Week 1 Concludes at SNFI
Left to right: Derek Moore, Chris White, Andrea Fisher, Sarthak Agrawal
The first parliamentary debate session of the Stanford National Forensics Insititute concluded yesterday with a final round in which Andrea Fisher and Sarthak Agrawal successfully affirmed the resolution “The USFG should substantially increase funding for space exploration” against Derek Moore and Chris White. Andrea’s partner Kat Svikhnushin had to catch an early flight, so Sarthak, as the top speaker, was allowed to fill in.
An audio recording of the round can be accessed here.
SNFI debaters are taught by Matt Vassar, Jon Thorpe, Emma Henry, Mark Rauschmayer, Carey Appeldorn, and Kate Drew.
The final round was preceded by five practice rounds followed by a five-prelim camp tournament. The team of Sally Lindsay and Sarthak Agrawal went undefeated in the practice rounds. Full results follow:
Practice Rounds
Camp Tournament
Camp pictures and a video recording of the final round will be available shortly.
15 Comments to Week 1 Concludes at SNFI
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This is such a weird mix of debate styles. You’ve got the APDA-ish “Mr. Speaker” going on, but also a very technical, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it plan.
PMR: 1) Plan is mega-vague. Specifics are nice.
2) General overview here: Your impacts and case don’t intuitively match up. Impacts are ‘stops overpopulation’ and ‘increases international political capital.’ This doesn’t seem to have much to do with the plan/case.
SNFI/most technical camps tell you that this is ok. “As long as you have the link, you’re ok.” Don’t always think this. The lay judge generally doesn’t buy crazy links, however warranted they may be. When you’re talking about space, talk about space. Talk about China when you have a plan related to China (more on this later).
Regarding overpopulation:
1. Nonunique: UN says we’re past the breaking point of GW, we’re going to be screwed either way. Even if you don’t buy that, we’ll be at the point of no return by the time the plan gets anywhere.
2. Turn: Plan causes consumption of more resources, exacerbates symptoms of overpopulation.
3. Double bind: Does the plan send people to other planets (expensive/technologically infeasible) or just take the water/minerals back to Earth (where you’ll never get a positive return).
4. Malthus’s Link Takeout: Overpopulation is inevitable. Unless you address the root problem that people like to have sex and make babies, you’ll have overpopulation, whether on Earth, Jupiter, or wherever.
5. Conspiracy Disad: How do we know Martian water is safe to drink? There could be foreign microbes out to get us!
Regarding humanitarian stuff:
1. Empirically denied: Give me one specific example of how “the Russians were more receptive to us.” Reagan doesn’t count.
2. Turn: Creates arms race, empirically from the Space Race (meh).
But most importantly, the impacts here don’t seem cost effective or intuitive. If I walked up to a conference where they were trying to solve overpopulation and low US international image, a Mars mission would not be my first thought.
I’d be surprised if the Neg doesn’t create a CP of same funding, used for humanitarian aid inclusive of birth control distribution to the 3rd world. Perm the impacts, but gain a much higher risk of solvency.
…of course, they don’t.
LOO: What the hell is SKIFTA? If you only have one disad, you’d better explain it really well (and persuasively). This means no unexplained acronyms.
Not a good use of CP:
1. There’s no real need to label it as a PIC. Just kind of semantics here
2. Improper actor/ground skew: Neg shouldn’t have access to entities that Aff doesn’t (eg. Canada).
3. You’re still stuck in the mindset that space exploration is the only way to solve the problems at hand. Think outside the box with CP’s.
4. You’re technically at risk of being theoried and having your opponents say that topical counterplans are forms of affirmation.
Future parli people: question everything that everyone says. There are no absolutes.
You mean there are usually no absolutes.
“Improper actor/ground skew: Neg shouldn’t have access to entities that Aff doesn’t” {when it comes to counterplans}
“You’re still stuck in the mindset that space exploration is the only way to solve the problems at hand. Think outside the box with CP’s.”
That just sounds like a non-competitive counterplan to me. Perm?
I disagree with this. The neg should be entitled any ground the gov chooses not to defend. This includes actors. This is because it forces the aff to defend that plan is the best iteration of that policy.
This might be a useful article to read :
* http://groups.wfu.edu/debate/MiscSites/DRGArticles/2007/The%20Scope%20of%20Negative%20Fiat%20and%20the%20Logic%20of%20Decision%20Making.pdf
I haven’t yet read the article you’ve linked, so I’ll address the perm point only.
The reason why a perm is not possible is because you already solve the harms with a more efficient method (I outlined direct humanitarian aid as an alternative). The advantages of the plan thus become far less significant if we do both. It’s a result of the Law of Diminishing Marginal Return: as we put more input in, we will eventually get less out of it.
