A world without deception is better than a world with deception

Crime “Perhaps ‘repeat offenders’ is the wrong term. Regardless of whether or not my opponent has decided to change his argument from using repeat criminals to using uncaught criminals, the points about repeat offenders that I have made are still not refuted. That being said, in underdeveloped countries, many known criminals parade around without arrest. Semion Mogilevich, a Russian mobster, is a known criminal, who has swindled investors out of $150,000,000, is currently free in Russia, even though his wanted poster is everywhere in Russia (1). Just because a criminal has confessed does not mean that he or she is punished. “I admit that this is a tenuous argument” That is because it is. My opponent stated in his first arguments that because “the default assumption in a civilized society is that someone is not a criminal” that they are deceiving society by not advertising the fact that they are criminals. This means that because a person is deviating from the social norm, it is deception by omission to not clarify the deviation. Then, when Pro tried to claim that acting normally is not merely deviating from the social norm, his example was the same as in Round 2, which I’ve already refuted. “Refusing to pay attention to such non-binding statements is no more deception…” This argument seems to be based on the notion that omission only exists when a suggestion is made by a binding force. There are a couple of problems with this. The first problem is that some suggestions would be more binding than others. My opponent seems to say that there would be a legal standard for the criminals and how binding certain statements are. However, omission is omission, regardless of the law, and the debate is about a world without deception. If there is no deception, than omission is not possible, regardless of the law. Essentially, if a person is aware of a statement, and they don’t respond honestly, then that would be omission, regardless of who made the statement. This plan would not work. “It’s another to...uprooted the entire crime family.” Once again, crime families work in an organized way in order to prevent punishment towards members. As this, along with profitability, are goals for the families, it would be logical to assume that they would take precautions to prevent this from happening. One possible way would be by compartmentalizing information, so not even the boss would have full information. Fraud “The name ‘Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water’ suggests that…” My opponent states that the name suggests that the water is from a spring and from Arrowhead Mountain. However, this conclusion is drawn only from the improper spacing. On Arrowhead’s website, it says “Arrowhead® Brand 100% Mountain Spring Water.” This shows that not only is Arrowhead simply a brand name, rather than an indication of water source, but also that the water from these bottles is 100% Mountain Spring Water (2). My opponent also uses the 5-gallon EcoSense bottles as an example of water not from a spring. However, the water bottles that my opponent references, the type that one carries around daily, are not misleading, as they are from 100% spring water. The bottom line is that Arrowhead has turned into only a brand name, and the water bottles are not misleading. I would like the voters to note that Aquafina and Dasani also are not misleading, and have not been shown to be misleading. I’ll also provide some more brands that are honest: San Pellegrino Water, Icelandic Glacial, and Perrier Mineral Water. “If bottled water was more…one water bottle” Since the majority of disposable water bottles are not misleading, they would still be available for purchase. There is no reason to believe that people would change their behaviors to favor refillable water bottles when the variables haven’t changed, so people would still buy these water bottles. “My opponent does not take issue with my claim that it is not clean” In Round 2, I very clearly took issue with the claim. I showed that on balance, each ton of clean coal is cleaner than the coal is when it undergoes the standard process, and that the mountaintop removal is not a result of the clean coal process, but rather that it is because of an increasing demand for energy. It is not an “advertising gimmick.” When a company is stating that its coal is clean coal, it is accurately telling the public that their coal is cleaner than it otherwise would be, as emissions are significantly lower. Corruption “If deception didn’t exist, dictators wouldn’t be able to do their...shtick.” In my opponent’s own rebuttal of my critical thinking points (which I will address later), he stated about differing viewpoints that “it isn’t deception if you actually believe it.” Hitler believed that the Jews were a cause for most issues. He wrote about this extensively in his book Mein Kumpf. The North Korean government genuinely believed in the People’s Revolution, and so did the people. By my opponent’s own (inconsistent) definition of what is deception and what is not, these tactics were not deception. That being said, the exact same scenario described in Round 2 could be used again, but we could substitute “North Korea” with “Russia” or just about any other country, and the same problem would be valid. “Yes—and if I tell you…you’ll find out then.” This would be deception by omission of the actual answer. In Con’s rebuttal to my point about social norms, he mentioned that police could coerce criminals into confession simply by telling them to confess. However, if the same standards are applied to the officials that are being applied to the criminals (deception is deception, regardless of who says it, so standards need to be consistent), then the officials must immediately say what is happening to the question, or else it is omission. If the same standards that are being applied to the officials are being applied to the criminals, then they could simply delay response and it wouldn’t be deception, rendering that entire idea useless. So yes, this sort of statement would be deception. I would also like it to be noted that Pro has not shown that complete government transparency is a good thing. Critical Thinking “Just because deception doesn’t exist doesn’t mean critical thinking is useless.” It was never said that critical thinking would be useless in that world. I argued that “this constant practice produces smarter individuals, as without critical thinking, or with less critical thinking ability, people become passive receptors of information, rather than free, rational thinkers.” I essentially said that when lies are present, people are forced to practice their critical thinking skills much more constantly than they would be practicing them in a world without deception, so people in that world would have stronger critical thinking skills. Better and Stronger Relationships “Omission, I argue, is only a form of deception…to believe something that is not true.” All right, that sounds good. However, I’m unclear about how the criminals going about their business as if everything is normal is deception (which is referencing his previous arguments about how deviation from norms are deception), but not bringing up that someone’s face being covered with pimples (the face would be a deviation from a norm) would not be deception. Also, this omission would be misleading to Olga, as it makes her think that her friends are not in any way uncomfortable with her face. “In a world without deception people…prize honest talk.” This wouldn’t be true. Things are appreciated on a continuum. Good cannot be appreciated if evil is not also present; ease cannot be appreciated if hardships have not also been endured; and honesty cannot be appreciated if honesty is all there is. Sorry for the weird spacing. I can't seem to fix this. Thank you Pro, I look forward to your response.Sources: 1. http://edition.cnn.com... 2. http://www.arrowheadwater.com...