BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
The minimum wage should not be raised to $15/hr for fast food workers

Unions recently staged protests demanding that McDonald's in the U.S. should be required to pay workers a minimum of $15 per hour. An ABC News report provides some background on the issue [1. http://abcnews.go.com...]. While McDonald's was the focus of the demonstrations, a law cannot target just one fast food company. If that were legal, other chains might get most of the business, McDonald's would largely fail, and workers would be back at the current minimum wage of $7.25 working at competitors. Therefore, the resolution requires all fast food restaurants be required by law to pay $15 per hour. The Pro position is that the disadvantages of requiring $15 per hour are greater than the advantages, and Con will argue the opposite. The purpose of focusing on the fast food industry, and McDonald's in particular, is to provide an example with real numbers in the economics. The debate is about the situation in the US, as other countries are often not comparable. American "fast food" is considered upscale in some places. Do not accept this debate if your Elo ranking is less than 2800. Your Elo ranking is posted below your debate avatar on your profile page in the Debate Statistics block. If you have not debated yet, your Elo score is undefined, but it will be assigned a value of 2000, which does not qualify. By accepting this challenge you agree that if at the start of the debate you do not meet this criteria you forfeit all points.RulesThis opening round is for definitions and acceptance only. I will give the Pro case at the start of the second round.Standard debate conventions apply. I list them here for the benefit of new debaters and for readers. I believe there is nothing tricky or eccentric. Both sides agree to the following rules, and that violating the rules is a conduct violation, with anything contrary to the rules to be ignored by readers judging the debate:DR 1. All arguments must be made in the debate. Evidence may be cited or linked from the debate, but only in support of arguments made in the debate. Arguments made in Comments are to be ignored.DR 2. Source links or references must be included within the 8000 characters per round limit of the debate. No links or sources are permitted in comments.DR 3 Any term not specifically defined before use is to be taken with the ordinary dictionary definition of the term that best fits the context of the debate. DR 4. No new arguments shall be made in Round 4. Pro may rebut previous arguments using new evidence solely for that purpose, but no new arguments are allowed. Con may not present any new evidence or make new arguments in R4. R4 is for summarizing the debate and pointing out merits and deficiencies of the arguments rather than introducing new contentions.DR 5. DDO site rules always apply. Neither side may add or modify rules for the debate once the challenge is accepted.
Homeschooling

There are many reasons why I think homeschooling doesn't really work. The biggest reasons being the parents and the lack of a school environment. Correct me if I am wrong, but there aren't really much regulations in most of the states in United States or even most of the other countries. Usually the requirement is only a high school diploma which I don't think really qualifies you as a teacher compared to the qualifications actual teachers need to get. Sure there are parents who are great teachers, but then there are those that think they are great teachers when they are actually not. Now if I am not wrong, kids only have two parents, and the majority of schools in developed countries certainly have more than two teachers. Can the parents really handle teaching so many subjects at once? I see you mentioned that the parents have total control over what subjects their children learn and they can make the decisions for how they are taught. But how would the parents even know what subjects are the best for them? The reason we have to learn everything up until college is because most kids really don't know what they want to do in the future so learning a large variety of subjects keep the options open. Parents really don't have the right to make this decision for their kids. Then comes the time and resources needed for education, it is very difficult to balance teaching a kid and having a full time job even if both parents are teaching. You are basically taking the role of full time teachers. And quitting your jobs would always hurt you financially. Lastly, the social environment you get from normal schools. One of the biggest opportunities for interactions for children is school, and if you take that away, there isn't much else. Sure you can take your kids out, but the quiet and introverted kids would just not interact with anyone. School forces kids to interact with each other and acquire social skills that are much needed for most jobs. There are some more smaller points but I think these sums them up.
Homeschooling

For many different reasons, there are parents out there who feel that public, or even private schools, aren’t the right environments for their children to thrive in education. People who feel strongly about this matter often opt to homeschool their kids. Firstly, you make the decision about what your children learn. You have total control over what subjects your children are learning. Secondly, you make the decisions about how your children learn. There is no way a school classroom can tailor its teaching style for each child. Yet each child differs. As a home schooling parent, you can teach your child in the style that best fits him or her, and you can tweak your teaching style as needed. Thirdly, you get to choose the curriculum. You can decide how many books, worksheets, crafts, and so forth that your student does. You can reject or accept aspects of various curricula and/or design your own. And finally, your child gets one-on-one instruction. Time and again, studies have shown that children learn well with individual instruction. I think that homeschooling may be a good way for children, but at the same time it has some disadvantages. First of all, flexible schedule. While this also appears in the list of pros above, the lack of structure may cause problems for some families. Then, being taught by non-teachers. Can parents handle the tough material? Teachers are required to go to school for a reason. Also, time commitment. Many parents spend lots of time educating their children. Doing it well requires consistent dedication. And what do you think about it?
the USA should have more background checkss

