BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Proposition 8 should not be passed.

First of all, I would like to offer the prelude that I am personally pro-gay marriage and chose this specific debate to accept rather than many of the other ones because it specifically refers to a ballot measure rather than to the nature of gay marriage itself. I will not be arguing against gay marriage but instead arguing that there is worth to allowing this measure on the ballot and that if the majority or super majority of the state of california want it, this should pass and possibly serve as a test case for the matter if brought before the supreme court of the united states which has yet to decide on this matter fully. First of all, the purpose of a constitutional amendment in any state is to get something directly into enforcement around any other prohibitive amendments in the state. It is because the California supreme court has already found the legislative ban on gay marriage to be unconstitutional that this measure is even on the ballot. California is one of the most liberal states in terms of ballot measures allowing citizens to easily offer their own constitutional amendments. This is one of the essential foundations of democracy as established in the state. In california, it has been decided that the final voice can and should come form the people and that a majority should have a say even above a judiciary through this process. Again, we are not arguing over the right or wrong of this system, but only that it is the one that is in place. Therefore, any ballot measure that is put forth in good faith and gets the proper signatures should be considered and be up for a vote by the people. It seems likely that this measure will be defeated in november, but if it manages to pass it will be a valid one in the state of california due to the very structure of the california system. Of course, then I would expect this measure and the amendment to be taken up to the supreme court level of the United States Eventually. It is true that the precedents of Loving v. Virginia and Lawrence v. Texas among others make it likely that the supreme court will decide against the amendments and strike them down as violations of the supreme power invested in the federal constitution, but the thing is until this has been established definitively by a federal body such ballot measures if passed have a validity. The pro side must find someway to definitively assert an authority other than the supreme court of the land ( which has yet to decide) which would make this ballot measure invalid or else find someway to declare outside of a democratic decision that one ballot measure is right and another wrong. In short, the pro side must actively show that in a democracy there is some force for judging before a case ever reaches a supreme court or a vote that there is as mechanism to show the worth of an amendment. The very structure of the pros initial comments demand this. It has taken up a very high burden that I fear it will never be able to reach.
There should be lass MATH in schools.

I don't think you understood my point, Math as whole is important. This is the point I was trying to get across. I'll bring up again the point that United States schools are ranked 32nd in proficiency in the subject of mathematics. This is absolutely unacceptable and to eliminate even more math classes would seem to be illogical. How are we to learn and improve in this area if we have LESS math? I've already illustrated the point of how math is important as a life skill. I believe I've made my point clear.
There should be lass MATH in schools.

Thank you for your clarification. I can understand your frustration completely. In today's society, we are sadly becoming ignorant of the things that truly matter. I don't mean that in a derogatory sense, but in an encouraging way. We need to be able to know the things that are important in life, such as you have suggested, marketing, politics, history, geography, and certainly the current president! Our generation doesn't pay attention to the things that really matter. As much as I have observed, the studies you have mentioned fall upon deaf ears. Those that do pay attention are probably doing it simply for the grade, and not the practicality of it. I believe the reason our public education system focuses on mathematics is because the overall test scores in that area has dropped considerably in recent years. According to a study in 2011, the United States ranks kids as 32nd in the world in math proficiency! That's horrible! But my point is, the study of mathematics is crucially important to today's society. Algebra, for example, may not seem like much and we may question the purpose of it. Are you aware that it in fact prepares us for logical thinking? And that certainly is important. Without geometry, life would be pointless (pun intended). Architecture as we know it would be greatly different. You may not enter that field, but numerous other students will and that is the foundation on their career. Pre-Calculus and Calculus go in the study of change and they both have uses for future scientists. I could go on, but I don't think I need to. In summary, mathematics, as well as social studies and foreign language are important, even though we may not see the overall purpose. http://www.slj.com...
There should be lass MATH in schools.

First of all, I am sorry for the mistake I've made in the title, by LASS I ment LESS math. I beg your pardon again. As second, I'm referring to math in general as a subject for example in high schools. I think it is totally unnecessary. It has been 3 years since I'm going to high school and I have math 4 times a week, 6 hours a week. I think school and educational system should provide more general subjects to kids, who sadly don't know ANYTHING about life itself. The new generations know nothing about wars, happened in past, marketing, politics,.. Kids don't even know who's the president of their country! I'm okay with learning math. But seriously? Having 6 hours of math a per-week, and having only an hour of history, or only an hour of our native language OR foreign languages? I think that kind of sh*t is more important then kids learning how to draw circles and squares and calculating its volume or stuff like that. I think we should really all agree on that.
There should be lass MATH in schools.

