1ac - pragmatic chinese strikes 1nc - tjfs bad mollow k case 1ar - vague alts bad all 2nr - mollow k vague alts bad case 2ar - vague alts bad
Apple Valley
5
Opponent: Westwood VL | Judge: Gordon Krauss
1ac - chinese strikes 1nc - hong kong da stocks da case 1ar - all 2nr - hong kong da case 2ar - all
Apple Valley
4
Opponent: Catonsville AT | Judge: Abishek Stanley
1ac - pragmatic chinese strikes 1nc - util nc icj cp essential workers da case 1ar - consult cps bad all 2nr - util nc icj cp all 2ar - consult cps bad
1ac - pragmatic chinese strikes 1nc - cap k case 1ar - vague alts bad all 2nr - all 2ar - case cap k
Blue Key
Doubles
Opponent: Lake Highland Prep AB | Judge: Arjan Kang, Arun Mehra, James Stuckert
1ac - practical strikes 1nc - spec strat meet disclosure interps case 1ar - all multi shell bad must not punch me and threaten my family 2nr - all 2ar - must not punch me and threaten my family case
Blue Key
2
Opponent: Strake Jesuit DA | Judge: Arjan Kang
1ac - pragmatic chinese strikes 1nc - combo shell must not summarize logcon case 1ar - all combo shell 2nr - logcon combo shell case 2ar - case combo shell
Blue Key
3
Opponent: Brookfield East DJ | Judge: Arun Mehra
1ac - pragmatism 1nc - logcon mollow k case 1ar - all vague alts bad combo shell 2nr - mollow k case vague alts bad combo shell 2ar - case mollow k vague alts bad
CPS
1
Opponent: Sharon RG | Judge: Lukas Krause
1ac - pragmatic space 1nc - new affs bad daoism k 1ar - must not punch me spec status vague alts bad case new affs bad daoism k 2nr - daoism k 2ar - case must not punch me
CPS
3
Opponent: Immaculate Heart SP | Judge: Rex Evans
1ac - pragmatic commons 1nc - util nc innovation da case 1ar - tt nibs afc case innovation da 2nr - all 2ar - afc
CPS
6
Opponent: Monta Vista KR | Judge: Alexandra Mork
1ac - pragmatic commons 1nc - t-ban util nc innovation da soft law cp truth testing bad case 1ar - spec status debaters must not negate condo t-ban truth-testing bad soft law cp innovation da 2nr - t-ban spec status condo 2ar - debaters must not negate t-ban
Harvard
2
Opponent: Newport JQ | Judge: Lukas Krause
1ac - pragmatic space v3 1nc - util nc heg da case 1ar - must not punch in face must define spike case util nc 2nr - all heg da 2ar - must not punch in face afc case
Harvard
3
Opponent: Cherry Creek EZ | Judge: Zack Preble
1ac - lay 1nc - lay 1ar - lay 2nr - lay 2ar - lay
Harvard
6
Opponent: Newport EY | Judge: James Stuckert
1ac - pragmatic space v4 1nc - must disclose changes read spikes as shells no neg arguments bad case 1ar - all debaters must not negate 2nr - all 2ar - case
Harvard
7
Opponent: Scripps Ranch AS | Judge: Joshua Porter
1ac - pragmatic space v5 1nc - three tier must define private entities lib nc prag ivi case 1ar - multiple shell bad all 2nr - lib nc multiple shell bad all 2ar - multiple shell bad
Harvard
Triples
Opponent: Bronx Science NK | Judge: Angela Zhong, Jacob Thomas, Henry Eberhart
1ac - lunar heritage 1nc - t-leslie psychoanalysis k case 1ar - all condo 2nr - t-leslie 2ar - case t-leslie
1ac - pragmatic space v6 1nc - oci disclosure afropessimism k consult black people case 1ar - all race burdens bad 2nr - consult black people race burdens bad case 2ar - oci disclosure
Jack Howe
1
Opponent: Peninsula EL | Judge: Asher Towner
1ac - evergreening 1nc - biotech da case 1ar - all 2nr - all 2ar - all
Jack Howe
4
Opponent: Orange Lutheran AZ | Judge: Jared Burke
1ac - evergreening 1nc - disclose t-reduce t-medicines infra da obviousness cp courts cp biotech da case 1ar - all process bad 2nr - biotech courts case 2ar - process bad
Jack Howe
6
Opponent: Marlborough VA | Judge: Lena Ho
1ac - prag 1nc - cp case 1ar - abhinav ed no punching spec status afc alt actor fiat bad case cp 2nr - all 2ar - afc
Lex
3
Opponent: Scarsdale KS | Judge: Keshav Dandu
1ac - pragmatic space 1nc - combo shell combo shell case 1ar - combo shell must not negate case combo shell combo shell 2nr - combo shell case combo shell must not negate 2ar - must not negate case
Lex
5
Opponent: Academy of Classical Christian Studies JM | Judge: Faizaan Dossani
1ac - pragmatic commons 1nc - mollow case 1ar - spec status vague alts bad case mollow 2nr - all 2ar - case mollow
1ac - pragmatic commons 1nc - space cp yancy k case 1ar - pics bad condo bad vague alts bad case space cp case 2nr - pics bad condo bad vague alts bad yancy k case 2ar - vague alts bad yancy k case
Loyola
1
Opponent: Vestavia Hills GJ | Judge: Alyssa Hooks
1ac - evergreening 1nc - new affs grove 1ar - all 2nr - grove 2ar - all
Loyola
4
Opponent: Carnegie Vanguard LH | Judge: Michael Kurian
1ac - evergreening 1nc - innovation da wito cp case 1ar - all 2nr - innovation da 2ar - all
Loyola
5
Opponent: LNU RN | Judge: Javier Navarette
1ac - evergreening 1nc - cp da case 1ar - all pics bad 2nr - all 2ar - pics bad
1ac - pragmatic lunar heritage 1nc - util nc rem pic 1ar - all afc 2nr - all 2ar - afc all
Palm Classic
3
Opponent: Monta Vista RD | Judge: Annabelle Long
1ac - pragmatic lunar heritage 1nc - t-appropriation cil cp ppwt da util nc case 1ar - condo bad pics bad afc case t-appropriation cil cp ppwt da 2nr - cil cp ppwt da 2ar - case cil cp ppwt da
Palm Classic
6
Opponent: Bridgeland PT | Judge: Ben Erdmann
1ac - pragmatic lunar basing 1nc - csa disclose changes Thompson k kant nc hedge case 1ar - multi shell bad all 2nr - csa multi shell bad hedge all 2ar - multi-shell bad hedge
Princeton
2
Opponent: Lake Highland Prep YA | Judge: Jonah Gentleman
1ac - pragmatic strikes 1nc - cap k case 1ar - vague alts case k 2nr - all 2ar - vague alts case
Princeton
4
Opponent: Charlotte Latin EL | Judge: Michael Zhou
1ac - chinese strikes 1nc - police pic cap k case 1ar - pics bad condo bad all 2nr - cap k pics bad case 2ar - condo bad
Tournament of Champions
2
Opponent: Lake Highland Prep AM | Judge: Jacob Nails
1ac - lunar heritage 1nc - aspec t-nebel setcol k case 1ar - all 2nr - aspec t-nebel case 2ar - all
Tournament of Champions
4
Opponent: Lexington AG | Judge: Aashir Sanjrani
1ac - pragmatic lunar heritage 1nc - semiocap k case 1ar - all 2nr - all 2ar - all
Valley
2
Opponent: American Heritage Broward NR | Judge: Tajaih Robinson
1ac - pragmatic evergreening 1nc - spec fairness or education contracts nc ncc case 1ar - all must not negate contracts racist 2nr - spec fairness or education contracts nc must not negate case 2ar - case contracts nc spec fairness or education
Valley
3
Opponent: Saratoga AG | Judge: Phoenix Pittman
1ac - pragmatic evergreening 1nc - curry k nebel t tt bad case 1ar - vague alts bad say please must not negate niemi case curry k 2nr - all 2ar - vague alts bad case curry k
Valley
Doubles
Opponent: Harrison JP | Judge: Chris Theis, Lukas Krause, Faizaan Dossani
1ac - evergreening 1nc - must disclose changes patents k reductions da hedge case 1ar - all vague alts bad 2nr - must disclose changes vague alts bad case 2ar - lying case must disclose changes
Valley
Octas
Opponent: Mission San Jose SS | Judge: Patrick Fox, Aryan Jasani, Jack Quisenberry
1ac - pragmatic evergreening 1nc - setcol no neg args bad case 1ar - all vague alts bad 2nr - no neg args bad vague alts bad case 2ar - case lying bad no neg args bad
Valley RR
3
Opponent: Sequoia AS | Judge: Aryan Jasani, Charles Karcher
1ac - practical biotech 1nc - curry k case 1ar - vague alts bad spec floating pik afc case curry k 2nr - all 2ar - vague alts bad curry k
Valley RR
2
Opponent: Lake Highland AV | Judge: Nethmin Liyanage, Perry Beckett
1ac - pragmatic evergreening 1nc - combo shell a prioris bad spikes bad contractarianism nc case 1ar - all afc combo shell 2nr - spikes bad contractarianism nc afc combo shell 2ar - afc
Voices
1
Opponent: Marlborough LK | Judge: Carlos Estacio
1ac - pragmatic evergreening 1nc - hif cp wto bad da neolib k case 1ar - all condo 2nr - neolb k condo case 2ar - case neolib k
Voices
3
Opponent: Vestavia Hills DS | Judge: Lukas Krause
1ac - pragmatic evergreening 1nc - plans bad spikes on top skep nc logcon curry k hedge case 1ar - combo shell perf con all 2nr - spikes on top combo shell perf con hedge 2ar - skep spikes on top
Voices
6
Opponent: Sage MP | Judge: Ben Cortez
1ac - pragmatic evergreening 1nc - util nc china pic case 1ar - all condo 2nr - china pic case 2ar - case china pic
info
1
Opponent: yesh | Judge: giant spaghetti monster
cites
To modify or delete round reports, edit the associated round.
Tournament: info | Round: 1 | Opponent: yesh | Judge: giant spaghetti monster Let me know before round if you require any content warnings or other adjustments.
Please no graphic descriptions of physical violence or rape.
2/19/22
0 - Navigation
Tournament: info | Round: 1 | Opponent: yesh | Judge: giant spaghetti monster G - Generics
SO - SeptOct
ND - NovDec
JF - JanFeb
MA - MarchApril
2/19/22
0 - Tournament Names
Tournament: info | Round: 1 | Opponent: yesh | Judge: giant spaghetti monster Loyola - Loyola Invitational Jack Howe - Jack Howe Memorial Tournament Valley/Valley RR - Mid America Cup (Note - Same tabroom name, different event) Voices - Nano Nagle Classic and Nano Nagle RR Blue Key - Florida Blue Key Speech and Debate Tournament Apple Valley - Apple Valley Mineapple Debate Tournament Princeton - Princeton Classic CPS - College Prep LD Invitational Lex - Lexington Winter Invitational Palm Classic - Palm Classic Harvard - 48th Annual Harvard National Forensics Tournament
2/19/22
JF - Lunar Heritage
Tournament: Harvard | Round: Triples | Opponent: Bronx Science NK | Judge: Angela Zhong, Jacob Thomas, Henry Eberhart Cites are broken - check open source
2/22/22
JF - Lunar Heritage v2
Tournament: Tournament of Champions | Round: 2 | Opponent: Lake Highland Prep AM | Judge: Jacob Nails Cites are broken - check open source
4/25/22
JF - Pragmatic Commons
Tournament: CPS | Round: 3 | Opponent: Immaculate Heart SP | Judge: Rex Evans Cites are broken - check open source
12/20/21
JF - Pragmatic Commons v2
Tournament: CPS | Round: 6 | Opponent: Monta Vista KR | Judge: Alexandra Mork Cites are broken - check open source
12/20/21
JF - Pragmatic Commons v3
Tournament: Lex | Round: 5 | Opponent: Academy of Classical Christian Studies JM | Judge: Faizaan Dossani Cites are broken - check open source
1/16/22
JF - Pragmatic Commons v4
Tournament: Lex | Round: Doubles | Opponent: Oxford VD | Judge: Vanessa Chen, Curtis Chang, Jacob Bosley Cites are broken - check open source
Tournament: Palm Classic | Round: 3 | Opponent: Monta Vista RD | Judge: Annabelle Long Cites are broken - check open source
2/13/22
JF - Pragmatic Lunar Heritage v3
Tournament: Palm Classic | Round: 6 | Opponent: Bridgeland PT | Judge: Ben Erdmann Cites are broken - check open source
2/13/22
JF - Pragmatic Parent Judges
Tournament: Harvard | Round: 3 | Opponent: Cherry Creek EZ | Judge: Zack Preble 1AC Framework I affirm Resolved: The appropriation of outer space by private entities is unjust. To enhance the clarity of the debate – I offer the following definitions 1 Outer space is defined as the physical universe beyond the earth’s atmosphere according to Merriam Webster. 2 Appropriation is defined as the act of taking something for one’s own use, typically without the owner’s permission 3 Private entity is defined by Cornell University as any person or private group, organization or other commercial or nonprofit entity With that, let’s move on to framework I value justice – the resolution asks a question about whether something Is just or not, which means it’s the most contextual to the resolution The value criterion is maximizing expected wellbeing. 1 Actor spec – governments must use util because they don’t have intentions and are constantly dealing with tradeoffs—takes out their arguments because countries use my framework in the status quo 2 Extinction outweighs – magnitude, irreversibility, uncertainty. MacAskill 14 William MacAskill, Associate Professor in Philosophy and Research Fellow at the Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford, “Normative Uncertainty,” 2014, University of Oxford PhD Thesis, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.677.4121andrep=rep1andtype=pdf However, even if we believe in a moral view according to which human extinction would be a good thing, we still have strong reason to prevent near-term human extinction. To see this, we must note three points. First, we should note that the extinction of the human race is an extremely high stakes moral issue. Humanity could be around for a very long time: if humans survive as long as the median mammal species, we will last another two million years. 188 On this estimate, the number of humans in existence in the future, given that we don’t go extinct anytime soon, would be 2×10^14. 189 So if it is good to bring new people into existence, then it’s very good to prevent human extinction. Second, human extinction is by its nature an irreversible scenario. If we continue to exist, then we always have the option of letting ourselves go extinct in the future (or, perhaps more realistically, of considerably reducing population size). But if we go extinct, then we can’t magically bring ourselves back into existence at a later date. Third, we should expect ourselves to progress, morally, over the next few centuries, as we have progressed in the past. So we should expect that in a few centuries’ time we will have better evidence about how to evaluate human extinction than we currently have.
1AC – Advantage 1 Contention 1 is space debris Private mining ventures cause resource wars – empirics prove. Kelvey 14 Jon Kelvey, writer and journalist based in central Maryland. Is It Legal to Mine Asteroids?,” 10/13/14, Slate, https://slate.com/technology/2014/10/asteroid-mining-and-space-law-who-gets-to-profit-from-outer-space-platinum.html If these mining ventures are successful, the world could see billions of dollars flowing down from space to American companies. Is there a system for dealing with any conflicts that asteroid mining will likely arouse? The historical record certainly suggests the possibility of bitter, even violent disputes. Just consider the Arctic. Impenetrable ice was once the foil for those who dreamed of a Northwest Passage, but global warming has made the oil- and natural-gas-rich Arctic seabed accessible for the first time, and there has been a rush to lay claims to territory. The United States and Canada have been making careful geological measurements in order to determine territorial boundaries. Russia has pursued a different path: In 2007, the country used a submersible to plant its flag on the seabed at the North Pole. It’s an example of how contested things can get even when there is a system of rules in place, according to Joanne Gabrynowicz, a space lawyer and editor emeritus of the Journal of Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law. There is a system of international governance in place for the Arctic, but she says it is being strained by the recent thaw because, “it’s so much easier to govern something when you can’t get to it.” If emerging space technologies can be thought of as melting Arctic ice, it might be time to start discussing some basic rules before everything thaws. Specifically, confusion over space property undermines peace. Renstrom 15 Joelle Renstrom, Lecturer of Rhetoric at Boston University, “Will Mining Celestial Bodies Ruin Space?,” 12/09/15, WBUR, https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2015/12/09/asteroid-mining-joelle-renstrom, EA We could certainly use these resources on Earth — especially water, if catastrophic drought predictions are accurate. Of course, asteroid mining companies that sell water to the rest of the world would need to be regulated, but that’s not really a new proposition. As with oil and gas companies, extracting, processing and selling water could promote worldwide competition and boost the economy. But how, exactly, would that competition work? Planetary Resources might be the first asteroid mining company, but it won’t be the last. Once the technology and resources are in place, other companies from the U.S. and elsewhere will join them in the hunt for viable, resource-rich asteroids. And then what? Earth has a history of oil crises, embargoes and conflicts. What’s to prevent similar clashes from arising in space? Perhaps enough asteroids exist to keep companies from various countries out of each other’s way if they can’t share. But the situation could get tricky, especially because the asteroids themselves would remain sovereign territory, as dictated by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. The new law makes clear its consistency with this Treaty: “the United States does not thereby assert sovereignty or sovereign or exclusive rights or jurisdiction over, or the ownership of, any celestial body.” So no one would own the asteroids, but people would own the spoils. Would other countries recognize that? Would we recognize it if a Chinese or Russian company found a stockpile of platinum on an asteroid? Would asteroid mining become a first-come, first-served proposition? The Asteroid Resources Property Act also paves the way for resource exploitation on planets, such as Mars. One of the primary arguments made for colonizing the Red Planet is its resources. Mars Society founder and colonization advocate Robert Zubrin argues that Mars “is endowed with all the resources needed to support not only life but the actual development of a technological civilization.” These resources include water, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen and deuterium, a rare (on Earth) and valuable hydrogen isotope used to make rocket fuel. As such endeavors become more feasible, their implications raise some slippery-slope fears -- namely, that in addition to lifeless asteroids, planets with the potential for microbial life such as Mars may become competitive mining stations. That turns good mining – only reclassifying space property solves. Yan 18 Laura Yan, citing Ramin Skibba, an astrophysicist, ”Should We Really Be Mining in Space?,” 05/05/18, Popular Mechanics, https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a20195040/should-we-be-really-be-mining-in-space/ Imagine, for instance, an asteroid that contains as many platinum-group metals as all reserves on Earth. Businesses will compete for the precious resource, and the competing may soon turn into battle by armed satellites, which can lead back to conflicts on Earth. The act of mining itself could also be dangerous: if space-mining break up asteroids, it could harm other satellites, spacecrafts and astronauts. Commerical space mining could lead to conflicts between profitability and public interest. "Once you’re on board with the commercial space industry, then you as a researcher must accept, if not support, everything that comes with it," Skibba writes. "To succeed, these businesses will seek profitable missions, while science, exploration, and discovery—goals that stimulate public interest—will inevitably have lower priority," The solution, according to Skibba, is to treat outer space as we do Antarctica: a place to encourage scientific investigation and discourage territorial claims. It's a commendable idea, but is it likely? Last week, President Trump has already suggested the idea of adding a "Space Force" to the military. According to The Independent, "experts have warned that space will be increasingly contested in years to come, as increasingly complex weapons are built and more opportunities are opened up for exploring the area outside the Earth." 2 – Redirection – private asteroid mining causes proliferation of NEO redirection capabilities – accidents and terrorism cause extinction. Drmola 15 Jakub Drmola and Miroslav Mareš, * PhD Security Studies, International Relations and Political Science at Masaryk University, Professor, at the Division of Security and Strategic Studies, Masaryk University, “Revisiting the deflection dilemma,” 2015, Astronomy and Geophysics, Vol. 56, Issue 5, pp. 5.15-5.18, https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article/56/5/5.15/235650, EA These authors presented a stark dilemma. We now know that the planet Earth orbits our Sun among thousands of other objects of varying sizes and trajectories. So far, well over 12 000 near-Earth objects (NEOs) have been discovered. Such objects are known to have collided with the Earth in the past and are certain to hit it in the future, with potentially catastrophic results. All the known rocky planets and moons are dotted with impact craters (with the notable exception of Jupiter's geologically hyperactive moon Io). Even the surface of the Earth, despite all its weathering, erosion, volcanic activity and cover of the biosphere, bears clear marks of past impacts, with dozens of craters of more than 10 km in diameter still discernible today. It is a dangerous neighbourhood that we live in – sometimes described as a shooting gallery. The role of the Chicxulub impactor in the Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction event some 65 million years ago helps to make the severity of this point fairly apparent. Direct observations of events such as the jovian impact of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet in July 1994 further emphasized that we live in an active solar system and large collisions are not a thing of the past. The recent Chelyabinsk bolide (or the less recent but somewhat larger Tunguska airburst) remind us that Jupiter is not the only planet that can be hit by sizable objects (Chapman 2004). The Shoemaker-Levy 9 collision made its mark not only in Jupiter's upper atmosphere, where it left blotches the size of our entire planet, but it also shook our perceptions and served as an inspiration for Hollywood films as well as for “planetary defence” concepts – often calling on nuclear weapons to break up the object or deflect it away from the Earth. The 2013 deluge of videos, injuries and damage reports from Chelyabinsk reinvigorated interest. Sooner or later, in order to avoid the fate of the dinosaurs, humanity needs to develop scientific and technological capabilities to prevent extinction-level impact events. But most solutions bring about new challenges, because new technologies rarely have only one application. Here lies the dilemma: any technology allowing us to deflect asteroids from a collision trajectory with the Earth could also be used to direct them towards the Earth. This means we could potentially turn any future near-miss into an impact, with all its devastating consequences. Sagan and Ostro (1994b) concluded that this is a risk not worth taking. Considering the very low probabilities of impacts with objects larger than 1 km (generally less than 1 in 5000 for a given century), they were more worried about the misuse of such trajectory-altering technology than the undiverted asteroids themselves. Humans visited a great deal of violence upon each other during the 20th century; war has been prevalent and increasingly technological. The beginning of the 21st century does not seem overly promising either. The risk that one of humanity's irrational totalitarian powers decides to have some nearby asteroid steered towards Earth might simply be too high. Many people still see the default cosmic odds as preferable to the lessons of recent history. Later on, a modification of sorts to the deflection dilemma appeared, positing that the “real” dilemma (Schweickart 2004, Morrison 2010) lies in putting various parts of the Earth and its population in harm's way during a deflection attempt. Inevitably, any mission to deflect an object that is on a collision course with the Earth will involve moving its supposed point of impact across the surface until it misses the planet entirely. Should such a deflection attempt fail to modify the trajectory sufficiently, the impact would still occur, albeit in a different area. This could expose to risk countries that were not originally threatened by the asteroid (depending on its size and path), while diminishing the risk to those living near the original point of impact. The damage and casualties around this new and modified point of impact would then, to some extent, be caused by those who tried but failed to deflect the asteroid. The repercussions of such an event would certainly be grave. Privatization and industry Both of these versions of the deflection dilemma are essentially state-centric and neither presumes that this technology might be wielded by private companies and non-state actors. But the current trend of greater involvement of private companies in space suggests that states might be unable (or unwilling) to maintain their exclusive hold on the advanced space technologies. The private sector is currently hot on the heels of national and international space agencies in exploring feasible and economically viable options. At the moment, private companies are already in the business (or at least in the process of making it a profitable business) of resupplying the International Space Station, taking tourists to the edge of space and operating communication satellites. And, recently, a new area of potential commercialization of space, asteroid mining, has received increased attention and investment. It has already spawned private companies (such as Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources, Inc.); this industry is highly relevant to the deflection dilemma (Ostro 1999). While the idea of mining asteroids carries with it an air of science fiction (as all space-based endeavours do, at some stage), it is based on science fact. One of the most significant facts on which to base a space mining industry is the apparent abundance of highly valued raw materials in asteroids. Platinum, rhodium and other precious metals are extremely useful because of their catalytic and electrical properties, but are also exceedingly rare in the Earth's crust. While such metals sank deep into the planet during core formation, asteroids retained their original composition and even delivered much of the accessible reserves to our planet in the form of meteorite bombardment (Willbold et al. 2011). Some of the largest known deposits of these metals on Earth are found within ancient impact craters. Platinum-group metals are deemed critical to our modern technology-based civilization, without substitutes in many applications, and their supply is at risk of “geopolitical machinations” (Graedel 2013). The combination of natural scarcity and industrial demand leads to their high price, which easily rivals that of gold. Because space missions are inherently expensive, these precious metals are prime high-value candidates for economically viable asteroid mining. Since the projected market value of these metals within an asteroid is in the order of billions or even hundreds of billions of US dollars (depending on the size of the asteroid), the success of the industry comes down to developing technically feasible and cost-effective methods of mining them and retrieving them (Blair 2000, Gerlach 2005). The other interesting and potentially worthwhile resource we could harvest from asteroids is water. Not only is liquid water required by astronauts to survive, but it can also be broken down into oxygen and hydrogen to be used as fuel. And, while water is abundant and cheap here on Earth, it is very expensive to transport it to orbit. It costs $3000–$10 000 per kilogramme to launch water (or anything else) to low Earth orbit and about two or three times more for geostationary transfer orbit (Jain and Trost 2013). It is not the prospect of procuring something we covet here on the surface of the Earth that makes this venture attractive, but rather the idea of not having to wage an expensive battle with Earth's gravity each time we want to make use of something as mundane as water in space. If the costs associated with mining water from asteroids can be brought below the cost of launching water from Earth, this seemingly counter-intuitive industry might take off and become profitable. Additionally, through the use of some form of refuelling depots, it would probably in turn make space endeavours more affordable and sustainable. The same would apply if some of the more common metals found in asteroids (such as iron or nickel) were used to build structures directly in orbit instead of launching them from the Earth. The risks of mining asteroids There are two basic ways to go about moving the resources contained within a given asteroid to the Earth. They can be extracted from the asteroid during its natural orbit and then transported to the Earth, or the entire asteroid might be moved closer to a more convenient location before starting mining. Thus repositioned, it might even be used as a shielded habitat, once hollowed out (Ostro 1999). There are different speculative costs and benefits associated with either option, which would vary with the size, orbit and composition of the asteroid. But, crucially, the second option would entail putting asteroids into orbit around the Earth, the Moon or possibly at one of the Earth's Lagrangian points. Indeed, NASA has already planned a mission to capture a small asteroid and place it in a high cislunar orbit, where it would serve as a destination for future manned missions and experiments. This “Asteroid Redirect Mission” is to take place in the next decade and is being pitched mainly as a stepping stone towards a future mission to Mars (see box “NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission”; Brophy et al. 2012, Burchell 2014, Gates et al. 2015). Programmes to redirect asteroids and, especially, plans to mine asteroids on an industrial scale essentially resurrect the deflection dilemma. But it is no longer a matter of superpowers intentionally misusing technology designed to prevent dangerous impacts. It becomes an issue of proliferation among private entities. Once private mining companies acquire the technical ability to redirect suitable NEOs (Baoyin et al. 2011) in order to extract platinum or water from them, perilous inflections become more likely. The probability of accidents will rise with the number of asteroids whose trajectories we decide to manipulate. Such accidents might be very unlikely, but even a tiny technical or human error in the execution of an inflection meant to place an asteroid into the lunar or geocentric orbit might send it crashing into the Earth with potentially devastating consequences. And while we might find solace in the low probabilities associated with such an accident, even contemporary industries which are considered very safe suffer from unlikely tragedies. Despite being dependable and reliable, airliners do crash; there are a lot of them flying and very improbable accidents do happen if the dice are rolled often enough. Undoubtedly, we will not be steering as many asteroids as we steer planes any time soon, but industries tend to be more accident-prone during their infancy. Furthermore, a single asteroid can do a lot more damage than a single plane. And who is to say how much metal or water we are going to need in space over the course of the 21st century, or the next? The second source of risk is the intentional misuse, similar to the original deflection dilemma. But the entry barrier for asteroid weaponization gets much lower if mining them and moving them around becomes a common industrial activity. This is in stark contrast to the original scenario which envisioned this technology to be used solely for planetary defence and under control of a very small number of the most powerful countries (Morrison 2010). If such a powerful technology becomes widely and commercially available, even rogue states and well-funded terrorist groups might be tempted to use it for an unexpected and devastating attack. In addition, an active asteroid mining industry would make it more difficult to detect any hostile inflection attempts among the number of legitimate and benign ones. Even smaller asteroids cause debris cascades hitting satellites. Scoles 15 Sarah Scoles, New Scientist. Dust from asteroid mining spells danger for satellite. May 27, 2015. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630235-100-dust-from-asteroid-mining-spells-danger-for-satellites/ IF THE gold mine is too far from home, why not move it nearby? It sounds like a fantasy, but would-be miners are already dreaming up ways to drag resource-rich space rocks closer to home. Trouble is, that could threaten the web of satellites around Earth. Asteroids are not only stepping stones for cosmic colonisation, but may contain metals like gold, platinum, iron and titanium, plus life-sustaining hydrogen and oxygen, and rocket-fuelling ammonia. Space age forty-niners can either try to work an asteroid where it is, or tug it into a more convenient orbit. NASA chose the second option for its Asteroid Redirect Mission, which aims to pluck a boulder from an asteroid’s surface and relocate it to a stable orbit around the moon. But an asteroid’s gravity is so weak that it’s not hard for surface particles to escape into space. Now a new model warns that debris shed by such transplanted rocks could intrude where many defence and communication satellites live – in geosynchronous orbit. According to Casey Handmer of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and Javier Roa of the Technical University of Madrid in Spain, 5 per cent of the escaped debris will end up in regions traversed by satellites. Over 10 years, it would cross geosynchronous orbit 63 times on average. A satellite in the wrong spot at the wrong time will suffer a damaging high-speed collision with that dust. The study also looks at the “catastrophic disruption” of an asteroid 5 metres across or bigger. Its total break-up into a pile of rubble would increase the risk to satellites by more than 30 per cent (arxiv.org/abs/1505.03800). That may not have immediate consequences. But as Earth orbits get more crowded with spent rocket stages and satellites, we will have to worry about cascades of collisions like the one depicted in the movie Gravity. Space wars trigger nuclear war – kills MAD. Johnson 14 Les Johnson is a NASA technologist and science writer. Living without Satellites. 