BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Con's choice

Okay. Women should not get abortions for these simple reasons: If te woman slept with a guy, (not in cases of rape of coarse) then she knows ther is a chance of getting STDs or pregnant. People should not have sex, unless they are willing to devote 18+ years with the child. Abortions should be illegal, for everyday use. Abortion=murder murder=wrong wrong=illegal. Killing an unborn child is wrong, and should NEVER be practiced unless the mother's life is in danger. If their is no one willing to help raise the child then she shouldn't be getting pregnant should she? She can help it, the only virgin pregnancy I have ever heard of, your profile suggests you wouldn't even believe it happened. Thus if the woman made the chose to become pregnant she should live with the consiquences. Late term abortion: The child COULD be born healthy at any time between 6-10 months (3rd trimester), thus killing the child would be morally wrong. At least as wrong as killing a six month old (Already born) child. Killing is never acceptable by society. By those standards [late term]abortions should not be veiwed as socially acceptable, nor morally correct.
Creationism (con) vs Evolution (pro)

Hey, I see you're in quite a bit of debates so if you want to wait on this one I'm fine with that. BOP is shared. cre"a"tion"ism   [kree-ey-shuh-niz-uhm] 1. the doctrine that matter and all things were created, substantially as they now exist, by an omnipotent Creator, and not gradually evolved or developed. ev"o"lu"tion [ev-uh-loo-shuh n or, esp. British, ee-vuh-] In Biology. The change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift. (1)Acceptance (2)Opening arguments (3)Rebuttals (4)Rebuttals to the rebuttals and closing.
Religion is not false:

"Personally i do not believe religion is a bad thing necessarily as it provides a sense of purpose and meaning and gives humanity a reason to think that everything you do matters because anything you do will effect you in the afterlife. However I myself do not practice religion and here's why. Firstly their is little evidence to in fact support god or any deities existence to be true and I cannot bring myself to believe in something with little if any evidence to support." Actually this is not true, there is a lot of proof of G-d, here are a few links: http://www.divineinformation.com... http://www.divineinformation.com... Secondly religion does more harm than good as it causes and has caused at the very least 60+% of humanity's wars for a variety of reasons such as conflicting beliefs and values, corruption(I.E The catholic church 1520-1630+Modern era) Even odd or unusual practices (I.E beheading animals to cleanse oneself of sin, covering both your hands in hives of tropical bullet wasps to become a man, chanting odd or even threatening sounds even BURNING PEOPLE ALIVE). The Catholic Church was so messed up because #1 They were Christians, and #2 Ob-course your Church is going to have some issues if your mission statement is "go forth and conquer and to conquer," no joke! This was Constantine's (the founder of Catholicism) "revelation" from god that told him to start the catholic Church. #3, Catholicism was founded by Constantine, who raped and killed his sister, yeah. The rest are pagan rituals which really have no relevance to this debate, anyway, I challenge you to prove any of this is true with Judaism or Sikhism. "Thirdly it causes IMMENSE amounts of legal,verbal and social tension causing schools/workplaces/manufacturers to never speak of it or be drowned in lawsuits because it's "Offensive." The same could be said about opposing political views. "Finally religion in many cases has severely halted technological development most notably the middle ages and feudal japan with many more such instances appearing throughout history. Thank you for reading my argument and I hope that you will chose my side." Technology advanced slowly through the middle ages because the Catholic Church made everyone believe in what they believe in, this was a religious institution, not religion itself. Feudal Japan advanced slowly because they isolated themselves from the rest of the planet so new ideas couldn't get in, and the majority of their population was slaves (serfs, it's the same thing though) , and that means that the majority of their geniuses are slaves and cannot advance technology.
Religion is not false:

Personally i do not believe religion is a bad thing necessarily as it provides a sense of purpose and meaning and gives humanity a reason to think that everything you do matters because anything you do will effect you in the afterlife. However I myself do not practice religion and here's why. Firstly their is little evidence to in fact support god or any deities existence to be true and I cannot bring myself to believe in something with little if any evidence to support. Secondly religion does more harm than good as it causes and has caused at the very least 60+% of humanity's wars for a variety of reasons such as conflicting beliefs and values, corruption(I.E The catholic church 1520-1630+Modern era) Even odd or unusual practices (I.E beheading animals to cleanse oneself of sin, covering both your hands in hives of tropical bullet wasps to become a man, chanting odd or even threatening sounds even BURNING PEOPLE ALIVE). Thirdly it causes IMMENSE amounts of legal,verbal and social tension causing schools/workplaces/manufacturers to never speak of it or be drowned in lawsuits because it's "Offensive". Finally religion in many cases has severely halted technological development most notably the middle ages and feudal japan with many more such instances appearing throughout history. Thank you for reading my argument and I hope that you will chose my side.
smoking kills

