BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Ego's dictate debates instead of facts.

1. My opponent has misstated the definition of cognitive dissonance. cognitive dissonance occurs when we make decisions or come to new realizations which causes our perception of self to change. thus we can see that we are not bypassing logic, we are bypassing our preconceived notions about ourselves and the world in order to change our beliefs. usually, this happens during a debate when valid arguments are presented. thus, cognitive dissonance theory would show that the sense of self can and will change to accommodate a debate which would show that we do care about being right or wrong not just about our winning. if this were the case cognitive dissonance would not occur as we wouldn't care if our beliefs thoughts and actions lined up because we just cared about winning the debate at hand. this was believed by Dr.Leon Festinger when he developed his cognitive dissonance theory. 2. my opponents point on the Limbic system would imply that our actions are driven from base primal impulses created by our limbic nervous system. this is not true. take for example a part of the limbic system, the cingulate gyrus. the cingulate gyrus helps to inhibit aggressive behavior which interferes in higher cognitive functions along with the other parts of the system that I can't get to because of the character limit, the limbic system is what allows our cerebral cortex to function properly without our primitive aggressive and emotional behavior taking the helm in every engagement. it's the limbic system that allows us to have these friendly debates my opponent mentioned because it keeps us from attacking each other or becoming emotional. the limbic system does not harm logic. it fosters its proliferation.(2) also, I liked that you called my scientific approach amusing then accused me of trying to confuse people. nice touch. (1) Dr.Leon Festinger (2)www.boundless.com
Ego's dictate debates instead of facts.

Your clinical approach to this debate is amusing, but I can't help but wonder if it's purpose is objectivity or obfuscation. 1. Cognitive dissonance is the bypassing of logic in order to maintain or preserve ego when confronted with truths that are in direct conflict with an individual's core beliefs and ideas. I see this as supporting my view rather than disproving it. When you accept another point of view, your ego reconciles it with those core beliefs instead of adapting them. Though exceptions do exist, these people are very open minded and highly proficient in the application of reason and have learned to dismiss ingrained ideas if they are presented with credible evidence. 2. While the cerebral cortex is indeed linked to higher thought processes, the limbic brain, which governs our instincts, remains the dominant one. When the limbic brain says "go", you go, regardless of what the cerebral cortex has to say on the matter. Higher thought functions only happen when the limbic brain allows them to happen. Which isn't as often as you think. Even during the most friendly of debates, the body starts producing adrenaline, which is controlled by the limbic brain and will in turn heighten your instinctual responsiveness. As a result of this, higher brain functions like reasoning and logic take a back seat. Your claim that my premise is not grounded in science is flatout wrong. Everything I've described can be demonstrated and is accepted as the general concensus among scientists. The idea that human evolution has advanced to the point where people's higher brain functions take precedence over their instincts is contrary to all available evidence. Conditioning makes it possible to limit the hold the limbic brain has on other functions, but this is far from an inherent human capability. I offered a credible rival cause, which you dismissed as no longer relevant, when it quite obviously still is. Debunking these 2 points is more than sufficient for me to state my case.
Ego's dictate debates instead of facts.

1. my opponent attacked my first point by stating that persuasion is included in the resolution. however, the cognitive dissonance phenomenon would show us that it is the ego, the sense of self, that is altered to accommodate debate. Debate does not generally diminish to accommodate ego. if you are persuaded to change your attitude alignment, then your ego will change to accommodate. ego is driven by debate, debate is not driven by ego. 2. My opponent attacked my contention on logic by stating that humans are not capable of naturally applying logic. however, this premise is not scientifically grounded. the cerebral cortex is linked to higher thought processes one of which is logic. Humans are therefore capable of naturally applying logic. furthermore, speaking in terms of evolution is to speak in terms of improving upon ones species becoming more complex over time. even if debate orginated as establishing dominance, as we developed as a species this drive diminished and became a method through which we attempt to convert others to our point of view or be converted. my opponent provided no arguments of his own for me to attack. So I shall await his next response.
Ego's dictate debates instead of facts.

