BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Maintain the diversity of the labour market

Compelling retirement at a set age reduces the diversity of the labour market. The advantages of employing older workers are increasingly being recognised. Higher levels of experience, training and education make for a more adept, reliable employee and lower training costs. Loyalty is increasingly becoming a characteristic of older workers; a well-known study conducted by Warwick University in 1989 observed the effect of staffing a branch of a large British retailer exclusively with individuals aged fifty or over. The study’s supervisors noted that staff turnover at the store was six times lower than- accounting for statistical controls- than the study’s chosen comparator. Profits, meanwhile, increased by 18% and the store staff were found to have a much wider skill base than average.[i] These trends are a marked contrast to the behaviours that are coming to dominate the rest of the working age population. Indeed, given the increasing uptake of university degrees and other forms of higher education, it is now the case that many young Europeans are entering the labour market later than their parents and grandparents.  This imbalance at the entry point to the labour market is easily corrected by avoiding any form of compulsory retirement age. However, the resolution would inhibit this process of automatic adjustment, restricting the age range from which new workers can be drawn and restricting the total pool of workers available to the economy. It cannot be denied that there are advantages to employing younger workers. However, businesses will function more efficiently if they are able to choose, on an open labour market free of artificial restriction, the right hire for the right job. Under certain circumstances, this may mean a young graduate, familiar with information technology and with greater geographic flexibility. Under other circumstances, it may mean seeking out a more experience, older worker and making arrangements to allow for part time working while he cares for grandchildren, addresses reduced mobility or simply enjoys the freedom that comes with being able to afford to work less. Both classes of employee are suited to differing tasks and needs within contemporary businesses. [i] “B&Q, Ireland: Comprehensive approach’, Eurofound, 28 March 2007, http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/areas/populationandsociety/cases/ie002.htm
Professional roles and professional knowledge

It is naïve to assume- as side proposition do in their opening argument- that standards of innovation, knowledge and insight will improve within a business simply because it is compelled to hire younger workers. This is especially true of the professions – jobs and businesses that service pressing social needs tightly regulate the knowledge and conduct of their members and, typically, require them to continually maintain, revise and update their knowledge and skills. In many professional roles expertise and mastery of the skills underlying the job itself take an unavoidably long time to achieve. Judges in the UK have to have held legal qualifications for five to seven years,[i] consulting physicians for which it takes twelve years to get the relevant qualifications and training,[ii] architects and master craftsmen are all as much a product of experience and practice as they are education and investment.  Implicit in the cost advantage of hiring a young professional is the knowledge that they will have to work under the supervision and tutelage of older colleagues for most of their lives. Professionals are also a product of knowledge sharing and mentorship. Put simply, arbitrarily using age to exclude older professionals from their fields of expertise will have a material impact upon the training and development of younger professionals. Western liberal democracies’ professional classes are based partly on communitarian principles of a carefully curated shared culture. Removing senior practitioners in law, medicine and civil administration severs a link with the collective knowledge of that professional culture – a link that cannot easily be replicated in the classroom environment. [i] “Becoming a Judge”, Judiciary of England and Wales, http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/about-the-judiciary/judges-magistrates-and-tribunal-judges/judges-career-paths/becoming-a-judge [ii] “The length of training involved in becoming a doctor”, Medical Careers, http://www.medicalcareers.nhs.uk/considering_medicine/length_of_training.aspx
Dismantling gerontocracies

It is justifiable, in the interests of public safety and the reputation of key professions, to compel individuals to retire from jobs that are dependent on high levels of physical or mental health. However, proposition’s attempt to depart from the status quo is deeply flawed. The proposition side seem to be presenting an argument in favour of a better regulated wage market and a better constructed corpus of employment law. Neither of these flaws in the status quo would be adequately addressed by the resolution. Moreover, forcibly excluding older individuals from the labour market could harm productivity of the state’s economy by increasing the time and cost of training new workers, and reducing the breadth of skills and expertise available to employers. Japan is frequently cited as an example of the harm that a “seniority-wage system” can do to both corporate accountability and innovation. The flaws of this approach to remuneration are not causally linked to the age of the individuals that a firm chooses to employ, but to a widespread refusal to assess their productivity and suitability for promotion according to other criteria. As a report published in the Economist notes, the Japanese gerontocracy “has few legal underpinnings; rather, it has to do with culture and tradition. A few business leaders have condemned it, but… politicians have largely kept [silent].”[i] A full merit based system of pay and promotion would allow older employees to continue to participate, without having to permanently bar them from the workforce. This approach would resemble the status quo to a degree. Employees would be sought according their ability to fulfil the specific needs of the employer; irrespective of their age, the ability of an employee to successfully and efficiently carry out tasks assigned to her would be basic the indicator used to make decisions on pay and promotion. Even where age and seniority assume a wider, more ingrained cultural significance, as in Italy and Japan, it would be grossly disproportionate to address an apparent bias in favour of promoting senior citizens by excluding them from the workforce entirely. [i] “Corporate governance in Japan: Bring it on.” The Economist, 29 May 2008. http://www.economist.com/node/11455075
Maintaining access to pension and healthcare plans