Cigarettes' hazard comes from their addictive nature, which cannot take place without the innate human desire. From this, it can be concluded that it is not the action of smoking that affects the human health directly, but rather, the elements of human desire that fuel the human to keep doing what might be hazardous. If the act of smoking itself is deadly, as you say, then it should be capable of killing people regardless of the presence of human desire. Again, since the presence of human desire is the ultimate source of addiction, human desire should be considered to be carrying more risk than cigarettes are. If you had said that the substances in the cigarettes are bad for human bodies, then it would have made more sense than to having said that the act of smoking, itself, leads people to DEATH. If you want to continue with the debate, I'm more than fine. However, if you are intending to keep forfeiting the rounds, I don't see any reason to continue such a debate, a debate in which only one side is engaged, that is.
smoking kills

Majority of the content of the cigarettes are consisted of a chemical substance called "Nicotines." The chemical additives come to you as deadly chemicals, but their primary roles are getting the users addicted to them. Therefore, without Nicotines (or other minor addictive chemicals), people are not bound to smoke as much as they would've with them. So this is the sequence of the "smoking" most people think about. 1. He/She smokes. 2. Nicotine takes effect. 3. For the second time, the person smokes. 4. The person gets addicted. 5. The person is led to death. One step must be added above, between 2 and 3, that is. It is: Human desire is activated. Yes, Nicotine affects the human brain to influence our actions. However, that "action" is from the innate element of "desire" that human beings have. If humans did not have desire to obtain what they want, then they wouldn't be affected by Nicotine, consequently not repeating the action of "smoking," and hence, avoiding the death. This clearly states that human desire is to blame for the effects of smoking, not the action itself. It is now time for my second point. •smoke: the act of smoking tobacco or other substances wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn As it is stated above, smoking is the act of smoking tabacco or other substances, not the repetition of it. Without the repetition, smoking does not take effect on human body. To sum it up, the hazard of smoking comes from addiction, which comes from Nicotines, which affects the human brain, which cannot take effect without the innate elements of human desire. Your argument was not specified enough in the sense of definition of the word, itself. I'm looking forward to your argument.
You should never believe anything on insufficient evidence

True, but the point is that all of those things are due to people"s actions[ri], not the belief itself[q]. In "The ethics of belief" by William K. Clifford, he says, "Even when a man"s belief is so fixed that he cannot think otherwise, he still has a choice in the action"[s]. Therefore, beliefs[ec] do not directly lead to harm[re], people"s actions[ec] lead to harm[re].
You should never believe anything on insufficient evidence

However, in many instances, religion does affect others [ri] because many extremely religious people try to influence the behaviors of others and even governmental policies [s]. Two major issues that they fight against are gay rights and abortion [q], which gives millions of people struggles everyday [i]. Now to address your second point, there is actually evidence to justify believing in religion [ri]. to quote Allen Wood, "You should believe what evidence or rational argument justifies you you believing, and with the strength that evidence or argument justifies it."[s]. In this case, that evidence would be the Bible [q].
You should never believe anything on insufficient evidence

What about religion?[i] People believe in religion without any real evidence and it does not cause any harm to anyone [ri]. And as William James said "Weigh what gains and your losses would be if you should stake all you have on heads, or God"s existence: if you win in such case, you gain eternal beatitude; if you lose, you lose nothing at all." [s] Basically, if you are right [ec], you gain the rewards [re], if you are wrong [ec], you suffer the consequences [re]. It does not affect anyone else.[q]
You should never believe anything on insufficient evidence

Not having evidence [ec] can lead you to have a belief that isn"t true [re]. One might say that it is fine to hold an untrue belief [i] so long as it only affects the person who holds the belief [q]. However, in the words of William K. Clifford, " No one man"s belief is in any case a private matter which concerns himself alone" [ri]. Since a person"s beliefs shape his actions [s] and all actions affect others in one way or another [s], then there is no way to hold a belief without it affecting someone else [ri]. And when that belief is an untrue one [ec], the holder is disadvantaging others [re].
I would like to get the ball rolling on this most provocative of topics, national health care.

