BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Disciplining Children

You never answered of whether or not you feel that this sort of discipline causes mental and emotional trauma for the child in the future, and from what it seems your argument for the mother answers that question. What I find ridiculous is how you actually side with this monster that you call a mother. Of course the physical pain that the child felt is temporary, all physical pain is temporary, but the means that the mother went about as to how to teach her child a lesson was completely unnecessary. This was a seven year old boy who told his mother a lie, a seven year old! First of all, how bad can a lie be if you are only seven years old, and secondly it is understandable to discipline a child who has done something wrong that you have repeatedly said is wrong, but to discipline to that extent with hot sauce, and then have the hot sauce followed up by a cold shower is too much for a lie. It is obvious that we all agree that children that were once abused do carry emotional trauma with them far into their adult lives but where do we as a society draw the line between abuse and discipline? According to child-abuse-effects.com there is actually a list as to distinguish the difference between what is considered child abuse and child discipline. The list states that some things that are considered child abuse consist of demonstrating anger and hostility, making the child listen, teach child that decisions are at the whim of the caregiver, caregiver has all the power; child is given no respect, involves humiliation, and requires submission. The things listed as displaying discipline consist of demonstrates love and affection, teach child right from wrong, teach child to make healthy choices for him/herself and prepare child for eventual independence, based on a balance of power and mutual respect, does not involve humiliation, and does not require submission. Now you may ask what exactly is the point that I am trying to make by posting a list of the differences between child abuse and discipline, what I am trying to show is that what that mother showed on the Dr. Phil show of what she was doing to her son fell completely within the abusive column. That woman made it her duty to make sure that the child knew that she had all of the power and that all the rules that were made were meant to be followed, she did not in any way show that she had any respect for the child for she made sure he was submissive by punishing him with punishments too harsh for a seven year old. How is any child, especially an adopted one, not going to end up with any emotional trauma after continuously experiencing things like this. Not only does the child probably already have some emotional and mental problems for being put into the adoption system, but now he probably has problems that directly are results of the "discipline" that his mother placed upon him.
Disciplining Children

Okay, thank you for clarifying where you were trying to go with this subject, for a moment I was confused on what to debate about because I did agree that disciplining children is completely necessary and that for many situations grounding a child is simply just not enough. I'd like to bring up the point of what you were saying about the "abusive" mother Jessica Beagley; if i remember correctly this was the mother that was put on the Dr. Phil show because she was having difficulty or something with disciplining her own child. From the video tape she brought in, it showed her feeding her young child hot sauce and forcing him into cold showers. Once seeing this and all of the commotion that it stirred I could not do anything but laugh. I find it absolutely ridiculous as to why some people would actually call this an example of child abuse. How is this child abuse, especially if the child is not getting any physical harm in any way? What is a cold shower going to do to you? Burn you? Same with the hot sauce, the only thing that any of this does is cause pain and none of this leaves any markings or bruising of any kind. To teach her son that lying was bad she fed him hot sauce, I do not see what the big deal is here, who cares if the child was fed hot sauce, especially since we've all had hot sauce before and the pain is temporary. How is this at all necessary for jail time, America's problem is not paying attention to the real criminals in the world and wasting time focusing on mothers that know how to discipline children.
Abortions are murder because a baby didn't choose to be born, so a mother has no right to kill it

Baby-cell of human Murder-termination of a PERSON For arguments sake, lets start with rape- not the babys fault. Would you punish a woman for being raped? Would you punish a rape baby? Incest-same argument. For consentual- its sheer irresponsibility. For health of the mother- C section is acceptable with almost no chance for complications. So would you punish a victim for a crime? No. So a parent,even if it gives it up for adoption, should at least have it. I believe ive covered everything necessary for this round, and please only debate what I have listed in this and other rounds in their respective rounds except for round 5. No.
Abortions are murder because a baby didn't choose to be born, so a mother has no right to kill it

What my opponent seems to not understand is that a fetus and a human are very different things. A two week old embryo in a woman's body should not and does not have any right, especially when compared to the rights of a grown women. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" apply to people, not embryos, which by the way are fertilized eggs, not "single-cells of a human" as my opponent had said. Women hold the right to have an abortion both constitutionally and morally, as this right is not only protected under the law, but also has to do with a woman"s ability to fulfill bodily autonomy and her control of her life. Thanks TheChristian for starting this debate. It was fun! *To Voters: Please do read both of our arguments. We as people tend to be myopic in nature when it comes to strongly held beliefs, such as abortion. Do give each argument a close observation, followed by some reading on the topic if you so please. Do feel free to leave comments: I love to hear new points of concern on the topic and other topics as well. ScarletAtheist
Abortions are murder because a baby didn't choose to be born, so a mother has no right to kill it

