BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Are Direct Taxes Bad

I would like to address Pro's rather ignoble comments before I close. I accused Pro of little economic understanding because he uses economic terms loosely and confusingly. Further, he claims that no relationship exists between taxation and inflation, and any economic students can tell you otherwise. Pro decided to respond by accusing me of little economic understanding, without explaining his reasons.I don't understand what Pro means by a non-factual debate; did he intend to manufacture his own version of how economies work? Why call the debate theoretical and then bring in the USA for context, is that not a violation of Pro's own rules?Pro says that I do not understand the economic system of the USA, but nowhere in his opening argument did he mention that the debate centres around the US economy. I am not American, and I assumed that the debate applied to economies in general. Even so, Pro did not realize that the US has one of the most progressive systems of taxation in the world. All this says is that he does not understand his own economy.Pro made some more strange arguments about charity in his closing lines, as though he does not realize that charitable donations are tax-deductible. I shall leave the voters to determine that.My arguments are all sound, and Pro has failed to uphold his end of the debate. He may accuse me of violating the rules (which I frankly still do not understand) but it was Pro who brought in the USA for context first. I urge voters to read the debate carefully and vote wisely.
Are Direct Taxes Bad

I am surprised that con does not realize he is the one with little economic understanding. He has also failed to provided his philosophical debate and instead turned away from the rules of this debate and made it a factual one. I'll keep this short and to the point. For my closing statement I will start out that con has presented an argument to which he has shown he does not understand the core values and economic system of the United States. For the points that I stated of, it kills incentive, it hurts the economy in total by deystroying business and lowering the amount of charity, and finally that taxes aren't needed for the function of government. I urge a vote in affirmation. Also since my opponent failed to comply with the rules of this being a philosophical debate not factual.
Are Direct Taxes Bad

I am astonished at Pro's lack of economic understanding. I shall begin by rebutting Pro’s initial arguments.1. Direct taxes kill incentiveDirect taxes, unless progressive, do not “kill incentive”. Incentive to work harder is “killed” when an individual pays more tax as his income increases. This “kills” the incentive to work harder, because the reward is disproportional to the non-economic costs of working harder (spending less time with family etc.). Income tax does not encourage unemployment, because people have financial obligations to fulfil regardless. Pro is therefore incorrect to suggest that direct taxes “kill incentive”.2. Direct taxes hurt the economyThe government does not hide tax revenue in a broom closet. It spends it by purchasing public and merit goods and services from local businesses. While it is true that individual consumption is reduced, this is more than made up for by government expenditure in the economy, which is a component of aggregate demand. The money stays flowing in the economy. Pro’s argument makes zero sense. For the benefit of voters, aggregate demand = private consumption + private investment + government expenditure + net value of exports.3. Direct taxes are unnecessary for the government to functionThe world’s understanding of macroeconomics was greatly enhanced during the Great Depression, when J.M. Keynes’ explained previously inexplicable phenomena. Since then, governments worldwide rely on fiscal and monetary policy (both of which rely on manipulating taxes) to influence aggregate demand and control the economy. Pro is incorrect to say that it is unnecessary, just because it was not in use before 1911. Pro should bear in mind that the global economy has changed tremendously since 1911.I shall now deal with Pro’s rebuttals to my arguments.1. Income inequalityI am not American and Pro never specified that U.S. is the country we are using. Nonetheless, I am surprised at his conviction that progressive taxation “cannot be allowed in our society”, given that the US has one of the most progressive systems of taxation in the developed world. I shall leave Pro to introspect. Indirect taxes are regressive, not progressive, and I have quoted a source in comments for Pro’s reference.2. InflationPro has confused “inflation” with “quantitative easing”. Inflation is a sustained increase in general price levels as a result of increased aggregate demand or increased costs of production. Direct taxes reduce spending and thereby control the rate of increase of prices. I shall leave Pro to introspect.3. Public and merit goodsPro agrees that taxes are used for societal benefit. He cannot then say that they are inherently bad, even if they are unnecessary.I am convinced that Pro has at best a sketchy understanding of macroeconomics. His confusion over economic policy and political ideology, and his misunderstanding of basic economic terms such as “inflation” shows just that. I look forward to seeing his response.
Are Direct Taxes Bad