Ok, I'm going to wrap this up pretty quickly - Your personal experience means nothing. That would be like saying "I know 4 Mislims that all turned out to be suicide bombers", and then concluding that all other Muslims are suicide bombers. That's ridiculous. - The reason we need self defence is because crime exist. Rapes and murders have been around since the dawn of time. - As of 2014, the only people who would fail a 4473 NICS background check are convicted felons, illegal aliens and those with a restraining order on them. So yes, the only people who fail background checks are legitimate criminals. And if they tried to get one legally and fail, you have shown no evidence to prove that those who want a gun will simply give up because they failed a background check. That's also ridiculous. - I've already shown that gun friendly states had less gun homicide than anti- gun states. - My point with Sweden and the Czech Republic was to show that guns aren't always the problem. Guns don't make people kill. People kill because of the poor society they grew up in. - Pro has also failed to provide any evidence to her original argument. She has shown no evidence that 40% of gun sales are unchecked. She also denies that criminals don't want to get guns illegally.
the USA should have more background checkss

my personal experience must count for something. even if you have different experiences, the fact that i have mine means that there are people that talk and get into gun tiffs only because they have a gun to begin with. tiffs they wouldn't get in if they didn't have a gun. you simply claim that with reduced guns the bad outweighs the good cause there are fewer self defense. you ignore that the reason self defense is needed is because we have gun rights to begin with. it's a clear trade off. you also ignore that with background checks the focus would be on people who shouldn't have guns to begin with. so your problem with defense isn't really there to begin with. you simply argue that all criminals would go get a gun. of course, if you are a professional drug dealer or car robber, you would get it illegal. you ignore that most people who are denied are regular people who have a bit of a background. it is irrational to think all who are denied would go get a gun. if they don't get a gun, then the stat that you are more likely to be involved in gun problems wouldn't apply to them, even more so because they are someoen who is shaddy enough to be denied a gun to begin with. if someone is intent on killing without a gun, of course they could. but increasing someone's odds of having a gun increases the risk of overall not just gun murders but muders in general, according to my studies. your points about sweden ignore the main points. that is, those countires are outliers to the comprehensive studies i showed.they are anecdotal. and, if they have a known 'good culture' and economy and such, that means they shouldn't be used to make your point. just because we have a worse conditioned country doesn't mean we should have freely distributed guns.... all the mroe reason we shouldn't, cause people are more prone to use them. you havent given any context to your points about states, given you didn't show the rate for the gun friendly states. and even if you did, you have only given a few examples. the studies provided were comprehensive. that is.... as i said before, the bottomline is that the more likely a person, state, or country is to have guns, the more likely they are to have not just gun murders but murdes in general.
the USA should have more background checkss

That link doesn't say a word about background check percentages. No, I didn't admit anything. What I said was, just because they fail a background check (and the only reason they would fail is if they are a criminal) that doesn't mean they won't try to get a gun from a trafficker. Small talk made by a few members of the gun-owning community can in no way be used as fact at all. Just because you claim to have a few friends who own guns and talk about using them, doesn't mean that ALL of them do. If you insist that this is the case, prove it. If you cannot prove that all members of the gun-owning community have homicidal tendencies, I demand you drop this argument and any other argument you can't back up with evidence. Also, if there were 3x as many guns distributed in the same ratio of criminals to civilians as they are now, both categories would increase by a factor of 3. There would be 1,500,000 defensive uses and 27,000 murders. The good still outweighs the bad exponentially. But if you decrease the number of guns in the hands of the law-abiding, you're only putting them at risk. Criminals who want to do harm can get a gun through illicit means as I showed in the pdf from the BATFE in the last round. I don't get your logic. Criminals almost always need guns for the activities they partake in. Can't really do a drug deal if your buyers can just rob you later because they know you're un-armed. You can't car-jack someone because they could fight back with their hands. Given the amount of gun-trafficking that we have in this country, it's ridiculous to assume that a criminal doesn't want to get a gun because they failed a background check that means nothing to them. As to the Jerry Springer argument, well, it's like I said. Only 9000 gun homicides in 2012. So even if Jerry did go grab a gun and kill his neighbour because he p!ssed him off because of his dog or whatever, legitimate usage still trumps crime by a high margin. Next round, please uses proper capitilazation and numbers or dashes to make your arguments easier to read. You're making my point for me. Guns aren't the problem. Society that thinks violence is acceptable is the problem. Sweden and The Czech Republic don't have cultural problems, like you say, and they have much less homicide than America. If America had a more peaceful culture, we wouldn't have a homicide problem, even with all the guns we have. Yes, the F.B.I data is raw, but, when you do the math it turns out to be: Calirfornia- 3.43 murders x 100,000 Texas- 2.86 murders x 100,000. Alaska- 1.506 murders x 100,000. So the numbers are still on my side. Your "sources" Just repeat the same things you've said have which I have trumped. Oxford claimed that you're more likely to die from a homicide. I've shown that self-defence uses are much more frequent than homicides. You claim they make you more likely to commit suicide. To that I say, people have been committing suicide for Thousands of years. If they want to kill themselves, they have a mental problem, that taking a gun won't solve. It'd be just as easy to jump of a bridge or do "suicide by cop".
the USA should have more background checkss

