1ac - mega constellations stock 1nc - mining xi debris cp 1ar - all 2nr - debris cp xi case 2ar - case cp xi
Harvard
5
Opponent: Newport JQ | Judge: greg stevens
1ac- megaconstellations stock 1nc- weather xi da debris cp 1ar- case das cp 2nr- all 2ar- all
Harvard
7
Opponent: Lexington am | Judge: Jada Bourne
1ac- lunar heritage being late t 1nc- nebel t compliance cp agreement cp mining da case 1ar- late t meta t () cp da 2nr- meta nebel late case 2ar- meta nebel late
Harvard
Triples
Opponent: Academy of classicalJM | Judge: vicari, hietala, randolph
1ac- lay 1nc- mining weather debris cp 1ar- all 1nr- mining cp case 2ar- all
Harvard
Doubles
Opponent: Claudia johnson ap | Judge: zinman, fernandez, prasad
1ac- star wars 1nc- t-fw t-spec 1ar- case tees 2nr- t-fw case 2ar- t-fw case
Puget Sound
2
Opponent: Interlake DB | Judge: David McGinnis
ac contractual obligations 2adv nc utilextinction 1st mining priv hypersonics 1ar all 2nr all 2ar adv
Puget Sound
4
Opponent: University AS | Judge: Kristen east
1ac lay 1nc priv good mining case 1ar all 2nr mining caseturns 2ar all
Puget Sound
5
Opponent: westview ar | Judge: greg stevens
1ac law lay 1nc util mining hypersonics 1ar all 1nc util mining 2ar all
UPenn
2
Opponent: Princeton cb | Judge: jonah gentlemen
1AC- Whole res 1NC- g Da Xi DA reg CP case 1AR- Case da 2NR- All 2AR- All
UPenn
3
Opponent: Ridge ms | Judge: sarah nicoll
1ac- debris collab util 1nc- mining xi reg cp 1ar- case da cp 2nr- xi cp case 2ar- all
UPenn
5
Opponent: Hamilton al | Judge: Jalyn Wu
1AC- techno-orientalism 1NC- mining da set-col k case rest- all
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Tournament: any | Round: Finals | Opponent: who | Judge: all she/her
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4/7/22
JF- CP- Agreement
Tournament: Harvard | Round: 1 | Opponent: san mateo yr | Judge: megha prasad CP Text: Spacefaring nations should create a multilateral agreement to establish a Lunar-Earth observatory. Hamill 16, Patrick. "Atmospheric observations from the moon: A lunar earth-observatory." 2016 Ieee International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (Igarss). IEEE, 2016. (Department of Physics and Astronomy at San Jose State University)Elmer recut amrita The Lunar Earth-Observatory is essentially a telescope placed somewhere on the surface of the Moon and focused on the Earth. The observatory would consist of a telescope and a number of standard instruments such as a diffraction grating with an associated CCD array, a CCD camera, a radiometer, and the associated telemetry. The telescope diameter should be between 0.5 and 0.75 meters, this being a compromise between the desire for a small instrument and the desire of high resolution. For the sake of comparison, a telescope with a diameter of only 0.25 meters has a theoretical resolution of about 1km X 1km on the Earth’s surface. The Ozone Measurement Instrument 3 (OMI on AURA) has a nadir pixel of 13km X 24km and it scans the entire Earth once per day. If the Lunar telescope had a resolution of 100km X 100km, and the CCD array were integrated over 1 sec, the entire disk of Earth, could be scanned in about 3.5 hours. The telescope would scan the disk of the Earth and the light from different points on the Earth would be sent through a diffraction grating onto the CCD array. This allows one to determine the column amounts of various atmospheric gases, such as ozone, CO2, SO2, NO2, as well as aerosols. When the opportunity arises, the telescope could be used to track the image of a bright star as it is occulted by Earth 4. Such scans are best carried out as the star descends onto the dark limb of Earth to avoid “earthshine” and to obtain maximum contrast. From the vantage point of a satellite in a 500 km orbit, a star descends through the atmosphere at a speed of about 8 km/sec. From the vantage point of the Moon, a star descends at about 1 km/sec, that is, eight times slower. Thus since stellar occultation is possible from artificial satellites (the GOMOS instrument on ENVISAT 5, for example), it will be even easier from the surface of the Moon. Note that a star is always a point source, so scanning is not required, as in most solar occultation measurements. (One cannot carry out solar occultation from the Moon because it only occurs during “Earth eclipses.”) Infrared measurements usually require cooling instruments with cryogens, but on the lunar surface extremely low temperatures are obtainable by simply shading the instrument during the day. Furthermore, the side of the Moon facing Earth is dark for half of the month, so cycling between extreme cold and extreme heat allows one to consider the possibility of some sort of heat engine operating in (perhaps) a Stirling cycle to power various components. The surface of the Moon is a highly stable platform, so the observatory should be built to operate for a very long time (decades rather than years). This is reasonable when one considers that many satellite observing systems have lasted much longer than their expected lifetimes. (For example, the SAM II system lasted 15 years before it was turned off due to orbit degradation. The instrument was still operational.) Therefore, the instrumentation of the observatory should be standard and well developed rather than innovative. Although the surface of the Moon is certainly a difficult environment, it is perhaps more benign that the environment of an artificial satellite. The Moon is a stable platform not requiring corrections for drift nor subject to the vibrations of satellites. The temperature extremes on the Moon have a periodicity of a month rather than several hours.
