BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Iran is a backwards country.

I'd just like to say I have no issue with utilizing Wikipedia as a source. Large, important articles such as the one for Iran is more than likely accurate and protected from vandalism. 1) At the time of the attempted modernization, the technological, infrastructural, and economic gap was so massive that any attempt at modernization was viewed as Westernizing, nearly synonymous to one another. 2) That is just as barbaric. In fact, a serious crime is "crimes against God", also known as Hadd. Hadd leads to a denial of the basic human right known as freedom of speech. I am unable to say anything negative about the religion of Islam or I face execution, Crucifixion, or amputation. 3) See above. Theocracies lead to backwards policies. 4). Which is great. However, this in no way supports your argument. 5). That isn't true. Other countries with no sanctions in place in the Middle East are just as backwards as Iran. Much like Saudi Arabia, where women just now gained the right to vote. Our argument not only pertains to the infrastructure/economy of Iran, but to their social policies as well. Social policy in Iran is incredibly barbaric. Gender inequality, denial of basic human rights, execution for being gay. Men who rape women have the ability to "pay" for their crime. That is literal. They give money to the victim to avoid any sort of punishment. This means a wealthy, land-owning male could rape as many women as he wants, as long as he can pay compensation or "Diyyeh." Iran is amazing backwards, assuming backwards is an antonym of progressive, such as equality for everyone regardless of sex, race, or sexual preference, basic human rights, fair punishments to crime, a system in which the little guy can still come out victorious, drug decriminalization and social safety nets. Iran lacks all of these.
Iran is a backwards country.

Well hello, glad you accepted. 1.) The reason for the Islamic Revolution was not because it was modernizing, more because it was becoming, "Westernized" it was becoming a lot different than the Shias of Iran would have liked. In their eyes, a lot of the western beliefs were completely contradictory to their beliefs. So they did not like the fact that it was becoming westernized, not modernized. Though they are somewhat the same, but not exactly. 2.) Although many Muslim countries are corrupt and use Sharia law, such as Saudi Arabia. Iran does not use Sharia law. Instead they use laws based off of Islamic values. 3.) Having a theocracy does not limit a countries ability to become modernized, though it limits it ability to become westernized 4.) After the revolution, there was a country just for Shia muslims. Shia muslims were heavily oppressed throughout the middle east for centuries. Iran is a safe haven for Shia Muslims, and saved countless lives. 5.) The only thing holding Iran back are the western sanctions. If they were not sanctioning, they could have became much stronger. https://en.wikipedia.org... - Use the sources they have there. https://en.wikipedia.org... https://en.wikipedia.org...
Iran is a backwards country.

The idea that an Iran with no Western allies is more progressive than the Pro-Western Shah is ludicrous. Throughout the majority of the 20th century, Iran was a strong ally of the United States. As usual with US-allied countries, they began to "Westernize" their society. This lead to a spike in their economy as they began to build infrastructure, modernizing their military, and reaping the benefits of their natural resources. The fact that Iran was becoming increasingly secular and Western aggravated some Shia's. The attempt to modernize Iran is cited as one of the reasons for the Revolution. Also, the idea that any one nation can be a theocracy and be considered "modern" is questionable. Most modernized nations are, on paper, secular states. Theocracies (especially Islamic states) generally have a poor human rights record, as Sharia law promotes brutal and unfair punishments for the minor transgressions. Another issue that plagues Islamic theocracies and is the extreme gender inequality. Women are denied certain economic, political, and even basic opportunities such as driving. Saudi Arabia is a prime example of what a theocratic state does to its constituents. Attempts to modernized by the government can be seen by their citizens as Western sympathy, as industry and capitalism are generally associated with the West. Furthermore, an accurate comparison to a Cold War Iran and a modern Iran may be difficult to assess. The Iran of the Cold War had more direct issues to deal with (such as their geopolitical enemy Iraq) than the modern day Iran. Post-Revolution Iran also had no allies during said war outside of Syria (fellow Shias) and North Korea. The Soviet Union and United States both publicly supported Iraq. The Iran-Contra issue can be addressed in later rounds.
Professional athletes get paid way too much