Since my opponent has forfeited, all my arguments still stand and therefore I win the round. I will use this round to refute "Conservative", a commenter on this debate who I think shares the same view as my opponent and basically summarizes most of the points presented by the anti-NHC-system side of this issue. Yes I do, "conservative". If I am rich and I have the ability to help other people, I have the obligation to help them. It's similar to seeing a drowning person: You currently are in the position to save a drowning person, and that person is going to die; I believe that you have an obligation to save him/her. The only reasons you WOULDN'T be obligated is 1) if you're drowning yourself, then I would argue that you're justified in saving yourself first, and 2) you're not able to swim. If we're in a society, and one person has the ability to look out for others, and he doesn't need all that excess money, then he should be helping other people. If I am making accusations about them, the only thing I am saying is that they're not fulfilling their obligation As for "busting their @$$ all day long", just compare the work an office person or a CEO of a car factory does compared to the guy actually putting the pieces onto the car. There's a big difference between who's putting more effort into it. Your "seeing many poor people not working" is exactly the same as my argument of rich people bathing in gold. Both of the arguments are conditional and therefore nonunique. Even then, I have two responses: 1) Some of the people you see not working are not hired by companies because those people are homeless, and therefore they're not able to work. Regardless, this does not take out my argument. 2) There are a lot of poor people that ARE working, and my example of higher paying work compared to lower paying work stands true. However, as a society we ought to be helping each other, and as human beings we have the obligation to help those in need. Unless you advocate that others shouldn't help you when YOU'RE in need Unless you advocate the dehumanization of other citizens, You have the moral obligation to vote PRO. As for all the 'economic problems' and 'how do we pay for this national healthcare", I have already proven that it will work in my previous rounds, citing other empirical examples where it has worked.
I would like to get the ball rolling on this most provocative of topics, national health care.

Oh, so it's about the practicality of the system. Well, I think it was explained pretty well in Michael Moore's "Sicko" that if just about every other industrialized government in the world from France to Cuba can afford to give healthcare, there's no reason why the United States can't afford to give it as well. As for "the people who cannot afford to pay", well, we care for them too. There's this whole thing in America about only caring for yourself - Well, what happened to caring about other people? Like seriously? Okay, I agree, that's getting back into the whole moral-just-mushy area, but if France, England and Cuba can afford to pay for their citizens who CAN'T afford to pay for the healthcare, and America has the most amount of billionaires in the world, how CAN'T we afford to pay for those sick homeless and broke people? Oh yeah, and it's not like everyone pays $X000 dollars a year; it's a certain percentage of everyone's income. That's how things will work out; everyone helps out each other. I sincerely believe that if we told corporations to suck up their **** and if we stopped letting the Healthcare Industry boss us around, if we stopped letting rich people just bathe in their own gold while not giving a freakin' **** about the people around them dying from the simplest things, we could implement a healthcare system that would work. Yes, in the United States.
I would like to get the ball rolling on this most provocative of topics, national health care.

Sorry about the poor post; I am not stating that I in any way, shape or form am trying to deface the health care recipient or trying to take stabs at a national health care system. It seems to me it would place a large burden on the government, ideologically it holds sound yet when tried practically, well D'Holdback could have sparred in other ways. The problem lies with people who cannot pay for their health care; are they to receive care with the governments and therefore tax payers money? I am not debating whether this is a moral issue or not, I am concerned if a national healthcare system would work out practically. Let us lay the framework out and see where it lies.
I would like to get the ball rolling on this most provocative of topics, national health care.

You want my opinion on National Healthcare, you got it. Here are my opinions about the healthcare industry. (I'm assuming we're basically talking here about our beliefs and then go on to prove why either of our beliefs are illogical?) Mmkay. My beliefs: There's a sick person. There's a doctor. Sick person. Doctor. Sick person pay doctor. Doctor cure sick person. American system: There's a sick person. There's a doctor. There's a middleman. Called the Healthcare Industry. Sick person. Healthcare Industry. Doctor. Sick person pay 100 dollars to Healthcare Industry. Healthcare Industry pays 100-X dollars to doctor. Doctor cure sick person. There is NO REASON WHATSOEVER why there needs to be a middleman between the sick person and the doctor. If it was possible, I'd just advocate that there is a direct link between doctors and patients, but nowadays, with all the new equipment, methods, etc etc etc, there needs to be someone that pays for it. I think that it's better that the government provides it, because all citizens are due health, and because its a better alternative to the system we have now. The system we have now basically spews propaganda to the people about how the healthcare industry cares about the people living around, when clearly, they pay the doctors and they pay their employees bonuses every time they exclude someone. I believe that is immoral. But regardless of morality or immorality, I simply do not see why we NEED a middleman. Again, the only justification is that there needs to be a money flow, and I say that since individuals (generally) don't have that sort of money, the government ought to pay for it. Some people bring up arguments that national HC means big taxes blah blah blah but when I hear this, I basically believe that it's a fallacious argument and they don't really think about what they're talking about. Generally speaking, people acknowledge that humans are worth something, and we shouldn't discriminate, dehumanize, exclude or enslave other people. However when people say that we can't afford a tax increase because the economy can't take it, they're basically saying that the cash flow of the world is more important than the lives of several million citizens. And even if that's not true, I don't see how tax increases will crash the stock market. Then again, I haven't taken Econ yet. I dunno. I just think that providing national healthcare is a just and moral thing to do.
I would like to get the ball rolling on this most provocative of topics, national health care.