I'm challenging your number of 40% unchecked sales as fraudulent until you can show me evidence of it otherwise. Just because Obama says it, doesn't mean it's true. - Background checks don't necessarily stop those will ill-intent from purchasing a firearm. If they fail through legal means, there are many black market sources and corrupt FFLs that will sell a gun to a criminal, as shown by the BATFE on page 11 of (1.) Guns are also just as likely to be straw purchased as they are to be gotten from the black market. The positive effect of heightened background checks that only apply to the law-abiding, in regards to gun crime, is questionable at best. - You claim that having a gun in the home makes you more liable to homicide in the home with that gun. However in 2012, President Obama ordered to CDC to asses existing firearms statistics. In 2012, the CDC found that guns are used in self-defence around 500,000 times a year (2.) while there were only 8,855 homicides with a firearm in 2012(3.). Thus, a gun in the home is roughly 55x more likely to save your life, than kill you. -You also claim that more guns in a country or state leads to more homicides. Well, look at the Czech Republic and Sweden. They have a homicide rate at 1.0 per 100,000 or less,(4.) and they have lax gun laws (relative to the rest of Europe). I could say this is because of their low percentage of gang population and the MASSIVE gang problem we have here. Gangs are responsible for half the crimes committed in the areas they inhabit in America (5.) -On a state by state level, well, states with higher gun control have the same amount of firearms homicides as any other state. From the FBI murder statistics of 2012 (6.): California- 1,304 gun murders. New York- 407 gun-murders. Illinois- 439 gun-murders. In comparison, here are some of the more gun-friendly states. Arizona- 211 Texas- 745 Alaska- 11. So according to the FBI, even in same size states, gun-homicides are higher in states with higher gun-control. - You have shown no solid evidence that owning a gun gives you homicidal tendencies. Everything you say at this point is pure, non-factual opinion. Any more increase in background checks is simply an invasion of privacy. 1.http://www.atf.gov... 2.http://www.slate.com... 3.http://www.fbi.gov... 4.http://en.wikipedia.org... 5.http://vault.fbi.gov... 6.http://www.fbi.gov...
There Is No Wage Gap

First off I'd like to say that this is a debate ment for the "wage-gap" between men and women and why it doesn't or does exist. Anywho, I'd like to point my first argument towards the idea that woman get payed less money then men all together. A lot of people fail to realize that this is a capitalist economy and that people in different jobs get payed different amounts of money. Statistically speaking, men tend to take more high-risk jobs (which often do pay more then the jobs that a lot of women take). Secondly, the idea of women working is still a fairly new thing and compared to the amount of men in the country, there are still quite a few women who are stay-at-home. Thirdly, women who come out of collage, are single and have no kids are most likely going to make the same amount of, if not more money then men. If you really look at the charts and statistics, you will see that there is actually a reverse wage gap. On average women make around 8% more than men in the top fifty cities in the United States. Back to you.
should violent video games be banned

