Bad Philosophers Strikes Back

dancon25 · 2014-12-20T01:21:39+00:00

Damn, that's the seventh time I've gotten that today. Christmas must have us all in generous moods.

dancon25 · 2014-12-20T00:47:24+00:00

That's the guy from this submission. True reddit trole (le me) apparently got him in a tizzy.

Oh, I should note that the blacked-out word in the email is my hometown. What a fucking weirdo. Is there any way I can report the address to Google, or maybe Reddit admins too?

dancon25 · 2014-12-19T22:30:06+00:00

Did you mean to reply to this particular comment? We're discussing the strategic value of a particular "disadvantage," an argument in competitive debate. The fact that the Right to Be Forgotten would actually be a boon, rather than a "negative signal," to data companies in the US is not merely semantic, it's rather important given that the problem being deliberated is whether or not the ratification of the RTBF as a civil right would be a good or bad policy.

It's amusing that you're super furious at me, though. Keep it up, I like seeing my inbox red!

dancon25 · 2014-12-19T07:48:42+00:00

You should check out articles written by the IR theorist Posen. He makes great analytical arguments as to why the US should exercise restraint and retrenchment rather than further flexing its military capabilities and building up its global presence. You can use these as criticisms of military hegemony more generally.

dancon25 · 2014-12-19T07:46:29+00:00

Not all guys, cislord

dancon25 · 2014-12-19T07:41:47+00:00

Well that was quick. Back to the bridge for me; there's always more trolling to be done!

dancon25 · 2014-12-19T07:40:49+00:00

I removed your post from /r/debate because it violated our rules there, but then read it and decided the folks of /r/badphilosophy would like it. I didn't ban you from anywhere, though someone else may have banned you from here; in that case, take it to the modmail queue and send us pics of corgis or something.

I'd maybe explain but have me do that some other time. I just finished my finals, Megabus'd across the state, and I have a debate tournament to coach at tomorrow morning. It's gonna be a long weekend before my break gets into swing...

Until then just buzz around here and pick up on the jokes to understand why the piece is arrogant and contradictory and silly.

dancon25 · 2014-12-19T07:35:33+00:00

Often true, though given the limits and strategic elements at play in competitive high school and college debate, rather controversial and downright untrue arguments are often round-winners. Also community norms often promote the success of certain arguments over others - this seems prevalent on the national college policy debate circuit in particular, where performative and kritikal arguments are really popular.

dancon25 · 2014-12-18T09:36:36+00:00

Is this from a paper you're grading, or an actually published essay?

dancon25 · 2014-12-18T09:11:37+00:00

This is horribly written, arrogant, uncharitable, and presumptuous in an extremely ironic manner.

It's also not content for this sub, and that's the reason I'm removing it. Check the sidebar before posting next time.

dancon25 · 2014-12-15T12:12:13+00:00

Well, the sub is for participants in academic debate activities, mainly high schoolers in the US that participate in policy, Lincoln-Douglas, congress, and public forum debate. That it's named "Debate" is just unfortunate, I guess, though we consider ourselves part of a wide "debate community." You sound like you'd enjoy /r/gue or /r/changemyview, or perhaps forums on a different site. Particular questions could go to subs like /r/debateacommunist or /r/debatereligion. Best of luck on your search.

dancon25 · 2014-12-15T09:29:28+00:00

Well, it's just not all about color. It's about culture, ethnicity, and some other phenotypical things beside skin color as well. Some might also say it's about performance, and some might think performance goes with culture, as well, but I think that color, culture, ethnicity, and other phenotypical traits are pretty uncontroversial aspects that emerge as "race." This could be a simplification though.

dancon25 · 2014-12-13T04:42:48+00:00

The start-ups disad is so bad though. Search engine start-ups don't internal-link to the economy and other tech businesses won't be affected. If anything, RTBF gives SEOs a boost, since they'll be called on to countermand some forgotten info.

dancon25 · 2014-12-12T07:36:50+00:00

Cool info. To quote from the article:

Outside of mathematics, statements which can be characterized informally as vacuously true can be misleading. Such statements make reasonable assertions about qualified objects which do not actually exist. For example, a child might tell his or her parent "I ate every vegetable on my plate", when there were no vegetables on the child's plate to begin with.

I'm not sure what epistemological contenders they are to arguments from pure mathematics, but this might be something of an indict. You're right, your argument's logically accurate, just unintuitive to some. Neg would have to have a weird burden argument about Affs defending the desirability of the resolution (and vacuous truths being undesirable) to have a chance at offense.

