No topic

RE: "-I am a psychic, and I am telling you, I have won this debate round." My opponent testifies that he is psychic, however, accepting testimony from the debaters in the debate is injudicious given that the debaters involved have the most incentive to lie. Ergo, you are not to accept PRO's testimony. Rather, if an independent party claims that he is psychic, it will be a different matter entirely. RE: "Now we will look to all the reasons why debate in itself is flawed and must be changed." No, we won't seriously look at those reasons. Kritiks in general are smelly and illogical. The fact of the matter is that the resolution asserts there is no topic. In R1, my opponent claimed to have won the debate. Exactly what does "Modern debate is bad" have to do with the topic or his round 1? Absolutely nothing. Thus, it is rather clear that my opponent has succumbed to the "moving the goal post" fallacy. I am not obligated to respond to his complaint about modern debate and have already won this debate on the basis that my opponent refuses to uphold his burden or debate on the actual subject for that matter. What my opponent has pulled is the equivalent to two people playing chess and one of those players claiming that the game is too hard, therefore he/she is the victor. In short, it's absolute nonsense. ----------->ALL IRRELEVANT MATTERS ARE POSTED BELOW Now with that said, I shall pull a rabbit out of my hat and refute the nonsense which my opponent had propagated anyway. RE:"This mindset is all too prevalent in debate today. "Prove it", prove what? That I have won this debate round? Must we question everything that we hear? What is the overall impact of me winning this debate round? Are people going to die? No. There is absolutely no reason to debate the fact whether I have won this debate round or not. 1) Yes, we ought to question everything we hear. Through questioning everything, we allow our knowledge on everything a chance to expand. As Samuel Johnson once said, "Knowledge is more than equivalent to force." Knowledge is power; the more knowledgeable we are, the more powerful we are. To add: It is because of knowledge that we are able to do great things. More often than not, knowledge even allows us the opportunity to prevent people from dying (granted, it can do the opposite, but the fact that it possesses such great capabilities is still noteworthy). 2) The impact of PRO winning this debate round would allow him the opportunity to expand your knowledge on matters in many ways. 3) Yes, people possibly could die or perhaps put themselves on a path to failure. Let us take for instance this debate. Here, my opponent has attempted to express the epitome of wit through "deceiving" me into accepting a seemingly easy debate so that he could pull off what one of the audience members claims to be an absurd kritik. However, as I've expressed in the comment section, taking this approach on this matter in arenas where argumentation ability is taken rather seriously (court rooms and presidential campaigns) can easily result in utter failure and perhaps even humiliation. If PRO wins this debate, he shall only continue to encourage this absurd debate tactic and will perhaps pay the price in a far more unforgiving arena in the future. Not to mention that using it in mere competition arenas is detrimental as well as has already been implied with the chess example I provided. RE:"These "prove it" mentality ruins the institution of what debate was meant to be" Oh really? In that case, I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult for PRO to cough up some evidence that shows what the institution of debate was actually "meant to be" and that requesting proof actually opposes it. RE: 3. "Modern debate is not discussion" 1)Modern debate that forces individuals to take a definite "pro" or "con" stance are debates which are started for the purpose of competition; they are not debates which serve the purpose of finding the truth or compromising; they are debates which are simply started to test one another individual's skill. Now if my opponent specifically meant this website, there are some who use it to compete with another and test out their skills whereas there are others who sum there positions up quite nicely and claim to be PRO. Those who disagree in even the slightest way take up these debates. Those who aren't sure whether or not they disagree have no desire to debate. It's a rather simple process and one in which compromise has managed to come about, given that debaters have shown themselves to be convinced by the position of another individual in the past. Of course, the above is merely applicable to formal debating. When individuals debate informally, there is no "official" pro or con stance being labled as the topic as we see here. It is merely two individuals randomly engaging one another in an argument. Now based on my opponent's logic, one would think that informal debates insure many compromises because of the lack of official labeling. However, through merely taking one quick peek into the forums on this website (especially the politics and religion board), debates are ongoing compromises are nearly non existent. Thus, this would suggest the lack of compromises does not come from where PRO has claimed them to come from. 2) As for me wishing to debate PRO on the issue through saying "prove it" at the beginning, we could just as easily turn this around and make PRO's logic applicable to himself. Indeed, as PRO simply stated that he "won the debate" at the beginning. No insistence upon compromising or anything. Rather, my opponent expressed himself as closed minded to other ideas given that he made a conclusion before the debate even started. Essentially, if I have fallen under this foul institution which my opponent claims to exist, then as has my opponent. 3) Debating allows equal opportunity for education granted that its a sport which relies on research. Not to mention that encourages individuals to think logically. To add, as we can see in formal debating, debaters are required to debate both sides of the issues they are given. In terms of bias, one is capable of debating without being manipulated by their own bias. This is because bias does not stem from debate itself, but rather one's own worldview manifested from one's upbringing. RE:"Debate makes this mindset worse by setting up an institution where we can gripe and complain about the status quo. And only allow our point of view to be heard." If this is the case, then my opponent must note the following: At the moment, he is debating in this very debate, thus is merely encouraging what he posits as being detrimental to society. Such a contradiction cannot be allowed Thus, he has no choice but to quit this debate immediately via forfeit (in other words, don't respond in the remaining rounds). If he is to do this, he shall be representing this argument. If he does not do this, he shall merely be negating it. Let me elaborate: If there is an evil which justice can never win over, what will you do? Will you dirty yourself by going evil against evil? Or will you follow justice, hence following your beliefs to the very end? No matter what decision you make, evil will remain. The same is applicable here: One cannot claim that debate is bad while upholding debate just as one cannot say abortion is bad while upholding abortion RE: " Only allows certain discourse" We would still be suppressing the thoughts of some beliefs regardless of whether or not we were to debate as we do now. Take for instance this debate in itself. My opponent's desires that this be the last debate and that we insist upon discussions in the future so that we may compromise. Little does he know that this action actually encourages suppresses the thoughts of one belief and that is the belief that "modern debate is good." Ergo, contradiction . . . ergo refuted argument. Engage . . .