Tournament: Puget Sound | Round: 2 | Opponent: Interlake DB | Judge: David McGinnis cites won't work, check os
4/7/22
JF- DA- Mining
Tournament: Puget Sound | Round: 2 | Opponent: Interlake DB | Judge: David McGinnis i can't get cites to work- check os
4/7/22
JF- DA- Weather
Tournament: Harvard | Round: 5 | Opponent: Newport JQ | Judge: greg stevens Starlink Mega-Constellations enables advanced Weather Forecasting. Erwin 20 Sandra Erwin 10-14-2020 "SpaceX to explore ways to provide weather data to U.S. military" https://spacenews.com/spacex-to-explore-ways-to-provide-weather-data-to-u-s-military/ (Sandra Erwin writes about military space programs, policy, technology and the industry that supports this sector. She has covered the military, the Pentagon, Congress and the defense industry for nearly two decades as editor of NDIA’s National Defense Magazine and Pentagon correspondent for Real Clear Defense.)Elmer The $2 million contract is to “assess the feasibility and long term viability of a ‘weather data as a service business model.” WASHINGTON — SpaceX is looking at ways it could provide weather data to the U.S. military. The company is working under a $2 million six-month study contract from the U.S. Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center. Charlotte Gerhart, chief of the Space and Missile Systems Center Production Corps Low Earth Orbit Division, said in a statement to SpaceNews that SpaceX received the contract in July from SMC’s Space Enterprise Consortium. The contract is to “assess the feasibility and long term viability of a ‘weather data as a service business model,’” said Gerhart. SpaceX did not respond to questions from SpaceNews on how the company would leverage the Starlink internet constellation to provide weather data. The contract awarded to SpaceX is part of a Space Force program called Electro Optical/Infrared Weather System (EO/IR EWS). The consortium in June awarded $309 million in contracts to Raytheon Technologies, General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, and Atmospheric and Space Technology Research Associates to develop weather satellite prototypes and payloads. SpaceX won the portion of the EO/IR EWS program that is looking at how weather data could be purchased as a service from a commercial company. “The EWS program goal remains to provide a more resilient and higher refresh capability, enhancing global terrestrial weather capability,” said Gerhart. The SpEC consortium was created in 2017 to attract commercial space businesses to work with the military. The contracts awarded by SpEC are known as “other transaction authority” deals that are used for research projects and prototyping. The consortium on Oct. 8 informed its members that SpaceX had won the weather study contract. “The Air Force is pursuing a space-based environmental monitoring EO/IR system in a multi phased approach,” the SpEC said in an email to members. The EO/IR EWS program is looking at a future proliferated low-Earth orbit constellation to focus on cloud characterization and theater weather imagery that could be supplemented by commercial services. SpaceX’s contract is for the “weather data as a service system architecture exploration phase,” said SpEC. Industry sources speculated that SpaceX could provide weather data collected by sensors hosted on its own Starlink satellites, or it could team with a weather data services company and use Starlink to distribute the data to customers. One executive noted that both the U.S. military and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have growing demands for data that can be provided at relatively low cost from companies that operate proliferated LEO systems. Advanced Weather Forecasting solves Climate Change. Taylor-Smith 21 Kerry Taylor-Smith 3-25-2021 "What Role can Advanced Weather Forecasting have in Providing Climate Crisis Solutions?" https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1193 (Pursuing a passion for science, Kerry completed a degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Bath; where she studied a range of topics, including chemistry, biology, and environmental sciences. Her passion for writing grew as she worked on the university newspaper as a contributor, feature editor, and editor.)Elmer Humankind is in the midst of a climate crisis, battling to prevent global temperatures from rising while also keeping up with the energy demands of a growing population. Weather-related disasters cost billions of dollars each year, but it is not just the financial cost that should be considered – there is the loss of life, homes, wildlife, and infrastructure. There are