2014. https://www.baen.com/living_without_satellites No matter the cause, once the cascade of collisions begins, the result may be the same: a debris cloud of increasing size will encircle the globe. The cloud will consist of thousands of debris objects, each traveling at over five miles per second. These objects will circle the globe every ninety minutes and on every orbit, each piece will have a small, but very real, probability of colliding with a functioning spacecraft. When these inevitable secondary collisions occur, more debris will be added to the cloud, increasing yet again the probability of future collisions. Like a nuclear chain reaction, the cascade of collisions will continue until the count of debris objects numbers in the millions. There are now nearly half a million pieces of debris with diameters of a few centimeters or more. Most of these objects are in orbits too high for them to naturally decay, enter the Earth’s atmosphere, and burn up. Once the cascade begins and the tipping point is crossed, no satellite will be completely safe. Is this inevitable? No. But unless we begin to take steps to clean up the existing debris, limit the creation of future debris, and harden our commercial satellites against extreme solar storms, then this frightening scenario may become a reality. Some may be wondering why I call this scenario “frightening.” After all, space is out there and we’re down here. How can the loss of space satellites, things that didn’t exist in any significant number until the 1960s, possibly have any meaningful impact on our lives here on Earth? Most people don’t realize how their lives are affected by space technology and space satellites. When they think of space exploration, they think of the International Space Station, Apollo and sending people to Mars. What they should also be thinking about are the Global Positioning System (GPS), communications satellites, spy satellites and weather forecasting – among many other things. GPS was developed first and foremost to support the needs of the U.S. military. It consists of a network of between 24 – 32 satellites that provide line-of-sight access for receivers on the ground from virtually any place on planet Earth. A receiver uses the signals from multiple satellites simultaneously, and the amount of time it took each signal to reach it (knowing that the signal travels at the speed of light), to calculate its position on the ground with very high accuracy. Since the early 1990s, GPS has allowed our armed forces to navigate and coordinate with precision unequaled in the history of warfare. GPS signals are used to navigate drones for reconnaissance and combat, soldiers on battlefields, ships at sea, and planes in the air. GPS allows precise navigation anywhere on the globe and under varied weather conditions including rain, fog and sand storms. A sudden loss of GPS for the modern warfighter would be akin to someone losing one of their primary senses – sight, sound, smell or touch. It would not necessarily be fatal, but it would certainly be debilitating. It is so useful that other countries are building their own systems so as to not be dependent upon the US should we decide to turn off GPS signals. After all, if we can use it, so can our adversaries. The Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) is Russia’s answer to GPS. Europe is building and deploying their Galileo positioning system and countries like India and China are building their own regional systems to provide comparable capability under their own control. Who can blame them? Shortly after becoming operational, GPS entered the civilian economy like a tidal wave. Commercial electronics companies began selling portable GPS receivers for cars and trucks. Cell phone manufactures now have them embedded in virtually every cell phone produced. Google Maps changed the nature of mapping and how we travel, both in our cars and on foot. Local emergency personnel adopted the technology for E-911 services and for navigation. Cities have mapped the locations of fire hydrants and can direct emergency responders to the nearest one should the need arise. Have you ever heard of Positive Train Control? In 2008, the U.S. Congress mandated that the nation’s rail system use GPS tracking to improve safety and reduce the risk of accidental collisions. Our rail system, which moves goods across the continent, is now dependent on GPS to function. And, as goes the rail system, so go the airlines. By 2025, U.S. air traffic control will move from ground-based beacons to space-based GPS tracking and navigation. Touted to increase the efficiency of air travel, with ever-increasing number of commercial airline flights, the Next Generation Air Transportation System will also be dependent upon satellites for routing planes and handling the complex traffic control near the nation’s airports. Ships at sea already use GPS for navigation, with the thousands of cargo ships carrying everything from cars and electronics to food and diapers moving from country to country as international trade becomes increasingly globalized. Few countries make all the goods their citizens need within their own borders and GPS is one of the technologies that helped make massive international trade affordable. The retail industry has embraced GPS for moving goods in a timely manner from warehouses to store shelves. Knowing where a particular shipment is located on its journey allows just in time manufacturing and inventory control, reducing costs and warehousing expenses. Retail companies also makes use of satellite technology in other ways. Credit card companies often use secure satellite links for card and check approvals at retail stores, bypassing the increasingly insecure Internet for transmitting financial data. The satellite dishes on the roofs of your favorite stores are not there for employees to watch DirecTV in the break room. They are likely VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) antennas that are humming with the financial and inventory data needed for the store to keep its doors open and its shelves stocked. Some banks now use VSATs to transfer funds from one to the other, making them a part of the global financial infrastructure. Cable television doesn’t originate at your local cable company and then get piped into your home. Instead, the myriad of channels conveniently aggregated into whatever bundle to which you happen to subscribe come to your local cable provider by satellite relay. Without satellites, news of what’s happening in Russia, China and other parts of the globe cannot otherwise make it into the daily newsfeed. Your favorite football team playing a game in another state this Monday night likely cannot be broadcast without going through a satellite relay. If our communications satellites are lost, your televisions and, to the extent that they play to a national audience, your radios, will become purveyors of only what’s happening locally. We shouldn’t forget weather forecasting. A network of satellites provides critical data for forecasting the weather, particularly the outlook for several days in the future. Figure 2 shows a satellite image of Hurricane Ivan approaching Alabama’s gulf coast in 2004. This type of data saves lives and, almost as importantly, helps people and businesses determine if they are in the path of a storm and how to react appropriately. The vantage point of space allows the precise evacuation of the communities likely to be most affected and those that are not in the line of fire to know that they can remain in place, saving lives and millions of dollars. Satellite imagery is used by the military and our political leaders to maintain the peace. When your potential adversaries can’t hide what they’re doing, where their armies are moving and what they are doing with their civilian and military infrastructure, then the danger of surprise attack is diminished. In our nuclear age with instant death only minutes away by missile attack, the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) only works if both sides know whether or not they are being attacked. The launch of missiles or a bomber fleet can easily be seen from space far in advance of either reaching their potential targets halfway around the globe. The danger of surprise attack is therefore small, making an accidental war far less likely. So what does all this mean? And what do we do about it? First of all, it means that the advocates of space development, exploration and commercialization have succeeded far beyond their initial expectations and dreams. The economies and security of countries in the developed world are now dependent on space satellites. We space advocates should celebrate our success and be terrified of it at the same time. Should we lose these fragile assets in space, our economy would experience a disruption like no other: ship, air and train travel would stop and only restart/operate in a much-reduced capacity for years (GPS loss). Many banking and retail transactions would cease (VSAT loss). Distribution of news and vital national information would be crippled (communications satellite loss). Lives would be put at risk and the productivity of our farming would dramatically decrease (weather satellite loss). The risk of war, including nuclear war, would increase (loss of spy satellites) and our military’s ability to react to crises would be significantly reduced (loss of military logistics and intelligence gathering satellites). 1AC – Advantage 2 Contention 2 is China China’s dependent on private companies for space expansion, satellite deployment, and mining Fernandez 21 — (Ray Fernandez, Writer at ScreenRant, “Hundreds Chinese Companies Called To Boost Space “, ScreenRant, 11-27-2021, Available Online at https://screenrant.com/chinese-companies-boost-space-development/, accessed 1-11-2022, HKR-AR) In a new move to boost space development, China has opened up space to private companies. China's space program is heavily linked with the military and wrapped up in secrecy. However, recent Chinese space accomplishments, rovers on the Moon and Mars, new satellites and new space stations were primarily developed by government efforts. The U.S. brought in the private sector as a strategy to boost its space program and develop expensive and ambitious new projects. Now China is doing the same. The last time China used national private companies to increase development was when it declared Artificial Intelligence a national priority. Fast forward a few years, Chinese AI dominates globally. At the 7th China (International) Commercial Aerospace Forum, national private companies presented many new and ambitious projects, including spaceplanes, space resources, a massive constellation of satellites and more. One of the companies at the event was the space giant China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. (CASIC). The Ministry of Science and Technology, China National Space Administration, and other government arms sponsored and supervised the event. CASIC said that the Xingyun constellation — made up of 80 satellites is moving full speed ahead. The corporation announced that the intelligent space satellite production factory was operating. They are now launching rockets from their own rocket park in the city of Wuhan. Today the rocket park and smart sat factory produce 20 solid-fuel launches and 100 satellites per year but plans to increase capacities are on their way. CASIC is also working on the Tengyun spaceplane, recently flight-testing an advanced turbine-based combined cycle engine in the Gobi desert. CASIC is not the only private company developing space planes in China. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. and iSpace also presented their plans for space planes and space crafts. iSpace has designed two missions to the Moon, which they assure will be the first commercial missions to the natural satellite. China is getting some inspiration from U.S. companies. Local companies in China are looking into space tourism with suborbital and orbital flights. And Deep Blue Aerospace is developing a reusable launcher that looks very much like the Heavy Falcon of SpaceX. The event's main themes were IoT space networks, multi-purpose satellite constellations, space resources (mining) and taking the Chinese space sector to a new level with private participation. While the U.S. has its eye on Chinese military space vehicles, it may have overlooked and underestimated the impact that the Chinese private sector will have. Hundreds of new companies have responded to the government's call to "start a new journey for commercial aerospace" in China. It is only a matter of time until their full power and capabilities are unleashed into space. Xi commitments, manufacturing capacity, and FDI make the CCP’s private sector integral to 21st century space competition Patel 21 — (Neel V. Patel, Neel is the space reporter for MIT Technology Review, and he writes The Airlock newsletter. Before joining, he worked as a freelance science and technology journalist, contributing stories to Popular Science, The Daily Beast, Slate, Wired, the Verge, and elsewhere. Prior to that, he was an associate editor for Inverse, where he grew and led the website’s space coverage., “China’s surging private space industry is out to challenge the US“, MIT Technology Review, 1-21-2021, Available Online at https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/01/21/1016513/china-private-commercial-space-industry-dominance, accessed 1-11-2022, HKR-AR) Until recently, China’s space activity has been overwhelmingly dominated by two state-owned enterprises: the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation Limited (CASIC) and the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC). A few private space firms have been allowed to operate in the country for a while: for example, there’s the China Great Wall Industry Corporation Limited (in reality a subsidiary of CASC), which has provided commercial launches since it was established in 1980. But for the most part, China’s commercial space industry has been nonexistent. Satellites were expensive to build and launch, and they were too heavy and large for anything but the biggest rockets to actually deliver to orbit. The costs involved were too much for anything but national budgets to handle. That all changed this past decade as the costs of making satellites and launching rockets plunged. In 2014, a year after Xi Jinping took over as the new leader of China, the Chinese government decided to treat civil space development as a key area of innovation, as it had already begun doing with AI and solar power. It issued a policy directive called Document 60 that year to enable large private investment in companies interested in participating in the space industry. “Xi’s goal was that if China has to become a critical player in technology, including in civil space and aerospace, it was critical to develop a space ecosystem that includes the private sector,” says Namrata Goswami, a geopolitics expert based in Montgomery, Alabama, who’s been studying China’s space program for many years. “He was taking a cue from the American private sector to encourage innovation from a talent pool that extended beyond state-funded organizations.” As a result, there are now 78 commercial space companies operating in China, according to a 2019 report by the Institute for Defense Analyses. More than half have been founded since 2014, and the vast majority focus on satellite manufacturing and launch services. For example, Galactic Energy, founded in February 2018, is building its Ceres rocket to offer rapid launch service for single payloads, while its Pallas rocket is being built to deploy entire constellations. Rival company i-Space, formed in 2016, became the first commercial Chinese company to make it to space with its Hyperbola-1 in July 2019. It wants to pursue reusable first-stage boosters that can land vertically, like those from SpaceX. So does LinkSpace (founded in 2014), although it also hopes to use rockets to deliver packages from one terrestrial location to another. Spacety, founded in 2016, wants to turn around customer orders to build and launch its small satellites in just six months. In December it launched a miniaturized version of a satellite that uses 2D radar images to build 3D reconstructions of terrestrial landscapes. Weeks later, it released the first images taken by the satellite, Hisea-1, featuring three-meter resolution. Spacety wants to launch a constellation of these satellites to offer high-quality imaging at low cost. To a large extent, China is following the same blueprint drawn up by the US: using government contracts and subsidies to give these companies a foot up. US firms like SpaceX benefited greatly from NASA contracts that paid out millions to build and test rockets and space vehicles for delivering cargo to the International Space Station. With that experience under its belt, SpaceX was able to attract more customers with greater confidence. Venture capital is another tried-and-true route. The IDA report estimates that VC funding for Chinese space companies was up to $516 million in 2018—far shy of the $2.2 billion American companies raised, but nothing to scoff at for an industry that really only began seven years ago. At least 42 companies had no known government funding. And much of the government support these companies do receive doesn’t have a federal origin, but a provincial one. “These companies are drawing high-tech development to these local communities,” says Hines. “And in return, they’re given more autonomy by the local government.” While most have headquarters in Beijing, many keep facilities in Shenzhen, Chongqing, and other areas that might draw talent from local universities. There’s also one advantage specific to China: manufacturing. “What is the best country to trust for manufacturing needs?” asks James Zheng, the CEO of Spacety’s Luxembourg headquarters. “It’s China. It’s the manufacturing center of the world.” Zheng believes the country is in a better position than any other to take advantage of the space industry’s new need for mass production of satellites and rockets alike. Making friends The most critical strategic reason to encourage a private space sector is to create opportunities for international collaboration—particularly to attract customers wary of being seen to mix with the Chinese government. (US agencies and government contractors, for example, are barred from working with any groups the regime funds.) Document 60 and others issued by China’s National Development and Reform Commission were aimed not just at promoting technological innovation, but also at drawing in foreign investment and maximizing a customer base beyond Chinese borders. “China realizes there are certain things they cannot get on their own,” says Frans von der Dunk, a space policy expert at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Chinese companies like LandSpace and MinoSpace have worked to accrue funding through foreign investment, escaping dependence on state subsidies. And by avoiding state funding, a company can also avoid an array of restrictions on what it can and can’t do (such as constraints on talking with the media). Foreign investment also makes it easier to compete on a global scale: you’re taking on clients around the world, launching from other countries, and bringing talent from outside China. Mining basing competition risks war Jamasmie 21 — (Cecilia Jamasmie, Cecilia has covered mining for more than a decade. She is particularly interested in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Diamonds and Latin America. Cecilia has been interviewed by BBC News and CBC among others and has been a guest speaker at mining conventions, including MINExpo 2016 and the World’s Copper Conference 2018. She is also member of the expert panel on Social License to Operate (SLO) at the European project MIREU (Mining and Metallurgic Regions EU). She holds a Master of Journalism from the University of British Columbia, and is based in Nova Scotia., “Experts warn of brewing space mining war among US, China and Russia“, MINING, 4-29-21, Available Online at https://www.mining.com/experts-warn-of-brewing-space-mining-war-among-us-china-and-russia/, accessed 1-11-2022, HKR-AR) A brewing war to set a mining base in space is likely to see China and Russia joining forces to keep the US increasing attempts to dominate extra-terrestrial commerce at bay, experts warn. The Trump Administration took an active interest in space, announcing that America would return astronauts to the moon by 2024 and creating the Space Force as the newest branch of the US military. It also proposed global legal framework for mining on the moon, called the Artemis Accords, encouraging citizens to mine the Earth’s natural satellite and other celestial bodies with commercial purposes. The directive classified outer space as a “legally and physically unique domain of human activity” instead of a “global commons,” paving the way for mining the moon without any sort of international treaty. Spearheaded by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Artemis Accords were signed in October by Australia, Canada, England, Japan, Luxembourg, Italy and the United Emirates. “Unfortunately, the Trump Administration exacerbated a national security threat and risked the economic opportunity it hoped to secure in outer space by failing to engage Russia or China as potential partners,” says Elya Taichman, former legislative director for then-Republican Michelle Lujan Grisham. “Instead, the Artemis Accords have driven China and Russia toward increased cooperation in space out of fear and necessity,” he writes. Russia’s space agency Roscosmos was the first to speak up, likening the policy to colonialism. “There have already been examples in history when one country decided to start seizing territories in its interest — everyone remembers what came of it,” Roscosmos’ deputy general director for international cooperation, Sergey Saveliev, said at the time. China, which made history in 2019 by becoming the first country to land a probe on the far side of the Moon, chose a different approach. Since the Artemis Accords were first announced, Beijing has approached Russia to jointly build a lunar research base. President Xi Jinping has also he made sure China planted its flag on the Moon, which happened in December 2020, more than 50 years after the US reached the lunar surface. China space commercialization uniquely risks cascades – they ignore norms and don’t register satellites which prevents tracking Swinhoe 21 – Editor at Datacenter Dynamics. Previously he was at IDG in roles including UK Editor at CSO Online and Senior Staff Writer at IDG Connect. Dan, “China’s moves into mega satellite constellations could add to space debris problem,” 4/20/2021, https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/analysis/chinas-moves-into-mega-satellite-constelations-could-add-to-space-debris-problem/ Of the 3,000-odd operational satellites currently in orbit, a little over 400 belong to China or Chinese companies. The number of commercial companies in the West launching satellites has skyrocketed in recent years, and SpaceX now operates more satellites than any other company or government. But refusing to be left behind, China is planning both state and commercial deployments of constellation satellites in huge numbers in the coming years, which could post an increased risk to in-orbit operations if Chinese companies don’t take due care in how they behave. The new commercial space race A report by the Secure World Foundation says a 2014 document from the Chinese Government known as “Document 60” (Official English Language Title: Guiding Opinions of the State Council on Innovating the Investment and Financing Mechanisms in Key Areas and Encouraging Social Investment) was the start of China’s modern commercial space sector. And in 2020, satellite Internet was included in the scope of China’s New Infrastructure policy initiative. Space is also part of China’s expansive Belt and Road initiative, which all combined have led to an explosion in the country’s commercial space ambitions. China is beginning to “get its act together” around commercial use of space, Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics tells DCD. Whereas in previous years he says China has had many government satellites and some quasi-commercial satellites with strong ties to government, but now there are true commercial Chinese companies in space. “We have the same phenomenon as the US companies in that they're moving fast and they're innovative and doing new things.” But as Chinese companies look to follow the likes of SpaceX and OneWeb in deploying large numbers of satellites, he warns their lack of care in operations could potentially damage space for everyone. China’s commercial space industry blasts off A number of private space companies including LinkSpace, OneSpace, iSpace, LandSpace, and ExPace, have all launched in recent years. As well developing their own rockets, these companies are launching satellites of all shapes and sizes into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) with the aim of forming their own constellations to rival those of Western companies. Bao Weimin, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and director of the Science and Technology Committee of the Aerospace Science and Technology Group, recently announced plans to establish a national satellite network company to be responsible for “coordinating the planning and operation of space satellite Internet network construction.” The China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), a state-owned enterprise, outlined its plans to preliminarily finish the construction of the Xingyun project, an 80-satellite LEO narrowband Internet of Things constellation, by 2025 in addition to 320 Hongyan communications satellites. China Telecom’s satellite communications reportedly has plans to launch 10,000 satellites in the next five to ten years under the name ‘China StarNet’. Spacety is also launching a constellation of imagery satellites and has launched at least 20 so far. Another company called GW has filed for spectrum allocation from the International Telecommunication Union for two broadband constellations called GW-A59 and GW-2 that would include almost 13,000 satellites. A report from IDA into China’s commercial space industry found others including Zhuhai Orbita, GalaxySpace, MinoSpace, LaserFleet, Head Aerospace and numerous others are also developing constellations from which, like US counterparts, these companies aim to provide satellite broadband, 5G, IoT, and various data services. Though many are in the early stages of development, most plan to launch the first of what could be hundreds or even thousands of satellites within the next few years. While most companies can’t boast the same level of funding as US space companies – VC funding for Chinese space companies was up to $516 million in 2018 compared to the $2.2 billion US companies raised – they are bringing in investment; earlier this year Beijing Commsat received more than $4.5 billion in funding from the China Internet Investment fund, with more than $10 billion in additional funding promised in the future. Xie Tao, founder of Beijing Commsat Technology Development Co., Ltd, told China Money Network he expects the country to launch 30,000 to 40,000 Satellites in the future, compared to 40,000 to 60,000 launched by the US. “Space in the orbit is allocated on a first-come, first-served basis and the onus will be on these latecomers to ensure their satellites will not collide with existing ones,” Commsat’s Xie previously said. “The low-Earth orbit is becoming increasingly crowded and the space land grab is on.” China isn’t up to speed in orbital norms While the UN tightly controls GEO orbits, offering countries licenses for a set number of slots in the closely-packed and highly valuable planes, there is no such limit at lower orbits. The number of satellites that companies can launch at LEO is limited only by what local regulators will permit, despite the machines circling the entire planet in around 90 minutes. And space is becoming increasingly crowded. The number of satellites being launched annually is beginning to reach the thousands, leftovers parts from previous launches and satellites can mount up if not properly disposed of, and debris from previous in-orbit incidents means LEO is full of thousands of pieces of potentially satellite-destroying junk and debris. Around 28,200 pieces of space junk and debris are currently being tracked in orbit but ESA estimates there could be up to hundreds of thousands of potentially harmful pieces in orbit. At its most extreme, Kessler syndrome predicts a scenario where the space around Earth is so full of satellites and debris that it becomes unmanageable and collisions begin to cascade, causing a chain reaction of collisions which render many orbits out of use for generations. China has as much right to operate satellites as Western companies, but the current lack of adherence to ‘space norms’ could increase risks further. McDowell warns the ‘explosion’ of Chinese activity could have a massive impact on the usability of space. “Chinese adherence to things like space debris norms and registration norms is, I would say, about 10 years behind everybody else, if not more” he says. “In UN registration of satellites, they're being very incomplete. They're not registering a lot of their CubeSats and things like that. They're not really being as careful, and they're not as transparent in what's going on.” Chinese commercial satellites are subject the same risks as Western ones in space; extreme temperatures, crowded operating environment, and new companies seeing large numbers of failures as they go through rapid development. But a lack of proper registration can create more risk of collisions, which can have catastrophic effects, especially with larger satellites at higher orbits.
2/19/22
JF - Pragmatic Space
Tournament: CPS | Round: 1 | Opponent: Sharon RG | Judge: Lukas Krause Cites are broken - check open source.
12/18/21
JF - Pragmatic Space v2
Tournament: Lex | Round: 3 | Opponent: Scarsdale KS | Judge: Keshav Dandu Cites are broken - check open source
1/15/22
JF - Pragmatic Space v3
Tournament: Harvard | Round: 2 | Opponent: Newport JQ | Judge: Lukas Krause Cites are broken - check open source
2/19/22
JF - Pragmatic Space v4
Tournament: Harvard | Round: 6 | Opponent: Newport EY | Judge: James Stuckert Cites are broken - check open source.
2/20/22
JF - Pragmatic Space v5
Tournament: Harvard | Round: 7 | Opponent: Scripps Ranch AS | Judge: Joshua Porter Cites are broken - check open source
2/20/22
JF - Pragmatic Space v6
Tournament: Harvard | Round: Doubles | Opponent: BASIS Peoria PY | Judge: Fabrice Etienne, Reed Weiler, Muhammad Khattak Cites are broken - check open source
2/23/22
ND - Chinese Strikes
Tournament: Apple Valley | Round: 5 | Opponent: Westwood VL | Judge: Gordon Krauss Cites are broken - check open source
11/6/21
ND - Chinese Strikes v2
Tournament: Princeton | Round: 4 | Opponent: Charlotte Latin EL | Judge: Michael Zhou Cites are broken - check open source
12/4/21
ND - Practical Strikes
Tournament: Blue Key | Round: Doubles | Opponent: Lake Highland Prep AB | Judge: Arjan Kang, Arun Mehra, James Stuckert 1AC 1AC – Framework Presumption and permissibility affirm A Statements are true before false since if I told you my name, you’d believe me.B Epistemics – we wouldn’t be able to start a strand of reasoning since we’d have to question that reason. C Illogical – presuming statements false is illogical since you can’t say things like P and P are both wrong. D Presuming obligations is logically safer since it’s better to be supererogatory than fail to meet an obligation. The role of the ballot is to determine whether the resolution is a true or false statement – anything else moots 6 minutes of the ac a priori's 1st – even worlds framing requires ethics that begin from a priori principles like reason or pleasure so we control the internal link to functional debates. The ballot says vote aff or neg based on a topic – five dictionaries define to negate as to deny the truth of and affirm as to prove true so it's constitutive and jurisdictional. Any moral system faces the problem of regress – I can keep asking “why should I follow this.” Regress collapses to skep since no one can generate obligations absent grounds for accepting them. Only reason solves since asking “why reason?” asks for a reason for reasons, which concedes its authority. Reason means we must be able to universally will maxims—our judgements are authoritative and can’t only apply to ourselves any more than 2+2=4 can be true only for me. The only constraint is noncontradiction. Thus, the standard is consistency with willing universal maxims. Prefer – we set ends based on practical identities like student or debater. However, human identity – or agency – is the source of practical identity, since it’s necessary to choose which roles to take on. Impacts: A Justifies valuing humanity as an end – we find our lives worth living under our practical identities and activities, but that means we must value agency as the source of that value. B Hijacks other standards – judge is a practical identity, which requires first valuing human identity. C Past experiences have no effect on causality – the proposition that the moon will come up tonight is not warranted by the fact that the moon came up last night – means induction is circular. Takes out the aff since assuming your theory of power will function the same way in the future as it does now or in the past as well as the entire link chain of their offense is reliant on induction. D Performativity—freedom is the key to the process of justification of arguments. Willing that we should abide by their ethical theory presupposes that we own ourselves in the first place. Thus, it is logically incoherent to justify an argument without first willing that we can pursue ends free from others. And, even if ideal-theory is bad, the alternatives are far worse because they don’t rely on fixed principles and devolve into relativism at a particular space and time—you can’t measure something with a ruler constantly changing length, which means we need a standard to hold people to.
