BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Lowering Taxes is not Beneficial to the Economy

"If not with the government, then where should it be kept. In the economy? Though it sounds like a great plan, it is not a good long term solution. The rich get richer is a famous proverb that many people know. . http://ezinearticles.com....... Do you know why this happens. As money circulates uncontrolled, it will slowly be gained by the few rich people. As they earn money, they hog it and no longer spend it. When there are people who hog the money, how can the status of the economy be improved. You said in the first round that 'The economy works best when the money is changing hands quickly. ' . http://judelfoir.wordpress.com......; Money cannot change hands quickly if it is being hoarded by the rich. Therefore, the government is there to ensure that the rich do not get all the money and that some money continues in circulation. They do this through taxing. Higher taxes, the less the rich have and the more the poor can get. " Alright, first, the rich do NOT hoard all of the money. They do not have their own "million-dollar mattress" or anything of the sort. They invest it in something called stocks. . http://en.wikipedia.org... This helps the economy. Your accusation that the rich hoard money is a LIE, and all your arguments based on that are also lies. The rich also buy fancy things like yachts . http://eyachtcharter.blogspot.com..., mansions . http://www.popcrunch.com..., fancy sports cars, overly expensive wine . http://www.bbr.com..., and multiple video game consoles of every brand for each room in the house. "Though this seems socialist, it is not. It is a safety procedure preventing a total crash in the economy. " Actually, it's a safety procedure that is supported by socialists. "How is giving money to people the easiest way to get money back into the economy. When the government directly puts it in the economy, it is predictable. However, when money is given back to people, the government does not know for sure if the people will spend it. " Oh, so you want to give the government more control over where our money ends up going? That's socialism. The government doesn't always do the best things with their money. People prefer choices. If people know that their money is being controlled by the government, it can lead to a panic, then a government recession. "Do you know, if that was true, there would be no such thing as NASA. Government also has a role over technology as it is an indirect form of aid. The technological advances made by such companies result in better lifestyle for regular people. One such example is the temperpedic mattress. It was developed by NASA and is now used by many people. " I don't think that temperpedic sleep mattresses make up for billions of dollars of funding. IN CONCLUSION: Lowering taxes is beneficial to the economy. A reduction in taxes can lead to large amounts of money being spent, which stimulates the economy much more than a ridiculous stimulus package could. When the people have the money, they feel in control, and they go out and spend it, and that is the power that powers the economy.
Lowering Taxes is not Beneficial to the Economy

This is my first debate and it has been very fun. " Of all places to keep our money, it is NOT with the government. It is with the economy. " If not with the government, then where should it be kept. In the economy? Though it sounds like a great plan, it is not a good long term solution. The rich get richer is a famous proverb that many people know. . http://ezinearticles.com.... Do you know why this happens. As money circulates uncontrolled, it will slowly be gained by the few rich people. As they earn money, they hog it and no longer spend it. When there are people who hog the money, how can the status of the economy be improved. You said in the first round that "The economy works best when the money is changing hands quickly. " . http://judelfoir.wordpress.com...; Money cannot change hands quickly if it is being hoarded by the rich. Therefore, the government is there to ensure that the rich do not get all the money and that some money continues in circulation. They do this through taxing. Higher taxes, the less the rich have and the more the poor can get. Though this seems socialist, it is not. It is a safety procedure preventing a total crash in the economy. ". .. these projects are actually a good way of returning money back into the economy. " No. The easiest way to return money to the economy is to return it to the people. And if you're going to do that, you might as well not have taxed them so highly in the first place. The more people are taxed, the less money they have. The less money people have, the less money they spend. The less money people spend, the less money exchanges hands. And as Foir said, this leads to recession. " How is giving money to people the easiest way to get money back into the economy. When the government directly puts it in the economy, it is predictable. However, when money is given back to people, the government does not know for sure if the people will spend it. "All that the government should do is rule over politics, not technology. " Do you know, if that was true, there would be no such thing as NASA. Government also has a role over technology as it is an indirect form of aid. The technological advances made by such companies result in better lifestyle for regular people. One such example is the temperpedic mattress. It was developed by NASA and is now used by many people. I would again like to thank my opponent for this debate. I await your reply
Lowering Taxes is not Beneficial to the Economy