"Direct taxes are used to counter income inequality" That statement is not only invalid but it is constitutionally wrong. We are a capitalist country founded on principles that protect a persons right to the fruits of their labor. To redistribute wealth is a extremely socialist its practice and it cannot be allowed in our society. On then contrary if lower income people aren't taxed, they have a chance for increased wealth. As for indirect taxes, they aren't progressive as they only hurt those who can't control their spending. "Direct taxes counter inflation" Taxes have nothing to do with inflation at all since inflation is over producing money. Therefore that argument is invalid 100%. "Direct taxes are used to produce public and merit goods" All you mention in this point is great, which is exactly why we have indirect taxes like sales and goods tax as well as tariffs, etc. These taxes would be collected at a Federal and state level and local level so three different sources of revenue would be able to pay for these things still, the direct taxes aren't necessary. All the public workers would also be able to be be given lower wages as they wouldn't be losing any money anymore! So less money would be needed to be spent on wages by the government. I conclude that my opponent brought up socialist ideology, and failed to provide logical evidence that only direct taxes can pay for goods. Over to my opponent for his Rebuttles.
Are Direct Taxes Bad

That"s a very interesting set of arguments from my opponent. Under Pro's rules, I will only counter them in the next round. "Bad" is a relative term, so I have defined it as an action leading to a situation inimical to the benefit of its payees.1. Direct taxes are used to counter income inequalityDirect taxes, as opposed to indirect taxes, are beneficial because they serve a redistributive role in an economy. Indirect taxes (such as a Goods & Services Tax) are regressive, because they form a larger percentage of the income of lower-income groups than higher-income groups. This causes income inequality to worsen. Income tax on the other hand, which is a direct tax, is pegged to income levels. At the very least, each income groups pays tax proportional to its income. In most countries, income tax is progressive, so higher income groups pay a larger percentage of their income as tax. Direct tax therefore is used to counter income inequality.Reduced income inequality can lead to an improved state of technology (since more people benefit from research and development) and a society with lower levels of crime, disease and poverty. These are all beneficial to all members of society. Consequently, direct taxes are not inherently bad.2. Direct taxes counter inflationGovernments often use direct taxes to influence aggregate demand in an economy. For example, when countries see strong economic growth (of the equitable kind), its citizens become more inclined to increase their private expenditure on goods and services. On a large scale, it can cause demand-pull inflation. In order to prevent the economy from running into an inflationary spiral (uncontrollable inflation), governments may raise income taxes. This reduces the disposable income of its citizens, and disinclines them to spend lavishly on non-necessary goods and services. In the process, the government is able to counter the ill-effects of hyperinflation and an inflationary spiral. Hyperinflation and inflationary spirals affect all income groups negatively. Examples (Source 1) include Hungary in 1945, which eventually saw the erosion of its middle class, or Zimbabwe in 2008, which saw a 50% collapse in output over the following nine years.3. Direc taxes are used to produce public and merit goodsDirect taxes are not inherently "bad" because they are meant for social benefit. The collected tax is eventually used on public and merit goods, such as infrastructure, roads, parks, law enforcement, civil defence and in some countries, social welfare too. Since these taxes are going towards the collective benefit of its payees, it is incorrect to suggest that they are inherently "bad".I conclude that direct taxes are not bad. Over to my opponent.Sources used:1. Boesler, Matthew. "How 9 Countries Saw Inflation Evolve Into Hyperinflation." Business Insider. October 5, 2013. Accessed March 27, 2015. http://www.businessinsider.com...
Are Direct Taxes Bad

Good luck to my opponent. For centuries taxes have been the sources of wars like the Ameran revolution, and have been the source for governments to function corruptly. For the following three reasons I present why Direct Taxes are theoretically bad for society. 1) Direct Taxes kill incentive Incentive is what makes your average person get up to work everyday and do his/her job to make money and help society. The incentive of which we speak is infact money. Any argument against that is false as it has been proven incentive is needed to work, communism tried to elemenate incentive and it failed dramatically. When a persons income is directly taxed or their property that then pay for or their utility, it leads to there incentive to take a down turn. When a person gets the big IRS letter that's complicated and annoying about paying your income tax you feel as if you are being stolen from, I do every time I get that letter for my work. 2) Direct Taxes Hurt the Economy When a person is taxed on their income or any other direct function, they have less money to spend. When they have less money to spend they are less inclined to go out and spend money at business' and such, which in turn brings in less revenue for that business and causes it to shut down. We then have a dominio effect of business shutting down and our economy collapsing. Business relies on consumers and consumers rely on the amount of money they make, direct taxes steal some of that money. 3) Direct Taxes are not needed for government function It was only in 1911 that the income tax became a law. For a long time the government did just fine without taxing the people directly, voluntary taxes such as sales and tariffs all brought in enough revenue for the government. In line with that their are many charity organizations that handle all the problems that government tries to deal with today. When people aren't directly taxed they can then donate more money to these organizations who will truly use that money for the right purpose instead of hoping our government doesn't wastefully spend it. As I have shown, direct taxes: lower incentive to work, hurt the economy all around, not needed for the government, and lower charitable donations.
Are Direct Taxes Bad

