BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
The Coming Collapse

I'm asserting that the "silent majority" is somehow under the impression they will "rise up" when they are the least fit to do so in the entire world. I believe Obama's forces lie dormant as far as activity goes. 1. One can only forecast economic events by careful inspection of economic trends. 2. The United States free market capitalist system is the most prosperous, efficient system of gratifying economic means in history. Under normal circumstances and according to many models, the US economy could deal with catastrophic losses, many times the capital that has been gained over the last couple decades and even with destruction of infrastructure. The only reason I'm able to forecast such an abrupt change in the status quo is by keeping in mind the capitalist underpinnings of the system, and how the government is manipulating everything. 3. Everything from the value of the US dollar to, I'm sure, debate.org is kept in check by the government. However, despite the effect of mass quantitative easing that bankrupts our foreign allies and disrupted commodities when the US and the aforementioned printed mass amounts in tandem, as well as other factors such as market rigging, interest rate manipulation, and over the table securities that caused the last recession and now total several times more than they did then, the United States economy a) Allows for the free buying and selling of goods and b) allows businesses to operate freely and withdraw cash at will.
The Coming Collapse

My opponent makes a number of assertions: 1) An economic recession is "upon us". 2) State militias are "about to activate" because of President Obama. 3) There will be a financial crash before November 2016. 4) A "new period of globalisation". 5) Every other country will be able to take the United States' GDP. Firstly, the suggestion that an economic recession or a financial crash happening imminently is a very significant prediction to make, and requires very significant evidence. I think the suggestion that paramilitary forces opposed to the federal executive government becoming operational are very extraordinary, and also require evidence well beyond speculation. Now there may very well be a new period of globalisation in the near future, or there may not be. The main event that can be said about that is the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership treaties that the United States is attempting to get ratified to ensure American corporate hegemony throughout the world and as a counterbalance to growing Chinese influence. The outcomes of these treaties will greatly underpin the future of the world economy. [1] [1] . https://ustr.gov...
The Coming Collapse

The next stage of the business cycle is upon us, but not only in an economic sense. Feel free to say whatever you want. I find the fact that the "silent majority" are the only ones who constantly blab online (vs the indians), that state militias are about to activate anytime now with who has been running things for a good seven years, and the fact that the average American finds politics to be of little to no value completely hilarious. But not only that. I think the crash followed by the collapse will come before the voting period ends, starting a new period of globalization where literally every country has the same potential to compete for the third of the world gdp that the United States currently consumes. And keep it.
Debate is a useless medium to resolve disputes

Let us have a closer looks at the some of the debates you have posted. Some of the conclusions reached were 'poison is not always bad', 'money is having some worth', 'money is good' and 'mongeese is a n00b'. I doubt whether debates like this can be even classified as disputes. All that I can see is that in these cases, the topics itself are useless. What I am talking about are real world disputes and conflicts. Do show me an example from real life where an issue has been resolved using debate. Even in these toy disputes which were 'resolved', the loser has not accepted the decision in many cases! Notice your own post, how you talk about 'loser' and 'instigator'. This is not what is what is meant by resolving a dispute. All that has happened is that one of the debater is too good (or other too bad). You have also countered - "is debate even a medium to resolve disputes? ". Do you want to say that debate is useless in resolving disputes - because it is not meant to resolve disputes in first place? But that means you concede that debate is useless for resolving disputes! However I admit that debates have some other benefits - like improvement in language skills. (One of my primary motivation! ) Now let us look at some of the counters to my arguments you have presented: 1. I said that egos involved in the debate make conclusion unlikely. You said that, just because it is unlikely does not make it impossible. Actually the charge of uselessness is a mild one. In many cases it is harmful. I am sure you are yourself aware of many cases of debates which have degenerated into abuses. A medium which is often harmful and maybe - maybe useful once in a blue moon, can be considered as useless at best. 2. I argued that solutions usually lie between extremes. You said that this is true in some cases only. I will just reiterate my statement. Solutions mostly lie between extremes. Disputes are rarely 'flat earth' type questions. 3. I talked about other factors which contribute in making it useless. You said that - they do not make it 'overall useless'. Correct. These are the major factors which contribute in making it useless for resolving disputes equitably. Debates may not be overall useless. Check what I said about language skills. 4. I said that losers rarely change their mind. You said that you did change your mind once. So you are a 'n00b' like me! Again I am not talking about toy disputes. I hope I have answered all your objections. I shall be waiting eagerly for your response.
Debate is a useless medium to resolve disputes

