Last changed on
Mon February 19, 2024 at 4:53 AM PDT
Bellarmine '21
Harvard '25
Assistant coach for Bellarmine.
Email for the chain: ahiremath35@gmail.com. It would be great if you could make the subject "Year -- Tournament -- Round # -- Aff Team vs Neg Team."
Some people who have heavily influenced my views on debate: Surya Midha, Tyler Vergho, Debnil Sur, Dhruv Sudesh, Rafael Pierry, and Anirudh Prabhu. Feel free to check out any of their paradigms too.
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Berkeley Tournament '24 Update
- I haven't judged any rounds on the topic. Don't assume I know any topic specific jargon or accept any community consensus.
- Beliefs about AI: AGI is inevitable, actors like OpenAI are most likely to achieve AGI, it is possible to regulate AI, most open source AI is good, and misaligned AGI can pose an existential risk.
- I despise the trend of ad hominem attacks in debates.
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General thoughts
- I don't care what you read. While my partner Surya and I mostly read policy arguments, we occasionally read K affs and even went for the Baudrillard K in our TOC bubble round.
- Rebuttals should acknowledge and address the weakest parts of your own arguments. Reduce the debate to 2-3 core issues and clearly explain why winning those issues mean you have already won the debate.
- Hard numbering arguments is beautiful and makes it very easy to flow the debate. "One, two, three" > "first, second, third."
- Answer arguments in the order presented.
- Don't waste time calling arguments "terrible" or "stupid" or anything like that. Just directly explain the reason why the argument is poor.
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FW
- Clash, fairness, and movements can all be great impacts. If you go for fairness, lean into the "debate is a game" framing. If you go for movements / skills, explain why that solves their offense better.
- Please don't just read blocks straight down. Contextualize as much as possible, wherever possible. The first lines of your 2NC/2NR overview should point out a central problem in the aff construction or strategy.
- Impact comparison is crucial, especially in final rebuttals.
- I generally vote for the team that is more offensive in these debates.
- Counter-interpretations need to have a somewhat clear caselist. Negative teams should make fun of counter-interpretations that don't.
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CP
- Send all perm texts in the 2AC.
- Textual and functional competition are great standards to hold CP's to. 2A's should also be prepared to go for textually non-intrinsic but functionally intrinsic perms.
- Counterplans can solve for an advantage's internal links or an advantage's impacts. The best CP's do both.
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K
- The negative only gets to weigh the impacts of their links. How large the impacts are is up for debate.
- I don't have great background knowledge on the majority of these literature bases, so please be clear when explaining dense concepts. If I can't understand your arguments then I won't vote for you.
- 2A's should be mindful of what they need to win given 2NR pivots. They kick the alt? Winning framework basically means you auto-win the debate. They go for the alt? Winning a substantial DA to the alt can help you in multiple areas of the debate.
- Pick 1-2 pieces of offense on the framework debate and explain them well in the final rebuttals. These debates get muddled when either side tries to do too much.
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T
- Predictable limits are more important than limits for the sake of limits.
- Interpretations need to have a clear intent to exclude, otherwise the affirmative will have a much easier time winning "we meet." Surya's paradigm has a great explanation of this.
- Plan text in a vacuum is a better standard than most people give it credit for. If the alternative to plan text in a vacuum justifies the negative procuring violations from non-underlined portions of cards, then the aff should make fun of that.
- The 2AR/2NR should isolate 1-2 pieces of offense, explain why they outweigh, and explain why they solve/precede the other team's offense.
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Theory
- Please be as slow as possible.
- Things that are good: conditionality, 2NC CP's, kicking planks, CP's without a solvency advocate.
- Things that are bad: international fiat, multi-level / multi-actor fiat.
- Theoretical objections other than conditionality can be made into better substantive arguments. A CP doesn't have a solvency advocate? Probably means your deficit is more credible. A CP uses an archaic process to establish a precedent? Probably means the perm shields.
