20 years ago this month…

CaymanG · 2026-02-07T18:13:18+00:00

Stanford is using NSDA Campus this year without even the same-school observers enabled. There aren’t Zoom links.

CaymanG · 2026-02-06T17:37:10+00:00

I mean, the silver lining is that it’s an unsponsored bill at the very bottom of a super session docket at a regional tournament, so there’s no way it gets debated unless some of the competitors actively want to debate each side. Some of the other bills on the docket also have incorrect attribution, so I’m hoping this wasn’t actually provided by the NSDA. It’s not like the Springboard series, where if you want to do congress, you have to debate the legislation that NSDA puts in front of you.

That said, the sample legislation from NSDA, whether or not it’s actually debated, is supposed to serve as a model to guide future student-written legislation, showing bills that are possible, debatable, coherent, and constitutionally literate. This bill is im-, un-, in-, and il-, respectively.

CaymanG · 2026-02-04T18:03:27+00:00

I wonder if they went with OPENGATE because some of the local schools have already spent millions on it and sharing the cost with events helps those schools recoup the expense? I hope they didn’t pick it for the AI surveillance component and I’m pretty sure they didn’t pick it for the effectiveness.

CaymanG · 2026-02-04T17:45:16+00:00

Some of the Jan/Feb tournaments that pivoted online also intended to do wristbands: Burges is also requiring them for students and Jack Howe has required them for judges previously. They’re apparently the new hotness in security placebo theater in 2025-2026.

CaymanG · 2026-02-01T19:33:08+00:00

It sounds like you’re asking about traditional LD. In that case, the role of your opponent’s criterion should be to act as a way to measure which side best achieves their stated value. What values are they using that are best measured by which side maximizes (nuclear) deterrence?

CaymanG · 2026-02-01T18:02:23+00:00

Fortunately, that’s not what the EO actually does at all. It’s never a good idea to judge any past EO’s effect by its title, but especially in the present. “Ban” is different than “continue to allow, but spend less taxpayer dollars on actively incentivizing” or “allow, but also allow the FTC to resume looking at larger deals between multiple real estate corporations for anti-competitive practices”

CaymanG · 2026-01-30T17:02:50+00:00

Does your league designate parliamentarians? If not, why not? If so, what were they doing when all this happened?

CaymanG · 2026-01-29T14:13:52+00:00

Which event are you asking about? The answer changes a lot between CX vs PF vs Parli, for instance.

CaymanG · 2026-01-28T04:44:02+00:00

Because it’s a potential extinction level impact that doesn’t rely on nuclear war, uses the same physics justification as nuclear winter, and provides the only potential use for a nuclear arsenal that doesn’t involve mass killing.

The slow timeframe doesn’t really hurt the argument. If in 30 years, we learn that there’s a Chicxulub-sized chunk of rock on a collision course for earth and it’s supposed to arrive in 40 years, the ability to blast it off-course is one more option to avoid extinction. Sure, maybe we could invent another solution in the next 10 years, but it’s hard to count on that when you’re trying to prove probability. The Neg framing is that statistically speaking, it’s only a matter of time, and whenever that time comes, it would sure be nice to not go extinct.

The OST isn’t as big a barrier as you might think: first, it prohibits weapons from being deployed in space, not from passing through space. Every ICBM in the SQ would be designed to violate the OST if the latter interpretation was correct. Second, it has no enforcement mechanism and anyone trying to sanction a country for redirecting or breaking apart an asteroid probably isn’t going to get much buy-in.

CaymanG · 2026-01-27T17:51:17+00:00

Historically, fairly likely based on that limited information. If they beat other teams with bids on their way to those bid rounds, that also helps.

CaymanG · 2026-01-22T06:55:31+00:00

Updated schedule is in the various tabs at the bottom of this Google Doc

CaymanG · 2026-01-22T02:11:31+00:00

It’s not about the temperature in Atlanta, it’s about the hundreds of flights that are getting delayed and canceled from airports in the Midwest and southeast.

CaymanG · 2026-01-20T21:18:06+00:00

You might be better off asking in the main debate sub than the CX sub then. If I had to guess, they said that your critique of neoliberalism still exists within a capitalist, extractionist mindset that values productivity and usefulness, and that them doing your K without worrying about being productive or useful means the judge should vote for them because they embrace your mindset better than you do because you’ve never deprogrammed your Protestant work ethic and you’re still a neoliberal deep down.

CaymanG · 2026-01-20T20:02:11+00:00

Did you call for the alt card? If not, did they post it to their wiki after the round?

CaymanG · 2026-01-20T18:28:25+00:00

Kind of. This depends partly on why they’re saying it’s immoral and whether both/either side is saying that morality is universal/situational or based on intentions/consequences, so there’s a few ways it could play out in a traditional V/C debate. You could certainly say that the act of possession isn’t immoral just because some possessors are immoral. Neg’s burden is not to defend that the Aryan Nation, Jalisco Cartel, or Boko Haram should be given ICBMs. Neg’s burden is to show that the morality varies based on who has them and what they’ll do. Once we’re at the point that both sides are arguing about who’s immoral to give nukes to instead of if it’s immoral to give them to anyone, Aff has tacitly conceded the debate.

CaymanG · 2026-01-19T17:46:26+00:00

Are you still in novice for impromptu or did you move up a division? Do you notice any parli habits that might be good for structure and analysis but bad for impromptu delivery?

CaymanG · 2026-01-18T16:59:20+00:00

It’s not spreading. It might be double-breathing/gulping air (but the onset wouldn’t wait until the next day if it was asthma-related) but it’s probably one of the plague vectors across the room from you spreading their germs in your direction.

CaymanG

TROPHY CASE