1AC – Offense Plan – A just government ought to recognize the unconditional right of a worker to strike. Resolved is defined as firm in purpose or intent; determined and I’m determined. Affirm means to express agreement and you already know I do. 1 Right to Strike defends liberty for workers to both set and pursue their own ends and resist coercion from others Gourevitch ’18: Gourevitch, Alex. “A Radical Defense of the Right to Strike.” Jacobin 2018. https://jacobinmag.com/2018/07/right-to-strike-freedom-civil-liberties-oppression Workers have an interest in resisting the oppression of class society by using their collective power to reduce, or even overcome, that oppression. Their interest is a liberty interest in a double sense. First, resistance to that class-based oppression carries with it, at least implicitly, a demand for freedoms not yet enjoyed. A higher wage expands workers’ freedom of choice. Expanded labor rights increase workers’ collective freedom to influence the terms of employment. Whatever the concrete set of issues, workers’ strike demands are always also a demand for control over portions of one’s life that they do not yet enjoy. Second, strikes don’t just aim at winning more freedom — they are themselves expressions of freedom. When workers walk out, they’re using their own individual and collective agency to win the liberties they deserve. The same capacity for self-determination that workers invoke to demand more freedom is the capacity they exercise when winning their demands. Freedom, not industrial stability or simply higher living standards, is the name of their desire. Put differently, the right to strike has both an intrinsic and instrumental relation to freedom. It has intrinsic value as an (at least implicit) demand for self-emancipation. And it has instrumental value insofar as the strike is an effective means for resisting the oppressiveness of a class society and achieving new freedoms. But if all this is correct, and the right to strike is something that we should defend, then it also has to be meaningful. The right loses its connection to workers’ freedom if they have little chance of exercising it effectively. Otherwise they’re simply engaging in a symbolic act of defiance — laudable, perhaps, but not a tangible means of fighting oppression. The right to strike must therefore cover at least some of the coercive tactics that make strikes potent, like sit-downs and mass pickets. It is therefore often perfectly justified for strikers to exercise their right to strike by using these tactics, even when these tactics are illegal. Still, the question remains: why should the right to strike be given moral priority over other basic liberties? The reason is not just that liberal capitalism produces economic oppression but that the economic oppression that workers face is in part created and sustained by the very economic and civil liberties that liberal capitalism cherishes. Workers find themselves oppressed because of the way property rights, freedom of contract, corporate authority, and tax and labor law operate. Deeming these liberties inviolable doesn’t foster less oppressive, exploitative outcomes, as its defenders insist — quite the opposite. The right to strike has a stronger claim to be protecting a zone of activity that serves the aims of justice itself — coercing people into relations of less oppressive social cooperation. Simply put, to argue for the right to strike is to prioritize democratic freedoms over property rights. Here’s how logic works 1 Bonini’s Paradox – expanding debate’s parameters to the 1NC and onward makes the round irresolvable due to a lack of understanding so just vote aff Wikipedia Brackets Original. “Bonini's paradox”. Wikipedia. No Date. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonini27s_paradox In modern discourse, the paradox was articulated by John M. Dutton and William H. Starbuck2 "As a model of a complex system becomes more complete, it becomes less understandable. Alternatively, as a model grows more realistic, it also becomes just as difficult to understand as the real-world processes it represents".3 This paradox may be used by researchers to explain why complete models of the human brain and thinking processes have not been created and will undoubtedly remain difficult for years to come. This same paradox was observed earlier from a quote by philosopher-poet Paul Valéry, "Ce qui est simple est toujours faux. Ce qui ne l’est pas est inutilisable".4 ("A simple statement is bound to be untrue. One that is not simple cannot be utilized."5) Also, the same topic has been discussed by Richard Levins in his classic essay "The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology", in stating that complex models have 'too many parameters to measure, leading to analytically insoluble equations that would exceed the capacity of our computers, but the results would have no meaning for us even if they could be solved.6 (See Orzack and Sober, 1993; Odenbaugh, 2006) 2 Liar’s Paradox – the resolution is always true Camus Albert Camus (existentialist). “The Myth of Sisyphus.” Penguin Books. 1975(originally published 1942). Accessed 12/11/19. Pg 22. Copy on hand. Houston Memorial DX The mind’s first step is to distinguish what is true from what is false. However, as soon as thought reflects on itself, what it first discovers is a contradiction. Useless to strive to be convincing in this case. Over the centuries no one has furnished a clearer and more elegant demonstration of the business than Aristotle: “The often ridiculed consequence of these opinions is that they destroy themselves. For by asserting that all is true we assert the truth of the contrary assertion and consequently the falsity of our own thesis (for the contrary assertion does not admit that it can be true). And if one says that all is false, that assertion is itself false. If we declare that solely the assertion opposed to ours is false or else that solely ours is not false, we are nevertheless forced to admit an infinite number of true or false judgments. For the one who expresses a true assertion proclaims simultaneously that it is true, and so on ad infinitum.” 3 Overthinking paradox- the 1NC is a form of unnecessary overthinking that prevents decisions to be made so don’t evaluate it Wikipedia Brackets Original. “Analysis Paralysis”. Wikipedia. No Date. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonini27s_paradox Analysis paralysis (or paralysis by analysis) describes an individual or group process when overanalyzing or overthinking a situation can cause forward motion or decision-making to become frozen "paralyzed", meaning that no solution or course of action is decided upon. A situation may be deemed too complicated and a decision is never made, due to the fear that a potentially larger problem may arise. A person may desire a perfect solution, but may fear making a decision that could result in error, while on the way to a better solution. Equally, a person may hold that a superior solution is a short step away, and stall in its endless pursuit, with no concept of diminishing returns. On the opposite end of the time spectrum is the phrase extinct by instinct, which is making a fatal decision based on hasty judgment or a gut reaction. 4 The rules of logic claim that the only time a statement is invalid is if the antecedent is true, but the consequent is false. SEP Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “An Introduction to Philosophy.” Stanford University. https://web.stanford.edu/~bobonich/dictionary/dictionary.html TG Massa Conditional statement: an “if p, then q” compound statement (ex. If I throw this ball into the air, it will come down); p is called the antecedent, and q is the consequent. A conditional asserts that if its antecedent is true, its consequent is also true; any conditional with a true antecedent and a false consequent must be false. For any other combination of true and false antecedents and consequents, the conditional statement is true. If the aff is winning, they get the ballot is a tacit ballot conditional which means denying the premise proves the conclusion that I should get the ballot. 5 Principle of explosion is true which proves the resolution true. Wikiwand. “Principle of Explosion.” Wikiwand, 0AD, www.wikiwand.com/en/Principle_of_explosion. Massa
The principle of explosion (Latin: ex falso (sequitur) quodlibet (EFQ), "from falsehood, anything (follows)", or ex contradictione (sequitur) quodlibet (ECQ), "from contradiction, anything (follows)"), or the principle of Pseudo-Scotus, is the law of classical logic, intuitionistic logic and similar logical systems, according to which any statement can be proven from a contradiction.1 That is, once a contradiction has been asserted, any proposition (including their negations) can be inferred from it. This is known as deductive explosion.23 The proof of this principle was first given by 12th century French philosopher William of Soissons.4 As a demonstration of the principle, consider two contradictory statements – "All lemons are yellow" and "Not all lemons are yellow", and suppose that both are true. If that is the case, anything can be proven, e.g., the assertion that "unicorns exist", by using the following argument:
We know that "All lemons are yellow", as it has been assumed to be true. 2. Therefore, the two-part statement "All lemons are yellow OR unicorns exist” must also be true, since the first part is true. 3. However, since we know that "Not all lemons are yellow" (as this has been assumed), the first part is false, and hence the second part must be true, i.e., unicorns exist.
6 Dogmatism Paradox – disregard the 1NC Sorensen Sorensen, Roy, Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis. "Epistemic Paradoxes.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 21 June 2006. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemic-paradoxes/. PeteZ Saul Kripke’s ruminations on the surprise test paradox led him to a paradox about dogmatism. He lectured on both paradoxes at Cambridge University to the Moral Sciences Club in 1972. (A descendent of this lecture now appears as Kripke 2011). Gilbert Harman transmitted Kripke’s new paradox as follows:If I know that h is true, I know that any evidence against h is evidence against something that is true; I know that such evidence is misleading. But I should disregard evidence that I know is misleading. So, once I know that h is true, I am in a position to disregard any future evidence that seems to tell against h. (1973, 148) 7 Vote aff because it’s simple – evaluating responses to this is complicated so don’t Baker 04’ Baker, Alan, 10-29-2004, "Simplicity (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)," https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simplicity/ With respect to question (ii), there is an important distinction to be made between two sorts of simplicity principle. Occam's Razor may be formulated as an epistemic principle: if theory T is simpler than theory T*, then it is rational (other things being equal) to believe T rather than T*. Or it may be formulated as a methodological principle: if T is simpler than T* then it is rational to adopt T as one's working theory for scientific purposes. These two conceptions of Occam's Razor require different sorts of justification in answer to question (iii). In analyzing simplicity, it can be difficult to keep its two facets—elegance and parsimony—apart. Principles such as Occam's Razor are frequently stated in a way which is ambiguous between the two notions, for example, “Don't multiply postulations beyond necessity.” Here it is unclear whether ‘postulation’ refers to the entities being postulated, or the hypotheses which are doing the postulating, or both. The first reading corresponds to parsimony, the second to elegance. Examples of both sorts of simplicity principle can be found in the quotations given earlier in this section. 8 A trivial entity exists Kabay 08 Paul Douglas Kabay, (PhD thesis, School of Philosophy, Anthropology, and Social Inquiry) "A Defense Of Trivialism" The University Of Melbourne, 2008, https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/35203, DOA:10-25-2017 Let us define a trivial entity as an entity that instantiates every predicate, i.e. an entity of which everything is true. One of the things true of a trivial entity is that it exists in a reality in which trivialism is true. Hence, if a trivial entity exists, then trivialism is true. But is it true that there exists a trivial entity? Here is an argument for thinking that it is true: 1) Every being (or entity or object) is either trivial or nontrivial 2) It is not the case that every being is nontrivial 3) Hence, there exists a trivial being 9 Affirm because either the neg is true meaning its bad for us to clash w/ it because it turns us into Fake News people OR it’s not meaning it’s a lie that you can’t vote on for ethics 10 Decision Making Paradox- in order to judge we need a decision-making procedure to determine it is a good decision. But to chose a decision-making procedure requires another meta level decision making procedure leading to infinite regress so just vote aff to break the paradox. 11 GCB- I am the greatest conceivable being so vote for me because I am infinitely good. To prove this, I will make them contest the aff and say they are not under my control. 12 There are infinite worlds, the aff is logical in one which is sufficient. Vaidman 2 Vaidman, Lev, 3-24-2002, "Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)," No Publication, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-manyworlds/ -MWI: Multiple Worlds Interpretation The reason for adopting the MWI is that it avoids the collapse of the quantum wave. (Other non-collapse theories are not better than MWI for various reasons, e.g., nonlocality of Bohmian mechanics; and the disadvantage of all of them is that they have some additional structure.) The collapse postulate is a physical law that differs from all known physics in two aspects: it is genuinely random and it involves some kind of action at a distance. According to the collapse postulate the outcome of a quantum experiment is not determined by the initial conditions of the Universe prior to the experiment: only the probabilities are governed by the initial state. Moreover, Bell 1964 has shown that there cannot be a compatible local-variables theory that will make deterministic predictions. There is no experimental evidence in favor of collapse and against the MWI. 13 Negative arguments presuppose the aff being true since they begin with a descriptive premise about the affirmative such as the aff does x, and then justify why x is bad. However, if the aff does not have truth value, that entails the descriptive premise would also not have truth value, which is contradictory. 14 Negating affirms because it assumes that the 1ac is a statement that is worthy of contestation which means are arguments are legitimate. 15 Empirics- Quantum superposition proves different ethics can exist simultaneously. MIT ’19 (Emerging Technology from the arXiv archive page; Covers latest ideas from blog post about arXiv; 03/12/2019; “Emerging Technology from the arXiv archive page”; https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/03/12/136684/a-quantum-experiment-suggests-theres-no-such-thing-as-objective-reality/; MIT Technology Review; accessed: 11/19/2020; MohulA) Back in 1961, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Eugene Wigner outlined a thought experiment that demonstrated one of the lesser-known paradoxes of quantum mechanics. The experiment shows how the strange nature of the universe allows two observers—say, Wigner and Wigner’s friend—to experience different realities. Since then, physicists have used the “Wigner’s Friend” thought experiment to explore the nature of measurement and to argue over whether objective facts can exist. That’s important because scientists carry out experiments to establish objective facts. But if they experience different realities, the argument goes, how can they agree on what these facts might be? That’s provided some entertaining fodder for after-dinner conversation, but Wigner’s thought experiment has never been more than that—just a thought experiment. Last year, however, physicists noticed that recent advances in quantum technologies have made it possible to reproduce the Wigner’s Friend test in a real experiment. In other words, it ought to be possible to create different realities and compare them in the lab to find out whether they can be reconciled. And today, Massimiliano Proietti at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and a few colleagues say they have performed this experiment for the first time: they have created different realities and compared them. Their conclusion is that Wigner was correct—these realities can be made irreconcilable so that it is impossible to agree on objective facts about an experiment. Wigner’s original thought experiment is straightforward in principle. It begins with a single polarized photon that, when measured, can have either a horizontal polarization or a vertical polarization. But before the measurement, according to the laws of quantum mechanics, the photon exists in both polarization states at the same time—a so-called superposition. Wigner imagined a friend in a different lab measuring the state of this photon and storing the result, while Wigner observed from afar. Wigner has no information about his friend’s measurement and so is forced to assume that the photon and the measurement of it are in a superposition of all possible outcomes of the experiment. Wigner can even perform an experiment to determine whether this superposition exists or not. This is a kind of interference experiment showing that the photon and the measurement are indeed in a superposition. From Wigner’s point of view, this is a “fact”—the superposition exists. And this fact suggests that a measurement cannot have taken place. But this is in stark contrast to the point of view of the friend, who has indeed measured the photon’s polarization and recorded it. The friend can even call Wigner and say the measurement has been done (provided the outcome is not revealed). So the two realities are at odds with each other. “This calls into question the objective status of the facts established by the two observers,” say Proietti and co. That’s the theory, but last year Caslav Brukner, at the University of Vienna in Austria, came up with a way to re-create the Wigner’s Friend experiment in the lab by means of techniques involving the entanglement of many particles at the same time. The breakthrough that Proietti and co have made is to carry this out. “In a state-of-the-art 6-photon experiment, we realize this extended Wigner’s friend scenario,” they say. They use these six entangled photons to create two alternate realities—one representing Wigner and one representing Wigner’s friend. Wigner’s friend measures the polarization of a photon and stores the result. Wigner then performs an interference measurement to determine if the measurement and the photon are in a superposition. The experiment produces an unambiguous result. It turns out that both realities can coexist even though they produce irreconcilable outcomes, just as Wigner predicted. That raises some fascinating questions that are forcing physicists to reconsider the nature of reality. The idea that observers can ultimately reconcile their measurements of some kind of fundamental reality is based on several assumptions. The first is that universal facts actually exist and that observers can agree on them. But there are other assumptions too. One is that observers have the freedom to make whatever observations they want. And another is that the choices one observer makes do not influence the choices other observers make—an assumption that physicists call locality. If there is an objective reality that everyone can agree on, then these assumptions all hold. But Proietti and co’s result suggests that objective reality does not exist. In other words, the experiment suggests that one or more of the assumptions—the idea that there is a reality we can agree on, the idea that we have freedom of choice, or the idea of locality—must be wrong. Of course, there is another way out for those hanging on to the conventional view of reality. This is that there is some other loophole that the experimenters have overlooked. Indeed, physicists have tried to close loopholes in similar experiments for years, although they concede that it may never be possible to close them all. Nevertheless, the work has important implications for the work of scientists. “The scientific method relies on facts, established through repeated measurements and agreed upon universally, independently of who observed them,” say Proietti and co. And yet in the same paper, they undermine this idea, perhaps fatally. The next step is to go further: to construct experiments creating increasingly bizarre alternate realities that cannot be reconciled. Where this will take us is anybody’s guess. But Wigner, and his friend, would surely not be surprised. 16 Accept aff interps and definitions A causes regress since we can infinitely debate what something means but the aff speaks first which means they should define it However, let me recontextualize their arguments since they can collapse for 6 minutes on something I misunderstood in the 1ar to end the round since the 2ar can’t answer.
1AC – Underview 1 Affs get 1ar theory, its key to checking infinite nc abuse that o/w on magnitude, anything else incentivizes negs to purposely read silly positions that deter from substantive engagement, its drop the debater with no rvis, and competing interps, dtd is key to rectifying abuse because the 1ar is time crunched, reasonability is arbitrary and triggers judge intervention, and rvis make affirming impossible because they can collapse for 6 minutes to an rvi on a 1ar shell, 1ar theory o/w because the 1ar is 4 minues and the 1nc is 7 so theres more abuse if im willing to dedicate that time to theory, eval the theory debate after the 1ar because we both had 1 speech to read theory which is reciprocal. No 1NC contestation of paradigm issues because I would need to win 2 things, which is irreciprocal. Evaluate theory after the 1ar is a paradigm issue because it dictates how the judge evaluates theory. 2 No 2NR “I meet” arguments A Skews theory ground because they’re each a NIB for me to winning theory which kills my ability to check abuse. 3 No new 2n arguments, weighing, and paradigm issues. A overloads the 2AR with a massive clarification burden B it becomes impossible to check NC abuse if you can dump on reasons the shell doesn't matter in the 2nr 4 Check all neg interps and K/DA links in CX – 1) avoids infinite regress due to links and interps 2) otherwise reevlaute under the neg’s K 3) norms – you’d do the same with TFW 5 Reject neg counterinterpretations since aff speaks first which means they constitutively define the terms of the round, any abuse is solved for you next round which makes fairness a question of your ability to engage in the same practice, any other conception is incoherent since the rules are clearly defined before entering. No neg analytics - I don’t have time to cover 100 blippy arguments in the NC since you can read 7 min of analytics and extend any of them to win. 6 The neg may not read nibs or OCIs (offensive counterinterps) a) you can up-layer for 7 minutes that I have to answer before I even have access to offense 7 No neg arguments – skews me to answer those. Answering this triggers a contradiction since it relies on an analytic argument and those affirm since I spoke first and they were your fault for creating. 8 The neg may not read meta-theory – I only have time to check abuse 1 time but you can do it in the NC and 2N, up-layering my attempt means we never get to the best norm. This means reject any reason why an aff spike is bad since they claim aff theory is unfair. 9 The neg may not read overview answers to aff arguments – they can up-layer all aff arguments for 7 minutes and the 1ar has to shift through it all. I have a computer virus that prevents changing font size and everything’s in an overview. 10 Aff theory first – it’s a much larger strategic loss because 1min is ¼ of the 1AR vs 1/7 of the 1NC which means there’s more abuse if I’m devoting a larger fraction of time. Reject all neg args against the ROB because they assume the ROB is true. 11 Allow new 2ar responses to nc arguments but not new 2n responses for reciprocity - the NC has 7 minutes of rebuttal time while I only have 4 minutes, the 2ar makes it 7-7. 12 Theory or K indicts on spikes is drop the arg a my theory paradigms are simply presented models for debate 13 All neg interps are counter interps since the aff takes an implicit stance on every issue which means you need an rvi to become offensive. You should accept all aff interps and assume I meet neg theory since the aff speaks in the dark and I have to take a stance on something, you can at least react and adapt. 14 If I win one layer, vote aff Athey have 7 minutes to uplayer and nullify my offense B forces engagement with the aff since they have to defend all arguments which means they read better ones. 15 Reject neg fairness concerns since A 13-7 time skew and 6-minute collapse gives the negative the strategic advantage and means the AFF must split 1AR time. B The NC has the ability to uplayer and restart the round and have time to generate offense that matters. 16 Affirming is harder A Neg is reactive – they tailor the 1NC before the round to exploit the aff’s weakness. Also means no neg weighing – it supercharges the abuse since they can collapse in the 2NR and outweigh any turns I make. B Also means the neg must extend all of their arguments twice verbatim in the 2NR to compensate – means if neg gets weighing, they must weigh prefiat args against side bias since otherwise I’m just making the ground even.
11/1/21
ND - Pragmatic Chinese Strikes
Tournament: Blue Key | Round: 2 | Opponent: Strake Jesuit DA | Judge: Arjan Kang 1AC 1AC – Framing Presumption and permissibility affirm – A Statements are true before false since if I told you my name, you’d believe me.B Epistemics – we wouldn’t be able to start a strand of reasoning since we’d have to question that reason. C Illogical – presuming statements false is illogical since you can’t say things like P and P are both wrong. D Presuming obligations is logically safer since it’s better to be supererogatory than fail to meet an obligation. The meta ethic should be moral pluralism. Prefer- 1 Quantum superposition proves different ethics can exist simultaneously – prag is the only metric to reconcile them MIT ’19 (Emerging Technology from the arXiv archive page; Covers latest ideas from blog post about arXiv; 03/12/2019; “Emerging Technology from the arXiv archive page”; https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/03/12/136684/a-quantum-experiment-suggests-theres-no-such-thing-as-objective-reality/; MIT Technology Review; accessed: 11/19/2020; MohulA) Back in 1961, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Eugene Wigner outlined a thought experiment that demonstrated one of the lesser-known paradoxes of quantum mechanics. The experiment shows how the strange nature of the universe allows two observers—say, Wigner and Wigner’s friend—to experience different realities. Since then, physicists have used the “Wigner’s Friend” thought experiment to explore the nature of measurement and to argue over whether objective facts can exist. That’s important because scientists carry out experiments to establish objective facts. But if they experience different realities, the argument goes, how can they agree on what these facts might be? That’s provided some entertaining fodder for after-dinner conversation, but Wigner’s thought experiment has never been more than that—just a thought experiment. Last year, however, physicists noticed that recent advances in quantum technologies have made it possible to reproduce the Wigner’s Friend test in a real experiment. In other words, it ought to be possible to create different realities and compare them in the lab to find out whether they can be reconciled. And today, Massimiliano Proietti at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and a few colleagues say they have performed this experiment for the first time: they have created different realities and compared them. Their conclusion is that Wigner was correct—these realities can be made irreconcilable so that it is impossible to agree on objective facts about an experiment. Wigner’s original thought experiment is straightforward in principle. It begins with a single polarized photon that, when measured, can have either a horizontal polarization or a vertical polarization. But before the measurement, according to the laws of quantum mechanics, the photon exists in both polarization states at the same time—a so-called superposition. Wigner imagined a friend in a different lab measuring the state of this photon and storing the result, while Wigner observed from afar. Wigner has no information about his friend’s measurement and so is forced to assume that the photon and the measurement of it are in a superposition of all possible outcomes of the experiment. Wigner can even perform an experiment to determine whether this superposition exists or not. This is a kind of interference experiment showing that the photon and the measurement are indeed in a superposition. From Wigner’s point of view, this is a “fact”—the superposition exists. And this fact suggests that a measurement cannot have taken place. But this is in stark contrast to the point of view of the friend, who has indeed measured the photon’s polarization and recorded it. The friend can even call Wigner and say the measurement has been done (provided the outcome is not revealed). So the two realities are at odds with each other. “This calls into question the objective status of the facts established by the two observers,” say Proietti and co. That’s the theory, but last year Caslav Brukner, at the University of Vienna in Austria, came up with a way to re-create the Wigner’s Friend experiment in the lab by means of techniques involving the entanglement of many particles at the same time. The breakthrough that Proietti and co have made is to carry this out. “In a state-of-the-art 6-photon experiment, we realize this extended Wigner’s friend scenario,” they say. They use these six entangled photons to create two alternate realities—one representing Wigner and one representing Wigner’s friend. Wigner’s friend measures the polarization of a photon and stores the result. Wigner then performs an interference measurement to determine if the measurement and the photon are in a superposition. The experiment produces an unambiguous result. It turns out that both realities can coexist even though they produce irreconcilable outcomes, just as Wigner predicted. That raises some fascinating questions that are forcing physicists to reconsider the nature of reality. The idea that observers can ultimately reconcile their measurements of some kind of fundamental reality is based on several assumptions. The first is that universal facts actually exist and that observers can agree on them. But there are other assumptions too. One is that observers have the freedom to make whatever observations they want. And another is that the choices one observer makes do not influence the choices other observers make—an assumption that physicists call locality. If there is an objective reality that everyone can agree on, then these assumptions all hold. But Proietti and co’s result suggests that objective reality does not exist. In other words, the experiment suggests that one or more of the assumptions—the idea that there is a reality we can agree on, the idea that we have freedom of choice, or the idea of locality—must be wrong. Of course, there is another way out for those hanging on to the conventional view of reality. This is that there is some other loophole that the experimenters have overlooked. Indeed, physicists have tried to close loopholes in similar experiments for years, although they concede that it may never be possible to close them all. Nevertheless, the work has important implications for the work of scientists. “The scientific method relies on facts, established through repeated measurements and agreed upon universally, independently of who observed them,” say Proietti and co. And yet in the same paper, they undermine this idea, perhaps fatally. The next step is to go further: to construct experiments creating increasingly bizarre alternate realities that cannot be reconciled. Where this will take us is anybody’s guess. But Wigner, and his friend, would surely not be surprised. 2 Resolvability- Thousands of years of metaethical debates have concluded in indecisiveness so a 45-minute debate would be unable to correctly resolve nebulous ethical disputes and identify the correct theory. Resolvability outweighs on jurisdiction since it’s a meta-constraint on the judge’s final jurisdiction.
