started the debate just to encourage discussion on the topic. I don't have an instinctive desire to win this debate. I am not saying it is wrong if you want to win. But I think to seek the truth and find it out gives you more pleasure. I will be happy if you win. Here, let me make a vote appeal for you: My dear readers, I thank you for being patient and request you to vote my brother "pro". My dear friend, it's a wrong notion you have about instincts that they can't be controlled. Just sit straight, close your eyes, take a deep breath and meditate.
Mind was the last thing to come into existence

1. Even in the last round my opponent has not answered the basic question "what is the minimal set of neural activity that is responsible for consciousness?" Thereby he is giving me reason to suppose that he does not have an answer to it. He has even used the words "Even if I admit one can have consciousness without neural activity …" which in a way indicate his inability to answer the basic question. Thus, his claim that mind is dependent on a living brain turns out to be unfounded in absence of sufficient proof. As for my case, I have already given a proof that mind can survive "brain-death". 2. To quote him once again "The fact that the brain has electrical charges that are dependent on mental activity …" shows that neural activity is dependent on mental activity, which he has agreed to in his own words. It only supports my case instead of supporting mind's dependence on the body as misconstrued by my opponent. 3. To clear his confusion "what exactly makes one conscious object more conscious than another" I will give an example. Suppose there are two persons one is awake and one is sleeping. The person who is awake is in a higher state of consciousness than the one who is sleeping. Conversely the person who is sleeping is in a lower state of consciousness than the one who is awake. So consciousness is not a binary state – true or false. It has many layers. When a person is in deep coma his is in another state of consciousness and there are still other states of consciousness like the vegetative state and the permanent vegetative state. There are other states of consciousness which are yet to be discovered by science. That's all I can clarify for now. 4. I will now quote my opponent for a third time, "… my competitiveness and my will to success". He readily agrees in his own words that the "will" to succeed is one of his instincts. But for the sake of the argument he maintains the no-free-will theory which is self-contradictory. 5. What he says about a closed system giving way to an open system is his appeal to uncertainty. Even if he refers 10 million or even a billion websites about the no-free-will theory that won't amount to a proof and in absence of proof that simply doesn't go down my throat being a rational person. 6. It is not an established theory that our thinking is one with our brain. I can clarify why only a certain percentage of subjects remembered the "NDE" by referring to our experiences in a dream state. How often do we remember dreams? When we do we hardly remember every single detail of our dream. In most cases we don't remember anything at all. So it is possible that the remaining subjects also had an NDE, but were not able to recall it. Criticism by skeptic people doesn't make the study unscientific. My opponent should clearly state what other scientific method could have been used in the study. Regarding my opponent's claim that he should win the debate, all I can say, is that I don't have a problem with him winning the debate, subject to the condition that he can convince me with evidence to support his proposition that mind depends on a living brain.
Mind was the last thing to come into existence

1. Firstly, my opponent has tactfully avoided the question "what is the minimal set of neural activity that is responsible for consciousness?" It was my friends proposition that Mind depends on Energy, matter and Life. To prove that Mind depends on all these things, he has to answer the question. Simply by saying it is "somewhere there" you can't prove that mind is in the brain. So the position of his argument is no better than mine. 2. Regarding the question about existence of higher states of consciousness, I will reiterate that, in absence of any flawless method to measure consciousness objectively, we are not left with any option but to rely on subjective experience. 3. In his contention regarding the quantum experiment he forces his notion that mind is life-like and requires matter to exist, which he hasn't yet proved as stated hereinbefore. In support of his no-free-will argument my opponent has stated that he "loves" debating or that he "likes" this and that. But like, dislike and love are possible only if there is free-will. Presumably, he joined the debate willingly, because in his own words he has agreed that he joined the debate because he loves debating. That is a foolproof evidence of free-will. I guess any rational person will agree to that. 4. I have not dropped the argument regarding closed system. I maintain my previous stand. I did not discuss it because my opponent was not able to describe how a closed system can give way to an open system, without referring to his self-propounded no-free-will theory, which I did argue against. 5. The debate is still about the basic question "What is the proof that mind is dependent on the brain?" As for my claim that mind can exist beyond the brain I will refer to a study done by Dr. Pim van Lommel, a cardiologist from Netherlands, who studied a group of patients who had suffered cardiac arrests and who were successfully revived. He found that 62 patients (18%) had a Near-Death Experience (NDE), of whom 41 (12%) described a core experience. Many of the subjects had "NO NEURAL ACTIVITY" in the brain as understood from a flat-EEG. Among other symptoms they had fixed and dilated pupil sufficient to describe the subject "brain-dead" or "clinically dead". Such "experiences" encountered by people declared "clinically dead" or "brain dead" suggest that the mind can survive "brain-death". Given bellow is a link to Articles by Dr. van Lommel, which describe the study and conclusions in detail: http://www.towardthelight.org... I believe readers are sensible enough to understand that my opponent's claim that he has evidence on his side is baseless. He proposed that Mind depends on Energy, matter and Life. But he hasn't been able come up with evidence to support that.
God doesn't want you to be happy!