several ways weather monitoring can help solve the climate crisis, from lowing transportation emissions to pinpointing extreme weather events such as wildfires and extraordinary variations in temperature. Tackling Emissions Global travel and shipping contribute significantly to global warming. Aircraft, ships, cars – nearly all modes of transportation emit harmful greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, but also nitrous and sulfur oxides as well as particulates. These greenhouse gases trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, causing an overall warming effect and a negative impact on our climate. Aviation accounts for 2.4 of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, with international flights in 2019 producing 915 million tons of the gas. Weather forecasting technology providing accurate, real-time data on meteorological conditions can help airlines adjust routes to avoid headwinds or take advantage of favorable winds, both of which can help reduce fuel consumption and emissions. Shipping is one of the most fuel-efficient means of transport, but also one of the most polluting, contributing 3 of all greenhouse gas emissions - a figure expected to almost double by 2050. “Burning bunker fuel accounts for almost 90 of global sulfur emissions and the 15 largest ships in the world produce more sulfur each year than all cars put together,” states Renny Vandewege, Vice President of Weather Operations at DTN, a company providing decision support tools and forecast insights across many sectors. Shipping discharges a large and growing source of noxious gas but the sector has the potential to drastically cut emissions through fuel-saving techniques. Among the most promising is weather routing. “Using weather information and analytics can help mitigate risks today caused by climate change and can also reduce emissions further reducing future impacts”, explains Vandewege, a former director of the Broadcast Meteorology Program at Mississippi State University. Weather analytics can optimize routes and “reduce emissions up to 4 and reduce fuel consumption up to 10, depending on the type of vessel, the season, and the conditions,” states Vandewege. “If there’s bad weather ahead, sophisticated algorithms that use information about the ship and its capabilities and the weather effects on that specific ship can make numerous calculations and provide optimal route alternatives for the mariner.” Extreme Weather Events Advanced weather forecasting alerts us to the probability of extreme meteorological events occurring. While these events are largely unpredictable, accurate meteorological data can identify hotspots where they are likely to occur. The better the data, the better prepared the general public and authorities can be. Wildfires have ravaged the US state of California and huge swathes of land in Australia. Climate change is responsible for the increasing intensity and occurrence of blazes, not just here, but worldwide. It has created the optimal conditions for wildfires to start, including warmer weather, less precipitation, dryer vegetation, and stronger winds. Advanced weather forecasting, such as DTN’s live Geographic Information System (GIS) can monitor atmospheric conditions to evaluate wildfire risk and predict areas where conditions are just right for a wildfire to ignite. “Fire weather forecasting uses atmospheric conditions to evaluate wildfire risk,” explains Vendewege. “Meteorologists can also use their tools and experience to identify the specific location of wildfires. Sophisticated imaging systems can show fire locations in real time, allowing for a live look at the conditions using a GIS layer service containing the latest fire hotspot data and also showing the likelihood of a fire.” Machine learning, a means of artificial intelligence, can also be used in conjunction with current forecasting methods to predicts heat waves or cold snaps. These extreme weather events are the result of unusual atmospheric patterns that researchers from Rice University realized could be taught to a pattern recognition program. The technology, designed to work with current analog forecasting systems rather than replace them, could predict events with 80 accuracy, five days before the event occurred. Although only proof-of-concept, the technology could provide an early warning about when and where an extreme weather event might occur. Conclusion Humans are heavily reliant on the weather; it has a role in every aspect of our lives, from feeding us to providing power for our ever-growing needs. Climate change has warmed the planet and altered our weather, making extreme weather events such as droughts and floods more likely. High-tech weather forecasting technology can help in the fight against climate change by monitoring meteorological conditions to aid decision making, whether that be in the aviation or shipping industry, or by helping us understand and predict natural hazards and disasters, allowing us to reduce the risk of adverse events – and the costs, environmental, economic or otherwise. 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.