Employers’ reluctance to hire older staff and attempts to remove aging staff from payrolls can both be addressed more efficiently via the free market. It is true that employer-provided pension plans are beginning to falter under the burden of an increasingly long-lived work force. However, this only serves to illustrate the flaws in employee benefit schemes of this type. The state should not attempt to prop up a method of social welfare provision that is clearly ill suited to current trends in the labour market. Long term employment with particular firms, and especially jobs-for-life, are dwindling. If individual workers were incentivised or obliged to obtain their own health insurance, and to set up their own pension plans, the burden of doing so would be shifted away from employers. Demand and consumer preference would dictate the price at which these services were delivered, reducing the overall cost of obtaining health insurance or paying into a pension pot. Employers would no longer be required to assess potential employees in terms of the sums of money they are likely to draw from health insurance and pension funds. Businesses could once again focus on selecting new employees by merit. Under the status quo, the increasing inaccessibility of employer-led pension schemes has left young adults stranded in a pension market where lack of demand has led to individual retirement plans becoming massively over-priced. Under the resolution, although the financial burden presented by a corporate pension scheme would be more predictable, it would still impact massively on businesses’ profits and artificially restrict the size of the pensions market. Rather than bear the transaction costs inherent in continual renegotiation of pension schemes and employee benefit plans, rather than accept that worries about healthcare and pension liabilities will cause employers to avoid employing older people, side proposition should trust that the market will be as competent at providing fairly priced pensions as it is at providing fairly priced commodities.
Western workers are remaining healthier for longer

As stated in side proposition’s first argument, the age at which retirement becomes mandatory can be flexible. The state will always be able to raise or lower the retirement age in response to demographic factors, such as the rate at which diseases of senescence begin to appear in the general population. Spain[i] and France[ii] have already passed laws raising the age at which individuals can qualify for a state pension. Proposition side’s arguments do not run contrary to this type of action. If the general fitness, wellbeing and life expectancy of the population increases, the age of retirement can be raised in response. An increase in the retirement age can be made relative to a population’s average lifespan. If an adult’s working life is extended, then the amount of time that they spend paying tax will also be extended. This increase in tax income will offset some of the financial burden associated with an increasingly long-lived population. Moreover, as opposition point out, advances in treatments for diseases linked to senescence have effectively reduced the amount of time that individuals reaching the ends of their lives will spend as dependents. The late entry into the labour market of many young adults can be blamed on an ill-advised attempt by the UK and other European states, to use universities to deliver courses unsuited to being taught in a free-form academic context. Many subjects, especially those based on engineering, mechanics and construction require immediate engagement with real-world Apprenticeships and training schemes that emphasise placements within industry and hands-on teaching of core skills will do more to address the needs of the young adult work force than current forms of post-eighteen education. Concerns raised by both state and industry about late entry into the work force can be adequately addressed by bringing the world of work into the classroom at a much earlier stage. [i] “Spain to raise retirement age to 67.” The New York Times, 27 January 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/world/europe/28iht-spain28.html?_r=1 [ii] “Pension rallies hit French cities.” BBC News online, 7 September 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11204528
Maintain the diversity of the labour market