The definition of god was perfectly defined in the first round you arrogant pick who cannot possibly be more that a yodeling grunge country opera sniffling sponge ground into hamburger roasted duck sauce dust premeditated bar mitzpah boy sheepish boring boredom with bores a boring bore who cannot possible be more that the age of 16 that you obvious are to state such a silly question as you went into your cow dung larvae land and didn't even read the article. Since you didn't this debate cannot continue until you do and thus you get a fricken intelligence and and edumacation of what the f--K you are squawking about.
God doesn't want you to be happy!

Firstly, it's important to define 'God'. God as a word has many variations, according to the Oxford Dictionary, as a noun. The consistent theme however, through those definitions, is that God is something to look up to. You've then got to ask, 'Something you look up to doesn't want you to be happy'; and I say no. Because no matter how each of us conceptualises 'God', and we all do that differently, unless the individual is nihilistic, what we look up to is an affirmation of something that wants us to be happy. But, we have to define 'happy'. So then secondly, what do we mean by 'happy'? Happiness is a fortunate bi-product of responsibility and toil. Therefore, unless the individual is nihilistic, what we're looking up to is indeed something that wants us to take on responsibility and toil. So regardless of what your 'God' is specifically, we know that what we look up to is responsibility and toil, as these components of life are most likely to bring us happiness.
should death penitently stay

yes i understand where you are coming from but before I start yes I did spell it wrong but I was tired when I started so now lets begin one I'm wondering where you are coming from on the whole race thing one, yes people still hate certain races and favor others but in the court of law it does not matter what race you are they hire judges that choose your punishment based on what you did and your record now I'm going into depth with this I belive it should still stay because one The Constitution Allows For The Application Of The Death Penalty. The Constitution of the United States, more specifically through the application of the Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments permit the use of the death penalty in appropriate cases. And another thing you are doing your research on things that are almost a decade old things like that change and you can be put on the death sentence for more than murder say a child rapist you think they should just stay in prison?but think of this also there are many victims of a single murder. The criminal gets caught, tried, and convicted, and it is understood that the punishment will be severe. But the person he has killed no longer has a part to play in this. Unfortunately, the murderer has deprived his family and friends of a loved one. Their grief begins with the murder. It may not end with the murderer"s execution, but the execution does engender a feeling of relief at no longer having to think about the ordeal a feeling which often fails to arise while the murderer still lives on.here's another reason I think it should be allowed I THINK that if we get tough on crime to say like murder people will think twice like hey if I kill this innocent person I might get put on death so they think twice and don't do it but that's just me and it might not happen but okay here's something what if a criminal goes on a rampage and kills dozens of civilians and eight cops and gets arrested what do you think the punishment would be life? Possible but just cause he/she is a human does not save from death
Morality does not require the existence of a god

Morality is an evolved concept created solely in the mind of humankind. It does not exist outside of human thought and interaction. The claim that morality was given to men by some god outside of them is disprovable. 1. The concepts of good and evil do not exist outside of human interaction. Where there are no humans, no actions could be described as evil. A lion killing a lamb is not an evil act. A human allowing a lion to kill a lamb could, under the right circumstances be defined as evil. 2. There is no basic action that can be taken that is always evil. Stealing must be defined by local property laws. Killing can be condoned by different circumstances. Rape must be defined by the willingness or lack thereof of the victim. Not one of these acts, in and of themselves are evil. The evil must be defined by humans judging intent and desired outcome. 3. All of the supposedly immutable laws of supposedly omniscient and omnipotent gods have been left behind as not moral enough by today's standards. For example, no laws against rape or slavery in the Bible. The modern human is far more moral and sensitive to right and wrong than any generation previous. 4. The fundamental concepts of morality are present in the higher mammals we can observe today. The mammalian order owes much of its success to its evolution of the desire to nurture its young, warn its family of danger, form bonds with like creatures and so on. Contrary to the reptilian tendency towards independence, for example.