BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Abortion

Well, I would just like to open this by saying that I am MODERATELY pro choice. If I were a woman, I would never have an abortion. I would never allow my sexual partner/wife to have an abortion. I am also against late term/partial birth abortions. With early term abortions, I feel that contraception and other alternatives should be promoted, but there should be a legal, albeit discouraged option of abortion. I think that my pro-choice stance can be summed up in three statements. "You aren't human until you are born," "The baby would have a terrible life anyway," and "If you can't trust me with an abortion, why would you trust me with a baby?" "You aren't a human until you are born." So, when did you turn one? Was it a year after your conception? Of course not. Honestly, a blastocyst is a ball of somatic cells. Every time you cut yourself, you destroy more than a blastocyst. However, women don't usually get an abortion until they actually know that they are pregnant. I have news for you. Look at a human embryo. Then look at an embryo from any other animal. They look remarkably similar. Especially other mammalian embryos. It would be hard to tell the difference. And we kill adult animals, so I don't see why killing an embryo is so bad. It gets a little sketchy after it becomes a fetus, but it still doesn't know what is going on. We go to war and kill people from countries we don't like, but the soldiers haven't done anything wrong. But they have a life and they know what is going on. Fetuses don't have a life and they don't know what is going on. I do not support late term or partial birth abortion. "It is better for the baby." It might seem counterintuitive but women usually abort for the baby. If you were to ask someone if they would prefer a long life or a happy life, 95% of the time, they will say happy. So they are basically saying that they would rather die than have an unhappy life. The mother knows that the baby would have a bad life, so they feel that, in order to prevent the child from having severe mental and emotional problems, possibly leading to crime or suicide, they don't have the baby. "If you don't trust me with an abortion, why would you trust me with a baby?" Anyone who feels that Abortion is the right thing to do is probably not fit to have a baby. They probably have some mental insecurity, they probably wouldn't be a good mother, seeing as though they wanted to terminate the baby. They would likely be young and unmarried. Someone who would be a good mother would almost definitely not get an abortion. So maybe it's better that the baby doesn't suffer the abuse and neglect that any baby who would have been aborted would so likely be subjected to. Looking forward to your response!
is god alive

There is a lot of fallacy or perhaps missing data in your one sentence statement. First, what god of the many god claims are you referring to? Is it the god of Christianity or perhaps Thor? Secondly, you have asserted a claim without presenting any evidence. You would first need to establish like I said what god we are talking about, then establish that this god exists, then provide evidence that this god is male, and that he made the world. You would also need to provide evidence for the claim that this god has properties of being alive and you would need to define what you mean by life. Please provide more information on your exact claims so that they can be refuted and/or discussed.
Mermaids are real.

Introduction My opponent has succesfully refuted the photographic and video evidence arguments as well as the medical community cover-up. However each one of my arguments stand on it's own. Missing link "Secondly you point out that mermaid is just a half evolved fish which can't make sense because we evolved for apes not fish so there is no link there." Humans didn't evolve from apes. We share a common ancestor, so we're closely related. http://www.pbs.org... However, humans did evolve from fish. My link proved this and backed it up. Here is another link to prove it as well. Our faces are evolved from Jawless fish. http://www.newsmax.com... Given this information. The missing link between fish and humans is obviously, mermaid. Sometimes the evolutionary tree branches. In the fish case our evolutionary tree branched in 3 directions. Some of our species decided to stay fish, some decided to go the human route, then some of those selfish indecisive jerks decided to go both directions (just like the selfishness of bisexuals) and decided to be human and fish. The Legends The legends argument was ignored. These legends sprung up because obviously, people of the past saw mermaids. It's like the legends of dragons (dinosaurs), turned out to be real. There were legends of Alexander the Great. Legends are based on fact, and my opponent has failed to attack this premise or the facts it rests upon. Eyewitness testimony "About your eyewitnesses your first 2 are dead and lived in times were there could be no sure way of telling if they actually saw anything." Not true. Eyewitness testimony is eyewitness testimony. Just because they eyewitnesses are dead, it doesn't make their testimony any less reliable. If what you say is true, then we could in no way trust anything written during the time periods, they lived in. This is an absurd statement backed by absolutely nothing. "The last two have no proof people can lie or the placebo effect can take effect altering peoples visions of what they see. The stories are amazing because of the amount of corroborating witnesses. You can't just be dismissive of that many eyewitnesses in the same location, seeing the same thing, at the same time. Random strangers or tons of coworkers don't just get together to make up stories. It is clear to any reasonable person that these individuals believe they saw mermaids. Also my opponent misunderstands what the placebo effect is. placebo effect n. The beneficial effect in a patient following a particular treatment that arises from the patient's expectations concerning the treatment rather than from the treatment itself. http://www.thefreedictionary.com... As you can see the placebo effect, doesn't cause people to see mermaids. Conclusion Mermaids exist. My opponent fails to prove they don't or to disprove all of my independent stand alone arguments.
Mermaids are real.

