bpHigh/BIRCO_ArguAna_Without_Task_Awareness huggingface dataset:
Argument: Restrictions on migration would benefit people in the cities economically and socially  Cities are very appealing to poor people. Even if their living standards in cities might be unacceptable, they get closer to basic goods, such as fresh water, sanitation etc. However, these things exist because there are productive people in the cities who work and pay taxes. What happens when too many people come at the same time is that public money is stretched too thinly and these basic goods can no longer be provided. This leads to severe humanitarian problems such as malnutrition, thirst, lack of medication, etc.  However, this humanitarian crisis does not only harm those directly affected, it also creates an unattractive environment for business. Thus, people who enter the city cannot find work, as production does not grow in relation to the people who enter. They become excluded from society and often turn to crime, which further erodes the economy. [1]  Limiting migration to reasonable levels give the cities a chance to develop progressively and become the kind of places that people in rural areas currently believe them to be.  [1] Maxwell, Daniel., “The Political Economy of Urban Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa.” 11, London : Elsevier Science Ltd., 1999, World Development, Vol. 27, p. 1939±1953. S0305-750X(99)00101-1.

Counterargument: economic policy society immigration house believes developing nations should People who move to the cities have chosen to move from their families and dear ones, because they want to create a new and better life for themselves. Armed with great motivation, they enter the cities and are often prepared to undertake work that others do not want to do, hoping to climb the social ladder later on. Interestingly it is often the case that those in slums have a higher rate of employment than those not living in slums. In Uganda for example only 9% of young men are neither in school or employment compared to 16% for those not living in slums. [1] This benefits the development of the city and it is only with this extra workforce that the city can fully develop, thus most big cities have at some point had slums, such as London’s East End in the 19th Century. It might take time, but for the long-term benefits of the cities, rural-urban migration should be promoted. An example of this slow kind of development is the progress that is seen today in Kibera outside of Nairobi where small parts of the shanty-towns are gradually converted into lower middle-class communities.  [1] Mboup, Gora, “Measurement/indicators of youth employment”, Expert Group Meeting on Strategies for Creating Urban Youth Employment Solutions for Urban Youth in Africa, June 2004, www.un.org/esa/socdev/social/presentation/urban_mboup.ppt
Argument: 450 PPM  The IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report determined that atmospheric GHG emissions needed to stabilize at 450ppm in order to avoid a temperature rise of more than 2-2.4C. Atmospheric ppm are currently at 393 and are rising at a rate of about 2 ppm per year. In order to stabilize at 450 ppm, the developed world would need to reduce its emissions by 25-40% by 2020 and 80-90% by 2050 along with significant reductions in the emissions growth rate of developing countries 1. Only a handful of countries (all of them in Europe) have achieved any reduction in annual GHG emissions despite promises to do so going back to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.2 As a result, there is no evidence on which to reasonably conclude that atmospheric GHGs will be stabilized at 450ppm.  1. IPCC (2007). "IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007 (AR4)". Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.: Cambridge University Press.  2 The Guardian, World carbon dioxide emissions data by country: China speeds ahead of the rest. (31/1/11).

Counterargument: climate house believes were too late global climate change The fossil fuels which account for the majority of GHG emissions are finite resources. As oil and coal becoming increasingly scarce, markets will naturally switch to more efficient or renewable resources thus stabilizing global GHG emissions. The growth of fuel efficient hybrid and fully electric automobiles are a good example of the market responding to higher fuel prices. (Also see New Technology)
Argument: Debt cycles and the curse of microfinance  Microfinance is incorporating free market ideologies and subprime (lending to those who may not be able to repay) lending at a smaller scale. Unstable crises’ form as a result, and debt is intensified for the poorest - of which are given access to credit they are not able to repay. This is a problem with all lending, microfinance is no exception.  In India the pressures of microfinance repayment has become linked to suicide and early mortality (Biswas, 2010). The stress of looking for microcredit, and then how to pay it back, has created a crisis within the microfinance industry. Regulation is required on the microfinance organisation: controlling the distribution of credit and the use of threats if the individual defaults.

Counterargument: e international africa house would provide access microfinance unbanked Africa’s microfinance schemes can be different, and are fundamentally different. Across Africa there is a history of informal lending. Microfinance is not new, but rather embedded in traditional practices. This means communities are aware of the obligations, rules, and practice of microfinance.  Additionally, the path taken by microfinance lenders shows stricter controls are being taken to ensure that the loans are not subprime. In a bid to ensure the safety of the poor the Bank of Ghana has set up minimum capital requirements for the borrower and new regulations to ensure money-lent is repayable.
Argument: A school breakfast gives all students an equal start to the day  All children should have equal opportunities, a breakfast for all helps provide this. With schools providing breakfast for everyone the start to the day will be the same for all. No one will starting school hungry or thirsty. Everyone will have had a chance to wake up before their lessons start allowing them to get as good a start to the day as possible.