To defeat your contentions, all that I have to do is show any debate in which a dispute was resolved. http://www.debate.org... In this debate, the dispute was resolved, because it became quite obvious that poison was not always bad. http://www.debate.org... In this debate, the dispute was resolved, even if the loser didn't think it was. http://www.debate.org... In this debate, all of the instigator's claims were proved to be inefficient. http://www.debate.org... In this debate, the instigator WAS convinced that he lost, and even voted against himself. To counter your individual points: "1. In a debate there are winners and losers. This means the ego of people is involved - leading to a resolution unlikely - if not impossible." Just because a resolution is unlikely doesn't mean that it is never reached. To be "useless", every debate must have utterly failed to resolve disputes. "2. Solution to most disputes usually lie between extremes." This may be true in some cases, but other cases are a simple Yes/No, such as whether something is possible or not, or whether the world is flat or not. "3. In a debate - apart from the issue involved, lots of other factors play a role. The biggest one is the skill of debater. Another factor is the opinion of the majority - specially where the results are decided by voting. Most people are already highly opiniated, even before they look at the arguments." This doesn't make the debate overall useless. "4. If a person loses a debate - he rarely changes his mind. Most of the time he just leaves with a resolve to argue harder next time." Sometimes they do. I did in http://www.debate.org... Now, I have another way to counter your resolution: is a debate even a medium to resolve disputes? debate - a regulated discussion of a proposition between two matched sides (http://www.merriam-webster.com...) It is not so much a medium to resolve disputes as a way to voice one's opinions in conflict with each other, to practice debating skills and compare contradictory views, possibly changing an observer's mind on the issue, or even the debater. Again, only one "non-useless" debate is needed to prove your resolution wrong, and I have that debate in http://www.debate.org... Thank you for starting this debate.
Debate is a useless medium to resolve disputes

I will argue that debate is a useless medium for resolving disputes. Here are my arguments. 1. In a debate there are winners and losers. This means the ego of people is involved - leading to a resolution unlikely - if not impossible. 2. Solution to most disputes usually lie between extremes. 3. In a debate - apart from the issue involved, lots of other factors play a role. The biggest one is the skill of debater. Another factor is the opinion of the majority - specially where the results are decided by voting. Most people are already highly opiniated, even before they look at the arguments. 4. If a person loses a debate - he rarely changes his mind. Most of the time he just leaves with a resolve to argue harder next time. I admit that a debate on this topic is oxymoronic. But so what? Interestingly - an inability to resolve this issue will prove my contention.
Debate is a useless medium to resolve disputes

Thanks for your response. My assertion is "Debate is a useless medium to resolve disputes". Your assertion is "Debate can sometimes resolve useless disputes". It is just playing with words. In either case - debates are useless (as far as dispute resolution is concerned). In any case, I doubt whether your 'n00b' debate can be considered as a dispute (I stand corrected, you are no longer a n00b). You knew very well at the time of posting it that you were new to the community. So a real dispute never existed. You still have a way to prove me wrong. You can concede and this dispute would be resolved! Unfortunately for you - you have already conceded in your first post that debates are not meant to resolve disputes at all. So no dispute existed in this case either.
Debate is a useless medium to resolve disputes

"Do show me an example from real life where an issue has been resolved using debate." The importance is not important for this debate. What is important that debate has solved disputes, no matter how stupid they may be. "Again I am not talking about toy disputes." Too late for that. Anyways, the simple fact that debate was used, at one point, as a medium to resolve a dispute, and was not useless, that means that debate is not a useless medium to resolve disputes. It has its use, no matter how small. In this case, the dispute was whether I was a n00b or not, and the dispute was resolved. To be called useless, debate must have never ever succeeded as a medium to resolve a dispute, and it has. Thus, the resolution is negated. "So you are a 'n00b' like me!" No, I was a 'n00b' like you. Not anymore. Thank you for your quick response.
[Drug legalization resolution too long to post here]

As my opponent has fully forfeited, it's clear he has not fulfilled his BoP. I'm not going to put too much effort into this. Here's a brief argument in favor of legalizing marijuana for domestic growth if it is already legal for commercial growth: The jury is still out on exactly how safe or dangerous marijuana is. We do conclusively know two things, though: 1. Tobacco use has been proven to cause cancer. 2. Tobacco is legal for domestic growth. So, unless marijuana is proven to be more dangerous than cancer, it is inconsistent to make its domestic growth illegal. The end.
Churches should be taxed.

