Society is getting worse.

1) First of all, I would like to mention that I'm not trying to limit this debate to just cashiers, rather, trying to use the ones I've met as an example. Secondly, whether cashiers or not, you are still using only yourself and those you keep as your company for an example. Therefore, we must be able to use my example as it is the way one random person is treating another random person. And finally, we are not looking at whether you and your friends would be willing to treat me with courtesy, rather the one cashier in question. Just because you and your friends are courteous, doesn't mean that all of society is courteous. 2)a. I was shocked to hear about your waiter, but nonetheless, there are still some people that are rude enough for a person, like myself, to remember such disrespect, thus, if random people are so rude to people they don't even know, society is getting worse in this sense. b. I will talk about this point later on. 3)a. Political correctness has gone too far. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." If I say Merry Christmas and you say Happy Hanukkah, what's offensive with that? As a matter of fact, I think that's a good thing. It's a symbol of acceptance of other religions, exactly what our forefathers were hoping, yet we are degrading their morals by hiding our religions just because of a few uptight people. b. This argument is completely necessary to this debate because it is proving that there are a select few who are not so uptight as to be offended by the less accepted terms. And you really have to be joking saying that the term black is more politically correct than African American. c. & d. First of all, I thought that you meant censorship in general and I would like to keep my argument before in that the media, in general, is less censored today than before. Swear words are used more than before along with violence, sex, drugs and alcohol. Censorship has only decreased as of recent. Secondly, you mentioned "Examples include using the word nigger in everyday conversation, and not hiring somebody based on their religious affiliaton." We still have derogatory terms today such as "cracker" and "wetback" that are meant to have the same offense as the term "nigger." Also, instead of not hiring someone based on religious affiliation, we have affirmative action, basing a job decision on someone's outward appearance instead of the best man for the job. Oh yeah, that's a real improvement! Not to mention that since 9/11, this nation has been the most racially segregated since the 1960's and before. How can society be improving if we are only working against one another. 4)a. For starters, there were sociology experiments before this, now, they are just trying to squeeze as much money out of the public as humanly possible by providing stuff that should remain off the air. The is where the term "mindless entertainment" came from. I'll give you that Kelly Clarkson, Chris Daughtry and Carrie Underwood deserved their fame from American Idol, but what about the rest of them. Out of all of the supposed talent from the show, really only three of them deserved any showtime. And don't get me started on Survivor. It's pretty much winning the lottery. We watch people as they lie and deceive in order to make it to the finale. Is it good that we watch people at their worst as a main form of entertainment? No! Not even close! It's actually working against society from progressing. Also, a mother of 2 may love SpongeBob to entertain her kids, but she just loves it because she doesn't have to put up with them. Couldn't the same be given by shows like the Magic School Bus or any of the shows on PBS which are actually educational and aren't pointless in their meaning. Finally, I didn't respond to your argument on the educational programming argument because, between PBS, the Discovery Channel and History Channel, there is really none left. There are hundreds of channels on cable and there are mainly 3-5 educational channels left. b. I would once again like to refer to what you previously said, you say that if people like previous plot lines, then they will still exist today. I completely agree, but just picture this... in 20 years, there will be hundreds of new movie releases and 90% of them are pretty much the same movie as movies created before. How boring will that be? Extremely boring. Not to mention all the movies that will be remade. I don't really want to watch all five remakes of The Longest Yard. Moving on, you mention that Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Rober DiNiro and Meryl Streep will replace the great actors of past. They themselves are getting older and the new "fresh" meat of today is looking at Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. These are today's superstars and most likely the replacements of the once great actors. If I were you, I wouldn't be looking forward for another Godfather or Gone With the Wind unless you want it to be a sluttier version of the original. 5)a. Ok, if your description of dependency on technology doesn't mean it's a good thing, than I don't know what is. You say its many uses and great convenience that technology is, essentially, a good thing. Once again going back to what you said, convenience, but then you say that you are not lazy. Dependence on technology is laziness because a call says, I want to talk to you, but I'm just too lazy to actually do something to tell you. A letter really is more personal because it has work and feeling put into it. And what about my description of a person breaking up with someone else via text messaging? Again, how much value can you put on that? On the argument of people having the option of doing this, I will attack this later. b. I will agree that there was death, obesity, porn, etc before these inventions, but it has perfected these evils. Before nukes and technology, when could you easily destroy an entire city within minutes. Before television, fewer people were considered obese. Before internet, when could you see thousands of videos of people having sex within just a few minutes. You couldn't do any of these things before technology, but now you can. The remaining arguments, I believe, have been indirectly attacked sometime during this speech or will be attacked in the following. I am going to spend the remainder of my speech talking about an argument that has been, for the most part, informally argued throughout the entire round. My opponent has contended that mankind has the ability to abuse technology, but that it doesn't describe society today. I HIGHLY disagree with my opponent on this matter. Now before I say why, I would like to agree with my opponent that mankind is always seeking perfection (like he said when naming off the fields of academia). With that said, mankind is even seeking perfection in evil. We have perfected weapons of mass destruction, cheating and even blackmail. These went un-argued by my opponent because he agrees that we are truly perfecting evil. If we look at the world today, how many have cheated on a test that they forgot to study for? How many times have digital cameras been used to blackmail people? The point is that mankind has the ability to use technology for evil and, in todays world, actually uses it. Therefore, how can society be getting better if we are only digging ourselves into a worse situation than before? Whether all or some, a vast number of people are becoming more rude, alongside with taking things too far (political correctness), losing many good actors who created classics, using technology for the "dark side", all contributors to society becoming worse. These are the reasons for decreasing human capital and that is why the future is in danger. Btw, theLwerd, I always multi task, and maybe you should take me up on the LD debate I just started :-) and good luck in the rest of the tournament.