I will be taking the argument that there should be just as much as or more mathematics in schools today. I would like to ask my opponent to clarify what they mean by less (lass) math in schools today. This is a capacious definition. Mathematics defined by dictionary.com refers to, "the systematic treatment of magnitude, relationships between figures and forms, and relations between quantities expressed symbolically." Was my opponent was referring to basic mathematics such as addition, multiplication, etc. Or were they referring to the broad terms such as algebra, geometry, calculus, etc? I thank my opponent for the time in this debate, and viewers I extend my gratitude for observing and taking the time to read. I look forward to seeing the outcome.
You can not prove or disprove anything

My apologies, I'm not used to using these fancy debating structures so my arguments will just look like plain texts. You stated that my claim requires evidence to back it up. In other words you want me to "prove" that my claim is true. You see, this creates an inception (I hope you've seen the movie, because I don't know how else to describe it) where I need to prove something when my whole point of the debate is that it's impossible to prove anything. How can I do something that I deem impossible? Or how can I possibly participate in a reasonable debate when I have no facts? There are no facts because facts require proof. I'm glad you brought up the self-contradiction. You're right, this whole matter does indeed raise a self-contradiction. But that is because the conception of this debate is self-contradictory. My claim of "You can not prove or disprove anything" has no proof to back it up so you might as well deem it false from the beginning, one might say. But I dare you to disprove it. Thus, my claim is neither right or wrong, and that was my essential claim in other words anyway. Rebuttal 1 I didn't actually use any websites, I just thought of a simple scientific fact that would be clear to anybody. I'm glad that my idea happened to be article-worthy, though. Okay, you dug out an article about someone actually making water float on oil. As seen from your quotes this does not actually happen because of density and instead because of scientific reasons I can't completely understand. Now, I do congratulate you for the good find but I did mention in my argument that quoting: "Now, what if another scientist came along and did the same experiment (with the same water and oil)". With the same water and oil I put in brackets. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. What I was going for is that the other scientist would carry out the same experiment with EXACTLY the same conditions. So no water droplets in oil. I was hoping for a philosophical reasoning why this could actually never happen. Because we all already know scientifically why it wouldn't. And please, take the freedom to once again provide the structure of the debate as I don't know how to. Hope to hear from you soon.
You can not prove or disprove anything

Since my opponent has not provided a debate structure, I am allowed to choose whether I'm only going to make opening arguments or make opening arguments and rebut my opponent's claims at the same time. Therefore, I choose to make opening arguments and rebut my opponent's claims at the same time.PresentationsArgument 1 - Pro's Self-ContradictionSelf-contradiction - "Inconsistency between aspects or parts of a whole"http://www.oxforddictionaries.com...You need evidence to back up your claims. If I had a box sitting on my table, I would have to open it up, in whatever method, and check to see what is inside to make any justifiable claims as to what it contains.The same concept applies to my opponent. Pro claims that it is not possible to really prove or disprove anything. However, being a claim, that too requires evidence. Therefore, this can be passed off as a self-contradiction.RebuttalsRebuttal 1 - Reason for Everything"He has a bottle of water and a bottle of oil. He pours the oil onto the water and the oil floats. He does this 10 times and the outcome is always the same... Now, what if another scientist came along and did the same experiment (with the same water and oil) and the water magically started to float on oil?"My guess is that you are using this example from an article you found online.http://www.livescience.com...It has always been regarded as a fact that oil floats above water. "Normally what determines whether something floats or not is its density. For instance, hot air is less dense than cooler air, which is why hot-air balloons float. Crude oil has a density of about 58 pounds per cubic foot, and so floats on seawater, which has a density of 64 pounds per cubic foot."However, an experiment, held by whomever, led to the discovery that water can float above oil as well."Water can float on oil, suggest new findings defying conventional wisdom that could have important applications in cleaning up oil spills that endanger seashores and fisheries, researchers say."However, upon further reading, this is only due to a change in the conditions of the experiment. "The key behind the counterintuitive results involves how tightly the molecules in a liquid stick to one another as opposed to something else. The strength of this force between like molecules determines the liquid's surface tension — how likely it resists an external force...The researchers added tiny amounts of water to drops of various types of oil. These water droplets could float on the oil, depending on how large they were and the type of oil that was used. Commercial vegetable oil has enough surface tension to support the droplets..."Regardless of whether or not you used that example upon coincidence, it doesn't change the facts; Nothing out of the ordinary occurs without reason. In this case, the vegetable oil had enough surface tension, therefore being dense enough, to hold up the water droplets. I am eager to read my opponent's upcoming response.
You can not prove or disprove anything

