Tournament: Yale Invitational | Round: 6 | Opponent: Princeton ML | Judge: Eshwar Mohan
The role of the ballot is to vote for the debater who best proves the truth or falsity of the Resolution; the aff must prove it true and the neg must prove it false.
Prefer: A Text: Five dictionaries define to negate as to deny the truth of and affirm as to prove true which means the sole judge obligation is to vote on the resolution’s truth or falsity. This outweighs on common usage – it is abundantly clear that our roles are verified. Any other role of the ballot enforces an external norm on debate, but only truth testing is intrinsic to the process of debate i.e. proving statements true or false through argumentation. Constitutivism outweighs because you don’t have the jurisdiction not to truth test – if a chess player says you should break the rules for a more fun game, the proper response is to ignore them as a practice only makes sense based on its intrinsic rules. Jurisdiction is also an independent voter and a meta constraint on anything else since every argument you make concedes the authority of the judge fulfilling their jurisdiction to vote aff if they affirm better and neg the contrary – otherwise they could just hack against or for you which means it also controls the internal link to fairness since that’s definitionally unfair. B Logic: Any counter role of the ballot collapses to truth testing because every property assumes truth of the property i.e. if I say, “I am awake” it is the same as “it is true that I am awake” which means they are also a question of truth claims because it’s inherent. It also means their ROB warrants aren’t mutually exclusive with mine. If the aff is true the res ought to be implemented, but the res ought to only be implemented if its not already being implemented, so it ought to be that the res is not implemented. C Inclusion: Any offense can function under truth testing whereas your specific role of the ballot excludes all strategies but yours. This is bad for inclusive debates because people without every technical skill or comprehensive debate knowledge are shut out of your scholarship which turns your ROB- truth testing solves because you can do what you’re good at and so can I. This is also better for education because me engaging in a debate I know nothing about doesn’t help anyone. o/w since it is a real-world implication in round rather than a thought experiment that doesn’t do anything
1 member is “a part or organ of the body, especially a limb” but an organ can’t have obligations
2 of is to “expressing an age” but the rez doesn’t delineate a length of time
3 the is “denoting a disease or affliction” but the WTO isn’t a disease
4 to is to “expressing motion in the direction of (a particular location)” but the rez doesn’t have a location
5 reduce is to “(of a person) lose weight, typically by dieting” but IP doesn’t have a body to lose weight.
6 for is “in place of” but medicines aren’t replacing IP.
7 medicine is “(especially among some North American Indian peoples) a spell, charm, or fetish believed to have healing, protective, or other power” but you can’t have IP for a spell.
8 Trade means “a publication intended for persons in the entertainment business”(Merriam Webster) but a world entertainment business cannot reduce intellectual property making the resolution incoherent.
9 Intellectual is defined as “possessing or showing intellect or mental compacity” (Dictionary.com) but property cant possess intellect so the resolutions incoherent
10 Property means “a building” (Oxford Languages) so reducing intellectual buildings is incoherent
Prefer additionally
1 Decision Making Paradox- in order to decide to do the affirmative we need a decision-making procedure to enact it but to choose a decision-making procedure requires another decision making procedure leading to infinite regress.
2 The Place Paradox- if everything exists in a place in space time, that place must also have a place that it exists in and that larger place needs a larger location to infinity. Therefore, ought statements are impossible since statements assume acting on objects in the space-time continuum.
3 Grain Paradox- A single grain of millet makes no sound upon falling, but a thousand grains make a sound. But a thousand nothings cannot make something.
4 Arrows Paradox- If we divide time into discrete 0-duration slices, no motion is happening in each of them, so taking them all as a whole, motion is impossible.
5 Good Samaritan Paradox - If the aff is true the res ought to be implemented, but the res ought to only be implemented if its not already being implemented, so it ought to be that the res is not implemented.
6 Meno’s Paradox - in order to discover something, it must not be known, but in order to know to discover something, it must already be known – this makes the quest for knowledge incomprehensible and thus impossible