I have no desire to get into semantics, but I'll note that dictionary definitions are open to interpretation and in many cases don't accurately reflect the meaning of words, nor do they go into enough detail about abstract concepts such as ego. I'll amend your resolution to be more in line with what I intended the debate to be about. -- The sense of self* is the driving force of debate rather than facts. -- I see this as a general statement, not an absolute one. When dealing with human behaviour, it's practically impossible to speak in absolutes, as there will always be inevitable deviations. I'm arguing from a perspective that accepts this premise as generally true, while allowing for exceptions to exist. 1. The existance of persuasion is not incompatible with the above premise. People are persuaded through a variety of factors, only some of them based on reason. Fallacies are often very persuasive, they are basically designed to make people believe falsehoods. Intentional or not, it's manipulation. The amount of fallacies and the ease with which they're used might point to the ego being involved. People have been known to concede to points for no other reason than being fed up with the debate, regardless of any valid points on either side. 2. Evolution suggests that debating originated as a means to verbally establish dominance. This is a plausible alternative cause supported by the fact that humans are not naturally capable of applying logic. The existence of a noticable effect of a debate does not take into consideration whether the results of that debate are in line with any established facts or whether a concensus was reached through intellectual discourse. Your reasoning here is flawed: People debate to achieve results --> Results exist, so that's why people debate. I call this circular reasoning (or affirming the consequent, if you want to get technical). * Just like ego, I primarily use this to mean the preservation of one's psychological identity.
Parental pressures make geniuses

My opponent claims to be a genius, and that such affirms his resolution. Genius: a person having an extraordinarily high intelligence rating on a psychological test, as an IQ above 140. [1] My opponent has terrible grammar and spelling. This supports the basic idea that my opponent is not a genius. As he claims that his parents have pressured him to do well, it is clear that parental pressure does not make geniuses. My opponent's existance negates his own resolution. My opponent has no evidence that his is not indeed nowhere in life. I await my opponent's response. [1] http://dictionary.reference.com...
universal health care

Ok. Good one. But there are some things you seem to have overlooked. First, I am well aware that doctors are allowed to prescribe medications in the fashion that you described. As I stated before, I know people that have used LDN successfully. The problem is, though, that if you took a survey of 100 random people, less than 10 will have actually heard of the drug. This is because the drug companies refuse to sell it and therefore no one has heard of it. If you asked anyone in this country what drugs they had heard of, they would probably only name drugs they had seen in advertisements, unless of course they were pharmacists or pharmacy students like yourself. Sure, these medications like LDN CAN be prescribed, but WILL they? You said that it would take "billions of billions of dollars" to research a new drug. I highly doubt it would be that much, as $1 billion squared looks like this: $1,000,000,000,000,000,000. That much for one drug? I don't think so. "new drugs that aren't just being used in the U.S., they are being used all over the world" If I want to help another country, I can donate money to one of the hundreds of thousands of organizations devoted to the cause of foreign aid. Our money should be used for our drugs. Not theirs. Also, our country can help them fund their own research programs to aid them in this issue. "What would be the point of spending billions of dollars for a new pill if you can't charge lots of money for it?" The point of spending billions of dollars for a new pill is to SAVE LIVES. You seem to be completely overlooking the whole reason we have HEALTH care. It is for the HEALTH of the PEOPLE. If that is the cost of health care, so be it. The government's job is not to make money. We have taxes for that. The government's job is to benefit THE PEOPLE. One other thing that you didn't mention is the insurance companies. Millions of Americans are going TO DIE because they can't pay for emergency room treatment and are essentially DENIED THE RIGHT TO LIVE. The point of universal health care is not to make money. It is to provide health care for everyone. The money should not matter. I'm sure it's great to be a rich capitalist, but I'm also pretty sure it's not so great WHEN YOU'RE SICK.
universal health care

Pharmacy student here. I have some good news, and some bad news. Naltrexone is a widely accessible medication used for detoxing addicts. Low dose naltrexone is simply Naltrexone at a lower concentration. I am very interested in this usage and I find that your explanation is very fitting. I am glad you decided to enlighten us on such an amazing drug and I do regret that drug companies will refuse to manufacture it. However, there is probably something you don't know. Doctors are allowed to prescribe medications for something called "off label use". I did a quick wikipedia search to verify this and found that doctors are indeed prescribing low dose naltrexone for all the purposes you stated. So yes, people's lives are being saved at a low cost. That was the good news. The bad news is that I just debunked your opening argument! **** The reason I believe universal health care will not work in the U.S. is simple. Countries all over the world have universal health care, and many of our citizens look at the U.S. and cringe. Greedy drug companies don't want universal health care because that would cut their profits. That's bad right? Not really. People say that a pill costs 10 cents to make. That's true. For the second pill. The second, third, fourth, hundredth pill costs 10 cents to make. But the FIRST pill costs BILLIONS of dollars to make! When a new drug is developed, it gets a patent for about 10 years. This allows it to be sold as a product to gain a lot of money. However, it's more like gaining BACK the billions of billions of dollars to research the drug. Drug companies use the profits to research more drugs. After selling one medication, they use the profits to pay their researchers and scientists to come up with more drugs to make more money and the cycle keeps going. The U.S. churns out new medicines because drug companies keep competing with each other over profits. New drugs = big profits, that's why they keep churning out new drugs that aren't just being used in the U.S., they are being used all over the world! So a drug company may spend a billion dollars making the drug, but a company in another country can just make that drug for just 10 cents. Countries with universal health insurance can steal our medication ideas. With universal health care here, drug companies would stop competing with each other because prices would be regulated too heavily. What would be the point of spending billions of dollars for a new pill if you can't charge lots of money for it? Research between competing drug companies would stop. The only new drugs we would get will be from government labs. And the government won't have enough money to fund science when its pouring all the money into universal health care. But that's not the worst part. The worst part is that the other countries won't be able to rely on the U.S. for medications anymore. They won't be able to synthesize the medications we discover. So if we implement universal health care, it's bad for everyone in the long run.
universal health care