Thus, the standard is promoting pragmatic deliberation. Prefer- 1 Value Pluralism- Other ethical theories rely on minimalistic criteria as their foundation, our framework resolves this by using these criteria to better inform our judgments LaFollete 2K "Pragmatic Ethics" Hugh LaFollette In Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory 2000. Hugh LaFollette is Marie E. and Leslie Cole Professor in Ethics at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. He is editor-in-chief of The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. https://www.hughlafollette.com/papers/b-guide.htm Dulles AS Pragmatic ethics takes a more aggressive approach, insisting that mankind is responsible for determining the best ethical system possible, which will be refined as new discoveries are made. Put simply; truth does not exist in some abstract realm of thought independent of social relationship or actions; instead, the truth is a function of an active … Pragmatism, according to William James, is derived from the Greek word pragma, which means action and serves as the basis of our English words practical and practice. Pragmatism originated in the United States around 1870, and now presents a growing third alternative to both analytic and Continental philosophical traditions worldwide. 1 - Acceptance . Ethics is a branch of philosophy that is responsible for studying the principles that govern the conduct of an individual. Employs criteria, but is not criterial The previous discussions enable us to say more precisely why pragmatists reject a criterial view of morality. Pragmatism's core contention that practice is primary in philosophy rules out the hope of logically prior criteria. Any meaningful criteria evolve from our attempt to live morally – in deciding what is the best action in the circumstances. Criteria are not discovered by pure reason, and they are not fixed. As ends of action, they are always revisable. As we obtain new evidence about ourselves and our world, and as our worlds changes, we find that what was appropriate for the old environment may not be conducive to survival in the new one. A style of teaching that might have been ideal for one kind institution (a progressive liberal arts college) at one time (the 60s) may be wholly ineffective in another institution (a regional state university) at another time (the 80s). But that is exactly what we would expect of an evolutionary ethic. Neither could criteria be complete. The moral world is complex and changeable. No set of criteria could give us univocal answers about how we should behave in all circumstances. If we cannot develop an algorithm for winning at chess, where there are only eighteen first moves, there is no way to develop an algorithm for living, which has a finitely large number of "first moves." Moreover, while the chess environment (the rules) stays constant, our natural and moral environments do not. We must adapt or fail. While there is always one end of chess -- the game ends when one player wins – the ends of life change as we grow, and as our environments change. Finally, we cannot resolve practical moral questions simply by applying criteria. We do not make personal or profession decisions by applying fixed, complete criteria. Why should we assume we should make moral decisions that way? Appropriates insights from other ethical theories Nonetheless, there is a perfectly good sense in which a pragmatic ethic employs what we might call criteria, but their nature and role dramatically differ from that in a criterial morality (Dewey 1985/1932) . Pragmatic criteria are not external rules we apply, but are tools we use in making informed judgements. They embody learning from previous action, they express our tentative efforts to isolate morally relevant features of those actions. These emergent criteria can become integrated into our habits, thereby informing the ways that we react to, think about, and imagine our worlds and our relations to others. This explains why pragmatists think other theories can provide guidance on how to live morally. Standard moral theories err not because they offer silly moral advice, but because they misunderstand that advice. Other moral theories can help us isolate (and habitually focus on) morally relevant features of action. And pragmatists take help wherever they can get it. Utilitarianism does not provide an algorithm for deciding how to act, but it shapes habits to help us "naturally" attend to the ways that our actions impact others. Deontology does not provide a list of general rules to follow, but it sensitizes us to ways our actions might promote or undermine respect for others. Contractarianism does not resolve all moral issues, but it sensitizes us to the need for broad consensus. That is why it is mistaken to suppose that the pragmatist makes specific moral judgements oblivious to rules, principles, virtues, and the collective wisdom of human experience. The pragmatist absorbs these insights into her habits, and thereby shapes how she habitually responds, and how she habitually deliberates when deliberation is required. This also explains why criterial moralities tend to be minimalistic. They specify minimal sets of rules to follow in order to be moral. Pragmatism, on the other hand, like virtue theories, is more concerned to emphasize exemplary behavior – to use morally relevant features of action to determine the best way to behave, not the minimally tolerable way 2 Performativity- Responding to our framework concedes the validity of agonism since that in and of itself is a process of contestation that agonism would say is valuable and necessary for spaces like debate to function. 3 Hume’s Guillotine – experience only tells us what is since we can only perceive what is, not what ought to be. But it’s impossible to derive an ought from descriptive premises since there’s an is/ought gap. 4 TJFS- Frameworks should be fair/educational like any other argument. A Inclusion – Deliberation definitionally is a procedural for allowing almost any argumentation in the debate space which controls the internal link to inclusion which is an impact multiplier B Resource Disparities- Discursive frameworks ensure big squads don’t have a comparative advantage since debates become about quality of arguments rather than quantity and require a higher level of analytic thinking that small schools have. C Evaluate the debate after the 1ac and before the 1nc – prevents anxiety caused by giving speeches. 5 Accept aff interps and definitions A causes regress since we can infinitely debate what something means but the aff speaks first which means they should define it However, let me recontextualize their arguments since they can collapse for 6 minutes on something I misunderstood in the 1ar to end the round since the 2ar can’t answer. 6 Deliberation is procedural not substantive, which means that we are first concerned with the decision-making procedure of deliberation and then evaluation of what impacts matter most. To clarify, consequences are a sequencing question. Serra 2 BY WAY OF CONCLUSION: As LaFollette presents it, the key to understanding pragmatist ethics is that it is not an ethical theory per se, but rather it is an anthropology, a way of understanding the human being and his moral action. Therefore, pragmatist ethics in reality does not propose a new ethical theory, but rather “reconstructs” through a new prism the basic intuitions of the best ethical theories. The fundamental element on which the attention of pragmatist ethics centers is deliberation. Deliberation is not directly responsible for directing action, but only does so indirectly, by means of a critique of past actions, the effort to correct or reinforce certain habits and mental experiments that each actor performs in order to determine his own future conduct, and even to determine in a general manner the way in which one wishes to live one’s life (or, what amounts to the same thing, the type of person one wishes to be). The task of a pragmatist ethics, therefore, is not to provide final solutions, but rather to indicate that it is only via the testing and communication of experiences that the superiority of one moral idea over another can be demonstrated. In this sense, one of the principal missions of any given version of pragmatist ethics is to indicate some general manner in which habits can be acquired which, later, will facilitate personal deliberation – both internal and external – in the broad variety of circumstances which make up the moral life. 7 All negative arguments presuppose the aff being true since they begin with an descriptive premise about the affirmative, and then justify why X is bad. However, if the aff does not have truth value, that entails the descriptive premise would also not have truth value, which makes the argument a contradiction 8 a sentence p asserts p is false. if p is true or false, it is what it says so it is true. Denying truth claims collapses to all statements being true. 9 lemons are purple or Santa exists proves the second part true cuz lemons aren’t purple and means any statement is true when swapped with santa exists including the rez 10 The rules of logic claim that the only time a statement is invalid is if the antecedent is true, but the consequent is false. SEP Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “An Introduction to Philosophy.” Stanford University. https://web.stanford.edu/~bobonich/dictionary/dictionary.html TG Massa Conditional statement: an “if p, then q” compound statement (ex. If I throw this ball into the air, it will come down); p is called the antecedent, and q is the consequent. A conditional asserts that if its antecedent is true, its consequent is also true; any conditional with a true antecedent and a false consequent must be false. For any other combination of true and false antecedents and consequents, the conditional statement is true. If the aff is winning, they get the ballot is a tacit ballot conditional which means denying the premise proves the conclusion that I should get the ballot. 11 Resolved is defined as firm in purpose or intent; determined and I’m determined, 12 affirm means to express agreement and I did. 13 Resolved is past tense which means the rez is already decided to affirm 14 The role of the ballot is to determine whether the resolution is a true or false statement – answers collapse because you presume urs is true A The ballot says vote aff or neg based on a topic – five dictionaries define to negate as to deny the truth of and affirm as to prove true so it's constitutive and jurisdictional B it’s the most logical since you don’t say vote for the player who shoots the most 3 points, the better player wins since debate is a game with rules given by how there’s a winner and loser. 1AC – Offense Plan – The People’s Republic of China ought to recognize an unconditional right of workers to strike. 1 Destroying the right to strike takes away workers’ basic right to argumentation – the right to strike preserves contestability, Lindblom, Lars. "Consent, contestability, and unions." Business ethics quarterly 29.2 (2019): 189-211. To provide a justification of unions is to give justificatory reasons for the rights to form unions and non-discrimination of union members and the duty of good faith bargaining. Moreover, the theory we are looking for must be able to handle the problem concerning acts of employer authority that created difficulties for the consent-based theories, such as libertarianism. Let us, then, turn to how unions can implement contestability and thereby solve the problem of consent. Starting with the basis of contestation, the demand for transparency solves, as was noted above, the problem of information. With transparency in place, employees will be informed about the policies and decisions that affect them. This aspect of contestability demands that parties make clear the reasons that are moving them when making decisions. This, in turn, underwrites some preconditions for good faith bargaining and provides a link between contestability and unions. Now, it is quite obvious that there is a connection between unions and voice. Part of the purpose of a union is to enable its members to express their views or demands and to make their voices heard. The fact that a group of people, rather than an individual, expresses itself when a union speaks out makes it more probable that what is being expressed is also heard. If we want to get serious about voice, we should have mechanisms that implement it efficiently. Therefore, a right to form unions would seem to follow from the implementation of contestability. This indicates, furthermore, that the right to strike should be protected as a part of the implementation of the mechanism of contestability, since such a right safeguards the possibility to make one’s voice heard.12 Moreover, discrimination of union members would undermine this mechanism for voice. If employees fear that they will be retaliated against if they speak out, they will clearly be hesitant to voice their concerns. Nondiscrimination of union members is, therefore, a demand of the ideal of contestation. These two points imply that the standard of cooperation should include a norm against the discrimination union members and respect for the right to form unions. 2 Strikes are intrinsically tied to public forums that provide opportunities for deliberation. Simm 18 Melanie Simms, 3-23-2018, "Why workers go on strike," Conversation, https://theconversation.com/why-workers-go-on-strike-93815 Both of these demonstrate how a strike around a fairly technical employment issue can develop a momentum of its own and become a catalyst for a much wider expression of dissatisfaction about the changing bargains being made. As with the concerns raised by junior doctors about the management of the NHS, the higher education pension dispute has rapidly become a space in which to question the broader direction of the sector. In this context, emotions can run high. Many relationships are strengthened, but some inevitably become strained. By definition, strikes are not business as usual. What then becomes important, is how the parties can explicitly negotiate compromises that smooth the way back to work – even if that means negotiating a new normal.
1AC – Underview 1 Affs get 1ar theory, its key to checking infinite nc abuse that o/w on magnitude, anything else incentivizes negs to purposely read silly positions that deter from substantive engagement, its drop the debater with no rvis, and competing interps, dtd is key to rectifying abuse because the 1ar is time crunched, reasonability is arbitrary and triggers judge intervention, and rvis make affirming impossible because they can collapse for 6 minutes to an rvi on a 1ar shell, 1ar theory o/w because the 1ar is 4 minues and the 1nc is 7 so theres more abuse if im willing to dedicate that time to theory, eval the theory debate after the 1ar because we both had 1 speech to read theory which is reciprocal. No 1NC contestation of paradigm issues because I would need to win 2 things, which is irreciprocal. Evaluate theory after the 1ar is a paradigm issue because it dictates how the judge evaluates theory. 2 No 2NR “I meet” arguments A Skews theory ground because they’re each a NIB for me to winning theory which kills my ability to check abuse. 3 No new 2n arguments, weighing, and paradigm issues. A overloads the 2AR with a massive clarification burden B it becomes impossible to check NC abuse if you can dump on reasons the shell doesn't matter in the 2nr 4 Check all neg interps and K/DA links in CX – 1) avoids infinite regress due to links and interps 2) otherwise reevlaute under the neg’s K 3) norms – you’d do the same with TFW 5 Reject neg counterinterpretations since aff speaks first which means they constitutively define the terms of the round, any abuse is solved for you next round which makes fairness a question of your ability to engage in the same practice, any other conception is incoherent since the rules are clearly defined before entering. No neg analytics - I don’t have time to cover 100 blippy arguments in the NC since you can read 7 min of analytics and extend any of them to win. 6 The neg may not read nibs or OCIs (offensive counterinterps) a) you can up-layer for 7 minutes that I have to answer before I even have access to offense 7 No neg arguments – skews me to answer those. Answering this triggers a contradiction since it relies on an analytic argument and those affirm since I spoke first and they were your fault for creating. 8 The neg may not read meta-theory – I only have time to check abuse 1 time but you can do it in the NC and 2N, up-layering my attempt means we never get to the best norm. This means reject any reason why an aff spike is bad since they claim aff theory is unfair. 9 The neg may not read overview answers to aff arguments – they can up-layer all aff arguments for 7 minutes and the 1ar has to shift through it all. I have a computer virus that prevents changing font size and everything’s in an overview. 10 Allow new 2ar responses to nc arguments but not new 2n responses for reciprocity - the NC has 7 minutes of rebuttal time while I only have 4 minutes, the 2ar makes it 7-7. 11 Theory or K indicts on spikes is drop the arg a my theory paradigms are simply presented models for debate 12 All neg interps are counter interps since the aff takes an implicit stance on every issue which means you need an rvi to become offensive. You should accept all aff interps and assume I meet neg theory since the aff speaks in the dark and I have to take a stance on something, you can at least react and adapt. 13 If I win one layer, vote aff Athey have 7 minutes to uplayer and nullify my offense B forces engagement with the aff since they have to defend all arguments which means they read better ones. C Not saying the word pumpkin is a voter to deter future abuse– k2 celebrate Halloween which o/ws on portability because it makes us happy. 1AC – Advantage Lack of Chinese Right to Strike devastates Collective Bargaining – undermines any legal leverage for Strikes. Friedman 17 Eli Friedman 4-20-2017 "Collective Bargaining in China is Dead: The Situation is Excellent" https://www.chinoiresie.info/collective-bargaining-in-china-is-dead-the-situation-is-excellent/ (Assistant Professor of International and Comparative Labour at Cornell University)Elmer For many years reform-oriented labour activists and scholars working in China have seen collective bargaining as the cure for the country’s severe labour problems. The logic underlying this was often unstated, but straightforward: collective bargaining was crucial for twentieth century labour movements in capitalist countries in giving workers a voice and creating a more equitable social distribution of wealth. With growing levels of labour unrest in China over the past twenty years, collective bargaining seemed like a logical next step. Hopeful reformers—both within the official unions as well as labour NGO activists and academics—envisioned rationalised, legalised bargaining between labour and capital as a central pillar in the construction of a more just workplace and society. The challenges to institutionalising a robust collective bargaining system in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have always been profound. Fundamental to labour relations theory is that collective bargaining rights must be accompanied by the right to strike and freedom of association—capital has no reason to take workers seriously without labour possessing some coercive power. But independent unions have long been an anathema to the Communist Party. From the Lai Ruoyu debacle of the 1950s to the crushing of the Beijing Workers Autonomous Federation in 1989, the Party has made it clear time and again that independent worker organisations are forbidden. Although workers have never enjoyed the right to strike in practice, the right was formally included in the Chinese constitutions of 1975 and 1978. It was Deng Xiaoping who removed it from the constitution just as private capital began pouring into China in the early 1980s. Working Within the System Nonetheless, with no signs of articulated worker movements since 1989, many well-intentioned people thought it was worth trying to advance worker rights within the system. Especially from the mid 2000s on, academics (myself included) launched research projects, NGOs held training sessions, and foreign unions engaged with the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). Many assumed that the state would eventually decide that worker insurgency was exacting too high a cost, and that serious labour reforms were therefore necessary. And indeed, beginning in the late 2000s the ACFTU made collective negotiations (xieshang)—rather than the more antagonistic sounding ‘bargaining’ (tanpan)—a high priority, investing time and resources into expanding the coverage of collective contracts. At its best, collective bargaining in China has been woefully inadequate. The state and the ACFTU have been very cautious about controlling workers’ aspirations, and have insisted on the fundamental harmony of interests between labour and capital. Experiments with bargaining have been almost exclusively restricted to single enterprises, thereby preventing workers from constituting cross-workplace ties. The overwhelming majority of collective contracts are formulaic: actual bargaining rarely occurs, and enforcement is largely non-existent. The few shining examples where employers have made real compromises during collective bargaining have followed autonomously organised wildcat strikes. The best-known case is the 2010 strike from a Honda transmission plant in Guangdong province, which resulted in major wage gains as well as an (ultimately unsuccessful) effort to reform the enterprise union. It is not coincidental that substantive worker-led bargaining is much more likely in Japanese or American firms, where the state must be cautious not to inflame patriotic sentiments. State-sanctioned economic nationalism is a shaky foundation for a robust collective bargaining system. The Death of Collective Bargaining under Xi Even these timid efforts have been smothered in recent years, as the central government has turned in a markedly anti-worker direction under Xi Jinping. There was a brief moment in 2010 when discussion about the right to strike emerged from hushed whispers into the public discourse. But this opening was ephemeral, and union reformers in Guangdong who had pushed gentle reforms in the mid-late 2000s were replaced with typical Party apparatchiks. The country’s pre-eminent centre for labour studies at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou was shuttered. The academic study of employment has now been left almost entirely to business schools, as the government has stymied further expansion of labour relations programs. Labour NGOs in Guangzhou were subjected to a brutal crackdown in December 2015, with the government specifically targeting those groups that had been helping workers to engage in collective negotiations to resolve strikes. And the ACFTU has seemingly given up on advancing collective negotiations altogether. The Chairman of the ACFTU Li Jianguo does not even mention the term in his speeches anymore. Under the ‘work developments’ section of the ACFTU’s website, a lonely single report on collective contracts for the entirety of 2016 is a stark indication that the union has almost totally forsaken this agenda. Collective bargaining is not dead in the sense that it will disappear from China’s labour-capital relations. It is almost certain that official unions will continue to pursue bargaining in its current vacuous, bureaucratic, and worker-exclusionary form. Collective contracts will continue to be signed, tabulated, and then hidden from view from workers. Somewhat less pessimistically, workers will continue to force management to bargain with the collective via wildcat strikes. This latter form will still be an important means by which workers can attempt to ensure their most basic rights, and these efforts are absolutely worth supporting. But collective bargaining is dead as a political aim. It is not going to be the cornerstone of twentieth century-style class compromise in China, it is not generative of worker power, and it certainly does not herald broader social transformation. To the extent that legal bargaining does develop, it will be as a mechanism for the state to deprive workers of autonomous power. What then might Chinese workers and allied intellectuals and activists aim for? At the risk of stating the obvious, the working class needs more power. The question is, how to foster proletarian power in the face of a highly competent authoritarian state that views organised workers as an existential threat? In the absence of independent organisations, the only option is an intensification of already widespread worker insurgency. The more wildcat strikes, mass direct action, and worker riots, the more the state and capital will be forced to take worker grievances seriously. Of course such forms of collective action come at great risk for workers, and many have already paid a high price. In any particular case, the risks may certainly outweigh the benefits. But in the aggregate, expansive unrest is just what the working class needs. With the institutions firmly oriented towards advancing the inter-related goals of state domination and exploitation by capital, disruption on a large scale is the only chance workers have of forcing change. Ungovernability will be the necessary prelude to any institutional reform worthy of the name. Hong Kong – China’s exploiting lack of Strike Protection to dismantle and de-power Hong Kong’s unions. Wang 21 Maya Wang 9-22-2021 "China Is Dismantling Hong Kong’s Unions" https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/09/22/china-dismantling-hong-kongs-unions# (China Senior Researcher for Human Rights Watch)Elmer Chinese state media outlets are railing against groups they claim are involved in money laundering, inciting riots, and supporting gangsters. They warn against “a chronic poison of society” and “a malignant tumor that must be destroyed.” The situation is so bad, the newspapers say, that it is time for the Hong Kong government to crack down. One would think they’re talking about some major crime syndicate, perhaps a terrorist group. But no: The pro-Beijing press is talking about Hong Kong labor unions. For 48 years the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union has served 95,000 members; its members’ center is well-known for selling stationery supplies. And as with the teachers’ union, the Hong Kong Journalist Association, the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU), and the Association of Hong Kong Nursing Staff have long and illustrious histories of defending civil liberties and workers’ rights. Often, after Beijing spotlights people in its papers, Hong Kong police swoop into action. Fearing investigation and arrests, many civic groups—the teachers’ union and now the city’s second-largest labor union, the HKCTU—have opted to disband. International attention to Beijing’s repression in Hong Kong has focused on widely recognized figures like the charismatic young protest leader Joshua Wong or the Apple Daily tycoon Jimmy Lai. But too few outside of Hong Kong realize that China is also dismantling the city’s unions and detaining unionists, a backbone of civil society. Fighting for labor rights has always been a slog in a city known for hyper-capitalism, but doing so now is downright perilous. In late July, the police arrested five people from the Speech Therapist Union for “sedition” for publishing children’s books depicting cops as wolves and protesters as sheep. Prominent unionists and labor activists have been arrested and jailed for endangering national security and other vague charges. For decades, labor unionists like Lee Cheuk-yan, the former head of HKCTU, organized strikes and camped out at factories to demand that employers negotiate with their workers—acts considered rather “radical” by the public in the 1980s. Knowing that the lack of democracy and the exploitation of workers are intimately linked, the teachers’ union and the HKCTU participated in electoral politics. Lee was an elected legislator for over 20 years, until 2016. Hong Kong’s labor movement gained momentum during the 2019 protests, in which two in seven Hong Kongers participated. Citywide strikes became more broadly accepted. People from various professions—ranging from hairstylists to accountants—formed nearly 4,000 new unions. The Chinese government knows the power of grassroots organizing and doubtlessly sees the developments in Hong Kong as threatening. Nowadays, the top ranks of the Chinese Communist Party—far from its humble origins—are packed with billionaires whose family fortunes are entwined with the Party’s fate. They, like the capitalist elites they handpicked to run the city, know that empowered workers are antithetical to their political and business model. In June 2020, Beijing imposed a draconian National Security Law on Hong Kong, arresting activists, banning protests, enveloping the city with pervasive fear. To square the circle of the purported people’s proletariat repressing workers’ advocates, the authorities portray these unions and other civil society groups with the usual authoritarian trope—that they are “foreign agents” out to “destabilize Hong Kong.” Beijing-controlled unions—such as the Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers—are poised to claim the mantle of workers’ sole representatives in the city, much like their counterparts in China. The demise of Hong Kong’s unions is not just a loss for the territory. These unions have long been part of overlapping communities of labor organizations that promote workers’ rights and democracy in China and Asia. With the Chinese government also cracking down on labor rights groups in mainland China, a valuable window is being lost into the plight of workers amid a global supply chain heavily dependent on China-made products. Labor unions around the world can support their embattled counterparts in Hong Kong, reviving an important legacy of similar efforts from Poland to South Africa. They can press the Chinese government for the release of Hong Kong union leaders, urge their own governments to place escalating sanctions targeting Chinese and Hong Kong officials and entities responsible for the crackdown, and assist counterparts who are still able to promote labor rights in Hong Kong and mainland China. Aggressive Hong Kong policy undermines China’s soft power. Yuan 19 Li Yuan 8-20-2019 "China's Soft-Power Fail: Condemning Hong Kong's Protests" https://archive.md/NcYnR#selection-311.0-311.7 (writes the New New World column for The New York Times, which focuses on the intersection of technology, business and politics in China and across Asia.)Elmer Images of masked thugs massing in Hong Kong’s streets. Unproven allegations that protesters are being led by the C.I.A. Comparisons between activists and Nazis. As protests continue to roil Hong Kong’s streets, China’s state-led propaganda machine has gone into overdrive to persuade the world that radical Hong Kong protesters have put the city in peril. Through social media and other digital arenas, English-language messages from China have painted a picture of a tiny minority of foreign-influenced ruffians intimidating a silent majority of law-and-order residents. These efforts have largely failed. They took a further blow on Monday, when Facebook and Twitter removed hundreds of accounts that they said appeared to be state-backed efforts to sow misinformation and discord in Hong Kong. Perhaps more significantly, Twitter took the further step of forbidding state-run media outlets from paying to get their tweets promoted so that they appear prominently in users’ timelines. Chinese state-run outlets like the English-language China Daily newspaper and Xinhua, the officials news agency, have used promoted tweets to put their own spin on Hong Kong’s turmoil. Instead of making China’s case, Beijing’s ham-handed international efforts have simply underscored Beijing’s inability to sway world public opinion. Call it a failure of Chinese “soft power” — what the political scientist Joseph S. Nye Jr., who coined term, defined as getting others to want what you want. China wants soft power but, judging by Beijing’s propaganda, doesn’t know how to get it. The contrast has been stark. On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators clogged the city streets to call once again for the city’s leaders to give in to their demands and to give the people greater say in a political system controlled by Beijing. The protesters — organizers put their number at 1.7 million — offered a softer narrative than the world saw the week before, when violent clashes broke out in protests at Hong Kong’s airport. Chinese state media, on the other hand, in recent days has shown images of Chinese paramilitary police across the border in the mainland engaged in crowd-clearing exercises. The Twitter account of Global Times, a nationalist tabloid controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, posted a video on Monday calling four pro-democracy Hong Kong figures “The Gang of Four,” a term that refers to the former Chinese leaders who were blamed for plunging the country into the disastrous Cultural Revolution. (The tweet has since disappeared.) Pro-China activists appeared as well in Australia, Canada and Europe in recent days, putting on less-than-wholesome displays. In Toronto on Sunday, pro-mainland protesters shouted words like “traitor” and “loser” as well as crude epithets at a crowd of Hong Kong supporters. One widely circulated video showed four flashy sports cars revving their engines with Chinese flags hoisted out their windows. “Worst ‘Fast and Furious’ movie ever,” said one person on Twitter. China’s hard power tactics may ultimately work in Hong Kong, though so far protesters appear unbowed by threats of a crackdown. And at home, where independent news sources like The New York Times are blocked, China’s propaganda push appears to be astonishingly effective. Many internet users there reacted with outrage at the images last week of a Global Times reporter who was beaten by protesters at the airport. Chinese social media is awash with the bloodied faces of police and shaky images of foreigners who state media have alleged — often wrongly — are secret protest leaders. Chinese propaganda efforts abroad are using the same tactics that they use at home. In most cases, they don’t play well. Those efforts include comparing protesters to cockroaches and some cringe-inducing anti-democracy rapping. “Who are you?