In simplest terms, it’s not saying the CP is impermutable, but that (World of CP + Plan) < (World of just the CP). Granted, you'll have to run some sort of spending disad or something to overtake the CP-weakened advantages of the affirmative. Otherwise, the aff's advantages will have been partially mitigated by the CP, but not terminally destroyed, and thus, the slight benefit will go to them and their perm.
I just skimmed the article…you did read it, right?
It seems to outline a number of well-warranted reasons why counterplans SHOULD stay within the realm of the resolution-specified actor, including but not limited to:
1. Fairness: Why should one team be able to use every agency/group/government known to man (inclusive of USFG) while the other is allowed only one specific one?
2. Predictability: Why is it fair for the affirmative to have to be prepared to defend against infinitely many actors?
3. Role-playing/Logical consistency of debate: The judge is a unitary decision maker and represents one group (eg. US Congress, etc.). To have a judge simultaneously represent two different factions doesn’t make any sense in the game of debate.
The article compares this universal type of Neg fiat to object fiat and claims that it harms “competitive equity.”
It was, however, quite interesting and informative. I thank you for it.
I may be burned at the stake for saying this, but I think that the concept of an agent CP is inherently flawed. Yes, the aff must defend that plan is the best iteration of a policy. But I consider the agent to be part of the definitions (of “this House”), not part of the plan. That is, when Congress passes a bill (the real world analogue of a plan), it neither has the bill specify that “we the Congressmen are the agent of action,” nor considers the alternative of “let’s have the Canadians do this.” No decision-making process can ever include choosing between agents, because the decision maker must simultaneously be the agent of action. The above article is very eloquent, but seems to support my side.
P.S. I hate typing with one hand
I really didn’t want to enter this discussion, and yet, here I am…
A couple of things:
> You’re technically at risk of being
> theoried and having your opponents say
> that topical counterplans are forms of
> affirmation.
I suppose it’s technically possible that the AFF would go for such an argument, but it really is a bad argument and isn’t something that the NEG should be overly concerned about. It’s literally been decades since the mainstream opinion in the debate world is that topical counterplans are illegit (at least since the 1970s or 80s). We don’t debate the whole res anymore; the AFF parametricizes the res and debates only one particular plan case that falls under the res. Since the AFF gets to strategically choose the best ground after parametricizing the res, the NEG is then permitted to all the ground that the AFF chose not to defend. All the NEG has to do is prove that they are mutually exclusive with plan; in other words, they must prove that plan and counterplan can’t be done simultaneously.
An example:
If the topic were: The United States Federal government should substantially reform the minimum wage law.
The AFF chooses to run: raise the minimum wage.
The NEG can counterplan: lower the minimum wage.
It’s impossible to both raise and lower the minimum wage simultaneously, so they’re clearly competitive.
Is the NEG topical? Sure. They’re also substantially reforming minimum wage law. Does it matter that the NEG is topical? Absolutely not.
The idea behind counterplans is that everytime we make a decision, we necessarily forgo other decisions (this is the idea in economics of an “opportunity cost”). What if one of the other decisions I gave up was a better idea than the decision I decided to go with? This is the idea behind the counterplan; if the AFF creates a plan that forces us into a world where we have to give up a superior policy option, this is problematic.
I hope this makes sense.
> create a CP of same funding, used for
> humanitarian aid inclusive of birth
> control distribution to the 3rd world.
This is entirely non-competitive. You can both give aid to underdeveloped countries and fund space exploration at the same time. We’ve done both for decades, ever since we started funding space exploration.
The AFF answer should be “perm; do both,” and the NEG no longer has a counterplan. Badda bing badda boom.
See my above explanation of how the counterplan must prove that plan causes us to give up a superior policy option.
@Topical CP’s: Very true. Basically everyone who has ever debated in policy/parli debate supports your above interpretation. It is, however, a great time suck argument (you feel a little evil, though), as well as a persuasive argument for lay judges.
@(Specific) Competitiveness: The link to competitiveness is funding. The CP allocates the same funding of the plan to the CP. This entails two things:
1. Your opponents cannot magically say ‘do both.’ They must explain another source of revenue that would permit a doubling of the funding (it’s better if they’re not using normal means).
2. The returns diminish as more investment is made, making the advantages less awesome. My premise here is that (in this example) the US would gain less political capital per dollar from Plan+CP than it would from CP alone. This means that in the world of the perm, the plan might be a waste of money (if you could prove that spending disads now outweigh the weakened advantages).
Take this to the furthest level, where the CP gains absolute solvency (let’s say, condom distribution in the 3rd world totally solves overpop). Granted, you could indeed permute the CP, but who would want to do that? It would be a waste of money to try to solve a problem which has already been solved.