First I would like to point out that your second link under photographic evidence is actually a link to proving it's fake if you read under the picture it shows evidence the photo is fake. Also under the statement there is a link to disproving the first video that you have at the begging. (http://wafflesatnoon.com...) it says it was a mockumentary. Also your first link in photographic evidence clearly shows the mermaid with eyeballs which it wouldn't have even if it was mummified this wouldn't allow it to keep its eyeballs. Also your second video gives no real evidence it could be faked there's no real way of telling if it's real. About your eyewitnesses your first 2 are dead and lived in times were there could be no sure way of telling if they actually saw anything. The last two have no proof people can lie or the placebo effect can take effect altering peoples visions of what they see. The last point when it says that you get born as a mermaid there not actual mermaids it's just where the embryo hasn't developed properly meaning there legs are fused together meaning there not actual mermaids. Secondly you point out that mermaid is just a half evolved fish which can't make sense because we evolved for apes not fish so there is no link there. Also why would the medical community have any reason to cover up mermaids they would't need to. And the so called mermaid baby's have no scales or gills meaning the could live under water and also there bone density is the same as a humans so the would be crushed by the pressure of water. I would also like to point out a human could not survive the cold temperatures of the deep sea or even the pressure meaning they would die instantly. They c in conclusion I can say they can not exist in the sea due to the pressure and harsh temperatures.
Mermaids are real.

Mermaids Are Real Introduction Thank you con for thinking of this debate and issuing an open challenge. Let's take a moment to define mermaid. mer"maid (m"rR42;mādR42;) n. A legendary sea creature having the head and upper body of a woman and the tail of a fish. [Middle English : mere, sea, lake; see mere2 + maid, maid; see maid.] Video Proof The fact that Liberals deny the existence of mermaids despite video evidence to the contrary is simply amazing. Mermaid deniers are no different then the 9/11 truthers, who don't think planes brought down the twin towers. Despite video evidence that planes did bring down the towers. I'm not a 9/11 truther, so of course I believe in the video evidence. Please watch the videos, I have listed. http://www.youtube.com... http://www.youtube.com... Photographic Evidence Here are real photographs of Mermaids. Please click on links. http://www.fanpop.com... http://wafflesatnoon.com... Is my opponent going to deny video and photographic evidence? The Legends Mermaid legends appear on almost every continent. Are ancestors believed in Mermaids. It can't be just coincidence all these cultures have legends and stories of Mermaids. This is beyond coincidence. Since it is beyond coincidence, these legends must have a basis in fact. http://en.m.wikipedia.org... Credible Eyewitness Testimony Black Beard; can testify to Mermaids being real. He reported spotting them on several occasions.(reported by bbc documentary) Audio of the documentary can be heard on below link. http://www.bbc.co.uk... Christopher Columbus; He spotted mermaids in at least one occasion. http://touch.latimes.com... Dozens of Israeli Citizens; reported seeing a Mermaid at the same time. http://www.haaretz.com... Reservoir Workers in Zimbabwe; Work stopped on 2 reservoirs when workers were chased off the sites by mermaids. http://www.dailymail.co.uk... The Medical Community is Involved in a Coverup Humans evolved from fish.http://www.bbc.com... Not all fish evolved. Some fish stayed fish, and that's why we still have fish on this planet. The missing link between fish and man is obviously mermaid. What is a mermaid, but a half evolved fish. Sometimes man reverts back to a pre evolved state. It's why humans can be born with tails. http://en.m.wikipedia.org... Occasionally you get a baby that is born a mermaid. http://en.m.wikipedia.org... Of course a mermaid can't survive out of the water long so usually mermaid babies die within just a few days of being born. The doctors usually participate in a cover up and say its fused together legs, or something. Instead of helping the baby survive by tossing it in a large body of water, doctors just let it die. We should stand up to the medical community and demand they stop covering up Mermaids. Conclusion I've provided more then enough evidence that Mermaids exist. Even if one of my premises are shot down it doesn't matter. Each premise stand on its own as evidence of mermaids. My opponent has literally no case. I also fully expect my opponent to succumb to reason and concede this debate. So I will thank him in advance for his graceful exit. Good luck in your next debate con.
Abortion is legalized murder