As pro I will be arguing that taxes are theoretically bad for society. Con will argue that they are theoretically good. This is a philosophical debate. No sources are needed as it all comes from a personal philosophical point of view. ---------------------------- Round 1: Acceptance Round 2: 3 point argument (no Rebuttles and no more than 3 points) Round 3: Rebuttles (no bringing up new info, just debunking statements) Round 4: Closing Statements (No Rebuttles, just closing off your argument with a statement, no more than 2 paragraphs.) Direct Taxes: Income, Property, etc. (Taxes imposed directly on an individual, not sales tax!)
All Races Can Be Racist

Racism isn't exclusive to whites/Europeans, And isn't only directed to minorities. It's possible for any minority to be racist and have racial prejudice. People like Sarah Jeong are direct evidence that anybody can be racist and anybody can be a victim of racism. You don't have to be in a "position of power" to be racist. Racism is prejudice, Discrimination, Or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior. And anybody can be racist.
All Races Can Be Racist

Why would you think that Jews are sub-human? Jews are homo sapiens, Just like Africans, Arabs, Caucasians, Asians, Etc. Jews are human. That is a biological fact which you can't deny. It doesn't matter if you 'believe' that Jews are less than human, Because biology and millions of scientists say otherwise. Are we really going to turn this into an anti-Semitism argument?
The argument from irreducible complexity fails

The debate resolution is as it stands, based on a comment in the forum asking for a challenge. As such, I challenge my opponent to the debate. For ease's sake, my opponent should make a quick syllogism of his argument in round one in order to avoid any possibility of strawmanning or misinterpreting my opponent's case.The burden of proof is on my opponent to present the argument, while I have the burden of rejoiner (I must refute his argument to win the debate). This is because, assuming that no-one posts anything, we cannot assume the success of an argument. However, once it is created, then it clearly is important in the debate for me to refute the argument.With that, I'll await my opponent.
The argument from irreducible complexity fails

I will post the original argument on the forums, but I hope my opponent will not mind if I make some amendments and additions."Irreducible complexity is unbeatable. To refute it, the evolutionist must prove nothing has irreducible complexity, while the non-evolutionist must prove there is but one organism that has. [I'm not expecting you to do this, obviously] Even Darwin knew this."If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." Charles Darwin, The Origin of the SpeciesAlso, I think I may have come up with the best and most obvious example of irreducible complexity ever. The Respiratory System. This includes the the blood, blood vessels, heart, lungs, [gills in fish] digestive system and muscle cells. Each one is useless without all the others.[Here are some other good examples: Blood clotting system Bacterial flagellum ]I invite anyone who wishes to challenge this conclusion."
Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs: bad for humanity

The first, minor point I want to make is that these CFL bulbs are not brighter, I know several people who substituted supposedly equivalent CFL's for incandescents and have noted that they are much dimmer and take an irritatingly long time to come to full brightness. The major point that I contend is that CFL's contain mercury, which is a neurotoxin and an environmentally hazardous chemical. While these bulbs have less mercury than old thermometers, how many CFL's are there as compared to the numbers of thermometers per house? And how many thermometers are broken, releasing toxic mercury into the environment? This mercury will leak into the water table, polluting our environment and compromising human health when it infiltrates the water table. Although there is a law for proper disposal of these bulbs, many people are either not informed of their hazards or unable to conveniently dispose of them. Further added to that is the fact that your insignificant energy/money savings would disappear when you have to open the windows of your house and shut off your heating/AC system, then reheat or recool your house. The energy savings (which are shrinking, since we now discover that they last a shorter time than first thought) that you do accumulate would be negated by the shattering of one bulb, especially if you live in a cold region like I do. And the question must be asked--why should we do this anyway? The pseudoscience of anthropognic carbon dioxide based warming is dubious at best and most likely a fraud, but that's the subject for another debate! Eventually, you cannot escape the fact that the mercury contained in these bulbs is going to be detrimental to both humanity and the earth they are designed to protect.
Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs: bad for humanity