Diversity within the labour market is less important than inclusiveness. States are less likely to implement schemes that will allow individuals from disadvantaged socio economic backgrounds to obtain expensive forms of vocational or higher education if those individuals will be prevented from putting their skills to use by an obstructive gerontocracy. The existence of subsidised university places, school vouchers and government sponsored internships and apprenticeships depend on economic demand for skilled workers. Without a mandatory retirement age providing a predictable degree of attrition within a workforce, there is no guarantee that socially inclusive education policies will increase the number of young adults entering the workplace. Correspondingly, it will become increasingly unlikely that governments will be willing to continue funding inclusive education. Why should the state continue to subsidise the teaching of skills that will go unused and eventually atrophy? Older workers are more likely to have built up pension plans, and to have substantial personal savings. It is also more probable that they will have met their mortgage liabilities (that is, they will be in full possession of their own homes) and paid off any student debt that they have incurred. In general, older workers will suffer little if they are compelled to leave the workforce at a certain age. We can contrast this situation with that of younger workers who, if they are excluded for the work place due to a lack of demand for fresh labour, will be unable to build up the assets and capital that will provide them with a safety net and a comfortable standard of living later in life. The efficient operation of businesses must be balanced against the financial freedom and quality of life of a state’s citizens.
Professional roles and professional knowledge

It is equally naïve to assume that professional education can only be delivered effectively by an age-based hierarchy. A more dynamic approach to the division of labour within the professions could eliminate an overreliance on seniority-led training and professional development. For example, both the UK and the USA draw members of their respective judiciaries from the ranks of lawyers and barristers. These individuals receive relatively little formal training, with the state relying on legal professionals’ prolonged contact and interaction with other judges to provide aspirant members of the judiciary with an understanding of their role and duties. Consequently, barristers and advocates may practice for decades before they are regarded as having accumulated sufficient experience to take up a place on the bench. This reduces the total number of judges able to oversee cases and, consequently, reduces the number of cases that a court system can process. Many European jurisdictions, by contrast, do not require judges to have practiced as lawyers. Instead, specific training is offered to law students considering a career in the judiciary, in a similar fashion to the specialised training offered to medical students. Focussed education of this type, delivered by academic institutions, produces a more consistent, predictable standard of legal reasoning across the judiciary. It also enable judges to begin sitting at a younger age, ensuring that there are more judges available within the court system, thereby allowing more cases to be heard. Danute Jociene, Lithuania’s judicial representative in the European Court of Human Rights was only 33 years old when appointed. Rosalie Silberman Abella, the youngest justice of the Canadian Supreme Court was 59 years old when she was admitted to the superior bench.
Evading censorship is already possible and censorship does not prevent the use of the internet.

While most of the population may not be enraged enough by censorship to attempt to get around it this does not mean they would not benefit from having the capability to do so. Governments often intrude into social discussion, music and even games by banning them and taking down discussions. These people would be much freer if they had complete freedom of choice rather than a government controlled set of boundaries on the internet.
This will needlessly antagonise non-democratic countries

This implies that without efforts by democracies to ‘undermine’ non democratic regimes the internet would be nice and peaceful and everyone could get on with what they like doing on the internet. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is already a significant amount of conflict on the internet both in the form of insulting each other on forums and criminal activity. There have been numerous attempts, particularly originating from authoritarian countries, to attack the internet presence of other countries firms or governments or to hack and steal state secrets. This kind of behaviour is much more likely to cause conflict than any funding of research towards bypassing censors.
We all have an obligation to help maintain freedom of speech.

Article 19 of the universal declaration of human rights defines freedom of speech as “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”[1] It is something innate in humans to have opinions and to want to express them to others and within a few limits governments have a duty to allow this freedom of expression. Where governments are not allowing this freedom of information this affects not only those whose opinions are being suppressed but those who cannot hear their opinions. The right to the freedom to receive and seek this information is just as important as the right to voice these opinions. Moreover as stated in Article 19 this is “regardless of frontiers”; those outside a country have just as much right to hear these opinions as those inside. Government aid programs from democracies in Western Europe and America are already concerned with promoting human rights including freedom of speech. Australia’s aid program for example has a Human Rights Fund of $6.5 million per year that provides grants to among other things “educate and/or train human rights victims, workers or defenders”.[2] Enabling victims of human rights abuse to get around their government’s censorship is the obvious next step. The concept of the ‘responsibility to protect’ introduced by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty in 2001 provided that when governments were unable or unwilling to protect their own citizens then that responsibility devolves to the international community and may ultimately lead to military action for particularly gross violations. This responsibility to react should be “with appropriate measures”[3] and for the breach of the human right of freedom of expression providing a method to enable those whose freedom of expression/speech is being violated to exercise this right is the most appropriate and proportional response. [1] The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ‘Article 19’, 1946. [2] AusAID, ‘Human rights and Australia’s aid program’, Australian Government, 22 February 2012. [3] Evans, Garath and Mohamed Sahnoun Chair’s, ‘The Responsibility to Protect’, International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, International Development Research Center, December 2001, p.XI.
Providing secure channels is the easiest way to help dissidents and democracy activists