-How is murdering an innocent baby in anyway less cruel then letting it live with a deformity? : Lies on what deformity. If that deformity happends to be no limbs, the child will have a depression most of his life because they think they're an abomination. They may look happy, but most of them hide their sorrow behind a smile. A lot of people do that lately. -Adoption may not be easy most of the time, but I refuse to believe that a sane person would say, "Oh, this is too hard, I should just kill a baby instead, cause that's way easier." : A teacher has a life of its own. If no-one wants to adopt the child, he would live in an orphanage for the rest of his life having the sad thoughts that nobody wants him and that his parents just left him off there because they didn't want him/her. As I said, they may look happy, but most of them hide their sorrow behind a smile. - Abortion can actually be dangerous. : Anti-abortion literature is full of stories about women gravely injured or even killed in clinics. Such places exist: A woman died in Kermit Gosnell"s Philadelphia clinic, some were injured, and all received inferior care. Steven Brigham has been in legal trouble in several states. Such doctors stay in business because they are cheap, they are in the neighborhood, they perform abortions later than the law allows, and they zero in on low-income patients who, sadly, are used to being treated badly by people in authority. No doubt there are other inferior clinics out there. But only in abortion care do the few bad providers taint all the others"and taint them so much that opponents can pass laws that would virtually shut down the entire field in the name of patient safety. And yet, abortion is remarkably safe. The CDC reports that from 2003 to 2009, the most recent period for which it has figures, the national mortality rate was .67 deaths per 100,000 abortions. In 2009, a total of eight women died due to abortion. Tragic as that is, compare it with fatal reactions to penicillin, which occur in 1 case per 50"100,000 courses. And what about Viagra? According to the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, it has a death rate of 5 per 100,000 prescriptions. But you don"t find legislators calling for a ban on Viagra. Really, though, there is only one directly relevant comparison of risk with respect to abortion, and that is pregnancy and childbirth. The death rate for that is 8.8 women per 100,000. Continuing a pregnancy is 12 to 14 times as potentially fatal as ending it. (And maternal mortality rate is rising in the US even as it is falling around the world.) Curiously, no one suggests that obstetricians be compelled to read pregnant women scripts about the dangers that lie ahead before sending them home for 24 hours to think about whether they wish to proceed. I wish you a great luck aswell, and I really liked this debate. Have fun! :) Sources: http://time.com...
Abortion is legalized murder

While steam cell research has been linked to many illness cures, whether or not it cures cancer is an entirely different debate. As for addressing someone who is sick and killing a baby could save him, what makes that's persons life more valuable than the baby's life? -How is murdering an innocent baby in anyway less cruel then letting it live with a deformity? How can we just say, "Oh, well there's another baby with that illness, lets kill it" rather than letting it live and discovering what cause such an illness and curing that problem for the rest of the world? So now if someone is about to give birth and they see that the baby has that illness, they wont just kill it and live with the shame of murder for the rest of their lives, but rather they would get a cure and go on living their lives as a happy, not dead, person. -Adoption may not be easy most of the time, but I refuse to believe that a sane person would say, "Oh, this is too hard, I should just kill a baby instead, cause that's way easier. " Being a teacher isn't easy either, but you don't see teachers getting frustrated and just killing off students cause they don't want to deal with them. -Abortion can actually be dangerous. According to multiple research studies, the risk of breast cancer, in women who had abortions rises 50%, as well as, miscarriages in later pregnancies, loss of fertility, and in some cases (though rare) can actually kill the mother who is getting the abortion. Thank you for participating in my debate.
Abortion is legalized murder

Ah thank you for answering my questions, but it seems still cruel to me that you would let a child live while he knows he or she is going to die in a year or two. But if a child has no limbs, is blind and deaf all at the same time, what is life for him/her then? He/she just sits there and wait for his life to end. Your second argument: Adoption isn't that easy my friend. It takes years (Or you must be really lucky) to find parents who want to adopt a child. They would be living in a Orphanage, and the stories I've heard from there: It isn't really as fun as you might think. And ofcourse there are actually families who force the child to keep her baby instead of giving it up for adoption. But after all, like I said earlier: "What if the mother sees that her child will have Incurable and an immense pain that will last for the rest of her life?" At last: Abortion has his good things aswell. Embryonic stem cell research uses a human embryo, and is thought to be able to cure up to 70 major diseases and has actually been proved to cure cancer. If for every baby aborted we cured a dying cancer patient, there would actually be a bit of an equilibrium; no lives added, no lives taken away. Instead of having a child live for 4 years and then die just to have a really slight chance of finding a cure for the disease that he/she might have, you'll have a great chance of curing a human being who still has a long life to live. They have families, and people love him/her. I think this is personally better, that a human who has a family that loves him has a great chance of surviving a disease in cost of a child that has only four years to live. Because the mother put four+ years in him/her. She has feelings for her child that no-one can describe. And she'll be heartbroken after she hears the disease has killed her child.
Abortion is legalized murder