Insane spending. Everyone would leap on this chance to buy something for a little cheaper than it would be on any other day. " The actual amount they are saving is not even worth the gas that it would take to drive their. Sales taxes are a very small part of what a person actually pays and in the end, the only benefactors are the store owners. One of the root causes of the depression is the money ending up in only a few peoples hands. . http://hubpages.com.... The money being spent is money that the consumers will not have. With higher taxes, more money will be going towards the government. "Does the government really need to send money to Iowa so that they can research why pigs smell bad? No. The government has gotten involved in far too many projects than it can handle. " Though they seem completely irrational, these projects are actually a good way of returning money back into the economy. The government does not hog the money so much as the rich people do. By returning money back into the research and science industry, they also support more intellectual studies, which in the long term advance our country. Giving the government money is a much better and safer idea than handing it to the rich.
Lowering Taxes is not Beneficial to the Economy

Acer, welcome to Debate.org. I hope you enjoy your debating experience here. "When taxes are lowered, the government has less income." Absolutely. "When the government is poor, it cannot fulfill all its duties rightfully." Allow me to define "rightful": 1: just , equitable 2 a: having a just or legally established claim : legitimate b: held by right or just claim : legal 3: proper , fitting http://www.merriam-webster.com... I think the word that you're looking to fit there is "correctly" or "efficiently". The point is, you can't assume that because taxes have been lowered, the government goes from "rich" to "poor". It just becomes "not as rich as it used to be, but still very rich". Additionally, how much money does the government need to do everything that it actually needs to do? Not very much. Does the government really need to send money to Iowa so that they can research why pigs smell bad? http://friscalating-dusklight.blogspot.com... No. The government has gotten involved in far too many projects than it can handle. If we lowered taxes, the government would still have enough money to do whatever necessary stuff it needs to do. "When the people see that the government is poor, they become even more conservative and don't spend their money. If they do not spend their money, the economy cannot be stimulated and the status of it will become worse." Let's say that Barack Obama went on a public announcement and said, "From Good Friday until Easter, sales taxes will be reduced by 50% for all products." What would happen? Spending. Insane spending. Everyone would leap on this chance to buy something for a little cheaper than it would be on any other day. Insane spending means that money is exchanging hands quickly, and I quote Judel Morrforous Foir, "The economy works best when the money is changing hands quickly. The more we preach recession, the worse it gets." http://judelfoir.wordpress.com... "Therefore, lowering taxes hurts our economy." As I said, it doesn't hurt. It can help. I look forwards to my opponent's first response.
Athenian Democracy

If it's truly ruled by the people then why would a democracy need to promote fear into controlling the people. They met every month to discuss new laws to make against the people. "Fear is our chief protection against this, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws." quoted by Thucydides (c. 460-395 BCE), "Pericles's Funeral Oration," in The History of the Peloponnesian War.
Athenian Democracy

This is present day, your argument is irrelevant. Policemen are not the same as a government, or a democracy. It's extremely hard to buy your freedom as a slave because they made little to no money so it was almost impossible to achieve freedom in a single lifetime. Back to Athenian Democracy, which democracy is all about YOUR freedom. When they exile you away for ten years because THEY believe you are unfit for THEIR community, that is stripping away your rights and your equality as a citizen.
Athenian Democracy

The Democracy means for the people for/by the people. The democracy isn't allowed to rule or teach them how to obey. That's for moms and dads. If they decide that a man is not a free man, then he can appeal to the courts. But if the court decides he is not a free man, back then they made him a slave. Are slaves free? No, obviously it is teaching them we govern you so we enslave you however we please. That is NOT a democracy.
Pure mathematics is worthwhile

I would like to put forward the proposition that pure mathematics is worthwhile and has an overall benefit to society, culture, and the world as a whole.By pure mathematics, I mean "Mathematics that studies entirely abstract concepts" and therefore does not neccessarily have a direct application outside of itself.By worthwhile, I mean "Sufficiently valuable or important to be worth one's time, effort, or interest".I eagerly await your response, and look forward to a good debate.
Pure mathematics is worthwhile