Since this is a two round debate, I will make my arguments in R1, and attempt to refute Pro's R2 arguments in my R2. Since I am Con, and defending against the claim that CFLs are "bad for humanity," there is not a lot of arguing I can do this round, but I will address that they use less energy than our current standard method. You can go to any store that sells lightbulbs and take a look at how much energy the use, and how much light they produce. We can see that CFL's have a far greater light (lumens) to energy (watts) ratio than incandescents [1][2]. An 18w CFL (which has 1150 lumens [1]) is about the same as a 75w Incandescent (which has 1190 lumens [2]). So we can see that the main effects of the blubs are not harmful, all that is left is to look at the side effects or un-seen effects. At this point, I will let my opponent bring up any arguments that he wishes, and I will address them in R2. Thank you, [1] . http://www.energyfederation.org... [2] . http://www.ccri.edu...
Evolution is true, Creationism is false.

No, "merely assuming" does not apply to my argument. Moses was a primary source. Obviously he did not have a "God phone." He prayed and God spoke to him. Anyway, I do not just have the Bible as my only source. Didn't you even read my last argument? At the end, I cited Thomas Aquinas. At other points, I cited certain websites, one of which was pro-evolution.We do not have wars to survive. Many times, we have wars out of greed, conflict or other reasons that only a human could understand. Pollution is pretty much all man-made. There are some natural forms, but it is mostly all man-made. Evolution is supposed to have organisms adapt to problems like these. However, we are not really adapting to said problems. We are barely making it through and many organisms are dying off from it.According to Biblical scholars, the world is only about 6000-8000 years old. Even if God made them in the Pangaea position, the tectonic plates would not have enough time to move. I am not denying that they are not moving, but as Thomas Aquinas said, "As in the case of motion, nothing can cause itself, and an infinite chain of causation is impossible, so there must be a First Cause, called God."https://en.wikipedia.org...God does not take credit for everything. God created gravity, light, atoms and all of those things. Nobody calls those things "God." I don't name everything I create after myself, and I do not know anyone who does that.I now have to go to church to worship my God, who created everything in six days. Thank you for debating.
Evolution is true, Creationism is false.

Creationism has plenty of evidence stating that it exists. First of all, I would like to state that I have an Old Earth Creationists approach to this debate. I believe that the universe was created by God, but I do not necessarily believe that it was created in a week. I accept the age of the universe and the age of the earth, but I do not believe in evolution. Secondly, I would like to ask why would humans evolve from apes? We have no natural defense mechanisms. We can barely defend ourselves better than a common domestic pig, without weapons. Weapons really are the only things that allow us to defend ourselves. Without them, we would be sunk.Evolution is only a theory. That means that it can very well be false. You state that there is tons of evidence supporting evolution. Please state what that evidence is.When it comes to ancient human fossils, they were either human or ape. There were no such things as Neanderthals. They were just disfigured human remains. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that we are progressively moving closer towards disorder, however, evolution implies an improvement of species. Please explain how a theory can counteract a scientific theory.http://io9.gizmodo.com...
Republican Presidents increase the US debt more than Democrats

I would like Con to consider alternative causes to increased debt. Republicans have historically been notorious for proposing tax cuts. Tax cuts can add to the debt just as much as spending more can. Also, Defense spending is an area Republicans notoriously advocate spending a large amount. Therefore, The data I have provided in Round 2 makes perfect sense, And I use that to come to my conclusion. Con seems to be using perceptions and stereotypes instead of the data. Thank you for the debate. Next time, It would be greatly appreciated if you followed the rules.
Republican Presidents increase the US debt more than Democrats

I was hoping to have a well-versed economic discussion, But unfortunately, My opponent has chosen to not follow the rules of the debate and has submitted their argument in the acceptance round. I get the feeling that Con did not even read the rules. I am interpreting this as a forfeit a victory for Pro. Even though I have won via default, I would like to make Pro aware of the data regarding the debt. Since 1945, The best two presidents regarding the debt have been Clinton and Truman (1). Truman did not even increase the debt, While Clinton did at an average rate of only 2. 8% per year. Historically, Democrats have been more effective at combating the debt, And the data backs it up. It is very evident that party affiliation does have something to do with this, Too. While the democrats have the two lowest numbers for increasing the debt, The republicans have the two highest with Reagan and the first Bush presidency. Overall, Next time I hope Con can read the rules before accepting to debate me. Sources: https://www. Thebalance. Com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287