Ok, first off, thanks for replying to my debate, and adoption could be used to ignore pain, and for incest my argument is the same, and in case it wasn't clear, a single human cell is a human. It has human DNA. It is therefore murder, and murder is unconstitutional `right to life(on twitter, #righttolife and #abortion)`also, i would be willing to redo this debate, in longer form.I agree with all of your terms other than fetus, as that violates my true definition of human, abortion denies the inalienable right of life- obvious Liberty- freedom, by denial of the right to be even existing, denies freedom to do anything. If you were to view human embryos- term for single-cells of babies - (the title says human, evidence to support my position) they look and have the DNA of humans. Persuit of Happiness-American Dream- does not allow existence therefore takes away tgis right. Therefore, i rebutt all of my opponent`s arguments Con is Negated Thanks for the debate, message me if you wish to redo this debate. Good luck
Abortions are murder because a baby didn't choose to be born, so a mother has no right to kill it

To start off, I would like to apologize to my opponent, as I am sure we would have had a much more stimulating and in-depth debate if I actually submitted some of my arguments. I am quite sorry. To begin, my opponent and I have incredibly different definitions for the mentioned terms, and most likely other terms that I will mention later. Here are my definitions: Baby: a young child, especially one newly born Fetus: an unborn offspring of (in this case) a human, particularly past the eighth week of conception Abortion: the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy Murder: the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another Unconstitutional: the act of going against the Constitution Now that I"ve defined the terms in a hopefully more precise manner, I"ll start my argument. Abortion, as my opponent believes, is murder. Murder, by my definition, is the killing of another human being. My opponent does not make a differing definition for abortion and murder, as he believes that abortion is murder. The problem with his argument is that he probably feels fetuses are considered human beings. I hold a different stance: fetuses are not people, as they have not yet reached eight weeks of development, and have not been born. I do think after eight weeks, abortions are not necessarily the best course of action. This being said, I do feel a woman has the right to abort a potential child, no matter how far along her pregnancy, as she has not only the right to bodily autonomy, but also the right to prevent an otherwise possibly difficult life for both her and her child. As for my opponent"s grotesque feelings on rape, I do not think the child from the pregnancy is to blame, as isn't the mother; this does not mean the mother has to go through with her pregnancy. As for consensual sex, as I stated earlier, abortion may not be the best means of ridding a child out of one"s life, but it doesn't mean it is immoral, and especially unconstitutional. To address my opponent"s view of abortion as unconstitutional, nowhere in the Constitution of the United States does it say one cannot abort an offspring. Because a fetus is not a human being, it has no right to life. Even when a fetus is eight weeks or more along in a pregnancy, the woman has more say in her life than a fetus could ever possibly have. *By the way, I"d like to address one particularly humorous thing my opponent has said in this debate: his definition of a baby. Under his definition, we are all made of trillions of babies! Just thought that be a fun thing to point out to my opponent, as I think he might need to work on his definitions in the future. ** To my opponent, I"d love to discuss definitions of terms in the comments, as not to waste space in our debate. I"m afraid I've done enough of that already! ScarletAtheist
That Democratic Socialism is a good System

You comment that you are a "proud democratic socialist". Yet, there is really no reason to be proud. Democratic Socialism is based on the belief in a Socialist economic system, and a democratic governmental system. Yet these two systems are diametrically opposed. Democracy is founded on key beleifs of Liberty and freedom, as well as the chance to choose the country's leaders by winning a majority of voters over, or electoral college/seat votes. A true democracy is founded upon the ideology of freedom, whether that be freedom of the press, or freedom of speech. There is also freedom of choice, what to do, and what to spend your money on. Socialism however, is a sinister, insidious system in which the state possesses all the land and property, and levels of private ownership are very low. There is very little freedom as to what you receive, and what types of good you can use. As we can see, these two are polar opposites, and it is quite frankly, laughable that anyone would invent a term in which they both coexist in the same system of government. Democratic socialism will not work, because you cannot isolate the economic system from the governmental system. The economy controls the people and the government in a certain manner, the people control the economy and government in another, and the government controls the economy and the people in another way. To try and split the economy from this loop is impossible. You may say that it won't be split, but a democratic government and people cannot work closely with a socialist economy. The true partner to a democratic government, is a capitalist economic system. A capitalist system allows the same level of freedom in our economic choices as our day to day ones. A capitalist economic system is open to everyone, and yet, while only a few percent will succeed in it, it is better than the socialist system where the doors are closed to everyone, and none can succeed. A socialist system fails everybody, while at least a capitalist system succeeds for some. The only path to success in a socialist system is through government, which is an aberration of the so called 'democratic' system.
Humanity is a failed experiment.