Meaning without life isn’t just “bad” – it’s completely and totally impossible. As such, for philosophy, art, maths, etc. to even be appreciated to any extent, live must be preserved – making it the ultimate value and the thing that must be put above all else. Even if this would lead to a meaningless existence, if it is the truth it cannot be disregarded. No matter how uncomfortable the prospect of it is, if life really is the ultimate value, then things with no applicability to the furthering of life are useless, and this has gone unchallenged except by some “intuitive” arguments that don’t have any clear logical grounding (e.g. that it’s bad to get rid of art, music, &c.). My opponent needed to show why the nihilism he saw in my position was its downfall instead of just saying that it was. 1) It gives people pleasure My opponent has not answered why pleasure is good in itself. The things listed do cause harm if they have no value in themselves – the harm comes from the time spent on them. If they have no positive value, then any negative value makes them absolutely wrong to pursue, just as, since the negatives of drugs outweigh the pleasure, drugs should not be pursued. My point was to show that pleasure, in itself, does not make something good – if it did, drugs, which are capable of producing the most pleasurable experiences open to humans, would surely be at least demonized to a lesser extent. 2+3) It doesn't require direct applications, but does have them & Studying pure maths improves your analytical, communication and problem solving skills Which would be more worthwhile: digging random ditches in an attempt to find buried treasure or using a metal detector in order to find the only spot that needs to be dug up? While it’s true that abstract maths can be useful in the future, it makes much more sense to do things with a direct aim towards applicability, future or otherwise, rather than just because “theoretical knowledge is an end in itself”. You don’t have to sacrifice long-range thinking for real applications. 4) Numbers are a part of our universe, to study maths is to study the world My opponent just asserts that these things have value – he never justifies why. I have shown that life must be the ultimate value via logical arguments, while my opponent has done nothing of the sort for his alternative values, and, as such, he has not properly refuted my framework. 5) It doesn't really cost anything If my opponent has not shown why abstract maths has value, then, by virtue of even the most minimal amount of wasted time spent on it, it is destructive and wasteful. ____ Conclusion I would rather only advance life, as that is the only end in itself that has been justified in this debate, and, as a result, I would only advocate things that directly did so, like applied mathematics as opposed to abstract maths. Thanks to Pro for the debate.
Religion prevents people to commit crimes

"However saying that Christianity is a blockage to high education levels and high economic status is too brave I think." I didn't really mean to come off as generic because saying that Christianity as a whole is a blockage to crime solution is in fact generic. I meant to exclude the more progressive Christians who are usually not Bible literalists and take stupid scriptures literally and as fact while they take other ones out of context. I was targeting the more vocal Christians. All in all, I really have nothing else to say about your Round 4 argument. I would like to wish Pro luck in the voting period of this debate.
Religion prevents people to commit crimes

Con:"now a part of my argument states that Christianity is a blockage to most of what I listed. While non belief and atheism enables what I have listed"Well, this is quite strong expression :) I could agree with "social tolerance" and "liberal viewpoints". Christians lack those more often than atheists. However saying that Christianity is a blockage to high education levels and high economic status is too brave I think. Majority of Christians in my environment are highly educated people. .. As I started this topic, I had no strong confidence that my propositions are right. I just thought that it should be logical that believers should generally do less crime because there should be portion of people who don't have strong ethics but they believe in all-seeing-eye, and they believe that they will be punished in this life or afterlife. As I started to search for information, I've found out that there is no consensus among researchers whether being theist affects criminal behavior, since there were studies which both have and haven't found correlation between religiosity and crimes. The study that I referenced in the second round was able to explain why previous studies couldn't find that correlation. This might suggest that previous studies may have used incomplete or even wrong methods. At the other hand, even if Christians do less bad things than atheists, this difference is probably quite insignificant.
Religion prevents people to commit crimes

My argument is not necessarily that religion causes people to become more violent my argument however is that religion usually does not prevent people from becoming more violent. What does however include "high education levels "high economic status "social tolerance "liberal viewpoints now a part of my argument states that Christianity is a blockage to most of what I listed. While non belief and atheism enables what I have listed. And with the data shown in my statistics I have a strong argument.
Religion prevents people to commit crimes