/Who’s hiding behind the scenes?,” go the lyrics to a rap disseminated by the foreign arm of China Central Television, the state broadcaster. “All I see is a beautiful dream turning to nightmare.” China, since 2010 the world’s second largest economy after the United States, has been determined to build up the nation’s soft power. It envies the sort of unconscious sway that the United States enjoys simply through the pervasiveness of its economic and cultural heft. President Trump isn’t going to win any trade wars because people in China love the “Transformers” movies or watch “Game of Thrones,” but American mass media and other cultural exports increase people’s familiarity and warmth with the country’s ideals. China could use some of that soft power about now. Its credibility and legitimacy are under assault in Washington and elsewhere as China hawks rise in prominence. Under Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, China has come up with a wide range of initiatives to woo the world with its ideals and its wallet. The “China Dream” envisions a peaceful world in which China plays a leading role. Projects like the Belt and Road Initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank are intended to show the benefits of China’s growing wealth. “It is easy to dismiss such talk as ‘slogan diplomacy,’” wrote David Shambaugh of the George Washington University in 2015. “But Beijing nonetheless attaches great importance to it.” “We should increase China’s soft power, give a good Chinese narrative, and better communicate China’s messages to the world,” Mr. Xi said not long after he took power in 2013. In his most important media policy speech in 2016, Mr. Xi instructed the top official media organizations to learn to tell compelling Chinese stories and build flagship foreign-language media outlets with global influences. Xinhua, CCTV, Global Times and the rest have built up their presence in the United States and elsewhere. They have also taken to the very same social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter that Beijing blocks at home. Some accounts have amassed followers of over 10 million. However, the Hong Kong protests have suggested that Beijing still knows hard power much better than soft. Instead of offering a competing narrative of a Hong Kong that could prosper under Chinese rule, it has instead made itself look like a bully. Though troops haven’t crossed the border, images distributed around the world by Chinese media outlets show heavily armed personnel preparing for urban conflict. Beijing is forcing businesses, both global and local, to keep their Hong Kong employees in line or risk getting cut off from the vast Chinese market. On Sunday Beijing announced a new policy that will buff up the socialist city of Shenzhen just across the border so it can compete head-to-head with capitalist Hong Kong. Some young mainlanders are so worked up with nationalistic fervor that they are using software to bypass Chinese censors to log into Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to blast and shame those who support Hong Kong. While that may have some impact on Chinese students living abroad, it has had little impact beyond that. Contrast China’s approach with Russia. Moscow-tied groups have used social media to tremendously disruptive effect in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. But China needs to build a positive image for itself, not tear down the reputation of others. That is in part why a recent CCTV tweet, comparing Hong Kong’s protest to the Nazi rise to power in Germany in the 1930s, undermines Beijing more than it helps. The post quotes a rewritten version of the poem by Martin Niemöller, the church leader who opposed Hitler, which ends with, “Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.” The People’s Daily version compares the persecution of Jews, socialists and trade unionists with protesters storming Hong Kong’s main legislative building, blocking roads and attacking reporters, including an accusation that demonstrators “trampled the freedom of the press.” China risks eroding what little soft power it has should it continue down the same rhetorical path. As Mr. Nye once explained to Chinese university students, “the best propaganda is not propaganda,” because during the Information Age, “credibility is the scarcest resource.” Chinese leadership solves existential threats. Yamei 18 Shen Yamei 18, Deputy Director and Associate Research Fellow of Department for American Studies, China Institute of International Studies, 1-9-2018, "Probing into the “Chinese Solution” for the Transformation of Global Governance," CAIFC, http://www.caifc.org.cn/en/content.aspx?id=4491 As the world is in a period of great development, transformation and adjustment, the international power comparison is undergoing profound changes, global governance is reshuffling and traditional governance concepts and models are confronted with challenges. The international community is expecting China to play a bigger role in global governance, which has given birth to the Chinese solution. A. To Lead the Transformation of the Global Governance System. The “shortcomings” of the existing global governance system are prominent, which can hardly ensure global development. First, the traditional dominant forces are seriously imbalanced. The US and Europe that used to dominate the global governance system have been beset with structural problems, with their economic development stalling, social contradictions intensifying, populism and secessionism rising, and states trapped in internal strife and differentiation. These countries have not fully reformed and adjusted themselves well, but rather pointed their fingers at globalization and resorted to retreat for self-insurance or were busy with their own affairs without any wish or ability to participate in global governance, which has encouraged the growth of “anti-globalization” trend into an interference factor to global governance. Second, the global governance mechanism is relatively lagging behind. Over the years of development, the strength of emerging economies has increased dramatically, which has substantially upset the international power structure, as the developing countries as a whole have made 80 percent of the contributions to global economic growth. These countries have expressed their appeal for new governance and begun policy coordination among themselves, which has initiated the transition of global governance form “Western governance” to “East-West joint governance”, but the traditional governance mechanisms such as the World Bank, IMF and G7 failed to reflect the demand of the new pattern, in addition to their lack of representation and inclusiveness. Third, the global governance rules are developing in a fragmented way, with governance deficits existing in some key areas. With the diversification and in-depth integration of international interests, the domain of global governance has continued to expand, with actors multiplying by folds and action intentions becoming complicated. As relevant efforts are usually temporary and limited to specific partners or issues, global governance driven by requests of “diversified governance” lacks systematic and comprehensive solutions. Since the beginning of this year, there have been risks of running into an acephalous state in such key areas as global economic governance and climate change. Such emerging issues as nuclear security and international terrorism have suffered injustice because of power politics. The governance areas in deficit, such as cyber security, polar region and oceans, have “reversely forced” certain countries and organizations to respond hastily. All of these have made the global governance system trapped in a dilemma and call urgently for a clear direction of advancement. B. To Innovate and Perfect the International Order. Currently, whether the developing countries or the Western countries of Europe and the US are greatly discontent with the existing international order as well as their appeals and motivation for changing the order are unprecedentedly strong. The US is the major creator and beneficiary of the existing hegemonic order, but it is now doubtful that it has gained much less than lost from the existing order, faced with the difficulties of global economic transformation and obsessed with economic despair and political dejection. Although the developing countries as represented by China acknowledge the positive role played by the post-war international order in safeguarding peace, boosting prosperity and promoting globalization, they criticize the existing order for lack of inclusiveness in politics and equality in economy, as well as double standard in security, believing it has failed to reflect the multi-polarization trend of the world and is an exclusive “circle club”. Therefore, there is much room for improvement. For China, to lead the transformation of the global governance system and international order not only supports the efforts of the developing countries to uphold multilateralism rather than unilateralism, advocate the rule of law rather than the law of the jungle and practice democracy rather than power politics in international relations, but also is an important subject concerning whether China could gain the discourse power and development space corresponding to its own strength and interests in the process of innovating and perfecting the framework of international order. C. To Promote Integration of the Eastern and Western Civilizations. Dialog among civilizations, which is the popular foundation for any country’s diplomatic proposals, runs like a trickle moistening things silently. Nevertheless, in the existing international system guided by the “Western-Centrism”, the Western civilization has always had the self-righteous superiority, conflicting with the interests and mentality of other countries and having failed to find the path to co-existing peacefully and harmoniously with other civilizations. So to speak, many problems of today, including the growing gap in economic development between the developed and developing countries against the background of globalization, the Middle East trapped in chaos and disorder, the failure of Russia and Turkey to “integrate into the West”, etc., can be directly attributed to lack of exchanges, communication and integration among civilizations. Since the 18th National Congress of CPC, Xi Jinping has raised the concept of “Chinese Dream” that reflects both Chinese values and China’s pursuit, re-introducing to the world the idea of “all living creatures grow together without harming one another and ways run parallel without interfering with one another”, which is the highest ideal in Chinese traditional culture, and striving to shape China into a force that counter-balance the Western civilization. He has also made solemn commitment that “we respect the diversity of civilizations …… cannot be puffed up with pride and depreciate other civilizations and nations”; “facing the people deeply trapped in misery and wars, we should have not only compassion and sympathy, but also responsibility and action …… do whatever we can to extend assistance to those people caught in predicament”, etc. China will rebalance the international pattern from a more inclusive civilization perspective and with more far-sighted strategic mindset, or at least correct the bisected or predominated world order so as to promote the parallel development of the Eastern and Western civilizations through mutual learning, integration and encouragement. D. To Pass on China’s Confidence. Only a short while ago, some Western countries had called for “China’s responsibility” and made it an inhibition to “regulate” China’s development orientation. Today, China has become a source of stability in an international situation full of uncertainties. Over the past 5 years, China has made outstanding contributions to the recovery of world economy under relatively great pressure of its own economic downturn. Encouraged by the “four confidences”, the whole of the Chinese society has burst out innovation vitality and produced innovation achievements, making people have more sense of gain and more optimistic about the national development prospect. It is the heroism of the ordinary Chinese to overcome difficulties and realize the ideal destiny that best explains China’s confidence. When this confidence is passed on in the field of diplomacy, it is expressed as: first, China’s posture is seen as more forging ahead and courageous to undertake responsibilities ---- proactively shaping the international agendas rather than passively accepting them; having clear-cut attitudes on international disputes rather than being equivocal; and extending international cooperation to comprehensive and dimensional development rather than based on the theory of “economy only”. In sum, China will actively seek understanding and support from other countries rather than imposing its will on others with clear-cut Chinese characteristics, Chinese style and Chinese manner. Second, China’s discourse is featured as a combination of inflexibility and yielding as well as magnanimous ---- combining the internationally recognized diplomatic principles with the excellent Chinese cultural traditions through digesting the Chinese and foreign humanistic classics assisted with philosophical speculations to make “China Brand, Chinese Voice and China’s Image get more and more recognized”. Third, the Chinese solution is more practical and intimate to people as well as emphasizes inclusive cooperation, as China is full of confidence to break the monopoly of the Western model on global development, “offering mankind a Chinese solution to explore a better social system”, and “providing a brand new option for the nations and peoples who are hoping both to speed up development and maintain independence”. II.Path Searching of the “Chinese Solution” for Global Governance Over the past years’ efforts, China has the ability to transform itself from “grasping the opportunity” for development to “creating opportunity” and “sharing opportunity” for common development, hoping to pass on the longing of the Chinese people for a better life to the people of other countries and promoting the development of the global governance system toward a more just and rational end. It has become the major power’s conscious commitment of China to lead the transformation of the global governance system in a profound way. A. To Construct the Theoretical System for Global Governance. The theoretical system of global governance has been the focus of the party central committee’s diplomatic theory innovation since the 18th National Congress of CPC as well as an important component of the theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era, which is not only the sublimation of China’s interaction with the world from “absorbing and learning” to “cooperation and mutual learning”, but also the cause why so many developing countries have turned from “learning from the West” to “exploring for treasures in the East”. In the past 5 years, the party central committee, based on precise interpretation of the world pattern today and serious reflection on the future development of mankind, has made a sincere call to the world for promoting the development of global governance system toward a more just and rational end, and proposed a series of new concepts and new strategies including engaging in major power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, creating the human community with common destiny, promoting the construction of new international relationship rooted in the principle of cooperation and win-win, enriching the strategic thinking of peaceful development, sticking to the correct benefit view, formulating the partnership network the world over, advancing the global economic governance in a way of mutual consultation, joint construction and co-sharing, advocating the joint, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security concept, and launching the grand “Belt and Road” initiative. The Chinese solution composed of these contents, not only fundamentally different from the old roads of industrial revolution and colonial expansion in history, but also different from the market-driven neo-liberalism model currently advocated by Western countries and international organizations, stands at the height of the world and even mankind, seeking for global common development and having widened the road for the developing countries to modernization, which is widely welcomed by the international community. B. To Supplement and Perfect the Global Governance System. Currently, the international political practice in global governance is mostly problem-driven without creating a set of relatively independent, centralized and integral power structures, resulting in the existing global governance systemcharacterized as both extensive and unbalanced. China has been engaged in reform and innovation, while maintaining and constructing the existing systems, producing some thinking and method with Chinese characteristics. First, China sees the UN as a mirror that reflects the status quo of global governance, which should act as the leader of global governance, and actively safeguards the global governance system with the UN at the core. Second, China is actively promoting the transforming process of such recently emerged international mechanisms as G20, BRICS and SCO, perfecting them through practice, and boosting Asia-Pacific regional cooperation and the development of economic globalization. China is also promoting the construction of regional security mechanism through the Six-Party Talks on Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, Boao Forum for Asia, CICA and multilateral security dialog mechanisms led by ASEAN so as to lay the foundation for the future regional security framework. Third, China has initiated the establishment of AIIB and the New Development Bank of BRICS, creating a precedent for developing countries to set up multilateral financial institutions. The core of the new relationship between China and them lies in “boosting rather than controlling” and “public rather than private”, which is much different from the management and operation model of the World Bank, manifesting the increasing global governance ability of China and the developing countries as well as exerting pressure on the international economic and financial institution to speed up reforms. Thus, in leading the transformation of the global governance system, China has not overthrown the existing systems and started all over again, but been engaged in innovating and perfecting; China has proactively undertaken international responsibilities, but has to do everything in its power and act according to its ability. C. To Reform the Global Governance Rules. Many of the problems facing global governance today are deeply rooted in such a cause that the dominant power of the existing governance system has taken it as the tool to realize its own national interests first and a platform to pursue its political goals. Since the beginning of this year, the US has for several times requested the World Bank, IMF and G20 to make efforts to mitigate the so-called global imbalance, abandoned its commitment to support trade openness, cut down investment projects to the middle-income countries, and deleted commitment to support the efforts to deal with climate change financially, which has made the international systems accessories of the US domestic economic agendas, dealing a heavy blow to the global governance system. On the contrary, the interests and agendas of China, as a major power of the world, are open to the whole world, and China in the future “will provide the world with broader market, more sufficient capital, more abundant goods and more precious opportunities for cooperation”, while having the ability to make the world listen to its voice more attentively. With regard to the subject of global governance, China has advocated that what global governance system is better cannot be decided upon by any single country, as the destiny of the world should be in the hands of the people of all countries. In principle, all the parties should stick to the principle of mutual consultation, joint construction and co-sharing, resolve disputes through dialog and differences through consultation. Regarding the critical areas, opening to the outer world does not mean building one’s own backyard, but building the spring garden for co-sharing; the “Belt and Road” initiative is not China’s solo, but a chorus participated in by all countries concerned. China has also proposed international public security views on nuclear security, maritime cooperation and cyber space order, calling for efforts to make the global village into a “grand stage for seeking common development” rather than a “wrestling arena”; we cannot “set up a stage here, while pulling away a prop there”, but “complement each other to put on a grand show”. From the orientation of reforms, efforts should be made to better safeguard and expand the legitimate interests of the developing countries and increase the influence of the emerging economies on global governance. Over the past 5 years, China has attached importance to full court diplomacy, gradually coming to the center stage of international politics and proactively establishing principles for global governance. By hosting such important events as IAELM, CICA Summit, G20 Summit, the Belt and Road International Cooperation Forum and BRICS Summit, China has used theseplatforms to elaborate the Asia-Pacific Dream for the first time to the world, expressing China’s views on Asian security and global economic governance, discussing with the countries concerned with the Belt and Road about the synergy of their future development strategies and setting off the “BRICS plus” capacity expansion mechanism, in which China not only contributes its solution and shows its style, but also participates in the shaping of international principles through practice. On promoting the resolution of hot international issues, China abides by the norms governing international relations based on the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and insists on justice, playing a constructive role as a responsible major power in actively promoting the political accommodation in Afghanistan, mediating the Djibouti-Eritrea dispute, promoting peace talks in the Middle East, devoting itself to the peaceful resolution of the South China Sea dispute through negotiations. In addition, China’s responsibility and quick response to international crises have gained widespread praises, as seen in such cases as assisting Africa in its fight against the Ebola epidemic, sending emergency fresh water to the capital of Maldives and buying rice from Cambodia to help relieve its financial squeeze, which has shown the simple feelings of the Chinese people to share the same breath and fate with the people of other countries. D. To Support the Increase of the Developing Countries’ Voice. The developing countries, especially the emerging powers, are not only the important participants of the globalization process, but also the important direction to which the international power system is transferring. With the accelerating shift of global economic center to emerging markets and developing economies, the will and ability of the developing countries to participate in global governance have been correspondingly strengthened. As the biggest developing country and fast growing major power, China has the same appeal and proposal for governance as other developing countries and already began policy coordination with them, as China should comply with historical tide and continue to support the increase of the developing countries’ voice in the global governance system. To this end, China has pursued the policy of “dialog but not confrontation, partnership but not alliance”, attaching importance to the construction of new type of major power relationship and global partnership network, while making a series proposals in the practice of global governance that could represent the legitimate interests of the developing countries and be conducive to safeguarding global justice, including supporting an open, inclusive, universal, balanced and win-win economic globalization; promoting the reforms on share and voting mechanism of IMF to increase the voting rights and representation of the emerging market economies; financing the infrastructure construction and industrial upgrading of other developing countries through various bilateral or regional funds; and helping other developing countries to respond to such challenges as famine, refugees, climate change and public hygiene by debt forgiveness and assistance.
11/6/21
ND - Pragmatic Chinese Strikes v2
Tournament: Blue Key | Round: 5 | Opponent: Cardinal Gibbons RS | Judge: Lukas Krause Cites are broken - check open source
10/30/21
ND - Pragmatic Chinese Strikes v3
Tournament: Apple Valley | Round: 2 | Opponent: Brookfield East DJ | Judge: Breigh Plat Cites are broken - check open source
11/6/21
ND - Pragmatic Chinese Strikes v4
Tournament: Apple Valley | Round: 4 | Opponent: Catonsville AT | Judge: Abishek Stanley Cites are broken - check open source
11/6/21
ND - Pragmatic Strikes
Tournament: Blue Key | Round: 3 | Opponent: Brookfield East DJ | Judge: Arun Mehra Cites are broken - check open source
11/6/21
ND - Pragmatic Strikes v2
Tournament: Princeton | Round: 2 | Opponent: Lake Highland Prep YA | Judge: Jonah Gentleman Cites are broken - check open source.
Tournament: Loyola | Round: 4 | Opponent: Carnegie Vanguard LH | Judge: Michael Kurian Cites aren't working - check open source
9/5/21
SO - Evergreening v3
Tournament: Jack Howe | Round: 1 | Opponent: Peninsula EL | Judge: Asher Towner 1AC – Plan Plan – The member nations of the World Trade Organization ought to reduce intellectual property protections for medicines by implementing a one-and-done approach for patent and exclusivity protection. The Plan solves Evergreening. Feldman 3 Robin Feldman 2-11-2019 "‘One-and-done’ for new drugs could cut patent thickets and boost generic competition" https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/11/drug-patent-protection-one-done/ (Arthur J. Goldberg Distinguished Professor of Law, Albert Abramson ’54 Distinguished Professor of Law Chair, and Director of the Center for Innovation)SidK + Elmer I believe that one period of protection should be enough. We should make the legal changes necessary to prevent companies from building patent walls and piling up mountains of rights. This could be accomplished by a “one-and-done” approach for patent protection. Under it, a drug would receive just one period of exclusivity, and no more. The choice of which “one” could be left entirely in the hands of the pharmaceutical company, with the election made when the FDA approves the drug. Perhaps development of the drug went swiftly and smoothly, so the remaining life of one of the drug’s patents is of greatest value. Perhaps development languished, so designation as an orphan drug or some other benefit would bring greater reward. The choice would be up to the company itself, based on its own calculation of the maximum benefit. The result, however, is that a pharmaceutical company chooses whether its period of exclusivity would be a patent, an orphan drug designation, a period of data exclusivity (in which no generic is allowed to use the original drug’s safety and effectiveness data), or something else — but not all of the above and more. Consider Suboxone, a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone for treating opioid addiction. The drug’s maker has extended its protection cliff eight times, including obtaining an orphan drug designation, which is intended for drugs that serve only a small number of patients. The drug’s first period of exclusivity ended in 2005, but with the additions its protection now lasts until 2024. That makes almost two additional decades in which the public has borne the burden of monopoly pricing, and access to the medicine may have been constrained. Implementing a one-and-done approach in conjunction with FDA approval underscores the fact that these problems and solutions are designed for pharmaceuticals, not for all types of technologies. That way, one-and-done could be implemented through legislative changes to the FDA’s drug approval system, and would apply to patents granted going forward. One-and-done would apply to both patents and exclusivities. A more limited approach, a baby step if you will, would be to invigorate the existing patent obviousness doctrine as a way to cut back on patent tinkering. Obviousness, one of the five standards for patent eligibility, says that inventions that are obvious to an expert or the general public can’t be patented. Either by congressional clarification or judicial interpretation, many pile-on patents could be eliminated with a ruling that the core concept of the additional patent is nothing more than the original formulation. Anything else is merely an obvious adaptation of the core invention, modified with existing technology. As such, the patent would fail for being perfectly obvious. Even without congressional action, a more vigorous and robust application of the existing obviousness doctrine could significantly improve the problem of piled-up patents and patent walls. Pharmaceutical companies have become adept at maneuvering through the system of patent and non-patent rights to create mountains of rights that can be applied, one after another. This behavior lets drug companies keep competitors out of the market and beat them back when they get there. We shouldn’t be surprised at this. Pharmaceutical companies are profit-making entities, after all, that face pressure from their shareholders to produce ever-better results. If we want to change the system, we must change the incentives driving the system. And right now, the incentives for creating patent walls are just too great. 1AC – Advantage 1 The Advantage is Innovation - We are in an innovation crisis – new drugs are not being developed in favor of re-purposing old drugs to infinitely extend patent expiration. Feldman 1 Robin Feldman 2-11-2019 "‘One-and-done’ for new drugs could cut patent thickets and boost generic competition" https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/11/drug-patent-protection-one-done/ (Arthur J. Goldberg Distinguished Professor of Law, Albert Abramson ’54 Distinguished Professor of Law Chair, and Director of the Center for Innovation)SidK + Elmer Drug companies have brought great innovations to market. Society rewards innovation with patents, or with non-patent exclusivities that can be obtained for activities such as testing drugs in children, undertaking new clinical studies, or developing orphan drugs. The rights provided by patents or non-patent exclusivities provide a defined time period of protection so companies can recoup their investments by charging monopoly prices. When patents end, lower-priced competitors should be able to jump into the market and drive down the price. But that’s not happening. Instead, drug companies build massive patent walls around their products, extending the protection over and over again. Some modern drugs have an avalanche of U.S. patents, with expiration dates staggered across time. For example, the rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira is protected by more than 100 patents. Walls like that are insurmountable. Rather than rewarding innovation, our patent system is now largely repurposing drugs. The only major study confirms our Internal Link – Evergreening decimates competition by resulting in functional monopolies Arnold Ventures 20 9-24-2020 "'Evergreening' Stunts Competition, Costs Consumers and Taxpayers" https://www.arnoldventures.org/stories/evergreening-stunts-competition-costs-consumers-and-taxpayers/ (Arnold Ventures is focused on evidence-based giving in a wide range of categories including: criminal justice, education, health care, and public finance)Elmer In 2011, Elsa Dixler was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. That August, she was prescribed Revlimid, a drug that had come on the market six years earlier. By January 2012, she went into full remission, where she has remained since. So long as Revlimid retains its effectiveness, she will take it for the rest of her life. “I was able to go back to work, see my daughter receive her Ph.D, and have a pretty normal life,” said Dixler, a Brooklyn resident who is now 74. “So, on the one hand, I feel enormously grateful.” But Dixler’s normal life has come at a steep financial cost to her family and to taxpayers. Revlimid typically costs nearly $800 per capsule, and Dixler takes one capsule per day for 21 days, then seven days off, and then resumes her daily dose, requiring 273 capsules a year. Since retiring from The New York Times at the end of 2017, she has been on Medicare. Dixler entered the Part D coverage gap (known as the donut hole) “within minutes,” she said. She estimates that adding her deductible, her copayment of $12,000, and what her Part D insurance provider pays totals approximately $197,500 a year. Revlimid should have been subject to competition from generic drug makers starting in 2009, bringing down its cost by many orders of magnitude. But by obtaining 27 additional patents, eight orphan drug exclusivities and 91 total additional protections from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since Revlimid’s introduction in 2005, its manufacturer, Celgene, has extended the drug’s monopoly period by 18 years — through March 8, 2028. “I cannot fathom the immorality of a business that relies on squeezing people with cancer,” Dixler said, noting her astonishment that Revlimid has obtained orphan drug protections when it treats a disease that is not rare and does not serve a very limited population. She also observed that Revlimid’s underlying drug is thalidomide, which has been around for decades. “They didn’t invent a new drug, rather, they found a new use for it,” she said. “The cost of Revlimid has imposed constraints on our retirement,” Dixler said, “but when I hear other people’s stories, I feel very lucky. A lot of people have been devastated financially.” Revlimid is a case study in a process known as “evergreening” — artificially sustaining a monopoly for years and even decades by manipulating intellectual property laws and regulations. Evergreening is most commonly used with blockbuster drugs generating the highest prices and profits. Of the roughly 100 best-selling drugs, more than 70 percent have extended their protection from competition at least once. More than half have extended the protection cliff multiple times. The true scope and cost of evergreening has been brought into sharper focus by a groundbreaking, publicly available, comprehensive database Only innovation now solves AMR super-bugs -- timeframe’s key. Sobti 19 Dr. Navjot Kaur Sobti is an internal medicine resident physician at Dartmouth-Hitchcock-Medical Center/Dartmouth School of Medicine and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit. May 1, 2019. “Amid superbug crisis, scientists urge innovation”. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/amidst-superbug-crisis-scientists-urge-innovation/story?id=62763415 Dhruv The United Nations has called antimicrobial resistance a “global crisis.” With the rise in superbugs across the globe, common infections are becoming harder to treat, and lifesaving procedures riskier to perform. Drug-resistant infections result in about 700,000 deaths per year, with at least 230,000 of those deaths due to multidrug resistant tuberculosis, according to a groundbreaking report from the World Health Organization (WHO). Given that antibiotic resistance is present in every country, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) now represents a global health crisis, according to the UN, which has urged immediate, coordinated and global action to prevent a potentially devastating health and financial crisis. With the rising rates of AMR -- including antivirals, antibiotics, and antifungals -- estimates from the WHO show that AMR may cause 10 million deaths every year by 2050, send 24 million people into extreme poverty by 2030, and lead to a financial crisis as severe as the on the U.S. experienced in 2008. Antimicrobial resistance develops when germs like bacteria and fungi are able to “defeat the drugs designed to kill them,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Through a biologic “survival of the fittest,” germs that are not killed by antimicrobials and continue to grow. WHO explains that “poor infection control, inadequate sanitary conditions and inappropriate food handling encourage the spread” of AMR, which can lead to “superbugs.” Those superbugs require powerful and oftentimes more expensive antimicrobials to treat. Examples of superbugs are far and wide, and can range from drug-resistant bacteria like Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus to fungi like Candida. These bugs can cause illnesses that range from pneumonia to urinary tract and sexually transmitted infections. According to the WHO, AMR has caused complications for nearly 500,000 people with tuberculosis, and a number of people with HIV and malaria. The people at the highest risk for AMR are those with chronic diseases, people living in nursing homes, hospitalized in the ICU or undergoing life-saving treatments such as organ transplantation and cancer therapy. These people often develop infections, which can become antimicrobial-resistant, rendering them difficult, if not impossible, to treat. (MORE: Melissa Rivers talks about her father's suicide with Dr. Jennifer Ashton) The CDC notes that “antibiotic resistance has the potential to affect people at any stage of life,” including the “healthcare, veterinary, and agriculture industries, making it one of the world’s most urgent public health problems." AMR can cause prolonged hospital stays, billions of dollars in healthcare costs, disability, and potentially, death. “The most important thing is to understand and embrace the interconnectedness of all of this,” said Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, in a recent interview with ABC News’ Dr. Jennifer Ashton. It’s not just our countries that are connected.” Research has shown that superbugs like Candida auris “came from multiple places, at the same time. It wasn’t just one organism that evolved” in a single location, Redfield added. Given longstanding concerns about antimicrobial misuse leading to AMR, physicians have embraced a medical approach called antibiotic stewardship. This encourages physicians to carefully evaluate which antibiotic is most appropriate for their patient, and discontinue it once it is no longer medically needed. WHO has also highlighted that the inappropriate use of antimicrobials in agriculture -- such as on farms and in animals -- may be an underappreciated cause of AMR. Noting these trends, the WHO has urged for “coordinated action...to minimize the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance.” It urges all countries to make national action plans, with a focus on the development of new antimicrobial medications, vaccines, and careful antimicrobial use. Redfield emphasized the importance of vaccination during the global superbug crisis, stating that “the only way we have to eliminate an infection is vaccination.” He added that investing in innovation is key to solving the crisis. While WHO continues to advocate for superbug awareness, they warn that AMR has reversed “a century of progress in health.” The WHO added that “the challenges of antimicrobial resistance” are “not insurmountable,” and that coordinated action will “help to save millions of lives, preserve antimicrobials for generations to come and secure the future from drug-resistant diseases.” Extinction - generic defense doesn’t apply. Srivatsa 17 Kadiyali Srivatsa 1-12-2017 “Superbug Pandemics and How to Prevent Them” https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/01/12/superbug-pandemics-and-how-to-prevent-them/ (doctor, inventor, and publisher. He worked in acute and intensive pediatric care in British hospitals)Elmer It is by now no secret that the human species is locked in a race of its own making with “superbugs.” Indeed, if popular science fiction is a measure of awareness, the theme has pervaded English-language literature from Michael Crichton’s 1969 Andromeda Strain all the way to Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 Station Eleven and beyond. By a combination of massive inadvertence and what can only be called stupidity, we must now invent new and effective antibiotics faster than deadly bacteria evolve—and regrettably, they are rapidly doing so with our help. I do not exclude the possibility that bad actors might deliberately engineer deadly superbugs.1 But even if that does not happen, humanity faces an existential threat largely of its own making in the absence of malign intentions. As threats go, this one is entirely predictable. The concept of a “black swan,” Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s term for low-probability but high-impact events, has become widely known in recent years. Taleb did not invent the concept; he only gave it a catchy name to help mainly business executives who know little of statistics or probability. Many have embraced the “black swan” label the way children embrace holiday gifts, which are often bobbles of little value, except to them. But the threat of inadvertent pandemics is not a “black swan” because its probability is not low. If one likes catchy labels, it better fits the term “gray rhino,” which, explains Michele Wucker, is a high-probability, high-impact event that people manage to ignore anyway for a raft of social-psychological reasons.2 A pandemic is a quintessential gray rhino, for it is no longer a matter of if but of when it will challenge us—and of how prepared we are to deal with it when it happens. We have certainly been warned. The curse we have created was understood as a possibility from the very outset, when seventy years ago Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, predicted antibiotic resistance. When interviewed for a 2015 article, “The Most Predictable Disaster in the History of the Human Race, ” Bill Gates pointed out that one of the costliest disasters of the 20th century, worse even than World War I, was the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-19. As the author of the article, Ezra Klein, put it: “No one can say we weren’t warned. And warned. And warned. A pandemic disease is the most predictable catastrophe in the history of the human race, if only because it has happened to the human race so many, many times before.”3 Even with effective new medicines, if we can devise them, we must contain outbreaks of bacterial disease fast, lest they get out of control. In other words, we have a social-organizational challenge before us as well as a strictly medical one. That means getting sufficient amounts of medicine into the right hands and in the right places, but it also means educating people and enabling them to communicate with each other to prevent any outbreak from spreading widely. Responsible governments and cooperative organizations have options in that regard, but even individuals can contribute something. To that end, as a medical doctor I have created a computer app that promises to be useful in that regard—of which more in a moment. But first let us review the situation, for while it has become well known to many people, there is a general resistance to acknowledging the severity and imminence of the danger. What Are the Problems? Bacteria are among the oldest living things on the planet. They are masters of survival and can be found everywhere. Billions of them live on and in every one of us, many of them helping our bodies to run smoothly and stay healthy. Most bacteria that are not helpful to us are at least harmless, but some are not. They invade our cells, spread quickly, and cause havoc that we refer to generically as disease. Millions of people used to die every year as a result of bacterial infections, until we developed antibiotics. These wonder drugs revolutionized medicine, but one can have too much of a good thing. Doctors have used antibiotics recklessly, prescribing them for just about everything, and in the process helped to create strains of bacteria that are resistant to the medicines we have. We even give antibiotics to cattle that are not sick and use them to fatten chickens. Companies large and small still mindlessly market antimicrobial products for hands and home, claiming that they kill bacteria and viruses. They do more harm than good because the low concentrations of antimicrobials that these products contain tend to kill friendly bacteria (not viruses at all), and so clear the way for the mass multiplication of surviving unfriendly bacteria. Perhaps even worse, hospitals have deployed antimicrobial products on an industrial scale for a long time now, the result being a sharp rise in iatrogenic bacterial illnesses. Overuse of antibiotics and commercial products containing them has helped superbugs to evolve. We now increasingly face microorganisms that cannot be killed by antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals, or any other chemical weapon we throw at them. Pandemics are the major risk we run as a result, but it is not the only one. Overuse of antibiotics by doctors, homemakers, and hospital managers could mean that, in the not-too-distant future, something as simple as a minor cut could again become life-threatening if it becomes infected. Pharma spills-over – has cascading global impacts that are necessary for human survival. NAS 8 National Academy of Sciences 12-3-2008 “The Role of the Life Sciences in Transforming America's Future Summary of a Workshop” Re-cut by Elmer Fostering Industries to Counter Global Problems The life sciences have applications in areas that range far beyond human health. Life-science based approaches could contribute to advances in many industries, from energy production and pollution remediation, to clean manufacturing and the production of new biologically inspired materials. In fact, biological systems could provide the basis for new products, services and industries that we cannot yet imagine. Microbes are already producing biofuels and could, through further research, provide a major component of future energy supplies. Marine and terrestrial organisms extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which suggests that biological systems could be used to help manage climate change. Study of the complex systems encountered in biology is decade, it is really just the beginning.” Advances in the underlying science of plant and animal breeding have been just as dramatic as the advances in genetic can put down a band of