Tournament: UPenn | Round: 5 | Opponent: Hamilton al | Judge: Jalyn Wu Oxford Languages:
Appropriation (noun)- The act of taking something for one's own use, typically for without the owner's permission
4/22/22
JF- G- Extinction 1st
Tournament: UPenn | Round: 2 | Opponent: Princeton cb | Judge: jonah gentlemen My value is morality. LD is a debate about morals- all arguments collapse to what is moral or not. The standard is maximizing expected wellbeing First, pleasure and pain are intrinsically valuable. People consistently regard pleasure and pain as good reasons for action, despite the fact that pleasure doesn’t seem to be instrumentally valuable for anything. Moen 16 Ole Martin Moen, Research Fellow in Philosophy at University of Oslo “An Argument for Hedonism” Journal of Value Inquiry (Springer), 50 (2) 2016: 267–281 SJDI Let us start by observing, empirically, that a widely shared judgment about intrinsic value and disvalue is that pleasure is intrinsically valuable and pain is intrinsically disvaluable. On virtually any proposed list of intrinsic values and disvalues (we will look at some of them below), pleasure is included among the intrinsic values and pain among the intrinsic disvalues. This inclusion makes intuitive sense, moreover, for there is something undeniably good about the way pleasure feels and something undeniably bad about the way pain feels, and neither the goodness of pleasure nor the badness of pain seems to be exhausted by the further effects that these experiences might have. “Pleasure” and “pain” are here understood inclusively, as encompassing anything hedonically positive and anything hedonically negative.2 The special value statuses of pleasure and pain are manifested in how we treat these experiences in our everyday reasoning about values. If you tell me that you are heading for the convenience store, I might ask: “What for?” This is a reasonable question, for when you go to the convenience store you usually do so, not merely for the sake of going to the convenience store, but for the sake of achieving something further that you deem to be valuable. You might answer, for example: “To buy soda.” This answer makes sense, for soda is a nice thing and you can get it at the convenience store. I might further inquire, however: “What is buying the soda good for?” This further question can also be a reasonable one, for it need not be obvious why you want the soda. You might answer: “Well, I want it for the pleasure of drinking it.” If I then proceed by asking “But what is the pleasure of drinking the soda good for?” the discussion is likely to reach an awkward end. The reason is that the pleasure is not good for anything further; it is simply that for which going to the convenience store and buying the soda is good.3 As Aristotle observes: “We never ask a man what his end is in being pleased, because we assume that pleasure is choice worthy in itself.”4 Presumably, a similar story can be told in the case of pains, for if someone says “This is painful!” we never respond by asking: “And why is that a problem?” We take for granted that if something is painful, we have a sufficient explanation of why it is bad. If we are onto something in our everyday reasoning about values, it seems that pleasure and pain are both places where we reach the end of the line in matters of value. Moreover, only pleasure and pain are intrinsically valuable. All other values can be explained with reference to pleasure; Occam’s razor requires us to treat these as instrumentally valuable. Moen 16 Ole Martin Moen, Research Fellow in Philosophy at University of Oslo “An Argument for Hedonism” Journal of Value Inquiry (Springer), 50 (2) 2016: 267–281 SJDI I think several things should be said in response to Moore’s challenge to hedonists. First, I do not think the burden of proof lies on hedonists to explain why the additional values are not intrinsic values. If someone claims that X is intrinsically valuable, this is a substantive, positive claim, and it lies on him or her to explain why we should believe that X is in fact intrinsically valuable. Possibly, this could be done through thought experiments analogous to those employed in the previous section. Second, there is something peculiar about the list of additional intrinsic values that counts in hedonism’s favor: the listed values have a strong tendency to be well explained as things that help promote pleasure and avert pain. To go through Frankena’s list, life and consciousness are necessary presuppositions for pleasure; activity, health, and strength bring about pleasure; and happiness, beatitude, and contentment are regarded by Frankena himself as “pleasures and satisfactions.” The same is arguably true of beauty, harmony, and “proportion in objects contemplated,” and also of affection, friendship, harmony, and proportion in life, experiences of achievement, adventure and novelty, self-expression, good reputation, honor and