Regarding Con's source "Christianity and the Murder Rate". Indeed it shows some interesting statistics. What it says though is this: in some cases the countries/states with high church attendance rank have high murder rate. However there is very important remark in that same source: "Does all this mean that religion "primarily Christianity" causes violence? No, as Steve Chapman so clearly points out in his recent Slate article, relationships don't necessary mean causal relationships." Indeed, causality is very interesting and very important aspect of studies like this. The possible explanations of these results could be the following: a)The Christianity somehow is the cause of people being more violent. (Argument for Con). b)The actual cause of murder rate are the social factors like poor educational level, low economic status, low social tolerance, lack of liberal viewpoints in society. In this picture believing in God isn't the cause of wrongdoing but only the effect of social factors that were just mentioned. (Not an argument for Con). Secondly, the study doesn't show that the murderers are those who attend church :) One can perfectly assume that majority of criminals are the ones who do not believe in God. The source would have much stronger value to the topic if it made the calculations about which part of society (believers or non-believers) was apt to break the rules more. That is why the study is not very strong argument for Con at most. Going back to my source in previous post, I want to add and clarify this: The research finds the negative correlation between religiousness and delinquency in US areas where the research was done. Although there is a condition to make this correlation true - the density of believers should be high enough. When this requirement is met, we can see that believers do less crimes compared to non-believers. [2] One more argument of mine: There is a research about religiousness effect on crime rates of black youth in US inner-cities. [1] The study shows that black male youth who are religiously committed are less likely to do illegal activities, use drugs or alcohol. Other factors, e.g. stronger bond to family and school, more conventional peer networks, or higher involvement in productive activities, were taken into account to understand if it is really the religion that prevents the youth from making crimes and the study shows that it is clearly the religion that to some degree really causes the positive effect. [1] John J. DiIulio, Jr, "Religion: The Forgotten Factor In Cutting Youth Crime and Saving At-Risk Urban Youth" (1998). http://www.manhattan-institute.org... [2] James M. Day, William S. Laufer (1987). "Crime Values and Religion". http://www.google.lt...
Religion prevents people to commit crimes

"This statement needs some kind of proof. At the moment it's just an opinion." http://www.cybercollege.com... The data in this source includes the real factors that prevent most of the murder in the US. "Firstly, I'd like to talk only about Christian countries." Staying away from less Christian countries I would like to focus on the US which has a 76% rate of Christians. Some of the statistics listed on the source state things about our own country such as. "Louisiana" which happens to be one of the most religious states in the US "has murder rates twice the US average." And that "the Bible Belts murder rates are significantly higher that the US average" So statistically speaking your claims that towns with more religious people have lower crime rates falls short.
Religion prevents people to commit crimes

Firstly, I want to respond to my opponent's points. He says "for the most part religion does not prevent crimes". This statement needs some kind of proof. At the moment it's just an opinion. My opponent also shares the source where statistics are made that less religious countries tend to be more peaceful. I'm not sure if we can take this as an argument for the topic, since we should crystallize relevant information from the research first. Firstly, I'd like to talk only about Christian countries, because it just so happens that majority of hot spots in the world is Islamic countries. Whereas, North America, South America, Europe, Australia - they're mostly Christian continents and they're relatively safe continents too. So if we make the calculations on Christian countries only I somehow believe that we would have different results. Now I have my argument. As I was searching for some researches, I've noticed that researchers quite often find it difficult to show the negative correlation between religiousness and delinquency. However there is work of James M. Day, William S. Laufer who looked at the problem in a different way and they state that they've found the reason why previous researchers failed to find the correlation. "It is not whether an individual kid goes to church or believes in hell that influences his or her delinquency. What is critical is whether the majority of the kid's friends are religious. In communities where most young people do not attend church, religion will not inhibit the behavior even of those teenagers who personally are religious. However, in communities where most kids are religious, then those who are will be less delinquent than those who aren't. " [1] So the authors propose that even though from a psychological perspective it could be difficult to find the positive influence on people behavior, this influence is very clear from a sociological perspective. And the critical point here is the density of believers in the group of people. If the majority of people in the group are religious, the numbers clearly shows that believers will do less crimes than non-believers in that group. [1] James M. Day, William S. Laufer (1987). "Crime Values and Religion". . http://www.google.lt...
Religion prevents people to commit crimes

Now the first point I would like to make is that for the most part religion does not prevent crimes there are rare exceptions but for most cases religion does not do it. What could do it however would be basic ethics and having knowledge of morals and having empathy in general. I would also like to bring our attention to this source. . http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com... It states that less religious countries tend to be more peaceful than the more religious nations, another statistic states on average atheists are in fact the most peaceful class in the US!