Even though my opponent forfeited, I'll still see what I can pick apart from her arguments.Notice that not once throughout my opponent's main arguments did she ever distinguish between a church and a non-profit organization. In that light, she also failed to provide you a single reason to vote Pro.As I said in my opening argument, churches are like non-profit organizations, which provide benefits to the community as a whole without being taxed for it. My opponent didn't even try to argue against this in her opening argument, possibly because she, as well as I, acknowledge all of the good that can come out of a local church.The problem with my opponent's case is that she doesn't realize that taxing a church will simply discourage it from providing these benefits to the community. People who work at churches or even people who volunteer are already taxed at an individual level. This poses a problem for taxing the churches, as Professor Dean Kelly writes in his book "To tax them again for participation in voluntary organizations from which they derive no monetary gain would be ‘double taxation’ indeed, and would effectively serve to discourage them from devoting time, money, and energy to organizations which contribute to the upbuilding of the fabric of democracy."[1] And what does this mean? If churches spend less time helping the community, who picks up the slack? Either the government does so, which ultimately means more taxes for all of us, or nobody picks it up at all. Both situations are undesirable and completely avoidable by not taxing churches in the first place.Looking at my opponent's arguments, all I can really see are complaints about what the churches have. So what if churches own land? So what if they have facilities on this land? Pro hasn't given you a single reason as to why these are even bad things, except for that some people feel like they can't use those facilities.The last sentence the Pro says is the most fallacious of all: "Religious affiliations only remain tax-exempt if the government sees the religion as legitimate." Looking at my opening argument, you can see this is blatantly false. The IRS outlines specific guidelines that the church must follow in order for it to remain tax exempt. Believe it or not, there ARE churches that are not tax-exempt, because they choose not to follow those guidelines. But what my opponent said about churches "making millions" was REALLY true (and we have no reason to believe this without a proper citation), they wouldn't qualify for tax-exemption in the first place.Thus, this resolution has been negated.Citations(s):1. http://www.opposingviews.com...
Churches should be taxed.

Assuming Churches count as NPO(non-profit organisations) they should be taxed in the same ways. All other organizations (like corporations, including non-profits) pay taxes on everything, profits, franchise tax, business license tax, property tax, payroll tax. Churches are often a big part of communities in America, they typically use a lot of the communities resources, occupying large areas of land and real estate that they do not have to pay tax on. The amount of property owned by churches is vast compare to any other single co-operation, if the churches were to pay only this tax alone the personal property taxes you and I pay would go down considerably, many tons and cities property tax rates would drop and lets be honest, the government would have a LOT more income. Not only are churches using vast amounts of land they are not paying tax for, they also use the services paid for by tax payers, why is it fair churches get the same treatment by police, fire departments and schools that us ta payers do, when they provide nothing towards it? However you may claim churches to be non-profit, they still collect money and revenue in many forms, donations, events, fund-raisers, trips, selling merchandise (whether they pay sales tax on this I am not sure, I think it may vary church-to-church and depending on the merchandise) at the end of the day, successful churches such as those run by the Baptists and Catholics make millions, many churches in my area have their own gyms, libraries, day cares and swimming pools, they also seem to afford excessive trips and camps. Where does all this money come from and why is none of it going back into the economy? You may claim that it is being put to good use for the churchgoers to use these facilities, but what about atheists like me, or people from non-Christian organisations? Religious affiliations only remain tax-exempt if the government sees the religion as legitimate. At the end of the day everyone would benefit from Churches paying tax; they are such a huge part of the American society and the gain a lot of revenue (whether they are meant to or not! ) Every other organisation has to claim their earnings, there is no reason churches should be exempt.
Churches should be taxed.

'It is said that death and tax are the only two certainties in life, it's ironic the church dodge both these, the latter quite literally.R John'The anti-theist group I am part of on facebook posted this quote and it really made me want to find out your views on the fact churches are not taxed! I would like to make it clear that I am refering to American churches when I say this. I shall be Pro; Chruches should be taxed. Please no trolling, thank you.
Euthanasia COOLDUDEBRO's 20th DEBATE!