Even though the debate fomat is philosophical, the word "prove" comes from science when man made their first discoveries/experiments. Thus I'm going to use some examples from science throughout the debate. Imagine a scientist. He's trying to prove that oil floats on water. He has a bottle of water and a bottle of oil. He pours the oil onto the water and the oil floats. He does this 10 times and the outcome is always the same. He doesn't know the reason for it so he discovers density. He does the same experiment with other liquids and measures the density of water and oil. He got proof on paper that water has more density on oil.Now, what if another scientist came along and did the same experiment (with the same water and oil) and the water magically started to float on oil? How can you effectively prove that this would never happen? There's an infinite number of attempts you can do on the experiment. How can you possibly prove that water can and will never float on oil? The concept of "proof" was made by man to rule out the invalid, or more accurately what we thought was invalid. So in conclusion the concept of proof that we mechanically constructed exists, however, proof of anything in the universe does not exist. In an infinite number of attempts to prove or disprove anything, any attempt can be the exception.
Islam is a Bad Religion | Prove Me Wrong

I acknowledge that a religion is only as good as it's followers. I am also glad you accept that Islam teaches good things but the followers do not practice the faith and you I guess let go few other "bad" points that you previously held out. Once again Islam teaches peace but most of its followers fail to abide by its teachings, which reflects bad on the religion and pious muslims and cause people like you to jump to conclusion that "Islam is a bad religion". For example, you have a son and you raise him very well with good manners. When your son turned an adult he started to become delinquent.What do you think people will firstly say? "His father didn't teach him any manners or raised him right" but you did, didn't you? More than 50% muslims are radical muslims okay? What about the remaining muslims that are not? You claim Islam is a bad religion, fine, why do you claim so? because more than half muslims are radical muslims. I watched the video by Ben Shapiro it is indeed very informative, mostly about radical muslims. If radical muslims are your problem then let them be your problem not the religion. Instead the topic being "Islam is bad | Prove me wrong" it should've been "Radical muslims are bad | prove me wrong. It was very nice debating with you. I tried. I hope i prove you wrong lol.
Islam is a Bad Religion | Prove Me Wrong

As you mentioned nothing about my previous answers I guess it answers your doubts and questions about the "bad" stuff of Islam. What do you mean "What about the 50% of Muslims that are extreme radical terrorists (but maybe don't show it)."? As i already said, it is the PEOPLE who are terrorists and I pointed out 3 facts that islam promotes no terrorism. Your debate topic is "Islam is a Bad Religion | Prove Me Wrong" My job is already done to prove you WRONG that ISLAM is a bad religion not the PEOPLE ( ISIS or Bin Laden) Once again, ISLAM is good, the PEOPLE are maybe bad, but the main thing is to prove that ISLAM is NOT BAD.
Islam is a Bad Religion | Prove Me Wrong

This still doesn't change the fact that more than 50% of muslims are radical extremists aka people who like ISIS, think honor killings of women are okay, think burning, raping, and scalping are okay forms of torture, and that Osama Bin Laden was an okay guy. There are approximately 1.5 million radicals in the USA. And being a catholic, yes Joseph married Mary at 12 or 15 (ongoing debate) while he was 90 or 99 (ongoing debate), but Joseph didn't sexually abuse Mary as Muhammad did to Aisha. "... for protection and modesty where it mentions in the Quran "Say to the believing women that: they should cast down their glances and guard their private parts (by being chaste). This is better for them." Then why don't men wear something for protection, modesty, cast down their glances, and guard their private parts? Women also wear it so men have no sexual attraction. This only benefits men and not women. Accordingly, as a Catholic I fully oppose women wearing the veil to church. This mostly happens in central and eastern Europe, and some regions of India.
Islam is a Bad Religion | Prove Me Wrong

I disagree. Islam doesn't teach peace. I do in fact have "something"against the religion of Islam and muslims. My main problem is that more than 50% of Muslims are radical Muslims. This includes about 2.2 million radical muslims in America. These people include people who believe ISIS is okay, 9/11 was okay, honor killings of women are okay, and sharia law should be the law of the land. Now into the actual religion. In Surah (3:151) it states all people who don't subject to Islam are not innocent. Surah (9:123) says that anyone who isn't muslim shall be killed. Muhammed was also a very bad guy. He hung two girls for singing satirical songs about him Hisham (819). He also married a 12 year old and sexually abused her. He also married 3 times. In Quran (8:39) it says again to kill all non believers. And finally about looks. I don't think women should wear hijabs, burkas, etc. because it was made to oppress women by Muhammed. I hope you see where I'm coming from. https://www.youtube.com...... https://www.youtube.com......
life makes more sense if we believe curses are real