Very good arguments, I can see that I will enjoy this debate. 1. You are absolutely correct when you say that we are different from other animals. But to say that we have under-utilized that higher thought that we have is, I believe, erroneous. You say our main goal should be shifted to "empathy, understanding, reverence and social justice". Haven't we already though? Yes I know we as a species have a bloody history. But it's as if you have completely forgotten or ignored the good that humanity has done for one another. Last year Haiti was rocked by a 7.0 earthquake on January 12th, 2010. Seventeen days later donations for Haiti reached $560,000,000*. These are people who gave there own hard earned money that could have used on whatever they wanted but donated. That's every citizen in America giving about 2 dollars. Without looking for any reward of any kind. I won't even go into the overwhelming amount of charities and Non-profit organizations out there. You mention Social Justice. Again it's something we have already been working on. In America there is Welfare, a financial aid program for the poor. And America is not the first to do it. In the Roman Empire, social welfare to help the poor was enlarged by the Caesar Trajan. Today we have Welfare programs in France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Sweden, and Japan. Oh, and "Capitalism is the only moral social system because it is the only system that respects the freedom of the producers to think and the right of the individual to set his own goals and pursue his own happiness"**. 2. But we DO know that this growth rate is not sustainable. What do you want us to do? People procreate. And no one is planning to fight over the left over resources. Every major developed country is looking for alternate energy solutions. And we have found some solutions however no stand-alone ones. 3. Above all animals we do have the ability to control or urges but they way you tell it, it's as if the entire world doesn't. In fact only about 3.125% of Americans are under correctional supervision***. So about 3%(in America) of us can't control our urges but that doesn't make us failures. Sources *http://philanthropy.com...= **http://www.capitalismcenter.org... ***http://usgovinfo.about.com...
Humanity is a failed experiment.

1. Human beings exist because they manifest themselves to other human beings: Among other attributes, human beings have mass and appearance that can be measured and observed, both by subjective, physiological means and by objective, scientific standards: Human beings exist. Since we clearly exist we may ask, where do we come from, why are we here? Is there a meaning or purpose to our life in the sense of an externally or internally assigned function? The general purpose of all other species is to procreate and sustain life. What separates humans from other animals is obviously the higher capacity for mental thought. Since higher thought (and thumbs) is the sole separation from man and beast, it is in my opinion that the under-utilization of this unique ability is the ultimate failure. The goal of humans, like an species, is to procreate and thrive, but since we are unique, the main goal should then be shifted to empathy, understanding, reverence, and social justice. The fact that intelligent people think capitalism is a moral system is an absolute joke. 2. Yes, we have grown at a staggering rate in the last few hundred years. But given that we are unique from animals, this should not be considered a success. An overabundance of people fighting for an incredibly limited number of resources is not success. It is a failure of our higher brain power not to realize that growth at this rate is not sustainable. 3. Sure, we still possess some rudimentary basic instincts, such as 'fight or flight', but we also possess the ability of self-realization where we can acknowledge mental processes taking place. When giving a speech in front of a class, 'fight or flight' often kicks in for people who are extremely nervous, but they move forward by acknowledging their brain's reaction and finding a way past it. Humans are self aware of basic instincts such as rage, lust, or hunger, but what makes humans, human, is that they can move past these desires. Humanity squanders the incredibly unique ability of higher thought, and this is the truly great failure of humanity.
Humanity is a failed experiment.

As you Hold the burden of proof in saying Humanity is a failed experiment, I must ask you 1.) What are our goals as humans in the first place? You can not fail at something you have not attempted. 2.) If we have indeed failed, why is it they we continue to grow as a species? 3.) If you are commenting on the evils of humanity then what if the evolutionary process has left us with primal instincts in our brains? Are we wrong for not fighting against them?
Humanity is a failed experiment.