fertilizer, come back six months later, and plant seeds exactly on that row, reducing the need for fertilizer, pesticides, and other agricultural inputs. Fraley said that the global agricultural system needs to adopt the goal of doubling the current yield of crops while reducing key inputs like pesticides, fertilizers, and water by one third. “It is more important than putting a man on the moon,” he said. Doubling agricultural yields would “change the world.” Another billion people will join the middle class over the next decade just in India and China as economies continue to grow. And all people need and deserve secure access to food supplies. Continued progress will require both basic and applied research, The evolution of life “put earth under new management,” Collins said. Understanding the future state of the planet will require understanding the biological systems that have shaped the planet. Many of these biological systems are found in the oceans, which cover 70 percent of the earth’s surface and have a crucial impact on weather, climate, and the composition of the atmosphere. In the past decade, new tools have become available to explore the microbial processes that drive the chemistry of the oceans, observed David Kingsbury, Chief Program Officer for Science at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. These technologies have revealed that a large proportion of the planet’s genetic diversity resides in the oceans. In addition, many organisms in the oceans readily exchange genes, creating evolutionary forces that can have global effects. The oceans are currently under great stress, Kingsbury pointed out. Nutrient runoff from agriculture is helping to create huge and expanding “dead zones” where oxygen levels are too low to sustain life. Toxic algal blooms are occurring with higher frequency in areas where they have not been seen in the past. Exploitation of ocean resources is disrupting ecological balances that have formed over many millions of years. Human-induced changes in the chemistry of the atmosphere are changing the chemistry of the oceans, with potentially catastrophic consequences. “If we are not careful, we are not going to have a sustainable planet to live on,” said Kingsbury. Only by understanding the basic biological processes at work in the oceans can humans live sustainably on earth. Warming causes Extinction Kareiva 18, Peter, and Valerie Carranza. "Existential risk due to ecosystem collapse: Nature strikes back." Futures 102 (2018): 39-50. (Ph.D. in ecology and applied mathematics from Cornell University, director of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, Pritzker Distinguished Professor in Environment and Sustainability at UCLA)Re-cut by Elmer In summary, six of the nine proposed planetary boundaries (phosphorous, nitrogen, biodiversity, land use, atmospheric aerosol loading, and chemical pollution) are unlikely to be associated with existential risks. They all correspond to a degraded environment, but in our assessment do not represent existential risks. However, the three remaining boundaries (climate change, global freshwater cycle, and ocean acidification) do pose existential risks. This is because of intrinsic positive feedback loops, substantial lag times between system change and experiencing the consequences of that change, and the fact these different boundaries interact with one another in ways that yield surprises. In addition, climate, freshwater, and ocean acidification are all directly connected to the provision of food and water, and shortages of food and water can create conflict and social unrest. Climate change has a long history of disrupting civilizations and sometimes precipitating the collapse of cultures or mass emigrations (McMichael, 2017). For example, the 12th century drought in the North American Southwest is held responsible for the collapse of the Anasazi pueblo culture. More recently, the infamous potato famine of 1846–1849 and the large migration of Irish to the U.S. can be traced to a combination of factors, one of which was climate. Specifically, 1846 was an unusually warm and moist year in Ireland, providing the climatic conditions favorable to the fungus that caused the potato blight. As is so often the case, poor government had a role as well—as the British government forbade the import of grains from outside Britain (imports that could have helped to redress the ravaged potato yields). Climate change intersects with freshwater resources because it is expected to exacerbate drought and water scarcity, as well as flooding. Climate change can even impair water quality because it is associated with heavy rains that overwhelm sewage treatment facilities, or because it results in higher concentrations of pollutants in groundwater as a result of enhanced evaporation and reduced groundwater recharge. Ample clean water is not a luxury—it is essential for human survival. Consequently, cities, regions and nations that lack clean freshwater are vulnerable to social disruption and disease. Finally, ocean acidification is linked to climate change because it is driven by CO2 emissions just as global warming is. With close to 20 of the world’s protein coming from oceans (FAO, 2016), the potential for severe impacts due to acidification is obvious. Less obvious, but perhaps more insidious, is the interaction between climate change and the loss of oyster and coral reefs due to acidification. Acidification is known to interfere with oyster reef building and coral reefs. Climate change also increases storm frequency and severity. Coral reefs and oyster reefs provide protection from storm surge because they reduce wave energy (Spalding et al., 2014). If these reefs are lost due to acidification at the same time as storms become more severe and sea level rises, coastal communities will be exposed to unprecedented storm surge—and may be ravaged by recurrent storms. A key feature of the risk associated with climate change is that mean annual temperature and mean annual rainfall are not the variables of interest. Rather it is extreme episodic events that place nations and entire regions of the world at risk. These extreme events are by definition “rare” (once every hundred years), and changes in their likelihood are challenging to detect because of their rarity, but are exactly the manifestations of climate change that we must get better at anticipating (Diffenbaugh et al., 2017). Society will have a hard time responding to shorter intervals between rare extreme events because in the lifespan of an individual human, a person might experience as few as two or three extreme events. How likely is it that you would notice a change in the interval between events that are separated by decades, especially given that the interval is not regular but varies stochastically? A concrete example of this dilemma can be found in the past and expected future changes in storm-related flooding of New York City. The highly disruptive flooding of New York City associated with Hurricane Sandy represented a flood height that occurred once every 500 years in the 18th century, and that occurs now once every 25 years, but is expected to occur once every 5 years by 2050 (Garner et al., 2017). This change in frequency of extreme floods has profound implications for the measures New York City should take to protect its infrastructure and its population, yet because of the stochastic nature of such events, this shift in flood frequency is an elevated risk that will go unnoticed by most people. 4. The combination of positive feedback loops and societal inertia is fertile ground for global environmental catastrophes Humans are remarkably ingenious, and have adapted to crises throughout their history. Our doom has been repeatedly predicted, only to be averted by innovation (Ridley, 2011). However, the many stories of human ingenuity successfully addressing existential risks such as global famine or extreme air pollution represent environmental challenges that are largely linear, have immediate consequences, and operate without positive feedbacks. For example, the fact that food is in short supply does not increase the rate at which humans consume food—thereby increasing the shortage. Similarly, massive air pollution episodes such as the London fog of 1952 that killed 12,000 people did not make future air pollution events more likely. In fact it was just the opposite—the London fog sent such a clear message that Britain quickly enacted pollution control measures (Stradling, 2016). Food shortages, air pollution, water pollution, etc. send immediate signals to society of harm, which then trigger a negative feedback of society seeking to reduce the harm. In contrast, today’s great environmental crisis of climate change may cause some harm but there are generally long time delays between rising CO2 concentrations and damage to humans. The consequence of these delays are an absence of urgency; thus although 70 of Americans believe global warming is happening, only 40 think it will harm them (http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us-2016/). Secondly, unlike past environmental challenges, the Earth’s climate system is rife with positive feedback loops. In particular, as CO2 increases and the climate warms, that very warming can cause more CO2 release which further increases global warming, and then more CO2, and so on. Table 2 summarizes the best documented positive feedback loops for the Earth’s climate system. These feedbacks can be neatly categorized into carbon cycle, biogeochemical, biogeophysical, cloud, ice-albedo, and water vapor feedbacks. As important as it is to understand these feedbacks individually, it is even more essential to study the interactive nature of these feedbacks. Modeling studies show that when interactions among feedback loops are included, uncertainty increases dramatically and there is a heightened potential for perturbations to be magnified (e.g., Cox, Betts, Jones, Spall, and Totterdell, 2000; Hajima, Tachiiri, Ito, and Kawamiya, 2014; Knutti and Rugenstein, 2015; Rosenfeld, Sherwood, Wood, and Donner, 2014). This produces a wide range of future scenarios. Positive feedbacks in the carbon cycle involves the enhancement of future carbon contributions to the atmosphere due to some initial increase in atmospheric CO2. This happens because as CO2 accumulates, it reduces the efficiency in which oceans and terrestrial ecosystems sequester carbon, which in return feeds back to exacerbate climate change (Friedlingstein et al., 2001). Warming can also increase the rate at which organic matter decays and carbon is released into the atmosphere, thereby causing more warming (Melillo et al., 2017). Increases in food shortages and lack of water is also of major concern when biogeophysical feedback mechanisms perpetuate drought conditions. The underlying mechanism here is that losses in vegetation increases the surface albedo, which suppresses rainfall, and thus enhances future vegetation loss and more suppression of rainfall—thereby initiating or prolonging a drought (Chamey, Stone, and Quirk, 1975). To top it off, overgrazing depletes the soil, leading to augmented vegetation loss (Anderies, Janssen, and Walker, 2002). Climate change often also increases the risk of forest fires, as a result of higher temperatures and persistent drought conditions. The expectation is that forest fires will become more frequent and severe with climate warming and drought (Scholze, Knorr, Arnell, and Prentice, 2006), a trend for which we have already seen evidence (Allen et al., 2010). Tragically, the increased severity and risk of Southern California wildfires recently predicted by climate scientists (Jin et al., 2015), was realized in December 2017, with the largest fire in the history of California (the “Thomas fire” that burned 282,000 acres, https://www.vox.com/2017/12/27/16822180/thomas-fire-california-largest-wildfire). This catastrophic fire embodies the sorts of positive feedbacks and interacting factors that could catch humanity off-guard and produce a true apocalyptic event. Record-breaking rains produced an extraordinary flush of new vegetation, that then dried out as record heat waves and dry conditions took hold, coupled with stronger than normal winds, and ignition. Of course the record-fire released CO2 into the atmosphere, thereby contributing to future warming. Out of all types of feedbacks, water vapor and the ice-albedo feedbacks are the most clearly understood mechanisms. Losses in reflective snow and ice cover drive up surface temperatures, leading to even more melting of snow and ice cover—this is known as the ice-albedo feedback (Curry, Schramm, and Ebert, 1995). As snow and ice continue to melt at a more rapid pace, millions of people may be displaced by flooding risks as a consequence of sea level rise near coastal communities (Biermann and Boas, 2010; Myers, 2002; Nicholls et al., 2011). The water vapor feedback operates when warmer atmospheric conditions strengthen the saturation vapor pressure, which creates a warming effect given water vapor’s strong greenhouse gas properties (Manabe and Wetherald, 1967). Global warming tends to increase cloud formation because warmer temperatures lead to more evaporation of water into the atmosphere, and warmer temperature also allows the atmosphere to hold more water. The key question is whether this increase in clouds associated with global warming will result in a positive feedback loop (more warming) or a negative feedback loop (less warming). For decades, scientists have sought to answer this question and understand the net role clouds play in future climate projections (Schneider et al., 2017). Clouds are complex because they both have a cooling (reflecting incoming solar radiation) and warming (absorbing incoming solar radiation) effect (Lashof, DeAngelo, Saleska, and Harte, 1997). The type of cloud, altitude, and optical properties combine to determine how these countervailing effects balance out. Although still under debate, it appears that in most circumstances the cloud feedback is likely positive (Boucher et al., 2013). For example, models and observations show that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations reduces the low-level cloud fraction in the Northeast Pacific at decadal time scales. This then has a positive feedback effect and enhances climate warming since less solar radiation is reflected by the atmosphere (Clement, Burgman, and Norris, 2009). The key lesson from the long list of potentially positive feedbacks and their interactions is that runaway climate change, and runaway perturbations have to be taken as a serious possibility. Table 2 is just a snapshot of the type of feedbacks that have been identified (see Supplementary material for a more thorough explanation of positive feedback loops). However, this list is not exhaustive and the possibility of undiscovered positive feedbacks portends even greater existential risks. The many environmental crises humankind has previously averted (famine, ozone depletion, London fog, water pollution, etc.) were averted because of political will based on solid scientific understanding. We cannot count on complete scientific understanding when it comes to positive feedback loops and climate change. Evergreening restricts access to necessary life-saving HIV/Aids Medication. Mellouk and Cassolato 19 Othoman Mellouk and Matteo Cassolato 10-2-2019 "HOW PATENTS AFFECT ACCESS TO HIV TREATMENT" https://frontlineaids.org/how-patents-affect-access-to-hiv-treatment/ (International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC))Elmer Since the world acknowledged the global AIDS epidemic in the 1980s much has changed. With better treatment and prevention options, AIDS is no longer seen as a death sentence. Better treatment for co-infections, particularly multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and for viral hepatitis have also emerged in the past decade. However, despite the huge progress made, 1.7 million people acquired HIV last year and 770,000 died of AIDS-related illness. For those people – the parents, children, siblings, and friends who unnecessarily lost their lives – the declarations of success are hollow. UNAIDS, which NGOs have been criticising for years for its unduly optimistic reporting, has now acknowledged in its 2019 Epidemic Update that “the annual number of HIV infections has increased in three regions: Eastern Europe and Central Asia (29 increase), Middle East and North Africa (10 increase) and Latin America (7 increase)”. HIV advances that had been made, are now reversing. The over-positive reporting resulted in a serious side-effect. Donors, with competing priorities, bought into the success narrative, and overall global funding for AIDS was reduced. Investment in the HIV responses of low- and middle-income countries decreased by $900 million in just one year. We must act now to ensure the response is fully funded and barriers to accessing medicines, including to second and third line HIV treatment and co-infection treatments, are effectively tackled. Frontline AIDS and the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) have released a joint report looking at one of these crucial barriers – the problem with patents in middle-income countries (MICS). In 2019, people aren’t dying because the drugs for treating HIV, MDR-TB, hepatitis C and many other diseases don’t exist. People are dying because they can’t access them. With an increasing focus on voluntary mechanisms to provide access to medicines, the problem with patents in MICs is being seriously over-looked; as are the legitimate tools that governments can use to increase access and availability and decrease prices. The use of legal mechanisms like TRIPS flexibilities by governments has proven highly effective; in the use of these legal tools, governments, global health agencies and civil society all have an essential role to play. It will not be possible to achieve a sustainable response to HIV without tackling intellectual property (IP) barriers, particularly in MICs. THE PROBLEM WITH PATENTS One of the most critical barriers that has existed since treatment for HIV was first approved relates to patents. Patenting of medicines has increased considerably since 2005. More worrying is the trend of ‘evergreening’ patents. Evergreening is a tactic used by pharmaceutical companies to extend their exclusivity over a medicine by applying for, and usually getting, multiple, overlapping patents on a single medicine. Most medicines are covered by several patents, known as patent ‘thickets’ and are used to delay or complicate generic production. Over-pricing as a result of unmerited and extended monopolies puts a huge strain on health budgets. While in theory a government may commit to universal access, in reality the budget may not stretch. Prices for HIV treatment can vary from under $100 to tens of thousands of dollars per person per year (pppy) – for the same drug. Take dolutegravir (DTG) for example. In July 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended all countries immediately adopt DTG-based regimens as the preferred first-line treatment for HIV. Prices pppy range from $75 for countries that are in a ‘voluntary license’, up to $9656 for those that are not. MIDDLE-INCOME, HIGH BURDEN Typically, MICs are worst affected by the patent problem. Nearly 38 million people live with HIV and a majority of them live in MICs. The countries’ income classification means they are frequently left out of pricing deals or voluntary agreements and have funding reduced by health and development agencies, and so face the dual burden of high prevalence and high costs. Evergreening is just one of the tactics employed by pharmaceutical companies to maintain monopolies and pave the way for this arbitrary pricing. Our report details other tactics as well as how they can be legitimately challenged. Within the Sustainable Development Goals themselves our recommendations are backed. SDG3b reaffirms the right of developing countries to use to the full the provisions in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) regarding flexibilities to protect public health, and, in particular, provide access to medicines for all. Unless TRIPS flexibilities are more routinely put into practice we risk undermining the commitments made to the HIV response. AIDS spread leads to great power nuclear war Koblentz 10, Deputy Director of the Biodefense Program @ GMU, Assistant Professor in Public and International Affairs, March, "Biosecurity Reconsidered: Calibrating Biological Threats and Responses." International Security Vol. 34, No. 4, p. 96-132 Re-cut by Elmer Pandemics are disease outbreaks that occur over a wide geographic area, such as a region, continent, or the entire world, and infect an unusually high proportion of the population. Two pandemic diseases are widely cited as having the potential to pose direct threats to the stability and security of states: HIV/AIDS and influenza. HIV/AIDS. Since it was first identified in 1981, HIV is estimated to have killed more than 25 million people worldwide. According to the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the percentage of the global population with HIV has stabilized since 2000, but the overall number of people living with HIV (33 million in 2007) has steadily increased. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to bear a disproportionate share of the global burden of HIV with 35 percent of new HIV infections, 75 percent of AIDS deaths, and 67 percent of all people living with HIV. 116 Scholars have identified four ways that HIV/AIDS can affect security. 117 First, the disproportionately high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the armed forces of some nations, particularly in Southern Africa, may compromise the ability of those states to defend themselves from internal or external threats. Militaries with high rates of HIV infection may suffer losses in combat readiness and effectiveness as infected troops are transferred out of combat roles, units lose cohesion because of high turnover rates, middle management is "hollowed out" by the early death or disability of officers, and defense budgets are strained because of rising medical costs and the need to recruit and train replacements for sick soldiers. The second threat is that HIV/AIDS will undermine the international peace-keeping system. Nations with militaries with high rates of HIV/AIDS will be unable to provide troops for international peacekeeping missions; nations with healthy militaries may be unwilling to commit troops to peacekeeping operations in nations with a high prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS; and war-torn nations may be unwilling to accept peacekeepers for fear they will spread the disease in their country. The third threat is that a "second wave" of HIV/AIDS could strike large, strategically important countries such as China, India, and Russia. These states, which possess nuclear weapons and are important players in critical regions, also suffer from internal security challenges that could be aggravated by a severe AIDS epidemic and its attendant socioeconomic disruptions. The fourth threat is that the high prevalence of HIV in less developed countries will cause political instability that could degenerate into internal conflict or spread into neighboring countries. Unlike most diseases, which affect primarily the poor, young, and old, HIV/AIDS strikes young adults and members of the middle and upper classes. By sickening and killing members of society when they should be their most productive, HIV/AIDS has inflicted the "single greatest reversal in human development" in modern history. 118 Evergreening restricts Generic Patents by artificially extending Patent Cliffs. Moir and Gleeson 14 Hazel Moir and Deborah Gleeson 11-5-2014 "Explainer: evergreening and how big pharma keeps drug prices high" https://theconversation.com/explainer-evergreening-and-how-big-pharma-keeps-drug-prices-high-33623 (Adjunct Associate Professor; economics of patents, copyright and other "IP", Australian National University AND Lecturer in Public Health, La Trobe University)Elmer Efforts by pharmaceutical companies to extend their patents cost taxpayers millions of dollars each year. In some cases they also mean people are subjected to unnecessary clinical trials. Big pharma makes big profits. Their useful new drugs are patented, protecting them from competition and allowing them to charge high prices. When the patent ends, other companies are allowed to supply the previously patented drug. These are known as generics. The prices of generic drugs are much lower than the prices of in-patent drugs – it has been suggested that for widely used drugs price falls can be as much as 95. Pharmaceutical companies want to get their new products listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), because they will sell in much higher volumes. Taxpayers have an interest in ensuring that these drugs move from the high in-patent price to the much lower off-patent price as early as possible. On average, a patent provides effective protection from competition for about 14 years. But, of course, companies like monopolies and would like to extend the patent period. Over the past few decades they have used a process known as evergreening to keep generic companies out of the market for longer. How evergreening works Evergreening is achieved by seeking extra patents on variations of the original drug – new forms of release, new dosages, new combinations or variations, or new forms. Big pharma refers to this as “lifecycle management”. Even if the patent is dubious, the company can earn more from the higher prices than it pays in legal fees to keep the dubious patent alive. Evergreening is possible because in Australia the standard required to get a patent is very low. Different methods of delivering drugs (such as extended release, for example) have been known for decades. But when one of these known delivery methods is combined with a known drug, the patent office considers this sufficiently inventive to grant a new 20-year patent. Another favourite evergreening strategy is to patent a slight variation of the drug. Brand pharmaceutical companies argue that these “lifecycle management” patents provide improved health outcomes to the community. They meet the (very low) patentability thresholds of novelty and inventiveness. Critics argue that the claimed improved health outcomes are small or non-existent. An evergreening story: from Efexor to Efexor-XR to Pristiq An example is useful. In the case of the depression drug venlafaxine (marketed as Efexor), the original version had major side-effects. However, when provided in extended release form these side-effects were substantially reduced. Naturally the extended release form (Efexor-XR) became preferred. Although it might seem obvious to combine venlafaxine with an extended release form to overcome the side-effect problem, the patent office granted two new patents for extended release versions of venlafaxine. One of these was written in such a broad form that it delayed generic entry by two and a half years, while legal wrangling took place. Eventually the evergreening patent was declared invalid. But the cost to taxpayers of this delay is estimated at $209 million. Pfizer has a second evergreening strategy for venlafaxine. When venlafaxine is taken, the human body converts it to desvenlafaxine. In other words desvenlafaxine is a variant of the original active pharmaceutical ingredient venlafaxine. Clearly the two compounds are closely related. So it is astonishing that desvenlafaxine passed the tests for getting a patent. Desvenlafaxine is marketed as Pristiq. Pristiq entered the market early in the two-and-a-half-year period of legal wrangling over the extended release venlafaxine (Efexor-XR) patent. Pfizer’s marketing of Pristiq in February 2009 was so lavish that it attracted the attention of investigative journalists. Pristiq has no additional benefits for patients. Despite this, during the first six months of 2014 half of prescriptions were written for Pristiq rather than for the clinically identical Efexor-XR. But Pristiq costs between $A22.32 and $A26.50 more than Efexor-XR, depending on the dose. Based on reported prescription volumes in 2013-14, the cost to the taxpayer of doctors prescribing Pristiq rather than Efexor-XR exceeds $21 million a year. Unless generic companies challenge the desvenlafaxine patent, there will be no generic versions of Pristiq until after August 2023, when the patent expires. That inhibits India’s Pharma Industry – exports of Generics is key to revitalize India Pharma Leadership. Neelakantan 14 Murali Neelakantan 11-11-2014 “Indian Pharmaceutical Industry: Affordable Access to Healthcare for all” https://web.archive.org/web/20150315092713/https://abcmundial.com/en/news/brics/technology/3838-indian-pharmaceutical-industry-affordable-access-healthcare-all/ (consejero general global de Cipla Limited)Elmer The story of the Indian pharma sector could well have been like the IT sector if only enough attention was paid to its achievements and the huge impact it has had on healthcare around the world. Unlike other manufacturing or heavy industries in India, the pharma sector is innovative, widely acknowledged as making a global impact in the treatment of diseases like HIV AIDS1 and also able to support the healthcare needs of the world2. The fact that Indian factories are licensed to produce 3,685 drugs compared with 3,815 made within the UK suggests that Indian factories meet global quality standards and are able to produce complex drugs.3 While news of regulators visiting Indian manufacturing facilities and finding fault with processes is widely reported, very little is said about how routine this is. Gerald Heddell, director of inspections, enforcement and standards at the MHRA, stressed that the number of problems identified by regulators in India was in proportion to the volume of medicines they produced. “When we look back over 110 inspections we conducted over the last two years in India, we had significant concerns with 9 or 10 companies,” he said. “That does not represent a statistically higher proportion than in other parts of the world. India stands out because it is just such a big supplier.”4 The Indian pharma Industry produces about 20 5 of the global generic drugs with the US accounting for nearly 28 per cent of Indian pharmaceutical exports6, followed by the European Union at 18 per cent and Africa at over 17 per cent.7 This should be a clear acknowledgement of the global leadership that Indian pharma industry has achieved which would have been impossible without following global quality standards. Another popular criticism of Indian pharma has been that there is insufficient investment in innovation and RandD. Despite over 500 new drugs being discovered by Indian pharma companies during 1985 – 2005, there seems a perception that India thrives on copying foreign products8. A recent study by Evaluate9, a leading independent specialist pharma consultancy, reports that there is little difference in the investment by “innovators” and “generics” and it is just a myth that “innovators” invest heavily in research while “generics” don’t. Despite well publicised claims of the Western world, there seems to be a marked decrease in RandD investments10 and this trend is expected to continue.11 When one realises that almost 50 of the European pharma patents are either lying dormant or filed in order to block competitors12 one wonders how innovation is being defined and encouraged. Is it innovation if the effect is stifling further innovation and competition and creating barriers for improvements? Indian pharma industry has clearly demonstrated that it has the potential to be a part of the solution for universal access to healthcare. India’s strength is innovating to improve global access to medicines as opposed to developing more and more “me too” drugs which have been traditionally defined by the West as innovation. There is now a growing acknowledgment that the existing IPR regime that is being touted by the West doesn’t foster innovation. As such, the current patent system is itself reeling from the ill effects of patent assertion entities (trolls) that do not produce anything of value but merely hold patents with a view to threatening businesses with infringement actions to obtain licensing revenue. Patents have other flaws that relate to monopoly power, both because it harms consumers who have to pay high prices and because it can hinder improvements and subsequent innovations.13 Static distortions, too little incentive for original research, and wasteful duplication of research are some of the most serious problems of the patent system.14In addition to TRIPs - compliant patent regimes which ostensibly promote innovation and discourage copying, the next generation of barriers to competition seems to be set up as global standards. Just as IPR was addressed by the WTO in TRIPs, the more recent barriers are likely to be in the form of harmonised regulations. Patent linkage15 (in Canada and the US for example) denies access to markets on a mere allegation of patent infringement. Despite the US Supreme Court16 indicating that patent linkage needs to be reconsidered and access to medicines should not be denied on allegation of patent infringement and recent attempts by Italy to introduce a system of patent linkage resulted in a notice from the European Commission asking for the removal of these provisions from Italian law,17 patent linkage is a real barrier to competition in healthcare which is beset with unaffordable drugs. Data exclusivity extends the term of monopoly enjoyed by patent holders and keeps out competition and innovation without any benefits to society. This concept does not exist in sectors other than pharma and there seems to be no real rationale for pharma to get special treatment. In fact, data exclusivity raises several ethical and moral issues. Countries have always been allowed to customise their IP policy and regulation based on their unique local conditions. Some countries are more technologically proficient than others, and this distinction may warrant separate norms in areas of technology that they are strong in.18 Even where harmonisation has been accepted as a concept, like the EU for example, it has been implemented in a manner that is sympathetic to the local conditions of individual countries. India’s strength and expertise lies in developing drugs which are accessible for patients across the globe. India’s stand on IPR regime acknowledges that diverse countries cannot be forced to one uniform regulatory system. This principled stand was recently demonstrated during the Bali round of talks on the Trade Facilitation Agreement.19 In the background of the Trans Pacific and Trans Atlantic Partnerships being negotiated, India has the opportunity to demonstrate leadership in the global market place by pioneering the opposition to using harmonisation as a proxy for barriers to competition. While the US and its allies may officially oppose India’s view of the IPR regime they have realised that the key to their sustainable development is the ability of government to ensure that healthcare is accessible to everyone, not just the rich. Cost of healthcare has increased significantly causing an alarming number of patients to go off treatment, risk importing counterfeits20 or in many cases, declare bankruptcy21. The issue of access to healthcare in the developing world has, despite some efforts by the UN, The Global Fund, PEPFAR and other aid institutions, not had the impact that it should have. There is a realisation, albeit unarticulated, that Indian Pharma companies have the potential to be, like Indian technology companies averted the y2K crisis, a key element of the solution to world's healthcare crisis. Now is a great opportunity for India to demonstrate leadership in IPR regimes as more and more countries like South Africa and Brazil are following India’s example. Indian pharma strength is key to their soft power Jha 16 Prem Shankar Jha 11-5-2016 “Let India unleash its soft power” https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/Let-India-unleash-its-soft-power/article13292272.ece (Writer at the Hindu)Elmer And why stop at food grains? In drought-struck regions, contaminated water kills much faster than hunger and takes the very young and the very old first. The Indian pharmaceuticals industry is the envy of the world, because it produces and sells medicines at a tenth to a thirtieth of the retail prices abroad. Can Delhi not buttress its food aid with medicines and vitamins? This will give an entirely new meaning to the concept of Soft Power for, unlike the West in its present incarnation, it would be seeking to build influence by protecting and preserving, not destroying; by expanding peoples' futures instead of ending them in darkness. We have been relatively slow to realise our full potential for the exercise of soft power. This could be because of our too-ready acceptance of a concept that was created by an American to address American foreign policy concerns. In Joseph Nye's original definition, soft power originated in the capacity to attract others to your country's culture, values and institutions. Indian policymakers have taken this to heart and relied mainly upon India's open society, democratic institutions, lack of aggressive intent and willingness to share the burden of U.N. peacekeeping and policing the global commons, to garner respect and support in the international community. It is only in the last half-decade, as the Westphalian international order crumbled and India's neighbourhood became increasingly unstable, that New Delhi has begun to explore the economic dimensions of ‘soft power' seriously. Afghanistan has been the focus of its initial efforts, and its success is attested to by the threat (irrational though it is) that Pakistan feels from it. Successful India Soft Power solves Extinction Kamdar 7, Mira. Planet India: How the fastest growing democracy is transforming America and the world. Simon and Schuster, 2007. (Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society in 2008)Elmer No other country matters more to the future of our planet than India. There is no challenge we face, no opportunity we covet where India does not have critical relevance. From combating global terror to finding cures for dangerous pandemics, from dealing with the energy crisis to averting the worst scenarios of global warming, from rebalancing stark global inequalities to spurring the vital innovation needed to create jobs and improve lives—India is now a pivotal player. The world is undergoing a process of profound recalibration in which the rise of Asia is the most important factor. India holds the key to this new world. India is at once an ancient Asian civilization, a modern nation grounded in Enlightenment values and democratic institutions, and a rising twenty-first-century power. With a population of 1.2 billion, India is the world’s largest democracy. It is an open, vibrant society. India’s diverse population includes Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Zoroastrians, Jews, and animists. There are twenty-two official languages in India. Three hundred fifty million Indians speak English. India is the world in microcosm. Its geography encompasses every climate, from snowcapped Himalayas to palm-fringed beaches to deserts where nomads and camels roam. A developing country, India is divided among a tiny affluent minority, a rising middle class, and 800 million people who live on less than $2 per day. India faces all the critical problems of our time—extreme social inequality, employment insecurity, a growing energy crisis, severe water shortages, a degraded environment, global warming, a galloping HIV/AIDS epidemic, terrorist attacks—on a scale that defies the imagination. India’s goal is breathtaking in scope: transform a developing country of more than 1 billion people into a developed nation and global leader by 2020, and do this as a democracy in an era of resource scarcity and environmental degradation. The world has to cheer India on. If India fails, there is a real risk that our world will become hostage to political chaos, war over dwindling resources, a poisoned environment, and galloping disease. Wealthy enclaves will employ private companies to supply their needs and private militias to protect them from the poor massing at their gates. But, if India succeeds, it will demonstrate that it is possible to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. It will prove that multiethnic, multireligious democracy is not a luxury for rich societies. It will show us how to save our environment, and how to manage in a fractious, multipolar world. India’s gambit is truly the venture of the century.