We live in a capitalistic society. Under capitalism, a person is paid capital slightly less than the profit that the employer thinks he will receive upon hiring the employee. Such is the exact same with sports [1]. The reason sports athletes are paid so much is because they are able to produce so much profit. Alex Rodriguez was obviously predicted to increase the revenue of the Yankees by millions, which naturally made a salary of millions seem reasonable. Society put this power in A-Rod's hands by deciding to pay more for games involving the skill of Alex Rodriguez; Alex Rodriguez produced lots of profit, and therefore deserved a portion of the profit he helped his employer receive. My opponent compares athletes to teachers, firefighters, and police officers. However, there are numerous reasons why they would not be paid nearly as much: 1. The competition is not as great for hiring those jobs. People don't put extreme value on how well a teacher can teach. One teacher might give a private school around $1,000 dollars more in profit per year over another teacher. Therefore, it would not make sense to give the better teacher an offer that is more than $1,000 over the offer to the other teacher. Parents would not be willing to pay the tuition for a private school that paid $2 million to every teacher. 2. Athletes appeal to a greater audience. When a police station hires policemen, only the local population is concerned about the skill of their police force. Let's say that in one city of 15,000 people, there are 30 working policemen. In order to pay the policemen $2 million each, the city would overall have to be taxed $60 million. This would amount to $4,000 per person. However, people are not willing to pay $4,000 of their own money in taxes towards their local police force. Therefore, a $2 million salary would be completely unreasonable. Meanwhile, an athlete appeals to a much greater audience. Millions of people are watching sports every day. Millions of dollars pour into the sports industry every day. If there are one million Yankee fans in the United States who would be willing to see A-Rod play over another player, and they each pay $50 over the course of the season (through tickets, refreshments, TV stations, advertisements, etc.), the Yankees profit $50 million off of A-Rod. A-Rod then receives about half of that. Finally, my opponent brings up the president. The president does not make $200,000 per year, but $400,000 [2], in addition to other various goodies such as expensive plane trips on Air Force One. The job of president is not determined by capitalism, but by democracy. Therefore, capitalistic principles cannot apply. If the government were to work under capitalism, we'd see presidents making more money, and probably being more successful. Blame democracy. In conclusion, capitalism justifies the high salaries of athletes. Good luck, ilovedebate. 1. http://tinyurl.com... 2. http://tinyurl.com...
Professional athletes get paid way too much

Thank you to whoever accepts my debate Let me start off... Professional athletes get paid way too much. Here are some statistics on the salaries of pro athletes. Profession Average salary (per year) Minimum starting salary Basketball player $2.2 million $220,000 Baseball player $1.37 million $109,000 Hockey player $892,000 $125,000 Football player $795,000 $131,000 In contrast • The average pay for classroom teachers in the United States is $38,000 per year. At that rate, a teacher would need a little more than 27 years to make $1 million — less than half what a basketball player makes, on average, in just one year. • The average pay for firefighters in the United States is around $40,000. • The starting salary for police officers in the United States is around $29,000. Do athletes deserve more money than fire- fighters or teachers — people who hold what many consider to be more valuable jobs? People who think pro athletes are overpaid say other, more important professions are more worthy. Police officers,firefighters, and doctors save lives sometimes while risking their own— for a fraction of what sports stars make. Soldiers defend and protect the country, sometimes giving their lives. Teachers are responsible for educating the country's children. The president of the United States earns $200,000 a year. Should the leader of the country make less money per year than a basketball player who is just starting out?
power metal is best music genre

Well power metal isn't really loud autotuned computer generated sounds . They use it good too also the vocals are easy to hear and they don't compete to be the loudest and seach the music video : glory to the brave- hammerfall on youtube and you'll see its slow and gentle and has real meaning and besides there are many famous power metal bands such as Dragonforce, Sabaton, Heavenly, Helloween, Masterplan, Stratovarious, Dark Moor, Kamelot, Nightwish and there from England, Sweden, America, Finland and many such places and musical theatre doesn't do it better on what it teaches besides since when have you heard these bands songs and really get to know them, their style, etc.. so power metal is better.
power metal is best music genre

Musical theatre also teaches of heroic deeds on the battlefield and has countless more songs with much greater meaning and that teach much greater lessons, and not only does it have amazing serious songs but musical theatre also has songs that can be extraordinarily funny (unlike power metal) and in musical theatre you can usually clearly hear every word that is being spoken (unlike power metal). musical theatre does in fact often use keyboards and guitars but unlike power metal it will often use an entire orchestra with a huge amount of different instruments that all flow together perfectly. power metal is just a bunch of computer generated sounds that all blast as loudly as possible and every aspect of each song in power metal is often competing for being the most heard so you will often not be able to properly hear anything. I am not sure what my opponent means by "since when does musical theatre have lyrics and anyways power metal has sub genres like symphonic power metal" if he/she means what I think they do they are completely wrong in insinuating that musical theatre does not have lyrics; those are usually the biggest part of every song, and unlike power metal it is an actual person singing, not a computer auto tuned sound, and in power music it is more of just talking fast and incomprehensibly instead of actually singing. I do not know what having a sub genre does at all to show that it is a good style of music but musical theatre has much much more subgenres that different songs can be classified under. thanks for the fun topic.
Prove me wrong

I know this seems like a complete d**k move (which it is), but I wasn't serious about this debate. I knew that I was using circular reasoning, and that it is a major logical fallacy. All I wanted to do was test the intelligence of people on this site, and see if they could even spot something as obvious as this fallacy. I knew very well that there was evidence against me, so, easy win for you. Congrats.
budget cuts.