I will be using my arguments from my previous debate. This is only humans. No animals included in this debate. Thank you! Case 1: Slippery Slope Scenario 1: Jennifer has hated her mother in law for 10 years. However, her mother in-law is in very poor shape. She is missing a lung and does not have long to live. One morning, the mother in-law wakes up, and finds Jennifer having an affair! She goes to the phone to call her son, but before she could, Jennifer kills her by suffocation. Jennifer then goes to court and says, since the new euthanasia law just past, that her mother in-law didn't want to live anymore, so she helped her commit suicide. the court believes her, and she walks out Scott free. Without an euthanasia law, Jennifer would have been charged with murder, and sentenced to either life in prison, or death. As stated in my scenario, Jennifer got away Scott free because of a law that passed that made euthanasia legal. This would be common if euthanasia were allowed. Case 2: Wrong Diagnosis Scenario 2: Jimmy goes to his doctor for a routine check up. His doctor performs many tests, and thinks he has advanced cancer. Jimmy is very scared and irrational. He asks his doctor to help him by doing euthanasia. Sadly, the doctor helps Jimmy commit assisted suicide. Jimmy then gets taken in for an autopsy, and they find he does not have advanced cancer. The doctor that didn't mean to kill Jimmy, is charged with murder. He is then sentenced to life in prison. This would not have even been an issue for Jimmy and his doctor if the euthanasia law is not passed. Jimmy would have went in for further tests, and would've been shown he does not have HIV. The doctor would also not go to jail. This would be common if a law that allowed euthanasia was passed. Case 3: No Hope Scenario 3: Yolonda is diagnosed with cancer. Over many months, it did not get better. Yolanda's daughter come in to give her flowers and visit her. During the visit, Yolanda becomes depressed, and asks her daughter to perform euthanasia. Her daughter denies quickly! But with hours of convincing, she performs euthanasia. The doctor comes in with her test result to find her dead with her daughter. The daughter explains everything to the doctor. The doctor seems sad. "It's all my fault." says they doctor. The daughter then asks why. He opens the folder to show that much of the cancer has been eliminated, and a few more doses of kemotherapy would have gotten her back to normal. "If I would have gotten here quicker, she would still be alive." says the doctor. This is probably the saddest of the three scenarios. Because she lost hope, Yolanda convinced her daughter to do euthanasia. If a law is not passed, Yolanda would be great and alive. Happily spending her time with her daughter. These are three scenarios that would be common if euthanasia were to be allowed! I hand the debate over to
Euthanasia COOLDUDEBRO's 20th DEBATE!

Since my opponent has failed to set guidelines for the debate, allow me to. Euthanasia: the act or practice of killing hopelessly sick or injured individuals (as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy. [1]I will only be arguing for voluntary euthanasia for humans, but both voluntary and involuntary for animals. This applies to both animals and people. For example (true story):My guinea pig was only two years old, but suffering from a breathing issue and a brain tumor. My doctor said that he was in a great deal of pain and that we should put him down. So I watched as we committed euthanasia. My guinea pig went to sleep painlessly. My doctor said it was the right thing to do. With that said, let the debate commence! !! !! ! [1] . http://www.merriam-webster.com...
Animals Should Not Be Confined in Zoos

"Zoos teach people that it is acceptable to interfere with animals and keep them locked up in captivity, where they are bored, cramped, lonely, deprived of all control over their lives, and far from their natural homes." Yes, it is true that zoos can be educational, but do they only teach how animals live and act? Can they be a contributor in teaching children that it is alright to keep an animal captive or deprive it of food? Could they be falsely showing what animals are like in the wild? "If these animals ever get released to the wild for any reason, they will have an extremely difficult time adapting to their natural habitat, because they had absolutely no former experience of it. They were taken care of all their lives, and now have to provide for themselves, something they are not used to." If there is or was any hope in a zoo for an animal to be released, or if a zoo was forced by policy or law to do so, it would be very challenging for that animal to adapt to a whole new place with whole new concepts.
Animals Should Not Be Confined in Zoos

Good luck to my opponent.My value is needs theoryNeeds Theory is the assumption that certain people (animals) have different wants and needs and will do whatever possible to achieve them.My criterion is free travelFree travel is the ability to move freely without being confined.1)The resolution states Animals should not be confined in Zoos. I am pro and thus I am arguing that animals should not be confined to zoo's. My opponent will be arguing that Animals should be confined to zoo's. Because it just states animals we can take the resolution and topicality to mean all animals. Humans technically classify as animals. It is impractical and immoral to keep all humans other animals in confined spaces. My opponent will argue that I am interpreting topicality wrong but I would consider this useless meta debate because It does not state specific animals or number of animals.2)The confinement of animals presents an is-ought fallacy. My opponent assumes that because animals could be used for educational purposes, then they ought to be captured and confined. However he/she/they has not considered whether confinement is moral in the first place. Furthermore if my opponent makes this is-ought fallacy he jumps into another "begging the question" fallacy. The conclusion is that they are being used for educational purposes however this goes back to morality creating another question.3)In order for a zoo to obtain animals, they must take animals away from another habitat. So in essence zoo's are not "creating" any more animals. If anything they are losing animals due to frequent mistreatment and misconduct. So the only purpose that remains for a zoo is for educational purposes. But this does not follow the debate and topicality. We are arguing the morality about keeping animals confined in zoo's, not the possible outcomes of keeping them there. So we can dismiss this as void.sources:http://www.txstate.edu...