Counterargument: primary secondary health health general house would provide breakfast all 0 This will not be true equality. Some people naturally wake up earlier, yet many will still be feeling sleepy at 10:00. A school breakfast may have forced these students to be up even longer before their natural wake up time than would otherwise be the case.
Argument: The quality of education suffers when university education is free  Without university fees, universities become dependent on the state for funding. This leads to larger class­sizes and less spending per student. [1] Yet with fees, the quality of universities increases for three reasons. First, funding improves, as university may charge in accordance with need. Second, quality of teaching is improved. Because a university wants people to attend and to pay fees, the programs and degrees they offer have to be good signals of quality requiring hiring the best lecturers. Third, the average quality of students attending university will improve. This is because students feel they need to get the most from their investment in education. An example of higher quality education from fee­paying is that of the United States, which has eighteen of the top fifty ranked universities in the world. [2] Quality is clearly improved when university is not free.  [1] Brady, Hugh. 2008. “We Must Invest Now in Our Universities or Pay Later”. University College Dublin News Available:  ents.html​  [2] QS World University Rankings 2015/16, QS,

Counterargument: university government house believes university education should be free State funding of higher education is actually beneficial to universities. It allows universities to get on with their research and teaching without worrying about competing and spending money on getting students to attend. The money wasted in pursuit of high numbers of students is thus saved, as the state can tend to the needs of universities.1 The idea that the state will simply neglect its universities is silly, because society and therefore the state, relies on having capable professionals whose qualifications have value.  [1] Greatrix, Paul. 2011. “University Isn’t Just a Business—and the Student Isn’t Always Right”. The Guardian. Available:  ­education­network/higher­education­network­blog/2011/mar/14/students­asconsumers ​
Argument: Suicide is a rational choice in many situations.  When confronted with chronic pain or with diseases that steadily remove our sense of self – or at least the self of whom we are aware – death has proven to be a sensible option taken by sensible people [i] . It is a simple fact that we all die, our objections to it tend to be based on the idea that it can happen at the hands of others or at a time, or in a manner, not of our choosing.  Neither of these issues arise with either assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia. Proposition has no difficulty at all with the suggestion that both procedures should be regulated and take place in safe, medically supported, environments.  However, if an individual accepts that death is their preferred option in such a scenario, it is difficult to comprehend of reasons why they should not be allowed to proceed. Our social rejection of murder does not, ultimately relate to death itself but to the denial of choice. With murder someone is denying that person all their future potential so denying their freedom of choice, and this remains the case even if the murder was completely painless. Here, reason tells us, the virtuous act is death and the reservation of that choice.  The determining element of humanity is that we are rational beings; a blanket ban – legal and social – on choosing the time and manner of our deaths reflects our primeval fear of a death that comes, unwanted, in the dark of the night, not the mature judgement of modern, thinking (and long-lived) humans.  [i] Andy Bloxham. Husband films assisted suicide of wife to prove it was not murder. The Daily Telegraph. 10 March 2011.

Counterargument: ethics life house believes right die It is the mark of a civilised society that we accept the inconvenience of laws in some circumstances because we also require their protection in others. To take a trivial example we take away the choice for people to drive on the other side of the road to everyone else. Here the protection offered by a full moratorium on killing requires that we accept all of its implications. The challenge is to use medical science to make it a moot point. Proposition has therefore made a powerful argument in favour of better painkillers and more research into mentally debilitating illnesses. Many of those developments have come about as a result of the very human attributes prop is so keen to cite. Realising that they have an opportunity of future free of pain and illness, humans have found ways of delivering it. It is precisely because death can now be managed that the process of self-imposed triage prop suggests is increasingly unnecessary; a fact to be applauded, not discarded
Argument: Tens of thousands of licence fee payers objected to this, ultimately they are the BBC’s key stakeholder and that view is worthy of respect.  As an institution, the BBC may like to position itself as a global media brand but that doesn’t alter the fact that it is funded by, and chartered to serve, the British population. The whole British population. That combination – paying the pipers and calling the tune – would suggest that the corporation might be sensitive to that group.  If 50,000 to 60,000 users of any other brand registered their protest or objection to a product put forward by that brand, it would cause chaos, resignations, sackings and a rethink of whatever strategy had caused the problem in the first place.  In the case of the BBC, it caused a few slightly dismissive comments from senior managers, one editor resigned because he felt that the protesters comments were not being taken seriously and the organisation continued as though nothing had happened.  The sheer arrogance required for that response beggars belief. The BBC, as a public institution has a duty of care that might be thought of as greater than that of a private corporation. And yet it gave the impression of acting like it was just one of the other venues who had staged the opera. There is clearly a difference between a theatre that I choose to attend or not – and choose whether to support financially – and the national broadcaster which is beamed into people’s living room paid for by a compulsory licence fee.