I believe that a national health care system would cause Americans to become even more apathetic to their own health and or well being. This would thus fall, as if a yolk, on the back of all of the bourgeois and cause taxes to increase significantly. Please understand that this argument is based on American society, I am more interested in your opinion than just enforcing my own. Also realize that I have sympathy for the insurance industry and thus would like our current system to promulgate. Fire away.
Progressive Tax

I hope you realize that isn't going to fly. That is anecdotal evidence at best utter nonsense at worst. If that is the case, I'd love to see your tax returns. But you have yet to provide them or to cite any figures. Isn't that interesting? The CBO doesn't lie, and the CBO numbers are in stark contrast to what you have said. I wasn't speaking about where I live. I was giving you objective facts. You gave me nothing but inaccuracies, distortions, and anecdotes. Conclusion:Con has dropped all of my arguments and provided no facts whatsoever.
Electric cars are better then gas cars

First, they may cost more but i stand by my statement of "electric cars cost less maintenance wise." Yes, they do cost a lot, but their over all expenses are lower if not equal to that of a combustion engine vehicle. If you buy a combustion engine vehicle and a electric car at the same price you will save a lot more on the electric car fuel and parts wise. Now here is my counter :)The most obvious advantage of electric car batteries is that they don't produce the pollution associated with internal combustion engines. However, they still have environmental costs. The electricity used to recharge electric car batteries has to come from somewhere, and right now, most electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels. Of course, this produces pollution. But how does the pollution produced by burning fossil fuels to recharge electric car batteries compare to the pollution produced by internal combustion engines? According to the Electric Vehicle Association of Canada, or EVAC, even electric vehicles recharged from coal-powered electric generators cut carbon emission roughly in half. Electric cars recharged from cleaner forms of electrical power generation, such as hydro-power and nuclear plants, can reduce carbon emissions to less than one percent of those currently produced by internal combustion engines. So, even in the worst case scenario, cars operated by electric vehicles batteries are cleaner than gas-powered cars. your move buddy. :Dsighted from wiki, forbes, EVAC
Electric cars are better then gas cars

I am a great advocate of green energy and of alternative fuels and believe that more research should be done into the field of electric. However, I took your debate as your first statement gave the impression that electric cars are better than petrol or gas based cars now, without speculation over future advancements, which I think is not the case. Before I move on to the body of my argument against the motion in latter rounds, I would first like to response to the statements of s14tharsh in his opening. - 'Cheaper per mile fuel and maintenance wise' While electric cars are cheaper per mile for fuel, overall electric cars are still more expensive to run than their conventional counterparts, in fact the total 'cost of ownership, which includes the upfront price and running coasts such as fuel and insurance – of electric vehicles is currently around £5000 more than petrol and diesel cars' [1]. Not only is an electric car more expensive to run, but the depreciation of its value is also far greater than it's alternatives: Depreciation by fuel type [2] Fuel type/average retained value after three years: Petrol/electric hybrid 45.3% Diesel 44.7% Petrol 43.6% Electric 20.2% - 'Electricity is a renewable resource and doesn't cost much to use' I think I addressed the cost of electric cars in the previous paragraph so I won't go over that again, however the statement that Electricity is a renewable resource I find quite naïve. - http://www.eia.gov... In fact the percentage of energy for US consumption, rather than generation, that comes from renewable sources reaches only 10% [3] - 'Electric cars now have the ability to get decent range miles and match cars per fill up.' Electric cars are gradually gaining quicker charge times and longer range miles – but currently, they still don't compare. 'Most electric vehicles can only go about 100–200 miles before recharging gasoline vehicles can go over 300 miles before refuelling. Fully recharging the battery pack can take 4 to 8 hours. Even a "quick charge" to 80% capacity can take 30 min.' [4] I think you'll agree that this is not really a 'match'. Sources [1] Influences on the Low Carbon Car Market 2020–2030 - http://www.lowcvp.org.uk... on the Low Carbon Car Market from 2020-2030 - Final Report 010811_pdf.pdf [2] research from car pricing expert CAP Automotive - http://www.cap.co.uk...[3] http://www.eia.gov... [4] United states environmental protection agency - http://www.epa.gov...
Blacks Lives Matter is a terrorist group

My opponent is right that there are people who are in the wide umbrella of Black Lives Matter that qualify as terrorists. However, the core group, the group that focuses on the ideals of Black Lives Matter, those ideals being 1) preservation of life and 2) equal treatment regardless of race, are not terrorists. The specific incidents that my opponent points out are dramatic and news-worthy because they are rare. If these incidents occurred all the time, then nobody would care, but they don't. Their rarity in the news, and the fact they make it into the news, indicates that the group is not often committing these crimes and acts of terrorism. Therefore, we should treat the group as we should treat Muslims, mostly good, but with a couple bad apples.