I believe that humanity, regardless of origins, should be considered a failed experiment. 1. Religious zealotry has created a mass disconnect between humanity 2. War has always been an inevitable reality of life 3. Empathy and complacency are at disgustingly low levels 4. Inferior animals are given no dignity or respect 5. Thousands of nuclear tests, and two actual nuclear bombs have been dropped 6. Millions die of starvation, dehydration, and preventable diseases each year 7. Personal wealth is regarded in my societies as the greatest achievement 8. The environment weeps in sadness and destruction 9. Thousands of species go extinct each year 10. Humanity is a parasite, sucking dry all natural resources with no regard towards the future 11. Slavery, unequal rights for women and various ethnic minority's, and discrimination 12. The Holocaust 13. The KKK 14. Jihadists 15. Patriotism rather than humanitarianism The list goes on and on. Any takers?
The "FAIR"TAX

My opponent has forfeited his last round. So, I shall just sum up. My opponent has argued that no matter how you slice it, people are worse off with the fair tax. He has asserted the it taxes the poor because they are largely unable to control their spending and would therefore spend more in taxes under the new proposal. I have responded by noting that, though the sales tax is substantial, it is a lower tax rate than the current system. When the cost of compliance to today's tax code is considered, plus the general inefficiencies relating to the current system are considered, the Fair tax is a step up by being simpler and will result in everyone's well-being increasing. The Fair tax reduces all income relating taxes which will create high profits for businesses of all types today. This encourages new investing, and makes the cost of investing for the poor cheaper in the short run. It also creates competition and will inevitably reduce the prices of goods sold in the market. This will counterbalance the increased sales tax and make the poor better off than they were before because their goods will actually be CHEAPER to purchase than they were before the tax was implemented. The Fair tax also includes a prebate, which sends families a check equal to the amount they would pay in taxes based on today's poverty structure. This means that, inevitably, a poor person spending all of their money on goods is doing nothing more than returning the tax money that was given to them. Therefore, they pay no tax, and the only people who will are going to b e the ones who earn and spend more than the poverty line. Finally, a note about choice. In today's structure, you are charged the taxes when you earn your paycheck. At the end of the year, you have to fight the IRS to get any of it back. If you have the money earlier, you could have invested it, and earned something before you spent it. In the Fair tax, you are paying your taxes when you spend money. This gives you the money you earned FIRST and lets you pay your taxes as you consume goods throughout the year. No matter how you simplify the code today, you can never give an individual as much choice as that. Take care wingnut, it was nice debating you!
The "FAIR"TAX

This would all be well and good if changing the tax code would really be behavior changing. I agree that the current tax system is bad, but that does not mean that a universal sales tax would be better. Behavioral tendencies and financial practice is not the problem. We don't need to change peoples incentives to invest or disincentives to spend recklessly. Fiscal responsibility is already present and, if it isn't, changing the tax code would not be an effective way to change it. Most poor people are not poor because they elect not to save, they are poor because their situation requires them to spend the money that they do. Imagine a family below the poverty level. Its not as if these families refuse to save, they simply HAVE to spend their money in order to get by, whether its groceries, bills, or rent. There isn't a desire to recklessly spend or a refusal to save. Additionally, people don't need incentive to invest. Whether or not the government taxes a higher PROPORTION of your check, you are still making more money net than if you were in the lower tax bracket. Rich people are going to invest anyway, taxes or no. The claim that this tax is somehow universal is entirely misconstrued. Just because the tax is applied equally to everything doesn't mean it effects everyone in the same way. For instance, rich people save a larger proportion of their money than poor people, whether in the current system or under the fairtax, simply because they are able to. The rich have more available funds to invest and are required to spend a lower proportion. So, instead of placing a marginally increasing burden on the rich, the fair tax would place it on the poor, even if we reduce the 'cost' of investing. To elaborate, the poorer someone is, the less they are going to invest and the more they are going to spend, proportionally. This means, that instead of placing the burden on the rich by taxing profit and the like, we place the burden on those who are forced , by their means, to spend. I, for one, think that the burden (if their has to be one) should be placed on the rich, who are able to cope with it, versus the poor, who are obviously not. You assume that poor people don't invest because the 'cost' is to high. This is not the case. People spend and consume first in order to meet their needs. The smaller amount of funds that people have left over after their needs are met, the less able they are to save and invest, proportionally. Again, its not that lower income people don't want to invest, they are simply unable to. As far as cost is concerned, we can reduce it by lowering and eliminating taxes and simplifying the current codes. In short, the problem is not behavior. People want to save, invest, make more, and turn profit. People don't want to spend. This is inherent in economics, regardless. By taxing consumption, we are placing an increasing burden on those who can't afford it. Basically, the more your means are stretched, the higher your marginal burden. I am not sitting here defending the current tax code by any means, but a fairtax isn't the answer.