When revenues from taxes and fees decline, government officials face a gap between projected revenue and planned expenditures. Unlike the federal government, which can borrow to finance its budget deficits, state and local governments must balance their budgets. For governments facing a budget deficit, balancing the budget means raising taxes, cutting spending or instituting a combination of both. Raising taxes is never popular but can be political suicide during an economic recession. Often, policy makers prefer to look for budget cuts as an alternative.
budget cuts.

In our economy today, we need to plan for the future and get America back on it's feet. To do this we must look to times in our history to see that Tax increases have done great for our economy, while spending cuts have done our economy wrong. We have to look and see clearly one side has a better argument and a better plan for the future. My opponent has failed to attack ANY of my main points, while i have disputed everything he has said. I leave you with this. .. What is Better? $1.6 Trillion in revenue, or $300 Billion in revenue. .. Clearly, Con has won todays debate. Thank you for your time, and I thank my opponent one last time. it was fun!
budget cuts.

To start off, many important points have to be look at here 1) my opponent fails to hive is any points in his case. He just rumbles on about how democrats are bad and republicans are good 2) he provides no evidence backing up anything of what he has said concerning point 1 above. 3) he has not attacked my points; therefore he must agree with them declaring me the victor 4) I have hard evidence supporting my side. Now that we have seen this, we must understand why I have won, however, let us still look at my opponents "accusations" and see why they are wrong. In our society, and government today, we are facing something we have never yet before faced, a fiscal cliff that will, and can, destroy every aspect on out lives as we know it. To avoid this from happening we see politicians trying to path either one or the other: tax increase or spending cuts. My opponent would like to ONLY attack the side of tax increase by calling them "democrats" and corlating them with evil (once again this is my opponent's ONLY arguement in the debate today). I, on the other hand, will show you plain and simple why tax increases will work. 1) historically in times of depression/recession (1950 and the 1990's) taxs have built up our economy; historically, spending cuts have only harmed us 2) if we look to other countries with high tax rates (belgium 54%, findland 49% and Germany around 45%) and see the highest GDPs on the world (8th, 10th and 14th) we see a correlation; where countries with spending cuts have the lowest GDPs. 3) what is genuinely better for the economy: $1.6 trillion in revenue with tax increase; or $300 billion (around 1/5th what tax increase will raise) in revenue while cutting social programs that are NEEDED! I think the choose is clear, on who has won the debate, and what the government is going to do in regaurds to the fiscal cliff. Thank you for you time. Now back to you Pro!
budget cuts.

: In the ongoing battle of the budget, President Obama has done something very cruel. Declaring that this time he won"t negotiate with himself, he has refused to lay out a proposal reflecting what he thinks Republicans want. Instead, he has demanded that Republicans themselves say, explicitly, what they want. And guess what: They can"t or won"t do it. No, really. While there has been a lot of bluster from the G.O.P. about how we should reduce the deficit with spending cuts, not tax increases, no leading figures on the Republican side have been able or willing to specify what, exactly, they want to cut. And there"s a reason for this reticence. ...Republican posturing on the deficit has always been a con game, a play on the innumeracy of voters and reporters. Now Mr. Obama has demanded that the G.O.P. put up or shut up " and the response is an aggrieved mumble. Here"s where we are right now: As his opening bid in negotiations, Mr. Obama has proposed raising about $1.6 trillion in additional revenue over the next decade, with the majority coming from letting the high-end Bush tax cuts expire and the rest from measures to limit tax deductions. He would also cut spending by about $400 billion... Republicans have howled in outrage. ... They say they want to rely mainly on spending cuts instead. Which spending cuts? Ah, that"s a mystery..., when you put Republicans on the spot and demand specifics about how they"re going to make good on their posturing about spending and deficits, they come up empty. There"s no there there. And there never was. ... Now Republicans find themselves boxed in. With taxes scheduled to rise on Jan. 1 in the absence of an agreement, they can"t play their usual game of just saying no to tax increases and pretending that they have a deficit reduction plan. And the president, by refusing to help them out by proposing G.O.P.-friendly spending cuts, has deprived them of political cover. If Republicans really want to slash popular programs, they will have to propose those cuts themselves. So while the fiscal cliff " still a bad name for the looming austerity bomb, but I guess we"re stuck with it " is a bad thing from an economic point of view, it has had at least one salutary political effect. For it has finally laid bare the con that has always been at the core of the G.O.P."s political strategy. thank you, this was fun, only 13 =)
Should abortion be legal