Hello Viridiel! :) I understand where you are coming from, and you make some reasonable arguments for the opposition, though I still don't feel that any of them could make killing a baby, okay. If the child is going to be born with a terrible physical disability, you shouldn't kill it just cause you don't think its even worth getting to live. Take Stephan Hawking for example, a man who has a horrible physical disability and cannot use any of his extremities and is permanently confound to a wheel chair, yet he is now the greatest mind on the planet, making discoveries that sent us in a huge leap to the future. And if the baby will be born with an illness that may kill it, its better that we let the baby live, so we could discover what may have caused it, so that we could prevent this illness in the future, rather than just seeing that a baby has a strange illness so we better kill it. Finally, if a mother is to young or not well off enough to take care of a child, adoption is always an option, as two of my closest friends were, in fact, adopted. There were the baby in that scenario, where the mother could not take care of the baby so she gave it for adoption, I wouldn't know what I would do with out them, and to think that they could have just been killed off for no better reason other than, they don't want to take care of a baby. Goodluck to you as well my friend :)
Abortion is legalized murder

Before I start with a few questions I must say that I'm 50/50 on this topic. I don't agree with the fact that there are people who literally abort because it was an accident / because they feel like it etc. But, there are some reasonable reasons why some people kill their baby. As first: - What if the mother hears that her baby is born without no limbs, or what if the mother hears that her baby is born with a disease that will kill the child on her fourth year or what if the mother sees that her child will have Incurable and an immense pain that will last for the rest of her life? How can you even let a human being go through all this? Isn't it better to end the baby life before he/she will feel the pain that will come with her life? And as last: - What if the mother is seventeen, has no support of their parents and has no money to take care of her child. Or what if the mother is an addict to alot of bad things such as smoking, drugs etc. ? Goodluck with the debate. :)
Abortion is legalized murder

Abortion is nothing more, than the disgusting legalization of murder. You are taking the life of an innocent baby for nothing more than your own selfishness, because you don't want to deal with the responsibility of a child, yet still continue to have sex without the use of contraceptives. I am 100% okay with the use of birth control, in any form, but abortion is an entirely different thing because you are committing murder against someone who can't help or defend itself. Its no different than killing a living human!
Ahito would win in a fight against Hibiki, if both of them didn't have help from other people

I would like to point out that since there are only two volumes, this debate can't take into consideration what might happen. We can only take into consideration what is known as fact in the series so far. Unfortuantely, we can't read the author's mind and find out what she's doing with the next volume. Now, your attack on my first contention: Yeah, tea will hurt but it takes a while to make. Otherwise you're just dumping luke warm water on a person. Attack 2: She may have "potential" but that has yet to be unlocked. So, she can only stand on the limited, metioker magic experience she has. Attack 3: Weak attack. You admit she's a cry baby. This point still stands strong. Now to attack your case: Contention 1 I already attacked this. See the first paragraph of this rebuttal Contention 2: This potential, once again, remains to be seen so we can only depend on current knowledge of the characters Contention 3: This new magic: One: hasn't been created Two: It states clearly in Volume 2 that it helps people, and doesn't hurt them. So this would be relatively useless in a fight anyway.
Ahito would win in a fight against Hibiki, if both of them didn't have help from other people

Helloooo :] I'm here, tonight to prove that in a fight, Ahitio would lose a fight against Hibiki. Contention One: AHITO HAS GUNS Good job! Ahito has guns, woop-de-do. :] Yes, sure he might be able to shoot her in the head multiple times. But we have to think, there have only been two volumes out so far, and each Hibiki uses her own sorts of 'magic' in a way to win her fights, with or without help. Take example the cursed harmonica, she 'unhooked' everyone didn't she? And even so, by the time Ahito would want to fight his teacher, you and I both know she would be most likely profoundly powerful. And tea WILL hurt. Contention 2: Hibiki is no good at magic Oh contrary, Hibki may not be good at magic NOW but as I recall from the books, her master ( Shirotsuki ) always reminds us that she has potential in her, and I quote "Soon your potential became and undeniable distraction." And by the time Ahito would even think of going against Hibiki, this 'potential' we can predict will make her one heck of a magician, as I have stated before. Contention 3: Hibiki is a crybaby Can we blame her? She's had it hard! That's what she does when she get's frustrated! But we see that gets less and less frequent in the two novels! Now unto my own contentions. Contention One. So far there have been two volumes. And in those two volumes we have already seen a significance in Hibiki's and Ahito's behavior and strengths. In Hibiki's case, she was a mute little girl with her knees drawn up to her chest as she sat alone crying. But throughout her time with her master, she grows to be compassionate. It's not her fault that shes kindhearted and gets a bit teary eyed at those heart jerking moments. But she grew into and still is growing into a stronger, and kinder yet person who WILL be one heck ( and I quote ) of a magician. Contention Two. The potential in her. Do I really need to write this down once more? Her master saw it, the academy headmaster sees it currently. The End. Contention Three. Her 'new' kind of magic. That's part of the plot! She is going create a new magic that takes no sacrifice, it's point blank obvious. And it will be quite magical :]