1AC – Advantage 2 Advantage 2 is Drug Prices Evergreening keeps Drug Prices high. Amin 18 Tahir Amin 6-27-2018 "The problem with high drug prices isn't 'foreign freeloading,' it's the patent system" High drug prices caused by US patent system, not 'foreign freeloaders' (cnbc.com) https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/25/high-drug-prices-caused-by-us-patent-system.html (co-founder of nonprofit I-MAK.org)Elmer 'Evergreening' Instead of going to new medicines, the study finds that 74 percent of new patents during the decade went to drugs that already existed. It found that 80 percent of the nearly 100 best-selling drugs extended their exclusivity protections at least once, and 50 percent extended their patents more than once—with the effect of prolonging the time before generics could reach the market as drug prices continued to rise. The strategy is called “evergreening”: drug makers add on new patents to prolong a drug’s exclusivity, even when the additions aren’t fundamentally new, non-obvious, and useful as the law requires. One of the most expensive cancer drugs on the market, Revlimid®, is a case in point: priced at over $125,000 per year of treatment, Celgene has sought 105 patents on Revlimid®, many of which have been granted, extending its monopoly until the end of 2036. That gives the Revlimid® patent portfolio a lifespan of 40 years, which is being used to block or deter generic competitors from entering the market. But a recent I-MAK analysis finds that several of Celgene’s patents are mere add-ons—not fundamentally new to deserve a patent. And because of the thicket of patents around Revlimid®, payers are projected to spend $45 billion in excess costs on that drug alone as compared to what they could be paying if generic competitors were to enter when the first patent expires in 2019. Meanwhile, Celgene is also among the pharmaceuticals that have been recently scolded by the FDA for refusing to share samples with generic makers so they can test their own products against the brands in order to attain FDA approval. In the absence of genuine competition in the U.S. prescription drug market, monopolies are yielding reckless pricing schemes and prohibitively expensive drugs for Americans (and people around the world) who need them. In 2015, for example, U.S. Senators Wyden and Grassley found after an 18-month bipartisan investigation that the notorious $84,000 price tag for the hepatitis C drug made by Gilead was based on “a pricing and marketing strategy designed to maximize revenue with little concern for access or affordability.” Gilead’s subsequent hepatitis C drug Harvoni® was introduced to the market at a still higher cost of $94,500. Who benefits when drugs are priced so high? Not the 85 percent of Americans with hepatitis C who are still not able to afford treatment. That pushes people into poverty – our internal is causal. Hoban 10 Rose Hoban 9-13-2010 "High Cost of Medicine Pushes More People into Poverty" https://www.voanews.com/science-health/high-cost-medicine-pushes-more-people-poverty (spent more than six years as the health reporter for North Carolina Public Radio – WUNC, where she covered health care, state health policy, science and research with a focus on public health issues. She left to start North Carolina Health News after watching many of her professional peers leave or be laid off of their jobs, leaving NC with few people to cover this complicated and important topic. ALSO cites Laurens Niens who is a Health Researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam)Elmer Health economist Laurens Niëns found that drugs needed to treat chronic diseases could be considered unaffordable for many people in poor countries. Medicines can be expensive and often make up a large portion of any family's health care budget. And the burden can be even greater for people in poor countries, where the cost of vital medicines can push them into poverty. The problem is growing as more people around the world are diagnosed with chronic diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Being diagnosed with a chronic disease usually compells patients to seek treatment for a prolonged period of time. That increases the eventual price tag for health, says health economist Laurens Niëns at Erasmus University in the Netherlands. Niëns examined medication pricing data from the World Health Organization and also looked at data from the World Bank on household income in many countries. Using the data, he calculated how much people need to spend on necessities such as food, housing, education and medicines. "The medicines we looked at are medicines for patients who suffer from asthma, diabetes, hypertension and we looked at an adult respiratory infection," Niëns says. "Three conditions are for chronic diseases, which basically means that people need to procure those medicines each and every day." Niëns focused on the cost of medicine for those conditions. He found the essential drugs could be considered unaffordable for many people in poor countries - so much so that their cost often pushes people into abject poverty. "The proportion of the population that is living below the poverty line, plus the people that are being pushed below the poverty line, can reach up to 80 percent in some countries for some medicines," Niëns says. He points out that generic medicines - which are more affordable than brand-name medications - are often not available in the marketplace. And, according to Niëns, poor government policies can drive up the cost of medications. "For instance, a lot of governments actually tax medicines when they come into the country," he says. "They have no standard for the markups on medicines through the distribution chain. So often, governments think they pay a good price for the medicines when they procure them from the producer. However, before such a medicine reaches a patient, markups are sometimes up to 1,000 percent." Inequality drives diversionary nationalism which sparks international conflict. Solt 11, Frederick. "Diversionary nationalism: Economic inequality and the formation of national pride." The Journal of Politics 73.3 (2011): 821-830. (Ph.D. in Political Science from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, currently Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa, Assistant Professor, Departments of Political Science and Sociology, Southern Illinois at the time of publication)Elmer One of the oldest theories of nationalism is that states instill the nationalist myth in their citizens to divert their attention from great economic inequality and so forestall pervasive unrest. Because the very concept of nationalism obscures the extent of inequality and is a potent tool for delegitimizing calls for redistribution, it is a perfect diversion, and states should be expected to engage in more nationalist mythmaking when inequality increases. The evidence presented by this study supports this theory: across the countries and over time, where economic inequality is greater, nationalist sentiments are substantially more widespread. This result adds considerably to our understanding of nationalism. To date, many scholars have focused on the international environment as the principal source of threats that prompt states to generate nationalism; the importance of the domestic threat posed by economic inequality has been largely overlooked. However, at least in recent years, domestic inequality is a far more important stimulus for the generation of nationalist sentiments than the international context. Given that nuclear weapons—either their own or their allies’—rather than the mass army now serve as the primary defense of many countries against being overrun by their enemies, perhaps this is not surprising: nationalism-inspired mass mobilization is simply no longer as necessary for protection as it once was (see Mearsheimer 1990, 21; Posen 1993, 122–24). Another important implication of the analyses presented above is that growing economic inequality may increase ethnic conflict. States may foment national pride to stem discontent with increasing inequality, but this pride can also lead to more hostility towards immigrants and minorities. Though pride in the nation is distinct from chauvinism and outgroup hostility, it is nevertheless closely related to these phenomena, and recent experimental research has shown that members of majority groups who express high levels of national pride can be nudged into intolerant and xenophobic responses quite easily (Li and Brewer 2004). This finding suggests that, by leading to the creation of more national pride, higher levels of inequality produce environments favorable to those who would inflame ethnic animosities. Another and perhaps even more worrisome implication regards the likelihood of war. Nationalism is frequently suggested as a cause of war, and more national pride has been found to result in a much greater demand for national security even at the expense of civil liberties (Davis and Silver 2004, 36–37) as well as preferences for “a more militaristic foreign affairs posture and a more interventionist role in world politics” (Conover and Feldman 1987, 3). To the extent that these preferences influence policymaking, the growth in economic inequality over the last quarter century should be expected to lead to more aggressive foreign policies and more international conflict. If economic inequality prompts states to generate diversionary nationalism as the results presented above suggest, then rising inequality could make for a more dangerous world. The results of this work also contribute to our still limited knowledge of the relationship between economic inequality and democratic politics. In particular, it helps explain the fact that, contrary to median-voter models of redistribution (e.g., Meltzer and Richard 1981), democracies with higher levels of inequality do not consistently respond with more redistribution (e.g., Bénabou 1996). Rather than allowing redistribution to be decided through the democratic process suggested by such models, this work suggests that states often respond to higher levels of inequality with more nationalism. Nationalism then works to divert attention from inequality, so many citizens neither realize the extent of inequality nor demand redistributive policies. By prompting states to promote nationalism, greater economic inequality removes the issue of redistribution from debate and therefore narrows the scope of democratic politics. 1AC – Framing The standard is act hedonistic util. Prefer – 1 Pleasure and pain are intrinsic value and disvalue – everything else regresses – robust neuroscience. Blum et al. 18 Kenneth Blum, 1Department of Psychiatry, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Dayton VA Medical Center, Wright State University, Dayton, OH, USA 2Department of Psychiatry, McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL, USA 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA 4Division of Applied Clinical Research and Education, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA 5Department of Precision Medicine, Geneus Health LLC, San Antonio, TX, USA 6Department of Addiction Research and Therapy, Nupathways Inc., Innsbrook, MO, USA 7Department of Clinical Neurology, Path Foundation, New York, NY, USA 8Division of Neuroscience-Based Addiction Therapy, The Shores Treatment and Recovery Center, Port Saint Lucie, FL, USA 9Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary 10Division of Addiction Research, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC. North Kingston, RI, USA 11Victory Nutrition International, Lederach, PA., USA 12National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Washington, DC., USA, Marjorie Gondré-Lewis, 12National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Washington, DC., USA 13Departments of Anatomy and Psychiatry, Howard University College of Medicine, Washington, DC US, Bruce Steinberg, 4Division of Applied Clinical Research and Education, Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA, Igor Elman, 15Department Psychiatry, Cooper University School of Medicine, Camden, NJ, USA, David Baron, 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Keck Medicine University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, Edward J Modestino, 14Department of Psychology, Curry College, Milton, MA, USA, Rajendra D Badgaiyan, 15Department Psychiatry, Cooper University School of Medicine, Camden, NJ, USA, Mark S Gold 16Department of Psychiatry, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA, “Our evolved unique pleasure circuit makes humans different from apes: Reconsideration of data derived from animal studies”, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 28 February 2018, accessed: 19 August 2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6446569/, R.S. Pleasure is not only one of the three primary reward functions but it also defines reward. As homeostasis explains the functions of only a limited number of rewards, the principal reason why particular stimuli, objects, events, situations, and activities are rewarding may be due to pleasure. This applies first of all to sex and to the primary homeostatic rewards of food and liquid and extends to money, taste, beauty, social encounters and nonmaterial, internally set, and intrinsic rewards. Pleasure, as the primary effect of rewards, drives the prime reward functions of learning, approach behavior, and decision making and provides the basis for hedonic theories of reward function. We are attracted by most rewards and exert intense efforts to obtain them, just because they are enjoyable 10. Pleasure is a passive reaction that derives from the experience or prediction of reward and may lead to a long-lasting state of happiness. The word happiness is difficult to define. In fact, just obtaining physical pleasure may not be enough. One key to happiness involves a network of good friends. However, it is not obvious how the higher forms of satisfaction and pleasure are related to an ice cream cone, or to your team winning a sporting event. Recent multidisciplinary research, using both humans and detailed invasive brain analysis of animals has discovered some critical ways that the brain processes pleasure 14. Pleasure as a hallmark of reward is sufficient for defining a reward, but it may not be necessary. A reward may generate positive learning and approach behavior simply because it contains substances that are essential for body function. When we are hungry, we may eat bad and unpleasant meals. A monkey who receives hundreds of small drops of water every morning in the laboratory is unlikely to feel a rush of pleasure every time it gets the 0.1 ml. Nevertheless, with these precautions in mind, we may define any stimulus, object, event, activity, or situation that has the potential to produce pleasure as a reward. In the context of reward deficiency or for disorders of addiction, homeostasis pursues pharmacological treatments: drugs to treat drug addiction, obesity, and other compulsive behaviors. The theory of allostasis suggests broader approaches - such as re-expanding the range of possible pleasures and providing opportunities to expend effort in their pursuit. 15. It is noteworthy, the first animal studies eliciting approach behavior by electrical brain stimulation interpreted their findings as a discovery of the brain’s pleasure centers 16 which were later partly associated with midbrain dopamine neurons 17–19 despite the notorious difficulties of identifying emotions in animals. Evolutionary theories of pleasure: The love connection BO Charles Darwin and other biological scientists that have examined the biological evolution and its basic principles found various mechanisms that steer behavior and biological development. Besides their theory on natural selection, it was particularly the sexual selection process that gained significance in the latter context over the last century, especially when it comes to the question of what makes us “what we are,” i.e., human. However, the capacity to sexually select and evolve is not at all a human accomplishment alone or a sign of our uniqueness; yet, we humans, as it seems, are ingenious in fooling ourselves and others–when we are in love or desperately search for it. It is well established that modern biological theory conjectures that organisms are the result of evolutionary competition. In fact, Richard Dawkins stresses gene survival and propagation as the basic mechanism of life 20. Only genes that lead to the fittest phenotype will make it. It is noteworthy that the phenotype is selected based on behavior that maximizes gene propagation. To do so, the phenotype must survive and generate offspring, and be better at it than its competitors. Thus, the ultimate, distal function of rewards is to increase evolutionary fitness by ensuring the survival of the organism and reproduction. It is agreed that learning, approach, economic decisions, and positive emotions are the proximal functions through which phenotypes obtain other necessary nutrients for survival, mating, and care for offspring. Behavioral reward functions have evolved to help individuals to survive and propagate their genes. Apparently, people need to live well and long enough to reproduce. Most would agree that homo-sapiens do so by ingesting the substances that make their bodies function properly. For this reason, foods and drinks are rewards. Additional rewards, including those used for economic exchanges, ensure sufficient palatable food and drink supply. Mating and gene propagation is supported by powerful sexual attraction. Additional properties, like body form, augment the chance to mate and nourish and defend offspring and are therefore also rewards. Care for offspring until they can reproduce themselves helps gene propagation and is rewarding; otherwise, many believe mating is useless. According to David E Comings, as any small edge will ultimately result in evolutionary advantage 21, additional reward mechanisms like novelty seeking and exploration widen the spectrum of available rewards and thus enhance the chance for survival, reproduction, and ultimate gene propagation. These functions may help us to obtain the benefits of distant rewards that are determined by our own interests and not immediately available in the environment. Thus the distal reward function in gene propagation and evolutionary fitness defines the proximal reward functions that we see in everyday behavior. That is why foods, drinks, mates, and offspring are rewarding. There have been theories linking pleasure as a required component of health benefits salutogenesis, (salugenesis). In essence, under these terms, pleasure is described as a state or feeling of happiness and satisfaction resulting from an experience that one enjoys. Regarding pleasure, it is a double-edged sword, on the one hand, it promotes positive feelings (like mindfulness) and even better cognition, possibly through the release of dopamine 22. But on the other hand, pleasure simultaneously encourages addiction and other negative behaviors, i.e., motivational toxicity. It is a complex neurobiological phenomenon, relying on reward circuitry or limbic activity. It is important to realize that through the “Brain Reward Cascade” (BRC) endorphin and endogenous morphinergic mechanisms may play a role 23. While natural rewards are essential for survival and appetitive motivation leading to beneficial biological behaviors like eating, sex, and reproduction, crucial social interactions seem to further facilitate the positive effects exerted by pleasurable experiences. Indeed, experimentation with addictive drugs is capable of directly acting on reward pathways and causing deterioration of these systems promoting hypodopaminergia 24. Most would agree that pleasurable activities can stimulate personal growth and may help to induce healthy behavioral changes, including stress management 25. The work of Esch and Stefano 26 concerning the link between compassion and love implicate the brain reward system, and pleasure induction suggests that social contact in general, i.e., love, attachment, and compassion, can be highly effective in stress reduction, survival, and overall health. Understanding the role of neurotransmission and pleasurable states both positive and negative have been adequately studied over many decades 26–37, but comparative anatomical and neurobiological function between animals and homo sapiens appear to be required and seem to be in an infancy stage. Finding happiness is different between apes and humans As stated earlier in this expert opinion one key to happiness involves a network of good friends 38. However, it is not entirely clear exactly how the higher forms of satisfaction and pleasure are related to a sugar rush, winning a sports event or even sky diving, all of which augment dopamine release at the reward brain site. Recent multidisciplinary research, using both humans and detailed invasive brain analysis of animals has discovered some critical ways that the brain processes pleasure. Remarkably, there are pathways for ordinary liking and pleasure, which are limited in scope as described above in this commentary. However, there are many brain regions, often termed hot and cold spots, that significantly modulate (increase or decrease) our pleasure or even produce the opposite of pleasure— that is disgust and fear 39. One specific region of the nucleus accumbens is organized like a computer keyboard, with particular stimulus triggers in rows— producing an increase and decrease of pleasure and disgust. Moreover, the cortex has unique roles in the cognitive evaluation of our feelings of pleasure 40. Importantly, the interplay of these multiple triggers and the higher brain centers in the prefrontal cortex are very intricate and are just being uncovered. Desire and reward centers It is surprising that many different sources of pleasure activate the same circuits between the mesocorticolimbic regions (Figure 1). Reward and desire are two aspects pleasure induction and have a very widespread, large circuit. Some part of this circuit distinguishes between desire and dread. The so-called pleasure circuitry called “REWARD” involves a well-known dopamine pathway in the mesolimbic system that can influence both pleasure and motivation. In simplest terms, the well-established mesolimbic system is a dopamine circuit for reward. It starts in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the midbrain and travels to the nucleus accumbens (Figure 2). It is the cornerstone target to all addictions. The VTA is encompassed with neurons using glutamate, GABA, and dopamine. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is located within the ventral striatum and is divided into two sub-regions—the motor and limbic regions associated with its core and shell, respectively. The NAc has spiny neurons that receive dopamine from the VTA and glutamate (a dopamine driver) from the hippocampus, amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex. Subsequently, the NAc projects GABA signals to an area termed the ventral pallidum (VP). The region is a relay station in the limbic loop of the basal ganglia, critical for motivation, behavior, emotions and the “Feel Good” response. This defined system of the brain is involved in all addictions –substance, and non –substance related. In 1995, our laboratory coined the term “Reward Deficiency Syndrome” (RDS) to describe genetic and epigenetic induced hypodopaminergia in the “Brain Reward Cascade” that contribute to addiction and compulsive behaviors 3,6,41. Furthermore, ordinary “liking” of something, or pure pleasure, is represented by small regions mainly in the limbic system (old reptilian part of the brain). These may be part of larger neural circuits. In Latin, hedus is the term for “sweet”; and in Greek, hodone is the term for “pleasure.” Thus, the word Hedonic is now referring to various subcomponents of pleasure: some associated with purely sensory and others with more complex emotions involving morals, aesthetics, and social interactions. The capacity to have pleasure is part of being healthy and may even extend life, especially if linked to optimism as a dopaminergic response 42. Psychiatric illness often includes symptoms of an abnormal inability to experience pleasure, referred to as anhedonia. A negative feeling state is called dysphoria, which can consist of many emotions such as pain, depression, anxiety, fear, and disgust. Previously many scientists used animal research to uncover the complex mechanisms of pleasure, liking, motivation and even emotions like panic and fear, as discussed above 43. However, as a significant amount of related research about the specific brain regions of pleasure/reward circuitry has been derived from invasive studies of animals, these cannot be directly compared with subjective states experienced by humans. In an attempt to resolve the controversy regarding the causal contributions of mesolimbic dopamine systems to reward, we have previously evaluated the three-main competing explanatory categories: “liking,” “learning,” and “wanting” 3. That is, dopamine may mediate (a) liking: the hedonic impact of reward, (b) learning: learned predictions about rewarding effects, or (c) wanting: the pursuit of rewards by attributing incentive salience to reward-related stimuli 44. We have evaluated these hypotheses, especially as they relate to the RDS, and we find that the incentive salience or “wanting” hypothesis of dopaminergic functioning is supported by a majority of the scientific evidence. Various neuroimaging studies have shown that anticipated behaviors such as sex and gaming, delicious foods and drugs of abuse all affect brain regions associated with reward networks, and may not be unidirectional. Drugs of abuse enhance dopamine signaling which sensitizes mesolimbic brain mechanisms that apparently evolved explicitly to attribute incentive salience to various rewards 45. Addictive substances are voluntarily self-administered, and they enhance (directly or indirectly) dopaminergic synaptic function in the NAc. This activation of the brain reward networks (producing the ecstatic “high” that users seek). Although these circuits were initially thought to encode a set point of hedonic tone, it is now being considered to be far more complicated in function, also encoding attention, reward expectancy, disconfirmation of reward expectancy, and incentive motivation 46. The argument about addiction as a disease may be confused with a predisposition to substance and nonsubstance rewards relative to the extreme effect of drugs of abuse on brain neurochemistry. The former sets up an individual to be at high risk through both genetic polymorphisms in reward genes as well as harmful epigenetic insult. Some Psychologists, even with all the data, still infer that addiction is not a disease 47. Elevated stress levels, together with polymorphisms (genetic variations) of various dopaminergic genes and the genes related to other neurotransmitters (and their genetic variants), and may have an additive effect on vulnerability to various addictions 48. In this regard, Vanyukov, et al. 48 suggested based on review that whereas the gateway hypothesis does not specify mechanistic connections between “stages,” and does not extend to the risks for addictions the concept of common liability to addictions may be more parsimonious. The latter theory is grounded in genetic theory and supported by data identifying common sources of variation in the risk for specific addictions (e.g., RDS). This commonality has identifiable neurobiological substrate and plausible evolutionary explanations. Over many years the controversy of dopamine involvement in especially “pleasure” has led to confusion concerning separating motivation from actual pleasure (wanting versus liking) 49. We take the position that animal studies cannot provide real clinical information as described by self-reports in humans. As mentioned earlier and in the abstract, on November 23rd, 2017, evidence for our concerns was discovered 50 In essence, although nonhuman primate brains are similar to our own, the disparity between other primates and those of human cognitive abilities tells us that surface similarity is not the whole story. Sousa et al. 50 small case found various differentially expressed genes, to associate with pleasure related systems. Furthermore, the dopaminergic interneurons located in the human neocortex were absent from the neocortex of nonhuman African apes. Such differences in neuronal transcriptional programs may underlie a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders. In simpler terms, the system controls the production of dopamine, a chemical messenger that plays a significant role in pleasure and rewards. The senior author, Dr. Nenad Sestan from Yale, stated: “Humans have evolved a dopamine system that is different than the one in chimpanzees.” This may explain why the behavior of humans is so unique from that of non-human primates, even though our brains are so surprisingly similar, Sestan said: “It might also shed light on why people are vulnerable to mental disorders such as autism (possibly even addiction).” Remarkably, this research finding emerged from an extensive, multicenter collaboration to compare the brains across several species. These researchers examined 247 specimens of neural tissue from six humans, five chimpanzees, and five macaque monkeys. Moreover, these investigators analyzed which genes were turned on or off in 16 regions of the brain. While the differences among species were subtle, there was a remarkable contrast in the neocortices, specifically in an area of the brain that is much more developed in humans than in chimpanzees. In fact, these researchers found that a gene called tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) for the enzyme, responsible for the production of dopamine, was expressed in the neocortex of humans, but not chimpanzees. As discussed earlier, dopamine is best known for its essential role within the brain’s reward system; the very system that responds to everything from sex, to gambling, to food, and to addictive drugs. However, dopamine also assists in regulating emotional responses, memory, and movement. Notably, abnormal dopamine levels have been linked to disorders including Parkinson’s, schizophrenia and spectrum disorders such as autism and addiction or RDS. Nora Volkow, the director of NIDA, pointed out that one alluring possibility is that the neurotransmitter dopamine plays a substantial role in humans’ ability to pursue various rewards that are perhaps months or even years away in the future. This same idea has been suggested by Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University. Dr. Sapolsky cited evidence that dopamine levels rise dramatically in humans when we anticipate potential rewards that are uncertain and even far off in our futures, such as retirement or even the possible alterlife. This may explain what often motivates people to work for things that have no apparent short-term benefit 51. In similar work, Volkow and Bale 52 proposed a model in which dopamine can favor NOW processes through phasic signaling in reward circuits or LATER processes through tonic signaling in control circuits. Specifically, they suggest that through its modulation of the orbitofrontal cortex, which processes salience attribution, dopamine also enables shilting from NOW to LATER, while its modulation of the insula, which processes interoceptive information, influences the probability of selecting NOW versus LATER actions based on an individual’s physiological state. This hypothesis further supports the concept that disruptions along these circuits contribute to diverse pathologies, including obesity and addiction or RDS. 2 – No intent-foresight distinction – if I foresee a consequence, then it becomes part of my deliberation since its intrinsic to my action 3 – Actor spec – governments lack wills or intentions and inevitably deals with tradeoffs – outweighs because agents have differing obligations. 4 Extinction first – A Forecloses future improvement – we can never improve society because our impact is irreversible B Turns suffering – mass death causes suffering because people can’t get access to resources and basic necessities C Moral obligation – allowing people to die is unethical and should be prevented because it creates ethics towards other people D Objectivity – body count is the most objective way to calculate impacts because comparing suffering is unethical E Moral uncertainty – if we’re unsure about which interpretation of the world is true – we ought to preserve the world to keep debating about it 1AC – Underview 1 Aff gets 1AR theory since the neg can be infinitely abusive and I can’t check back. It’s drop the debater since the 1ar is too short to win both theory and substance. No 2NR RVI, paradigm issues, or theory since they’d dump on it for 6 minutes and my 3-minute 2AR is spread too thin. Competing interps since reasonability is arbitrary and bites judge intervention.