esteem. Other things on Frankena’s list, such as understanding, wisdom, freedom, peace, and security, although they are perhaps not themselves pleasurable, are important means to achieve a happy life, and as such, they are things that hedonists would value highly. Morally good dispositions and virtues, cooperation, and just distribution of goods and evils, moreover, are things that, on a collective level, contribute a happy society, and thus the traits that would be promoted and cultivated if this were something sought after. To a very large extent, the intrinsic values suggested by pluralists tend to be hedonic instrumental values. Indeed, pluralists’ suggested intrinsic values all point toward pleasure, for while the other values are reasonably explainable as a means toward pleasure, pleasure itself is not reasonably explainable as a means toward the other values. Some have noticed this. Moore himself, for example, writes that though his pluralistic theory of intrinsic value is opposed to hedonism, its application would, in practice, look very much like hedonism’s: “Hedonists,” he writes “do, in general, recommend a course of conduct which is very similar to that which I should recommend.”24 Ross writes that “it is quite certain that by promoting virtue and knowledge we shall inevitably produce much more pleasant consciousness. These are, by general agreement, among the surest sources of happiness for their possessors.”25 Roger Crisp observes that “those goods cited by non-hedonists are goods we often, indeed usually, enjoy.”26 What Moore and Ross do not seem to notice is that their observations give rise to two reasons to reject pluralism and endorse hedonism. The first reason is that if the suggested non-hedonic intrinsic values are potentially explainable by appeal to just pleasure and pain (which, following my argument in the previous chapter, we should accept as intrinsically valuable and disvaluable), then—by appeal to Occam’s razor—we have at least a pro tanto reason to resist the introduction of any further intrinsic values and disvalues. It is ontologically more costly to posit a plurality of intrinsic values and disvalues, so in case all values admit of explanation by reference to a single intrinsic value and a single intrinsic disvalue, we have reason to reject more complicated accounts. The fact that suggested non-hedonic intrinsic values tend to be hedonistic instrumental values does not, however, count in favor of hedonism solely in virtue of being most elegantly explained by hedonism; it also does so in virtue of creating an explanatory challenge for pluralists. The challenge can be phrased as the following question: If the non-hedonic values suggested by pluralists are truly intrinsic values in their own right, then why do they tend to point toward pleasure and away from pain?27 Moral uncertainty means preventing extinction should be our highest priority. Bostrom 12 Nick Bostrom. Faculty of Philosophy and Oxford Martin School University of Oxford. “Existential Risk Prevention as Global Priority.” Global Policy (2012) These reflections on moral uncertainty suggest an alternative, complementary way of looking at existential risk; they also suggest a new way of thinking about the ideal of sustainability. Let me elaborate.¶ Our present understanding of axiology might well be confused. We may not now know — at least not in concrete detail — what outcomes would count as a big win for humanity; we might not even yet be able to imagine the best ends of our journey. If we are indeed profoundly uncertain about our ultimate aims, then we should recognize that there is a great option value in preserving — and ideally improving — our ability to recognize value and to steer the future accordingly. Ensuring that there will be a future version of humanity with great powers and a propensity to use them wisely is plausibly the best way available to us to increase the probability that the future will contain a lot of value. To do this, we must prevent any existential catastrophe. Reducing the risk of extinction is always priority number one. Bostrom 12 Faculty of Philosophy and Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford., Existential Risk Prevention as Global Priority. Forthcoming book (Global Policy). MP. http://www.existenti...org/concept.pdf Even if we use the most conservative of these estimates, which entirely ignores the possibility of space colonization and software minds, we find that the expected loss of an existential catastrophe is greater than the value of 10^16 human lives. This implies that the expected value of reducing existential risk by a mere one millionth of one percentage point is at least a hundred times the value of a million human lives. The more technologically comprehensive estimate of 10 54 humanbrain-emulation subjective life-years (or 10 52 lives of ordinary length) makes the same point even more starkly. Even if we give this allegedly