Neither do I, but just for the sake of this argument, I'll accept the opposing position. While there's little to no evidence supporting the claim that video games cause violence, perhaps there is a case to be made that certain types of violence are unacceptable in games. So I'm mainly going to focus on games that go "too far". (I will freely admit that I've moved the goalpost a bit, but I do this because of the lack of evidence on my side of the debate). With the possible exceptions of psychopaths, sociopaths and severe narcisists, everyone has a line they will not cross. Where this line lies is different for each individual, yet there are some subjects that illicit (or would illicit) such outrage from the general public, that banning it might not be such a bad idea. Let's imagine a game that would involve raping children. No matter how much you object to censorship, I doubt that many people would defend a game such as this and would not see banning it as an infringement on free expression. The horror that people will feel when confronted with such a game even existing is enough to override any reservations they might have concerning the banning of a videogame. So, yes, games that overstep certain boundries should be banned if there is a general concensus with the public.
Contact Sports for younger kids

You never specified what age is deemed to be "young." I am going to assume you are talking about kids under the age of 10. Kids under the age of 10 are still growing and developing, and putting a child in the way of a risk of harming themselves is dangerous because they are so young and still developing. While it is good to be exposed to things at a young age, extreme contact sports for younger kids is dangerous to their well-being. Needless to say, children's decision making is still developing at a young age as well - which may result in more injuries and conflicts during such sports. It is also a proven fact that younger children are more prone to concussions than older and developed children. That is why, the article listed below explains in further detail, doctors recommend the age of 14 to be the age children start to play those kind of sports. Why risk a higher chance of getting a concussion instead of just waiting for it to be safe for the child? While comfortable risk-taking is a skill children need to know, contact sports which have a high chance of putting themselves at negative health risks is definitely not the best way to teach children the concept you expressed in your argument. Citations: http://www.mghclaycenter.org...
All parents should be required to attend parenting classes before having a child.

I really appreciate the effort they put forward. I'll keep my closing round brief. PRO makes the statement "With over half of the pregnancies being unattended, that just reinforces the fact that if the pregnancy was unattended then they aren't ready for a child. " - Where is proof there is a connection between unintended pregnancy and a lack of parenting classes? "Parenting courses is not such a class that will demand punishment if people proceed to teach their children by their own means. " - Then is the course is ineffective for changing parenting practices what practical value will it have. With no practical value why should the Tax payers pay for such instruction. If we look at evidence as compounded by the people at Freakanomics (. http://www.google.com...) It is summarized as "For parents"and parenting experts"who are obsessed with child-rearing technique, this may be sobering news. The reality is that technique looks to be highly overrated. " In another Freakonomic episode what was discovered is that parents who buy a lot of parenting books don't make better parents. IN fact they were good parents to begin with, and being interested in parenting and learning what they could they then purchased parenting books. "They will also learn a different way to discipline teenagers, if they find that information valuable it can help to prevent further pregnancy, violence, and abuse of alcohol or drugs" - I fail to see the correlation your making. But because this is the last round I can't expect you to answer. Just that problems like alcohol and drug abuse don't always stem from parenting issues. Case in point: Some abusive alcoholic parents have produced sober law abiding citizens. And the reverse is true that some Law abiding parents have produced drug abusers. I think your arguments go to establishing parenting classes as a valuable source of parenting information. But the topic at hand is debate if it should be mandatory. I extend the arguments I made in round 2 as supporting that such classes should remain voluntary. In the making them mandatory would too great an expenditure of funds to justify the affect. That the outcome does not support a substantial enough incentive to broaden he power of government in such a fashion. Thank you again for this opportunity.
All parents should be required to attend parenting classes before having a child.

"Surveys show most pregnancies are unintended" - Do you have evidence to prove such an accusation? "I prefer the way it is done. My parents raised me. I know what I want to keep from how they did it and I know what I dropped." -But your opinion differs from others. If the parents are thinking about adoption, then they aren't ready for a child. But these classes will indeed prepare them for when they are ready for one, or might help them to ensure they are making the correct choice. You stated unintended pregnancies would be hard to arrange for classes in the right timely manner and I have a hard time comprehending this statement because a pregnancy last for merely 9 months or about 40 weeks. I can conclude that any person can find the time of day to take simple parenting courses within the time span of 9 months. According to the human sciences of OSU, an infant parenting class ranges around 10 weeks. You claimed that these classes would be based on opinions and that the information being taught would be unduly, and unsuccessful, but that is actually an opinion itself. Others have gained insight and valuable information from such classes and to just rule them out without citing any evidence that this type of parenting class will be a failure is a preposterous assumption. These kinds of classes can bring extra information to even people who believe that they know it all. I believe any extra information learned will help to raise an infant. sources: http://humansciences.okstate.edu... http://www.huffingtonpost.com...