9/18/21
SO - Evergreening v4
Tournament: Valley | Round: Doubles | Opponent: Harrison JP | Judge: Chris Theis, Lukas Krause, Faizaan Dossani Cites are broken - check open source
9/27/21
SO - Practical Biotechnology
Tournament: Valley RR | Round: 3 | Opponent: Sequoia AS | Judge: Aryan Jasani, Charles Karcher 1AC 1AC – Framework The role of the ballot is to determine whether the resolution is a true or false statement – anything else moots 6 minutes of the ac a priori's 1st – even worlds framing requires ethics that begin from a priori principles like reason or pleasure so we control the internal link to functional debates. The ballot says vote aff or neg based on a topic – five dictionaries define to negate as to deny the truth of and affirm as to prove true so it's constitutive and jurisdictional. Any moral system faces the problem of regress – I can keep asking “why should I follow this.” Regress collapses to skep since no one can generate obligations absent grounds for accepting them. Only reason solves since asking “why reason?” asks for a reason for reasons, which concedes its authority. Reason means we must be able to universally will maxims—our judgements are authoritative. Evaluate theory after the 1ar – we both get one speech. The only constraint is noncontradiction. Thus, the standard is consistency with willing universal maxims. Prefer – we set ends based on practical identities like student or debater. A Hijacks other standards – judge is a practical identity, which requires first valuing human identity. B Performativity—freedom is the key to the process of justification of arguments. Willing that we should abide by their ethical theory presupposes that we own ourselves in the first place. Thus, it is logically incoherent to justify an argument without first willing that we can pursue ends free from others.
1AC – Offense The negative and I affirm the resolution resolved: The member nations of the World Trade Organization ought to reduce intellectual property protections for synthetic biotechnology. Resolved is defined as firm in purpose or intent; determined and I’m determined. Affirm means to express agreement and you already know I do. The right of necessity proves that unequal access to medications because IP is non-universalizable – 2 warrants. Silk 5/3 Matthew S.W. Silk (PhD in philosophy from the University of Waterloo. His research specializes in philosophy of science and the nature of values. He has also published on the history of pragmatism and the work of John Dewey). “COVID-19 Vaccines and Drug Patent Laws”. The Prindle Post. May 3, 2021. Accessed 8/24/21. https://www.prindlepost.org/2021/05/covid-19-vaccines-and-drug-patent-laws/Xu Most agree that it is permissible for a starving man to ‘steal’ a loaf of bread in order to save his own life. However, there are two very different explanations that one can give of that permissibility. On the one hand, you might think that while taking the bread is indeed an act of theft, that act of theft can be justified since it is necessary for the man to save his own life. On this view, the starving man violates the property rights of the baker, but such right violations are justified in order to save a life. On the other hand, you might think that the man is justified in taking the bread because, to use Aquinas’s language, it is not even “properly speaking theft.” According to this view, it is not that you are justified in violating someone’s property rights. Rather, the other person does not have a property right over the bread in the first place. If the baker has a surplus and there are others in true need, then the baker does not have a property right against them. Philosophers who take this second view, including Thomas Aquinas, Hugo Grotius, Samuel Puffendorf, and Alejandra Mancilla, believe in a right of necessity, a right to that which is necessary to survive. There are many different arguments that one can give for a right of necessity. One argument, inspired by Puffendorf, is that you cannot justify to everyone a system of property that allows some to starve. What justification could you give to the starving man for why they should consent to, or accept, a system of property in which they die? Being dead, they will not receive any benefits of the system. Another argument, this one inspired by Aquinas, is that we create systems of private property so that everyone can more efficiently acquire those goods necessary for their well-being. Nature originally belongs equally to everyone, and we divide it up into private property because it enables everyone to secure their well-being more easily. However, since private property is created to enable everyone to more easily secure that natural right, private property cannot contradict the natural right of people to that which they need to survive. The Right of Necessity and Intellectual Property If there is a right of necessity, what implication would that have for intellectual property rights over life-saving medication? Life-saving medication, almost by definition, is often necessary for survival. Thus, if the right to necessity justifies stealing bread from those who have extra, so too it would seem to justify stealing a vial of unaffordable medication. Similarly, if I can steal an unaffordable vial of life-saving medication to save a life, then it would be strange to think I cannot violate an international patent to create that life-saving vial. It seems, then, that if we accept the old doctrine that there exists a right of necessity, it would have profound implications for the justice of intellectual property law. Nations, according to such reasoning, possess a natural right to break patents if it is necessary to produce life-saving medication for those who could otherwise not afford them. (The affordability qualification is an important one. Just as it would be theft for me, who can afford to buy food, to steal a loaf of bread. So too it would be unjust to violate international patents for patients who can otherwise afford to buy the medication.) But even with the affordability qualification in place, there is currently a huge problem of access to life-saving medications by the global poor. As such, the right of necessity suggests a standing right to break many international medical patents.
Here’s how logic works 1 Bonini’s Paradox – expanding debate’s parameters to the 1NC and onward makes the round irresolvable due to a lack of understanding so just vote aff Wikipedia Brackets Original. “Bonini's paradox”. Wikipedia. No Date. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonini27s_paradox In modern discourse, the paradox was articulated by John M. Dutton and William H. Starbuck2 "As a model of a complex system becomes more complete, it becomes less understandable. Alternatively, as a model grows more realistic, it also becomes just as difficult to understand as the real-world processes it represents".3 This paradox may be used by researchers to explain why complete models of the human brain and thinking processes have not been created and will undoubtedly remain difficult for years to come. This same paradox was observed earlier from a quote by philosopher-poet Paul Valéry, "Ce qui est simple est toujours faux. Ce qui ne l’est pas est inutilisable".4 ("A simple statement is bound to be untrue. One that is not simple cannot be utilized."5) Also, the same topic has been discussed by Richard Levins in his classic essay "The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology", in stating that complex models have 'too many parameters to measure, leading to analytically insoluble equations that would exceed the capacity of our computers, but the results would have no meaning for us even if they could be solved.6 (See Orzack and Sober, 1993; Odenbaugh, 2006) 2 Liar’s Paradox – the resolution is always true Camus Albert Camus (existentialist). “The Myth of Sisyphus.” Penguin Books. 1975(originally published 1942). Accessed 12/11/19. Pg 22. Copy on hand. Houston Memorial DX The mind’s first step is to distinguish what is true from what is false. However, as soon as thought reflects on itself, what it first discovers is a contradiction. Useless to strive to be convincing in this case. Over the centuries no one has furnished a clearer and more elegant demonstration of the business than Aristotle: “The often ridiculed consequence of these opinions is that they destroy themselves. For by asserting that all is true we assert the truth of the contrary assertion and consequently the falsity of our own thesis (for the contrary assertion does not admit that it can be true). And if one says that all is false, that assertion is itself false. If we declare that solely the assertion opposed to ours is false or else that solely ours is not false, we are nevertheless forced to admit an infinite number of true or false judgments. For the one who expresses a true assertion proclaims simultaneously that it is true, and so on ad infinitum.” 3 Overthinking paradox- the 1NC is a form of unnecessary overthinking that prevents decisions to be made so don’t evaluate it Wikipedia Brackets Original. “Analysis Paralysis”. Wikipedia. No Date. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonini27s_paradox Analysis paralysis (or paralysis by analysis) describes an individual or group process when overanalyzing or overthinking a situation can cause forward motion or decision-making to become frozen "paralyzed", meaning that no solution or course of action is decided upon. A situation may be deemed too complicated and a decision is never made, due to the fear that a potentially larger problem may arise. A person may desire a perfect solution, but may fear making a decision that could result in error, while on the way to a better solution. Equally, a person may hold that a superior solution is a short step away, and stall in its endless pursuit, with no concept of diminishing returns. On the opposite end of the time spectrum is the phrase extinct by instinct, which is making a fatal decision based on hasty judgment or a gut reaction. 4 The rules of logic claim that the only time a statement is invalid is if the antecedent is true, but the consequent is false. SEP Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “An Introduction to Philosophy.” Stanford University. https://web.stanford.edu/~bobonich/dictionary/dictionary.html TG Massa Conditional statement: an “if p, then q” compound statement (ex. If I throw this ball into the air, it will come down); p is called the antecedent, and q is the consequent. A conditional asserts that if its antecedent is true, its consequent is also true; any conditional with a true antecedent and a false consequent must be false. For any other combination of true and false antecedents and consequents, the conditional statement is true. If the aff is winning, they get the ballot is a tacit ballot conditional which means denying the premise proves the conclusion that I should get the ballot. 5 Principle of explosion is true which proves the resolution true. Wikiwand. “Principle of Explosion.” Wikiwand, 0AD, www.wikiwand.com/en/Principle_of_explosion. Massa
The principle of explosion (Latin: ex falso (sequitur) quodlibet (EFQ), "from falsehood, anything (follows)", or ex contradictione (sequitur) quodlibet (ECQ), "from contradiction, anything (follows)"), or the principle of Pseudo-Scotus, is the law of classical logic, intuitionistic logic and similar logical systems, according to which any statement can be proven from a contradiction.1 That is, once a contradiction has been asserted, any proposition (including their negations) can be inferred from it. This is known as deductive explosion.23 The proof of this principle was first given by 12th century French philosopher William of Soissons.4 As a demonstration of the principle, consider two contradictory statements – "All lemons are yellow" and "Not all lemons are yellow", and suppose that both are true. If that is the case, anything can be proven, e.g., the assertion that "unicorns exist", by using the following argument:
We know that "All lemons are yellow", as it has been assumed to be true. 2. Therefore, the two-part statement "All lemons are yellow OR unicorns exist” must also be true, since the first part is true. 3. However, since we know that "Not all lemons are yellow" (as this has been assumed), the first part is false, and hence the second part must be true, i.e., unicorns exist.
6 Dogmatism Paradox – disregard the 1NC Sorensen Sorensen, Roy, Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis. "Epistemic Paradoxes.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 21 June 2006. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemic-paradoxes/. PeteZ Saul Kripke’s ruminations on the surprise test paradox led him to a paradox about dogmatism. He lectured on both paradoxes at Cambridge University to the Moral Sciences Club in 1972. (A descendent of this lecture now appears as Kripke 2011). Gilbert Harman transmitted Kripke’s new paradox as follows:If I know that h is true, I know that any evidence against h is evidence against something that is true; I know that such evidence is misleading. But I should disregard evidence that I know is misleading. So, once I know that h is true, I am in a position to disregard any future evidence that seems to tell against h. (1973, 148) 7 Vote aff because it’s simple – evaluating responses to this is complicated so don’t Baker 04’ Baker, Alan, 10-29-2004, "Simplicity (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)," https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simplicity/ With respect to question (ii), there is an important distinction to be made between two sorts of simplicity principle. Occam's Razor may be formulated as an epistemic principle: if theory T is simpler than theory T*, then it is rational (other things being equal) to believe T rather than T*. Or it may be formulated as a methodological principle: if T is simpler than T* then it is rational to adopt T as one's working theory for scientific purposes. These two conceptions of Occam's Razor require different sorts of justification in answer to question (iii). In analyzing simplicity, it can be difficult to keep its two facets—elegance and parsimony—apart. Principles such as Occam's Razor are frequently stated in a way which is ambiguous between the two notions, for example, “Don't multiply postulations beyond necessity.” Here it is unclear whether ‘postulation’ refers to the entities being postulated, or the hypotheses which are doing the postulating, or both. The first reading corresponds to parsimony, the second to elegance. Examples of both sorts of simplicity principle can be found in the quotations given earlier in this section. 8 A trivial entity exists Kabay 08 Paul Douglas Kabay, (PhD thesis, School of Philosophy, Anthropology, and Social Inquiry) "A Defense Of Trivialism" The University Of Melbourne, 2008, https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/35203, DOA:10-25-2017 Let us define a trivial entity as an entity that instantiates every predicate, i.e. an entity of which everything is true. One of the things true of a trivial entity is that it exists in a reality in which trivialism is true. Hence, if a trivial entity exists, then trivialism is true. But is it true that there exists a trivial entity? Here is an argument for thinking that it is true: 1) Every being (or entity or object) is either trivial or nontrivial 2) It is not the case that every being is nontrivial 3) Hence, there exists a trivial being 9 Affirm because either the neg is true meaning its bad for us to clash w/ it because it turns us into Fake News people OR it’s not meaning it’s a lie that you can’t vote on for ethics 10 Decision Making Paradox- in order to judge we need a decision-making procedure to determine it is a good decision. But to chose a decision-making procedure requires another meta level decision making procedure leading to infinite regress so just vote aff to break the paradox. 11 GCB- I am the greatest conceivable being so vote for me because I am infinitely good. To prove this, I will make them contest the aff and say they are not under my control. 12 There are infinite worlds, the aff is logical in one which is sufficient. Vaidman 2 Vaidman, Lev, 3-24-2002, "Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)," No Publication, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-manyworlds/ -MWI: Multiple Worlds Interpretation The reason for adopting the MWI is that it avoids the collapse of the quantum wave. (Other non-collapse theories are not better than MWI for various reasons, e.g., nonlocality of Bohmian mechanics; and the disadvantage of all of them is that they have some additional structure.) The collapse postulate is a physical law that differs from all known physics in two aspects: it is genuinely random and it involves some kind of action at a distance. According to the collapse postulate the outcome of a quantum experiment is not determined by the initial conditions of the Universe prior to the experiment: only the probabilities are governed by the initial state. Moreover, Bell 1964 has shown that there cannot be a compatible local-variables theory that will make deterministic predictions. There is no experimental evidence in favor of collapse and against the MWI. 13 Negative arguments presuppose the aff being true since they begin with a descriptive premise about the affirmative such as the aff does x, and then justify why x is bad. However, if the aff does not have truth value, that entails the descriptive premise would also not have truth value, which is contradictory. 14 Negating affirms because it assumes that the 1ac is a statement that is worthy of contestation which means are arguments are legitimate. 15 Empirics- Quantum superposition proves different ethics can exist simultaneously. MIT ’19 (Emerging Technology from the arXiv archive page; Covers latest ideas from blog post about arXiv; 03/12/2019; “Emerging Technology from the arXiv archive page”; https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/03/12/136684/a-quantum-experiment-suggests-theres-no-such-thing-as-objective-reality/; MIT Technology Review; accessed: 11/19/2020; MohulA) Back in 1961, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Eugene Wigner outlined a thought experiment that demonstrated one of the lesser-known paradoxes of quantum mechanics. The experiment shows how the strange nature of the universe allows two observers—say, Wigner and Wigner’s friend—to experience different realities. Since then, physicists have used the “Wigner’s Friend” thought experiment to explore the nature of measurement and to argue over whether objective facts can exist. That’s important because scientists carry out experiments to establish objective facts. But if they experience different realities, the argument goes, how can they agree on what these facts might be? That’s provided some entertaining fodder for after-dinner conversation, but Wigner’s thought experiment has never been more than that—just a thought experiment. Last year, however, physicists noticed that recent advances in quantum technologies have made it possible to reproduce the Wigner’s Friend test in a real experiment. In other words, it ought to be possible to create different realities and compare them in the lab to find out whether they can be reconciled. And today, Massimiliano Proietti at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and a few colleagues say they have performed this experiment for the first time: they have created different realities and compared them. Their conclusion is that Wigner was correct—these realities can be made irreconcilable so that it is impossible to agree on objective facts about an experiment. Wigner’s original thought experiment is straightforward in principle. It begins with a single polarized photon that, when measured, can have either a horizontal polarization or a vertical polarization. But before the measurement, according to the laws of quantum mechanics, the photon exists in both polarization states at the same time—a so-called superposition. Wigner imagined a friend in a different lab measuring the state of this photon and storing the result, while Wigner observed from afar. Wigner has no information about his friend’s measurement and so is forced to assume that the photon and the measurement of it are in a superposition of all possible outcomes of the experiment. Wigner can even perform an experiment to determine whether this superposition exists or not. This is a kind of interference experiment showing that the photon and the measurement are indeed in a superposition. From Wigner’s point of view, this is a “fact”—the superposition exists. And this fact suggests that a measurement cannot have taken place. But this is in stark contrast to the point of view of the friend, who has indeed measured the photon’s polarization and recorded it. The friend can even call Wigner and say the measurement has been done (provided the outcome is not revealed). So the two realities are at odds with each other. “This calls into question the objective status of the facts established by the two observers,” say Proietti and co. That’s the theory, but last year Caslav Brukner, at the University of Vienna in Austria, came up with a way to re-create the Wigner’s Friend experiment in the lab by means of techniques involving the entanglement of many particles at the same time. The breakthrough that Proietti and co have made is to carry this out. “In a state-of-the-art 6-photon experiment, we realize this extended Wigner’s friend scenario,” they say. They use these six entangled photons to create two alternate realities—one representing Wigner and one representing Wigner’s friend. Wigner’s friend measures the polarization of a photon and stores the result. Wigner then performs an interference measurement to determine if the measurement and the photon are in a superposition. The experiment produces an unambiguous result. It turns out that both realities can coexist even though they produce irreconcilable outcomes, just as Wigner predicted. That raises some fascinating questions that are forcing physicists to reconsider the nature of reality. The idea that observers can ultimately reconcile their measurements of some kind of fundamental reality is based on several assumptions. The first is that universal facts actually exist and that observers can agree on them. But there are other assumptions too. One is that observers have the freedom to make whatever observations they want. And another is that the choices one observer makes do not influence the choices other observers make—an assumption that physicists call locality. If there is an objective reality that everyone can agree on, then these assumptions all hold. But Proietti and co’s result suggests that objective reality does not exist. In other words, the experiment suggests that one or more of the assumptions—the idea that there is a reality we can agree on, the idea that we have freedom of choice, or the idea of locality—must be wrong. Of course, there is another way out for those hanging on to the conventional view of reality. This is that there is some other loophole that the experimenters have overlooked. Indeed, physicists have tried to close loopholes in similar experiments for years, although they concede that it may never be possible to close them all. Nevertheless, the work has important implications for the work of scientists. “The scientific method relies on facts, established through repeated measurements and agreed upon universally, independently of who observed them,” say Proietti and co. And yet in the same paper, they undermine this idea, perhaps fatally. The next step is to go further: to construct experiments creating increasingly bizarre alternate realities that cannot be reconciled. Where this will take us is anybody’s guess. But Wigner, and his friend, would surely not be surprised.
1AC – Underview Treat each theoretical argument as drop the debater – they have the ability to meet them but chose not to and its key to normset 1 Aff theory is legit – anything else means infinite abuse – drop the debater, competing interps, no rvis and the highest layer of the round – 1AR is too short to make up for the time trade-off – no RVIs or 2NR theory and paradigm issues– 6 min 2NR means they can brute force me every time. 2 No 2NR “I meet” arguments A Skews theory ground because they’re each a NIB for me to winning theory which kills my ability to check abuse. B Skews time, they can make three minutes of blippy I meets that I can’t cover because the 2AR is too short. 3 No new 2n arguments, weighing, and paradigm issues. a) overloads the 2AR with a massive clarification burden b) it becomes impossible to check NC abuse if you can dump on reasons the shell doesn't matter in the 2NR – c) neg has access to bidirectional shells which makes neg shells impossible to meet and impact turns your reading of the shells since I’ll always lose on an interpretation 4 Check all neg interps and K/DA links in CX – 1) avoids infinite regress due to links and interps 2) otherwise reevlaute under the neg’s K 3) norms – you’d do the same with TFW 5 The neg may not read nibs or OCIs (offensive counterinterps) a) you can up-layer for 7 minutes that I have to answer before I even have access to offense b) inf neg abuse since you would just read 7 mins of auto-negate arguments c) OCIs are just shorter theory args they can blow up. This means they must only line by line aff arguments, since otherwise they function as nibs before I access warrants. 6 No neg analytics - I don’t have time to cover 100 blippy arguments in the NC since you can read 7 min of analytics and extend any of them to win. 7 No neg arguments – skews me to answer those. Answering this triggers a contradiction since it relies on an analytic argument and those affirm since I spoke first and they were your fault for creating. 8 The neg may not read meta-theory – I only have time to check abuse 1 time but you can do it in the NC and 2N, up-layering my attempt means we never get to the best norm. This means reject any reason why an aff spike is bad since they claim aff theory is unfair. 9 Reject out of round violations since a) you can pull up someone saying the f word and reading the k which polarizes argumentation and means someone always loses b) not jurisdictional since the judge can only vote for the better debate, the violation doesn't happen in round. 10 The neg may not read overview answers to aff arguments – they can up-layer all aff arguments for 7 minutes and the 1ar has to shift through it all. I have a computer virus that prevents changing font size and everything’s in an overview. No 1NC prep time – they have infinite prep to craft a strategic 1nc 11 Aff theory first – it’s a much larger strategic loss because 1min is ¼ of the 1AR vs 1/7 of the 1NC which means there’s more abuse if I’m devoting a larger fraction of time. 12 Neg shells may not be bidirectional because they should be aff specific. If they are, drop them for exacerbating time skew which is lexically prior. They must spec their favorite thing about yesh – anything else makes yesh sad which ends the world. 13 Refer to me in theory violation as venkatabalasubramaniam manish anything else justifies misnaming and destroys predictability since I don’t know what they refer to 14 Allow new 2ar responses to nc arguments but not new 2n responses a) reciprocity - the NC has 7 minutes of rebuttal time while I only have 4 minutes, the 2ar makes it 7-7. b) Time skew – the 2n can overload the aff with args and makes the 2a impossible – allows for the neg to auto-win every round 15 Theory or K indicts on spikes is drop the arg a my theory paradigms are simply presented models for debate b its key to reciprocity since one line shouldn’t warrant the death penalty 16 All neg interps are counter interps since the aff takes an implicit stance on every issue which means you need an rvi to become offensive. You should accept all aff interps and assume I meet neg theory since the aff speaks in the dark and I have to take a stance on something, you can at least react and adapt. 17 I don’t have to take a stance on anything in cross – a) judges don’t flow it b) let’s the 2NR go all in on something I wasn’t prepared for
9/25/21
SO - Pragmatic Evergreening
Tournament: Jack Howe | Round: 6 | Opponent: Marlborough VA | Judge: Lena Ho Cites are broken - check open source
9/25/21
SO - Pragmatic Evergreening v2
Tournament: Valley RR | Round: 2 | Opponent: Lake Highland AV | Judge: Nethmin Liyanage, Perry Beckett Cites are broken - check open source
9/25/21
SO - Pragmatic Evergreening v3
Tournament: Valley | Round: 2 | Opponent: American Heritage Broward NR | Judge: Tajaih Robinson Cites are broken - check open source
9/25/21
SO - Pragmatic Evergreening v4
Tournament: Valley | Round: 3 | Opponent: Saratoga AG | Judge: Phoenix Pittman Cites are broken - check open source.
9/25/21
SO - Pragmatic Evergreening v5
Tournament: Valley | Round: Octas | Opponent: Mission San Jose SS | Judge: Patrick Fox, Aryan Jasani, Jack Quisenberry Cites are broken - check open source
9/27/21
SO - Pragmatic Evergreening v6
Tournament: Voices | Round: 1 | Opponent: Marlborough LK | Judge: Carlos Estacio Cites are broken - check open source