Logistically speaking, I don’t believe there is a way to “allocate the same funding of the plan to the cp.” Congress doesn’t bass a bill/resolution that $X will be spent, and then figure out how to spend it. The two plans only compete on net benefits.
I believe that the aff can legitemately perm the cp. At that point, the debate is decided by comparing the “plan and cp” world vs the “cp only” world. In the context of this debate, the perm would probably be better because almost all experts agree that spending can be addressed in the future, there won’t be a large increase in spending, both projects can operate at the same time, and neither will solve a lot on their own.
In the context of a debate round, general appropriations are made (for example, this occurs in this round). Sometimes, more specific ones are made, be it exact numbers or the cutting of a specific program to fund the plan.
Regardless, it’s very easy to get links from the PMC about why increased spending is bad. You ask a POI about why funding the plan more is bad (you act like you’re going for a PIC that funds more/goes beyond the plan). You should get a negative response of some sort, which means they concede a disadvantage to additional marginal spending. If you get a positive response, run the PIC and see how time they waste answering it.
“neither will solve alot on their own.” I’m still a little unsure of why you need a space program to make direct humanitarian aid solvent. It seems good enough on its on. Also, protip: ‘alot’ isn’t a word.
I won’t even get into the spending stuff. My personal belief is that too often debaters commit the fallacy of the beard: that the problem is so large right now that any marginal increase would be insignificant. Is this a good mentality? I would think not. And yet, by preferring the perm, YOU GIVE VOICE TO THOSE WHO ADVOCATE THIS FORM OF TOXIC MINDSET THAT RAVAGES THE STABILITY OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY; SHATTERS THE CREDIT, TURNS THE AMERICAN DREAM INTO A NIGHTMARE; FRITTERS AWAY YOUR DOLLARS INTO THE DEBT, FEEDS THE DEVIL WITHIN, BURNS AMERICA WITH A BONFIRE OF ITS OWN CURRENCY.
Of course, there is the little matter that right now is an awesome time for the government to take on debt-12 month Treasury Bonds are at 0%. Why not take on debt when it’s at it’s cheapest? You can then use the cash liquidity to spend in your needed areas.
I mean, it sounds less exciting than burning America down but reality often is.
This is my last post on this thread and then I’m out. Just want to respond to Benjamin really quickly:
1. You appeal a couple of times to how a lay judge will or won’t vote for a team that does x, y, or z. I think the fundamental flaw in your logic is that SNFI hires lay judges; we don’t. It’s obviously a good thing to adapt to your critic, and that’s precisely what these teams do. Arguments about how they’ll lose if there were a lay critic in the back of the room are entirely irrelevant to the context of this round.
2. Obviously I underestimated you from your first post; when you said things in your first post like “omg, they missed the obvious strategy of going for an artificially competitive counterplan,” it really made it sound like you really didn’t understand the basics of counterplan theory. (Also, when you said “perm the impacts,” it really sounded like a debater who just learned the term “perm” but didn’t quite know how to properly apply it.) My apologies for underestimating your background, although I certainly hope that other less experienced debaters will read my post and get something out of the basic counterplan theory.
As for you feeling comfortable about defending an artificially competitive counterplan, that’s great. If you think you can win the theory debate here, by all means, have it. But what you’re advocating isn’t the obvious strategy, nor should it be the one that the average NEG team takes. So, I really take exception to your initial comment of “I’d be surprised if the Neg doesn’t create a CP of same funding, used for humanitarian aid inclusive of birth control distribution to the 3rd world.” It would be far more surprising if they did take on that strategy than if they didn’t.
Like I said, if you feel that you can defend yourself in the inevitable theory debate on artificial competition, you can have it. That’s your own personal strategic decision and plays to your own personal strengths (that is, if you’re comfortable moving the debate into theory). But it really shouldn’t be surprising when another teams chooses not to have that debate, especially since the dominant opinion in the debate community is that artificial competition is bad for debate.
@2: I try to approach debate with a realist perspective. When people get technical with it, claiming that we need to build a multi-billion dollar space program to gain…political capital and solve…overpopulation, I get sadface. It only seems logical to a policymaker type that a more direct approach be taken.
Also, there’s more than simple artificial competition at play here. The DMU is another interesting component that ties together the plans. Once direct aid is established, how much more will a space program do, anyway? Once our overpopulation problem has been solved, why build a space program to ‘double solve’ it? This all, of course, begs numerous questions about the role of funding in debate (some of which I…expressed…above): is there no persuasive disadvantage to increased spending? Would return on investment be a better standard? Is carte blanche good for debate?
Interesting stuff to think about. Thank y’all for the input, I learned a lot about CP specifics, read some good stuff, found cool ways to abuse opponents.