If democracies are to provide money to help dissidents then this option of funding research into and distributing software to defeat censors is the easiest way in which to help these dissidents. Those who are trying to exercise their freedom of speech do not want help in the form of military intervention or diplomatic representations rather they want to have the space and capacity to exercise those freedoms. The internet means that for the first time it is possible for external actors to provide that platform for freedom of speech without having to take those who wish to exercise these freedoms outside of the country that is violating those freedoms. The internet is very important in the economies of many authoritarian regimes. In China for example there are 145 million online shoppers and the e-commerce market is worth almost $100 billion and could be worth over $300 billion by 2015.[1] As a result authoritarian regimes can’t easily just turn off the internet and ignore it so long as they want their economy to operate. As a result except in extreme cases such as North Korea or for particularly prominent dissidents who are locked up physical access to the internet is unlikely to be denied. So long as there is physical access to the internet it will be possible to help by providing ways to avoid firewalls so that they can access information their state has banned and express opinions to both the outside world and their compatriots. It is equally important to provide ways for these people to avoid being tracked by the authorities so as to prevent retaliation against them for evading censorship. While Haystack was a failure there have been other projects that are receiving state department funding that may be more successful such as ‘InTheClear’ which provides a “panic button” app for smart phones allowing contents to be quickly erased and prewritten texts sent so having the dual effect of making it more difficult for those making the arrest to find out what the user was doing and raising the alarm that this person has been arrested.[2] This technology helps meet a clear need; Egyptian democracy activists when asked what kind of technology they needed most said they wanted safer cellphones.[3] [1] The Economist, ‘An internet with Chinese characteristics’, 20 July 2011. [2] Burkeman, Oliver, ‘Inside Washington’s high risk mission to beat web censors’, guardian.co.uk, 15 April 2012. [3] McManus, Doyle, ‘Technology that protects protesters’, Los Angeles Times, 18 September 2011.
Funding technologies to evade censorship could have immense benefits for very little cost

Most government aid budgets are small and have numerous other important calls on their resources such as development aid. Between 2008 and 2011 the United States Congress funded the effort against internet censorship with $76 million.[1] While this may sound like a lot compared to the $168 million of aid to Liberia and $152 million to UNICEF in 2011 it is not a large commitment.[2] Yet due to the nature of the internet small investments can have immense benefits. Money spent on food aid will buy enough food to feed a limited amount of people yet if a technology is developed that allows internet users to get around censors and not be tracked then hundreds of millions would benefit. It would at the same time have the incalculable benefit of making it more difficult for authorities to track and crack down on those who are breaking the authorities’ censorship. [1] Burkeman, Oliver, ‘Inside Washington’s high risk mission to beat web censors’, guardian.co.uk, 15 April 2012. [2] USAID, ‘Where does USAID’s Money Go?’ 30 September 2011.
Violation of Sovereignty

Sovereignty is the exercise of the fullest possible rights over a piece of territory; the state is ‘supreme authority within a territory’.[1] The sovereignty of nations has been recognised by all nations in article 2 of the UN charter.[2] Funding attempts by citizens of a nation to avoid its own government’s censorship efforts is clearly infringing upon matters that are within the domestic jurisdiction of individual states and is as such a violation of sovereignty. It is also clear that when it comes to enforcement of human rights there is a general rule should be followed that states should have the chance to solve their own internal problems domestically before there is international interference.[3] Censorship by governments can be there for the good of society; for example South Korea censors information about North Korea and forces internet users to use id cards and real names when posting on forums and blogs making them easy to trace.[4] This does not however mean that democracies should be helping South Koreans to bypass this system, South Korea as a nation has decided to place some restrictions on the use of the internet and that should be respected by other nations. It is simply unfair and unequal to apply one set of standards to one set of nations and different standards to another. If democracies have the right to decide how their internet should operate so should non democracies. The fundamental principle of non-interference should apply to all states. [1] Shaw, Malcolm N., International Law 4th ed., Cambridge University press, 1997, p.333 [2] Charter of the United Nations, ‘Chapter 1: Purposes and Principles’, 1945. [3] Shaw, Malcolm N., International Law 4th ed., Cambridge University press, 1997, p.202 [4] The Economist, ‘Game over: A liberal, free-market democracy has some curious rules and regulations’, 14 April 2011.