Counterargument: nothing sacred house believes bbc should be free blaspheme In the same way that the BBC is routinely criticised from the political Right for its Left-wing bias and from the Left for a supposed favouritism to the Right, maintaining balance in any sphere of life is difficult. Freedom of speech demands that such a balance is maintained, however hard to do. That balance can mean that last week’s bosom buddies may be this week’s fiercest foes. The reality of both free expression and a public service ethos mean that one cannot, constantly yield to the cry of ‘more of what I like’. Any broadcaster could not show a greater disrespect to its viewers than by assuming they could not be capable of dealing with new ideas.
Argument: Rehabilitation Constitutes an Unjustifiable Further Expense  The evidence from all over the world suggests that recidivism rates are difficult to reduce and that some offenders just can’t be rehabilitated. It therefore makes economic sense to cut all rehabilitation programs and concentrate on ensuring that prisoners serve the time they deserve for their crimes and are kept off the streets where they are bound to re-offend. As it can be seen that some deserving of a longer sentence only receive short sentences due to lack of time and space and some who have committed shorter sentences are given long sentences aimed at making a point or sending a message.  Currently, the government will continue to be gambling tax payers’ money on programs that will not give anything back into the society that it took from. Britain spends £45,000 a year on each of its prisoners and yet 50% will go on to re-offend, ‘which translates into a dead investment of £2 billion annually. [1] Rehabilitation programs should be scrapped and taxpayers asked only to pay the bare minimum to keep offenders off the streets. They can’t harm society if they are behind bars.  [1] Bois, N. D., ‘Retribution and Rehabilitation: A Modern Conservative Justice Policy’. Dale &amp; Co. 20 July 2011.

Counterargument: crime policing punishment society house believes criminal justice should focus more Philosopher Peter Landry believes that it takes a whole group of specialists to determine what kind of punishment to mete out to criminals. [1] There is no hard and fast rule. Money spent on rehabilitation may cost a lot, but is well worth it, when you consider cuts to the rate of reoffending, leading to reduced expense related to those who reoffend and less crowded prisons. In Britain, it costs £140,000 a year to jail a young criminal, imagine if that money was spent on his or her rehabilitation instead? [2] Furthermore, in America, where measures like the ‘three-strike policy’ were introduced and rehabilitation discouraged, ‘more than four out of ten adult American offenders still return to prison within three years of their release’. [3] Retribution simply does not work, and it is certainly not saving the government any money.  [1] Landry, P. ‘On The Theory of Punishment’. Blupete, 2011 .  [2] Doyle, J., ‘£140,000: the annual cost of jailing a young criminal’. The Guardian, 1 March 2010.  [3] Pew Center on the States. State of Recidivism. The Pew Charitable Trusts. 2011, Washington, D.C., P.2.
Argument: It is domestic not international legitimacy that matters  What matters for a state when it comes to foreign policy, and therefore with helping to circumvent censorship, is whether the policy is considered legitimate domestically. Since a government's legitimacy is domestically derived from the support of its people if they support the policy then it is legitimate. While it is often not considered a top priority people in democracies usually support promoting human rights and spreading democracy around the world. [1]  [1] Stevenson, Kirsten, “Strong support for democracy promotion in national opinion ballot”, Foreign Policy Association, 23 October 2012,