Your argument is relatively recent. There is a numeric value to human life. It is measured in dollars. If you make $8/hr, $16k/yr, for 30 years, your net income is about half a million. Median is two million, and the upper crust make billions. This is why the CEO and the Vice President of large corporations always travel in separate airplanes. If one were to die that would be horrible, if both, complete catastrophe. In 1850, a male slave was worth $100 if he was 30 years old, $10 if he was 5 years old, and fetuses had no value whatsoever. http://www.measuringworth.com...
There is no god/gods

God is necessary for explaining the gap. God gives man the capacity for science. Much of life may seem uncertain, but look at what we can count on day after day: gravity remains consistent, a hot cup of coffee left on a counter will get cold, the earth rotates in the same 24 hours, and the speed of light doesn't change -- on earth or in galaxies far from us. "The greatest scientists have been struck by how strange this is. There is no logical necessity for a universe that obeys rules, let alone one that abides by the rules of mathematics. This astonishment springs from the recognition that the universe doesn't have to behave this way. It is easy to imagine a universe in which conditions change unpredictably from instant to instant, or even a universe in which things pop in and out of existence." Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner for quantum electrodynamics, said, "Why nature is mathematical is a mystery...The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle." The proof that God has always been there is that God created the universe(s) and therefore he also created time. Before time existed God wouldn't age and if God didn't age then he wouldn't die either. Just because there is no scientific explanation for God this doesn't necessarily mean that God is non - existent. The reason that I am saying the Bible is incorrect is doing the opposite of assisting your point. By saying that the Bible is incorrect I am saying that some of the evidence you took from "Where the bible gets science wrong" may have originally been correct. After being passed down for generations it is very likely that some of the story was changed. Even if this information was originally wrong the Bible wasn't written by God himself it was written by his followers. Sources http://www.everystudent.com... http://www.apologeticspress.org... https://medium.com... https://answers.yahoo.com...
There is no god/gods

While the God of the gap issue is a diminishing one in how we present it we need to replace it with an understanding that there is no gap. God is all around and directly and indirectly steers our world view. Science can actually prove the existence of God. We"re at the right distance from our Sun so that temperatures are conducive to life. We have the right atmospheric pressure for liquid water at our surface. We have the right ingredients; the right balance of heavy elements and organic molecules for life to arise. We have the right amount of water so that our world has both oceans and continents. And life started on our world very early, sustained itself for our planet"s entire history, and gave rise to us: sentient, self-aware creatures. All this goes beyond the definition of a coincidence. It goes beyond the definition of a rare occurrence. We may not know exactly who God is and what he/she looks like but it is pretty clear that this is no coincidence. If there ever had been a time when absolutely nothing existed, then there would be nothing now, because it always is true that nothing produces nothing. If something exists now, then something always has existed. There is no contradiction to this because if there was then atheism wouldn't exist. You claim that we cannot see the effects of any deity upon our environment. The fact that our environment exists is an argument in favor of God's existence. If God has the capacity to create the universe (and possibly other universes) then it is very likely that he can disguise any evidence in favor of his existence if he wanted to. Your argument against the Old Testament is valid however for approximately 300 the bible was passed down orally and figures such as the Earth's age is easy to get wrong. It is clear that a lot of the bible isn't completely correct. Sources : https://answers.yahoo.com... (verified) https://medium.com... (verified) http://www.apologeticspress.org... (verified)
Occam's Razor Exploits Goodwill

My opponent is pretty much only saying that I ignored his arguments. I didn't ignore anything, in fact I've spent all my time in this debate explaining that pro doesn't seem to know what Occam's razor is and when you look at what Occam's razor actually says, pro's argument doesn't make any sense. There's no "trade off" if you use the real Occam's razor for the purpose it's meant to be used for. He's also muddying up my china-shop example to the point where he's not making sense on that point either. Like I've said, you can conclude on what the cause of an effect is. A conclusion isn't limited to effects. To conclude, there's no argument here for why Occam's razor exploits good will because 1. Pro never defined "goodwill" and 2. he's not even talking about Occam's razor. Pro says he's disappointed, well I'm disappointed in pro. He never even attempted to work in these two factors, so he has lost the debate.