The Iditarod at Edmond North
2024 — Edmond, OK/US
Novice IE's Paradigm List
All Paradigms: Show HidePlease no spreading. If I cannot hear and understand you, especially due to speaking too fast, I cannot give you the win.
Additionally, PFD and LD are two different types of debate. LD is based on morality/ philosophy. PFD does not require a value/criterion, nor does it require a plan/counter-plan. Please ensure that your constructive and cross examinations reflect these differences prior to entering the round.
tldr:
add these to the chain. speechdrop is fine but i will be sad. NSDA docshare is very bad. i'd rather have the debaters that want to do NSDA stay on there and just put its email on the chain. if you send a PDF, a gdoc link, a DROPBOX link, or any shenanigans that are not a .docx ON the chain i will nuke speaks. if anything is sent in the body i will nuke speaks.
okpolicydebate@googlegroups.com
realartistsofguantanamobay@googlegroups.com
i prefer judging good debates to 'honorable,' 'educational,' or 'interesting' ones. it turns out that absolutely obliterating those rural novices you're hitting is actually the fastest way to educate them about debate outside their scope. it's good. do it.
cheat and scam. lock in 13 minutes of the kant da vs a policy team that has never properly learned how to defend util and just spams 3 cognitive bias cards. hide the death k on a different k's extension when you think the 1ar will drop it. put random procedurals in nonsensical places. go for artificially competitive cps. in fact, get good at going for process and then win every 2NR no matter the topic. send out a 1nc with carded concon and ptx, then skip the cards for concon and watch as the 2ac which was surely not listening spends fifty seconds on it--the trick is that good 2As still have to respond since it solves ptx. hide eval after the 1nc on the black baudrillard tag and when the 2ac drops it the round is over.
long:
dropped propositions are true
propositions introduced are given 100% weight until the opponent says something to contradict it. it makes 0 strategic sense to automatically qualify your arguments like "the plan reduces the risk of nuclear war" instead of "the plan solves nuclear war"--your opponent will be doing that. don't give them a head start.
tech > truth with 0 exceptions
i try to evaluate without bias as best as i can. i think 'perfect judging' is possible; i dont think im an example of it, though i try to be
if i have a bias, it's slightly toward the truth---if you don't know what that means, here's a helpful guide.
i think you cannot ever really go wrong reading these:
1ACs with plans
DAs
impact turns
coherent metaethics
clear propositions
T
categorical predictability (strong or weak)
insertions of content already read (that means the PRECISE highlighting, not just 'we read an excerpt from this card and now we'll insert whatevs')
i think these arguments are strategic but probably net untrue. i may be more persuaded EXCLUSIVELY if your opponent makes the correct argument thereagainst (ALMOST UNIVERSALLY THEY DO NOT. i don't autohack vs these args). if they dont, i think ill be biased TOWARDS you:
1ACs without plans
CPs (the least justified type of CPs are those that change the agent, but theres some emerging arguments about why all CPs are unjustified)
FWK Ks
Fake Ks (not universally, but on net these are wrong. certain 1ac constructions are so poor they make these arguments correct--i.e. every 1ac il is about deterring russia and the neg goes for a security k about how that cold war logic actually causes escalation)
Uncarded ASpec (and other random baseless theory)
unclear abstractified nonsense
debatability
contingent predictability
insertions of content not already read
five notes of arguments that i'll flow but are likely very bad decisions:
Ks of things that are fundamental to read the K in the first place---Ks of speaking at large, logic at large, 'excluding certain discourses' at large, definitions at large, concepts at large etc. basically just make sure your K link is specific enough to not make me have to challenge a necessary prerequisite to getting the K.
i am EXTREMELY unpersuaded by 'we put please do this / please dont do this on our wiki and they did/didnt, its a voter EVEN IF WE LOSE THE FLOW.' i think extinction impacts are about as ableist/triggering as wipeout/death good, which means i have to go ahead and figure out how much we should constrain your opponent / restrict the activity if you have content requests. i end up resolving that we shouldn't, and that you enter a competitive space where we debate about difficult ideas. please strike me if this makes the activity unworkable for you, or forfeit immediately if there is no option to strike. if you enter the round and still make this argument, ill evaluate it on the flow and vote for you if you win it.
spamming stuff like 'the sky is blue so vote neg,' 'resolved means already decided so vote aff,' 'if i told you my name you'd believe me,' 'the word 'should' is nonsense so vote neg,' or 'we meet T because resolved means to break down through analysis.' generally everything that your opponent only has to say 'this is stupid, warrantless, defense only/not what we meant' to.