lower bound on the cumulative output potential of a technologically mature civilization a mere 1 chance of being correct, we find that the expected value of reducing existential risk by a mere one billionth of one billionth of one percentage point is worth a hundred billion times as much as a billion human lives. One might consequently argue that even the tiniest reduction of existential risk has an expected value greater than that of the definite provision of any ordinary good, such as the direct benefit of saving 1 billion lives. And, further, that the absolute value of the indirect effect of saving 1 billion lives on the total cumulative amount of existential risk—positive or negative—is almost certainly larger than the positive value of the direct benefit of such an action.
4/22/22
JF- K- Set-col
Tournament: UPenn | Round: 5 | Opponent: Hamilton al | Judge: Jalyn Wu cites won't upload, check os
4/22/22
JF- S- Priv good
Tournament: Puget Sound | Round: 4 | Opponent: University AS | Judge: Kristen east cites won't work, check os
4/7/22
JF- T- Subset Appropriation
Tournament: Harvard | Round: 7 | Opponent: Lexington am | Judge: Jada Bourne Interpretation—the aff may not defend a subset of appropriation. Appropriation is a generic indefinite singular. Cohen 01 Ariel Cohen (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), “On the Generic Use of Indefinite Singulars,” Journal of Semantics 18:3, 2001 https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/188590876.pdf *IS generic = Indefinite Singulars French, then, expresses the two types of reading differently. In English, on¶ the other hand, generic BPs are ambiguous between inductivist and normative¶ readings. But even in English there is one type of generic that can express only¶ one of these readings, and this is the IS generic. While BPs are ambiguous¶ between the inductivist and the rules and regulations readings, ISs are not. In¶ the supermarket scenario discussed above, only (44.b) is true:¶ (44) a. A banana sells for $.49/lb.¶ b. A banana sells for $1.00/lb.¶ The normative force of the generic IS has been noted before. Burton-Roberts¶ (1977) considers the following minimal pair:¶ (45) a. Gentlemen open doors for ladies.¶ b. A gentleman opens doors for ladies.¶ He notes that (45.b), but not (45.a), expresses what he calls “moral necessity.”7¶ Burton-Roberts observes that if Emile does not as a rule open doors for ladies, his mother could utter (45.b) and thereby successfully imply that Emile was not, or was¶ not being, a gentleman. Notice that, if she were to utter. . . (45.a) she¶ might achieve the same effect (that of getting Emile to open doors for¶ ladies) but would do so by different means. . . For (45.a) merely makes a¶ generalisation about gentlemen (p. 188).¶ Sentence (45.b), then, unlike (45.a), does not have a reading where it makes¶ a generalization about gentlemen; it is, rather, a statement about some social¶ norm. It is true just in case this norm is in effect, i.e. it is a member of a set of¶ socially accepted rules and regulations.¶ An IS that, in the null context, cannot be read generically, may receive a¶ generic reading in a context that makes it clear that a rule or a regulation is¶ referred to. For example, Greenberg (1998) notes that, out of the blue, (46.a)¶ and (46.b) do not have a generic reading:¶ (46) a. A Norwegian student whose name ends with ‘s’ or ‘j’ wears green¶ thick socks.¶ b. A tall, left-handed, brown haired neurologist in Hadassa hospital¶ earns more than $50,000 a year.¶ However, Greenberg points out that in the context of (47.a) and (47.b),¶ respectively, the generic readings of the IS subject are quite natural:¶ (47) a. You know, there are very interesting traditions in Norway, concerning the connection between name, profession, and clothing. For¶ example, a Norwegian student. . .¶ b. The new Hadassa manager has some very funny paying criteria. For¶ example, a left-handed. . .¶ Even IS sentences that were claimed above to lack a generic reading, such¶ as (3.b) and (4.b), may, in the appropriate context, receive such a reading:¶ (48) a. Sire, please don’t send her to the axe. Remember, a king is generous!¶ b. How dare you build me such a room? Don’t you know a room is¶ square? Their plan violates. Rules readings are always generalized – specific instances are not consistent. Cohen 01 Ariel Cohen (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), “On the Generic Use of Indefinite Singulars,” Journal of Semantics 18:3, 2001 https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/188590876.pdf In general, as, again, already noted by Aristotle, rules and definitions are not relativized to particular individuals; it is rarely the case that a specific individual¶ forms part of the description of a general rule.