Drug companies and health insurance companies are quite literally killing America. There is a new drug that should be on the market called low dose naltrexone. This drug was developed by a close friend of my grandfather, and I know people who have used it successfully. What it basically does is it blocks your endorfin glands in your brain for a period of a about 7 hours, so you take it before you go to sleep. What happens when you block these glands is your brain makes more and more endorfins until they break the block. The endorfins strengthen your immune system and this process creates a great excess of them This drug has been studied extensively and has worked on HIV/AIDS and other auto-immune diseases, Alsheimer's, and many other diseases. Other benefits include very few side effects and -here's the important one- a very low cost of production. On paper, this is practically the perfect product for the treatment for the specified diseases. The drug companies, however, are refusing to market and sell it because it's so cheap. It's this kind of selfish capitalism that is costing innocent people THEIR LIVES. This is the basic situation. Capitalist A works for an insurance company. He's an executive that has a high enough salary already. Working-class citizen B has a brain tumor the size of a golf ball. He needs surgery that he can't afford. The job of the insurance company that capitalist A works for is to make sure he gets the money he needs. The reality of the actions insurance company make it seem that their objective is to AVOID giving citizen B his money by any means necessary. This kind of thing is KILLING AMERICANS. It does not get any simpler than this. Citizen B is going to die for one reason and one reason only. Capitalist A needed the money to pay for his island vacation. Need I say more?
a god is a factual impossibility

Hi vi_spex, great topic, thank you for this debate. " The lack of facts proves the impossibility of a factual possibility". I will firstly answer this statement with the legal concept of the burden of proof. For a statement or accusation to be brought to the table, the burden of proof usually lies with the accuser or the party making the statement. In this case, if you claim that there is a lack of facts proving the impossibility of a factual possibility of a god, you would have to prove the lack of facts. Also, how does the lack of facts prove anything? This is the burden of proof again, if you make a claim that something did not happen or does not exist, facts need to be provided for this. A lack of facts does not prove or disprove anything. If an apple falls from a tree but there is no-one to observe it yet, is it no longer a fact that it fell from the tree or that the lack of facts of the event prove that there will never be a factual possibility that it happened? When the apple fell from the tree, and no-one saw it happen, there is a lack of facts that it happened. Does this prove the impossibility of a factual possibility that it ever happened? If someone observes that the apple did fall from the tree later on, it doesn't only become fact when the evidence is gathered, it was a fact before but the evidence has only been found now. The lack of facts or evidence at present does not say anything about the possibility of the evidence in future or that the fact is not true. Thus, how can the lack of facts prove that God's existence is not fact? Also, how would you define a fact about God when He is not of this world and is not limited by space, time, matter and things we can see and understand? When so many people testify how God has changed their lives throughout the Bible, through history and to this day, is it not evidence that there is a God working in people's lives? If you could hear all these millions of people's testimonies, one after the other, would that not be evidence of God? If so many people in the past and present were prosecuted and died for their beliefs in God, does this not say anything about how convinced they are that God is real? In comparison, is anyone willing to stand up and be oppressed, prosecuted, tortured and killed for their beliefs in evolution or the validity and accuracy of scientific studies conducted by a few fallible human beings? For so many believers in God throughout history, His existence was without question and they put their lives on the line to prove it. "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you". In order for God's existence to become a fact in someone's life, they need to ask, seek and knock with an open mind and heart and those who do, shall find the truth and they will know that God cannot be found in a scientific study, be captured on a youtube video or in an article somewhere. These are worldly things we understand and is what we often use as fact but God works in the heart and soul and is far greater than these things.
Humans will not witness the Sun going supernova.