blatantly incorrect representations of evidence. some teams literally DO NOT understand what the evidence they are reading says and end up mislabeling cyberwar defense as defending 3D printing or mislabeling ripstein as saying that neokantian ethics is 'internally contradictory.' i think 'read the ev--doesn't say it' or 'ev says the opposite' is sufficient response
attempting to rebut 'offense-defense.' offense-defense subscribers and attackers both come from intuition standpoints. the attackers think the neg should be able to win by showing that all of what the affirmative said is stupid. the subscribers think that we should play it safe and avoid small risks of bad things if there's no detriment to doing so. the second position is correct---while the judge does evaluate who did the 'better debating,' that better debating is filtered through proving the resolution true. if an example of the resolution MAYBE avoids 1 death and doesnt cause anything bad, then the resolution is true. i would press a button with a 0.000001% risk of saving a life and no detriment--that button is the ballot when a team only goes for defense. aff sometimes accidentally goes for defense too--that's also bad. for example, reading only defense to a DA and then only PDB to a CP that solves the DA. of course, i'll evaluate this on the flow. if you're technically winning i should abandon offense-defense then i will.
whoever best justifies that they should receive the ballot wins.
i give speaks based on how much i enjoyed your presentation--here are some factors that influence it in order of how they influence it:
strategy
true arguments
sending prewritten analytics (i dont need them, but its good practice--you can ask me why)
open sourcing well (first step is all ev from the first constructive, then all ev from all speeches, then all ev and prewritten analytics from all speeches)
style of speaking (emphasis on important words, variation of speaking speed, evidence that you have some investment in what you're saying)
some comments other people make that i don't like:
"im tech over truth but i wont vote for..." nothing. tech evaluates all arguments equally.
"i default to..." nothing. even the worst debaters make implied framing or comparatives that replace the necessity of 'defaults'
"arguments need a claim, evidence, and warrant." this is rhetoric theory brain-hacking debate. arguments only need propositions, but are typically stronger with evidence and warrants.
"this flow was a wash." no it wasn't. it might be hard to evaluate or unclear, but its implications aren't automatically overridden by other parts of the flow.
"better ethos could've helped you here." negative. better ethos maybe raises your speaks. it cannot change the ballot if the decision is ideal.
"don't postround." do postround. judges make decisions, have reasons for those decisions, and ought to have been paying attention. if you think i made a mistake, we should discuss it and if i find that you're right i shouldn't make another mistake like that in the future.
"i will stop the round when..." a debater explicitly asks me to or i become aware that any debater is incapable of communicating with me. if tab or law enforcement tells me to, they probably will have to force me (taking away my access to the ballot, coming into the room and kicking us out, etc). why should i get to decide what an imperalist/racist/reactionary position is? i have my opinions, but debate is for you to argue things outside of my feeble scope of the world.
"debate is meant to be fun/a learning experience/whatever other arbitrary frame." debate is an exchange of propositions that an independent and objective evaluator considers true whenever they are more evidenced than disevidenced. if you win that means debate is a game, then whatever. you still have to argue.
"i dont like how common X has become." no. im generally of the opinion that innovation is convergent, not divergent. in the set of propositions asserting the existence of something relevant to debate resolutions, there are more false than true propositions. getting bored or tired of certain arguments being spammed either means they are strategic, and thus smart thinking, or they are true. if the activity is getting more true or skilled over time, what's the problem?
"i was convinced at first then went ahead and read the ev even though nobody said to..." nope. only way im doing extra work is with explicit instruction.
here are some people who have significantly influenced how i think about debate, whether through conversations or reading published content by them:
adhitya thirumala -- i agree with him about almost everything evaluation-wise. he dispelled my naive and arrogant optimism about debate's prescriptions when i was a sophomore/junior
chinmay khaladkar -- i agree with him about almost everything evaluation-wise. i developed nuanced and second-level tests for most of my opinions around debate by arguing with him.
lindsey shook -- i don't necessarily agree with much, but she informed a bunch of my despair at the current state of debaters/judging, so noting what made/makes her grumpy might be an alright way to track my unconscious biases
lucas ballinger -- basically the example case for a lot of intuitions that i ended up having to accommodate when i formed my thoughts around debate. i think we agree now but vibes-wise we may be polar opposites.
pranav balakrishnan -- i think he and his colleagues set the standard for random debaters popping out and publishing debate arguments and rebuttals thereof. that's definitely good. more people should write about debate
anthony trufanov -- reading his debate ontology article (now taken down--unfortunate) led me to most of the questions that built my current understanding of debate. i think his article was wrong in some places, but the sort of PROJECT therein is desperately needed