My opponent mentioned fair points concerning why a person should not believe in curses. However, I believe the example of a black cat and walking under a ladder go further to demonstrate a curse consists of luck. That is how I will ultimately view this topic. When looking at whether or not a person should or shouldn't live in fear of a cat and ladder I would agree that it appears ludicrous, but this is also important to a person's life because this makes them more aware of surroundings. Therefore, by being superstitious and increasing awareness a person tends to stay safer. This also does not necessarily make a person fearful or less adventurous but rather cautious. Having fear is not bad either. Think of it like this, if a person is gambling and starts a losing streak, they believe they are running out of luck and may withdraw. By withdrawing from gambling you protect money that could be used to be invested rather than taking the risk of being one in a million of "hitting it big".
life makes more sense if we believe curses are real

believing in curses can lead to major paranoia in one's life. if every person believes and accepts superstitions and curses, then they shall be in constant fear of something bad happening to them. For example when a person's path is crossed by a black cat or a person is standing under a ladder, they shall have the fear of something bad happening to them and therefore will be unable to live their lives to the fullest.
A Resolution to Legalize Prostitution

I will start of with a quote... "I was told that whistling wasn't ladylike, but I knew even then that women were simply not suppose to be that happy." - quoted in Kindling the Spirit by Lois P Frankel. So I ask today...how are women suppose to be happy when prostituion becomes legal?...They can't! Because of this...I stand in the strong negation of the resolution with three main contentions. (1) The economic issues (2) How un-healthy it is and (3) The social effects
A Resolution to Legalize Prostitution

So far the opponent has only been able to refute my case and not give detail of his own case as to why prostitution should become legal... Seeing how I have already given my case...talking about (1) The economic issues (2) How un-healthy it is and (3) The social effect I will refute the little information the opponent has provided of his own case... The opponent has only stated talking about "taxation" we already have enough taxes. We need to stop putting taxes on everything! What's next? Taxing those who are overweight?!? NO! We need to stop seeing taxes as a benefit to every problem this country has! For the following reasons I have stated, I still urge a strong vote on the negation of this debate. :) Thank you!
A Resolution to Legalize Prostitution

Just to be clear, Prostitution meaning the act of having sex for money or some other type of restitution. Anyway, In a general rebuttal of my opponent's first three points: 1) There would be no economic issues, in fact, it may even help the economy because of the tax revenue. Adult entertainment actors/performers do exactly the same thing as prostitutes, the only difference is where the deals take place, and the fact that they film and sell the videos/pictures. 2) The Adult Entertainment Industry has solved this problem as well, Actor/Performers are tested frequently for all Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Viruses and keep a record of all partners they may have had in the previous months. If prostitution was legalized, possible prostitution unions could require that all members get tested monthly, and use safe sex practices. 3) Now, I don't know if prostitution would be considered a respectable profession, but instead of dealing with criminals (Pimps) trying to make money off of the women they protect/control, a person would be dealing with one prostitute, perhaps backed by a prostitution union or brothel house, with no under the table dealings going on. If anything were to go askew, such as the prostitute robbing her client or a client assaulting the prostitute, the person/prostitute could go to the police.
The Kalam Cosmological Argument is a sound argument for God's existence

I will be focusing on the first line in my arguments:1. "Everything that begins to exist has a cause."Objection I: If everything that begins to exist, what caused God?If God is exempt from the first premise, then it is equivalent to "(1) Everything has a cause, except God." This is begging the question. [1] What would logically follow is "(2) The universe is not God." And finally, "(3) Therefore, the universe has a cause." If the opponent agrees that God is exempt, then this is the embedded argument. And this begs the question, because theists do not justify the fact that God is the only member of the "does not exist" group and assert it in the premise, nonetheless. Objection II: When we say that the universe is included in "everything," we are determining traits of the whole (i.e., the universe) based on observations of its parts. Just as the members of a set do not necessarily mirror the traits of the entire set, such an assumption cannot be made. Indeed, this is a fallacy of composition: e.g., "The human body is made up of cells,human cells are invisible to the naked eye,Therefore, the human body is invisible to the naked eye." [2] Objection III: In the field of quantum mechanics, events happen that have no caused (e.g., radioactive decay) or photon loss of an excited atom. [3] This, too, proves that the initial premise does not hold. ---Thank you, and I look forward to the opponent's refutations. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org...[2] http://www.fallacyfiles.org... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org...