Sadly PRO was unable to post their opening. I hope they can make it for round 3! I'm not positive how DDO feels about taking the first turn away from the PRO. So ... I'll take this time to make a brief opening statement. The con is meant to persuade you that 'Humans will witness the Sun going supernova'. I would like to amend this to 'Humans will witness the Sun die' as there is not enough mass to the sun to achieve a supernova. The spirit of the debate will be maintained. CloudApex will argue that due to the earth dying in 1 billion years, humans will not be around when the sun dies in 5 billion years. I argue that the expansionist nature of humanity will drive us to expand to other planets, thus surviving past the death of the earth, and the the sentimental half of human nature will lead us to revisit our solar system of origin to witness its passing.
Theory of evolution

Can we prove that evolution is false without using religion? Certainly we can! Evolution is a scientific theory that stands or falls on the physical evidence. In fact, one can be an atheist, a person who doesn't believe in God, and still not believe in evolution! Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, as taught at school, is a biological explanation of how creatures have supposedly "evolved" or developed progressively through natural selection and variation (now known as mutation) over eons of time from the tiny cell to the largest creatures on earth today. What is taught in classrooms is not mere micro evolution"small changes within a species"but macro evolution, the change from one type of creature to another quite distinct life form. What many evolutionists are trying to convince you of is that there is no need for a Creator since, as they say, evolution can substitute as the mechanism for creating and transforming life. They teach that life arose from non-life and evolved from simpler creatures to more complex life forms. In other words, the tiny cell eventually became an amoeba, then a lizard, then a gorilla the us. Well let me take initiative in explaining why we couldve came up with a much better idea than gorillas. First off- Fossils We can agree that A fossil is the preserved remains of a living thing. The fossil record around the earth extends an average of one mile deep. Below this level we come up with a blank slate as far as living, complex creatures are concerned. Lets talk about trilobites for example. No previous ancestors of these arthropods have been found. Similar to some marine "bugs" we see today on the seashore that disappear into the sand when the waves retreat, trilobites had hard shells, all the basic organs, and complex eyes like those of flies, with hundreds of sophisticated lenses connected to the optic nerve going to the brain. Trilobite fossils are found around the earth, and in all cases the level of rock beneath them does not reveal other creatures with similar features. As one source states: "The dominant life form was the now-extinct sea creature known as a trilobite, up to a foot long, with a distinctive head and tail, a body made up of several parts, and a complex respiratory system. But although there are many places on earth where 5,000 feet of sedimentary rock stretch unbroken and uniformly beneath the Cambrian [layer], not a single indisputable multi-celled fossil has been found there. It is 'the enigma of paleontological [fossil studies] enigmas,' according to Stephen Gould. Darwin himself said he could give 'no satisfactory answer' to why no fossils had been discovered. Today's scientists are none the wiser" (Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe , 1982, pp. 26-27). Secondly, the ostrich example you gave is irrelevant as that was mere adaptation and was not the subject of out debate. Living things adapt to their enviroments and pass it on in their genes to their following ancestors. I agree with adaptation and believe it is how life became more complex and advanced.
Socialism is an overall a better system than Capitalism (Devil's Advocate debate)

Apologies but I may have to forfeit the debate for the reasons below: 1. I accidentally made the debate 3 rounds when the intended format of the debate would only work with four rounds. 2, I originally intended the arguments to take 72 hours to complete as I did not have enough time to make and finish an argument in 42 hours. Due to this forfeit Pro therefore wins by default.
Socialism is an overall a better system than Capitalism (Devil's Advocate debate)

DEBATE IMPOSSIBLE TO ACCEPT, READ THE RULES BELOW AND THEN PM OR COMMENT ME IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THIS DEBATE. This is a devil's advocate debate, since I am of Socialistic leanings I have decided to play devil's advocate and debate on the side of Con, I expect Pro to do the same meaning that if they are of Capitalist or Conservative leanings then they shall debate on the side of Pro. The variant of Socialism that my opponent debates for is up to them as long as it does not touch on Communism (since most arguments against communism are exclusive to communism and cannot be melded as to be the same as ones argument against Socialism) Terms (If Con finds terms to be unrealistic or inaccurate then he may change them but only with an argument as to why): Overall: With multiple factors being taken into account. Socialism: A political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. Capitalism: An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled mostly by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. Better: Comparably good or well.