Counterargument: global science censorship ip internet digital freedoms freedom expression The public are rarely interested in foreign policy and want to keep well clear of foreign entanglements; they may like the idea of promoting democracy but if it means anything more than simple public support then they shy away as shown by only around 20-30% considering it a priority. [1] Undermining censorship may seem to be a cheap option for governments but they then have to own the consequences; such as having to pay to build stability which may be much more costly. The American people may have supported the Iraq war but they were against the immense amounts of wealth that was spent to try to put the country back together again. By undermining censorship revolution is being promoted along with the damage and chaos this can bring so the result may be a costly rebuilding process, possibly with troops on the ground.  [1] “Historically, Public Has Given Low Priority to Promoting Democracy Overseas”, Pew Research Center, 4 February 2011,
Argument: Transparency can lead to conflict  The idea that transparency is good assumes that the people watching the government be transparent are likely to provide a moderating influence on policy. This is not always the case. Instead transparency can lead to more conflict.  First a nationalist population may force the government into taking more action than it wants. One obvious way to quiet such sentiment is to show that the country is not ready for war; something that may not be possible if being transparent. Instead if it is transparent that the military could win then there is nothing to stop a march to war. It then becomes possible for multiple interest groups to form into coalitions each with differing reasons for conflict trading off with each other resulting in overstretch and conflict. [1]  Secondly when there is a rapidly changing balance of power then transparency for the rising power may not be a good thing. Instead as Deng Xiaoping advised they should “Hide your strength, bide your time”. [2] Showing in the open how your military is expanding may simply force action from the current dominant power. Transparency, combined with domestic media worrying about the other’s build up can make the other side seem more and more of a threat that must be dealt with before it can get any more powerful. It is quite a common international relations theory that one way or another relative power and the quest for hegemony is the cause for war, [3] transparency simply encourages this. William C. Wohlforth points out when studying the cause of the First World War that it is perception of relative power that matters. Germany’s leaders believed it had to strike before it out of time as a result of Russia rapidly industrialising. [4] Transparency unfortunately reduces the ability of the government to manage perception.  [1] Snyder, Jack, Myths of Empire, Cornell University Press, 1991, p.17  [2] Allison, Graham, and Blackwill, Robert D., ‘Will China Ever Be No.1?’, YakeGlobal, 20 February 2013  [3] Kaplan, Robert D., ‘Why John J. Mearsheimer Is Right (About Some Things)’, The Atlantic, 20 December 2011  [4] Wohlforth, William C., ‘The Perception of Power: Russia in the Pre-1914 Balance’, World Politics, Vol.39, No.3, (April 1987), pp.353-381, p.362

Counterargument: ch debate media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Coalitions can form behind expansionist policies regardless of whether there is transparency. If there is no transparency then it is simply an invitation for these groups to overestimate the strength of their own state compared to their opponents. Where there is transparency the figures will at least be available to counter their arguments. It should not be surprising that interest groups do not have as much influence in creating expansionist policy in democracies. [1]  Transparency showing when a state is to be eclipsed is a greater concern but a lack of transparency in such a case is just as bad. No transparency will simply encourage the fears of the state that is to be eclipsed that the rising state is hostile and not to be trusted.  [1] Snyder, Jack, Myths of Empire, Cornell University Press, 1991, p.18
Argument: Transparency allows citizens to choose for a healthy leader as to ensure proper functioning  The health and fitness of a leader is a vital issue when choosing a leader; the electorate deserves to know if they are likely to serve out their term. When health conditions are hidden from the people they may mistakenly elect a leader who is unable to serve a full term or is at times not in control of the country. There would be little point in voting for a leader who will often not truely be in charge of the country, if voters are told it becomes their choice whether this is a problem. Transparency in terms of clear, accurate and up-to-date information is necessary for the electorate to judge the fitness of a leader which is a necessary precondition for election. In a democracy a leader needs to be accountable, he can only be accountable if the elctorate knows such vital information.

Counterargument: free speech and privacy health general international africa politics Administrative capabilities should not be compared to health. Unhealthy leaders may perform better than the healthy ones, people could be misled to choose inappropriate leaders while taking health as a black spot while the leader could actually have a better potential than the rest. If the electorate had just elected on the basis of health, or had been fully informed about presidents health then it is plausible that neither FD Roosevelt of JF Kennedy would have been elected. Neither completely hid their illnesses but they were not discussed and did not become election issues as they would have in a modern election. 1  1 Berish, Amy, ‘FDR and Polio’, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum,
Argument: Risk of a two-tier Internet  As things stand there are relatively flat rate services. The concern is that ISP would charge higher rates for full Internet access or act to ensure that their own content arrived seamlessly and smoothly, while that of competitors was delayed or poorer quality or that higher bandwidth applications end up with a higher price-tag [i] .  This is of concern both to end users and to the producers of content. There are very real concerns here, as a result, about the impact this has on freedom of expression. The best way to avoid censorship – either commercial or political – is to ensure that it remains impossible to achieve in the first place.  Once it becomes possible to give preference to some forms of content or points of origin, then commercial censorship at least becomes a great deal easier.  [i] BBC News Website. “BT Content Connect service faces ‘two-tier net’ claims. 4 January 2011.

Counterargument: e internet freedom digital freedoms access information house supports This has absolutely nothing to do with censorship – not having net neutrality will not stop users accessing certain sites, just make it slower. Data from some points of origin, especially games and file-sharing programmes slow down the entire network. It’s unfair to other users.