¶ Even DPs of the form a certain X or a particular X, which usually receive¶ a wide scope interpretation, cannot, in general, receive such an interpretation in the context of a rule or a definition. This holds of definitions in general, not¶ only of definitions with an IS subject. The following examples from the Cobuild¶ dictionary illustrate this point:¶ (74) a. A fanatic is a person who is very enthusiastic about a particular¶ activity, sport, or way of life.¶ b. Something that is record-breaking is better than the previous¶ record for a particular performance or achievement.¶ c. When a computer outputs something it sorts and produces information as the result of a particular program or operation.¶ d. If something sheers in a particular direction, it suddenly changes¶ direction, for example to avoid hitting something. That outweighs—only our evidence speaks to how indefinite singulars are interpreted in the context of normative statements like the resolution. This means throw out aff counter-interpretations that are purely descriptive Vote neg: 1 Precision –any deviation justifies the aff arbitrarily jettisoning words in the resolution at their whim which decks negative ground and preparation because the aff is no longer bounded by the resolution. 2 Limits—specifying a type of appropriation offers huge explosion in the topic since space is, quite literally, infinite. 3Topic education—even if you think subsets of appropriation are fine on this topic. If you put “lunar heritage” and “appropriation” in google, there are only 32 results. Not a single one of them are about private approporiation. They need to provide evidence that private entities are appropriating heritage sites. This independently is a reason you can vote neg on presumption
TVA: read the aff as an advantage to the resolution- you still to use your research and I can actually read whole res generic das , etc
Drop the debater to preserve fairness and education – use competing interps –reasonability invites arbitrary judge intervention and a race to the bottom of questionable argumentation Hypothetical neg abuse doesn’t justify aff abuse, and theory checks cheaty CPs No RVIs—it’s their burden to be topical.
4/23/22
JF- T- T-FW
Tournament: Harvard | Round: Doubles | Opponent: Claudia johnson ap | Judge: zinman, fernandez, prasad Interpretation – the affirmative should defend the hypothetical implementation of a governmental policy that designates appropriation of outer space by private entities as unjust on Earth. Resolved requires policy action Louisiana State Legislature (https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/Glossary.aspx) Ngong Resolution A legislative instrument that generally is used for making declarations, stating policies, and making decisions where some other form is not required. A bill includes the constitutionally required enacting clause; a resolution uses the term "resolved". Not subject to a time limit for introduction nor to governor's veto. ( Const. Art. III, §17(B) and House Rules 8.11 , 13.1 , 6.8 , and 7.4 and Senate Rules 10.9, 13.5 and 15.1) Appropriation TIMOTHY JUSTIN TRAPP, JD Candidate @ UIUC Law, ’13, TAKING UP SPACE BY ANY OTHER MEANS: COMING TO TERMS WITH THE NONAPPROPRIATION ARTICLE OF THE OUTER SPACE TREATY UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW Vol. 2013 No. 4 The issues presented in relation to the nonappropriation article of the Outer Space Treaty should be clear.214 The ITU has, quite blatantly, created something akin to “property interests in outer space.”215 It allows nations to exclude others from their orbital slots, even when the nation is not currently using that slot.216 This is directly in line with at least one definition of outer-space appropriation.217 Start Footnote 217Id. at 236 (“Appropriation of outer space, therefore, is ‘the exercise of exclusive control or exclusive use’ with a sense of permanence, which limits other nations’ access to it.”) (quoting Milton L. Smith, The Role of the ITU in the Development of Space Law, 17 ANNALS AIR and SPACE L. 157, 165 (1992)). End Footnote 217The ITU even allows nations with unused slots to devise them to other entities, creating a market for the property rights set up by this regulation.218 In some aspects, this seems to effect exactly what those signatory nations of the Bogotá Declaration were trying to accomplish, albeit through different means.219 Outer space Lexico. Oxford Dictionary. Outer Space. https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/outer_space The physical universe beyond the earth's atmosphere. Private entities Law Insider. Private entity definition. https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/private-entity Private entity means any natural person, corporation, general partnership, limited liability company, limited partnership, joint venture, business trust, public benefit corporation, nonprofit entity, or other business entity. Unjust Lexico. Oxford Dictionary. Unjust. https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/just not based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair.