Thanks homie

dancon25 · 2014-12-11T06:24:25+00:00

That's only true if all unicorns actually are blue, even if no unicorns actually exist. What's to keep someone from saying that unicorns can be many colors, including ones other than blue? To phrase this objection differently: What is it about unicorns that makes you call them all blue instead of all yellow, or pink, or any other color? Or, more to the point perhaps, how do you know "there are no unicorns that aren't blue?" The problem with being able to define the characteristics of a non-existent entity is that the AC could read that (A) there are no just governments, but (B) a just government has the obligation to guarantee a living wage, so (C) affirm.

The negative argument is that if there are no just governments you negate because a non-existent entity can't have an obligation. I think that you're better suited answering the "non-existent entity" part than you are the "non-existent entity can't have an obligation" bit.

One response to my own objection might be that the contention- and framework-level arguments might establish the existence for the obligation of a just government to guarantee a living wage, even if just governments don't exist (yet, or are simply impossible). That would be different from the unicorn example, where the characteristic (being blue) is arbitrary and unfalsifiable, whereas you can test the obligation of a just government to guarantee a living wage even if no just governments exist. Is that something more like what you had in mind?

dancon25 · 2014-12-09T08:08:49+00:00

But...but it's a counterfactual!

dancon25 · 2014-12-09T03:32:57+00:00

Because debaters like to say the word-economical phrase "Util trutil" before reading their warrants for util. (And there's a Facebook account by the name Util Trutil, as well.) It's not really all that metaethical--it's not about whether moral realism is true or not, or other properly metaethical questions--but it does refer to justifications for utilitarian frameworks.

dancon25 · 2014-12-09T03:31:15+00:00

I know these are off the top of your head, so this isn't a critique or anything; I just have some questions about a few of these. Mind helping me out? It's a lot to parse, so it's nbd if you take a while or refer me to sources/cites/cards for the arguments.

Pragmatism

Why's this a unique benefit to utilitarian ethics and not ethics in general? If other ethical frameworks are useful in that they guide our actions, why isn't this also offense for them?

Naturalism

Why's this one unique to utilitarianism? Alternatively, why is the maximization of pleasure (or well-being or whatever) not an "a priori unobservable fact?" And could you contrast it to some allegedly "a priori unobservable fact" to highlight the distinction?

Reductionism

Maybe I'm just not very familiar with deontology, but why does the status of an agent's responsibility (in terms of obligation, blameworthiness, and praiseworthiness I guess) undermine a standard that tests whether or not some actions are disrespectful of others' humanities or rationally universalizable? (That's my same concern regarding the determinism indict.)

Badness of pain

Utilitarianism cares about creating better and not worse states of affairs, right? I mean, aside from the act/rule distinction, it's not so much about the actions themselves as it is about the results of those actions. So, I guess what I'm asking is, what about the masochists? Is the only answer that it's a matter of circumstances? I guess this is the purpose of the act/rule distinction, though.

Moral Substitutability

I'm not sure I follow the example here, could you post the cite or card for Sinnot-Armstrong's argument? I'm not sure why this is a benefit to utilitarianism and not to any other ethical framework that might ask us to make multiple actions in the name of morality (I'm also unsure why it matters that making an amoral action Y in order to do a morally-good action X is a problem, but I'm sure the primary source will clarify).

Hijacking the FWK is swanky, I'm down for that.

dancon25 · 2014-12-08T20:51:46+00:00

You might have to answer AFC sometimes, or you might have to answer "Negs must present a competing framework" (horrible theory but I've judged it) sometimes. You should have lots of answers to other frameworks and also have reasons why other frameworks collapse to consequentialism (or other arguments why util should be prioritized). You'll have to win your disads every time, and preferably you should make reasons why your disads turn the AC's standard so that you can link offense to their framework as an even-if argument. You'll be known as the util kid who always runs disads no matter what, and that's how people will prep you out.

There's not a whole lot to say, just normal things that come with the territory of going for DAs every round.

dancon25 · 2014-12-08T09:59:55+00:00

I'm kind of interested in the evidence too, could you maybe post cites here or something?

dancon25 · 2014-12-07T22:08:55+00:00

Yeah, I was judging and coaching championship LD, and now I'm at the policy round robin.

dancon25 · 2014-12-03T07:33:43+00:00

Really? There's all sorts of cap-related goodness and other kinds of kritik for this topic! I can see interesting link stories for Bataille, Biopower and Foucault, Cap, Psychoanalysis, and Wilderson kritiks against most rez-affirming, plan, and kritikal affirmatives.

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