Tournament: Harvard | Round: 1 | Opponent: Providence AK | Judge: Devansh Dubey
Case
I negate resolved: The appropriation of outer space by private entities is unjust.
Framework
The standard is: Maximizing Negative Utilitarianism
Prefer this because:
1 Negative Util is how the world functions
Herran 19Manu Herran, programmer and associate at OPIS;
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individual), or in each individual (if we speak of several individuals).
2 Increasing happiness is not morally relevant - if one is already happy, increasing their pleasure matters much less than reducing the suffering of one who is not.
Contention 1 - Private entities are the only option for necessary space appropriation3:27
a) Space Appropriation is necessary for long term survival
Zarkadakis 19 George; PhD, Senior Fellow @ Atlantic Center; https://www.georgezarkadakis.com/abandoning-the-metropolis-space-colonisation-as-the-new-imperative/
Space colonization is not only the subject of fiction but of serious science too.
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colonization is therefore the ultimate insurance policy of long-term human survival.
Prefer:
a Prerequisite – if we're all dead then no conception of moral value can exist and this debate is meaningless
b Magnitude – existential catastrophes causes massive amounts of pain to every person on the planet which outweighs all other impacts under neg util
Thus, space colonization is a moral priority and must be done with the most just action.
b) Private entities are preferable to governments for appropriating
Government appropriation of space leads to oppression
Peter Nelson and Walter Block, 2018, Space Capitalism, Mr. Nelson is a professional engineer in the state of Colorado; Walter is an American Austrian School economist and anarcho-capitalist theorist.1 He currently holds the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Economics at the School of Business at Loyola University New Orleans, and is a senior fellow of the non-profit think-tank Ludwig von Mises Institute
We eschew state power in space because we want to restrict governmental
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escape. In the following chapters, we explore how this ingenuity might unfold.
Government space programs are rife with waste and inefficiencies.
Earle ’21, Peter C. Earle (is an economist and writer who joined AIER in 2018 and prior to that spent over 20 years as a trader and analyst in global financial markets on Wall Street), “Three – No, Four – Cheers for Space-Travelling Billionaires,” Capitalism Magazine, August 3, 2021, https://www.capitalismmagazine.com/2021/08/three-no-four-cheers-for-space-travelling- billionaires/
Government space programs don’t leave much for admonishers to point to. As Federal debt
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money are rarely in short supply. Expecting public magnanimity was probably foolish.
Governments should not take the risk with taxpayer money - Nelson and Block 2
Pretty much anything touched by government comes with fatal flaws starting with corruption and
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(pp. 21-22). Springer International Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Since space appropriation is essential, we have the obligation to choose the best actor. The action of appropriation must be just, since it is the only way for future human survival. Private entities can ensure freedom from oppression, efficiently appropriate when governments cannot, and do not have to risk taxpayer dollars.
Contention 2:
Privatization is fastest way to get to space0:15
Rand Simberg, author, analyst and consultant in space policy, February 2020 "Socialists in Space," Reason, https://reason.com/2020/01/12/socialists-in-space-2/ (accessed 12/12/21)
Most important of all, two versions of an all-new fully reusable spaceship
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Age. That would open vast new off-planet opportunities for humanity.
Contention 3:0:30
Appropriation is beneficial for developing countries
Reinstein 99 Ezra J. Reinstein (JD, Associate at Kirkland and Ellis), Owning Outer Space, 20 Nw. J. Int’lL. and Bus. 59 (1999). JDN. https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/njilb/vol20/iss1/7
The changes to the OST proposed in this essay would encourage and hasten the conver
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space. And that’s one of the designated goals of the OST itself.
Hence, I negate
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A. Interpretation: The affirmative must not defend an actor
B. Violation: They do
C. Standards:
1 Topicality - Rez asks if approp is just or not, actors are extra-t
2 Semantics first – they’re the only stable starting point for the round.
Nebel 18 Jake Nebel is an assistant professor at University of Southern California, School of Philosophy. “The Meaning of the Resolution by Jake Nebel” Victory Briefs September/October 2018 LD Brief. Citing: “Reporters and Correspondents”, https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes273022.htm
Unlike direct appeals to desirable consequences, the actual meaning of the resolution provides a
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rather than whichever nearby proposition they think would be better to debate.
3 Limits – Thousands of affs permissible if we don’t accept my interp, - limits are k2 fairness since we can’t prep a million affs
4 Ground - if the affirmative can defend anything, then they could defend things everyone agrees with like racism is bad or 2+2 = 4
D. Voter - Fairness
1 Fairness promotes impartial judging of a round. Without fairness, judges will intervene and vote subjectively off arguments they have a bias towards.This is bad because it means that debaters don‘t have an equal chance of winning the round
Drop the debater -
1 K2 deterring abuse
2 Their abuse irreversibly skews the round bc their advocacy excluded my ability to structure 1NC offense.
No RVI — Theory as an RVI would justify debaters running any amount of abusive positions and collapse the debate to a technical debate between who can defend RVIs being good. This is bad for debate because it means that fairness no longer has any bearing on the round, it‘s only a question of whether or not theory should be a reverse voting issue.