Violation: not a policy, not appropriation since space Vote neg:
Competitive equity---pre-tournament neg research is structured by negating the resolution---plan-less affs monopolize neg ground and ensure it’s concessionary. That saps the utility of debate which requires a judge who can decide between two sides who have an equal opportunity to prepare for a common point of stasis.
2. Clash---abdicating government actions sanctions picking any interpretation for debate---incentivizes a retreat from controversy and forces the neg to first characterize the aff and then debate it which eliminates the benefit of preround research and prep. A common point of engagement ensures effective clash, which is a linear impact---negation is the necessary condition for distinguishing debate from discussion, but negation exists on a sliding scale. The topic of discussion is up to the affirmative, but depth and nuanced engagement is determined by negative ground. Any impact intrinsic to debate, not just discussion, comes from negation because it starts the process of critical thinking, reflexivity, and argument refinement.
Worst case their AFF is effects T – that’s bad because it still steers away from the stasis point of the resolution which links into all of our competitive equity and clash standards.
TVA: Defend a ban of private space colonization as a decolonial practice
They can’t weigh the aff—
T is an epistemic indict since it asks whether or not the aff is a legitimate practice so it comes prior to the aff
Fairness is a voter—
It’s an intrinsic good – some level of competitive equity is necessary to sustain the activity – if it didn’t exist, then there wouldn’t be value to the game since judges could literally vote whatever way they wanted regardless of the competing arguments made
T isn’t violent – A I don’t have the power to impose a norm – only to convince you my side is better. T doesn’t ban you from the activity – the whole point is that norms should be contestable – I just say make a better arg next time. B Exclusion is inevitable – every role of the ballot excludes some arguments and even saying T bad excludes it – that means we should delineate ground along reciprocal lines, not abandon division altogether. Reading T isn’t psychic violence – that was above, but especially if we’re not going for it since reading T can be used to prevent aff shiftiness and make substance a viable option. No silencing DA - T is just like a disad or critique we’ve said a certain practice the aff took was bad and it would’ve been better had they done it differently not that they are bad debaters – just like the cap k says the aff engaged in some practice that reinforced capitalism and it would’ve been better if they had emphasized Marxism – impositions in some form are inevitable because the negative has the burden of rejoinder and needs link arguments – every disad link says the aff did something wrong and theres an implicit version of the aff that wouldn’t have linked Theory before the K – A Prior question. My theory argument calls into question the ability to run the argument in the first place. They can’t say the same even if they criticize theory because theory makes rules of the game not just normative statements about what debaters should say. B Fair testing. Judge their arguments knowing I wasn’t given a fair shot to answer them. Prefer theory takes out K because they could answer my arguments, but I couldn’t answer theirs. Without testing their args, we don’t know if they’re valid, so you prefer fairness impacts on strength of link. Impact turns any critical education since a marketplace of ideas where we innovate, and test ideas presumes equal access. Q of what the ballot can solve for – even if ableism is the highest impact- a ballot only signsals an impact on fairness