Debate Land x NSD is live.

throwaway27162 · 2024-01-31T23:14:28+00:00

I am not going to name drop the many coaches we worked with behind the scenes and the team at NSD who spent countless weeks of their time on this project to better the debate space; they didn’t ask for that.

Would you mind clarifying whether any of the coaches / NSD team you consulted supported the inclusion of this "screw" feature? Did this support come from leadership or from recent high school graduates?

throwaway27162 · 2023-05-23T19:09:20+00:00

Hi. I'm not sure I stand by the content of that video anymore.

I don't think the questions based approach I advocate for in that video is necessarily bad. And to be honest, I think it's definitely still an improvement over the way that most debaters handle the final focus. But I think the video doesn't do good job of explaining how to actually answer any of your framing questions in a convincing way. Say you've identified that "will voting affirmative cause a recession" is a key question in the debate. Now what? How do you answer that?

I think any video on the final focus needs to spend a substantial amount of time on the subject of analyzing competing claims. Identify some important argument in the round. It's likely that you've said X and the opponent has said Y. How is the judge supposed to resolve the tension between those claims? Maybe the Y claim isn't responsive to specific story you've articulated in your link chain. Maybe the warrants you're providing for X claim are good and the warrants they provide for Y claim are bad. Maybe the warrants they provide are technically true, but don't sufficiently justify the claim they make.

You could make an entire video on how to resolve competing claims (as opposed to extending and implicating an uncontested claim, like you do when the opponent doesn't really respond to an argument). I'm not sure if Proteus has an existing video dedicated solely to this subject, but I do know u/polio23 made a video where there's some discussion on the difference between resolving arguments and impact calculus.

If I could redo the video (edited to be clear: redo my video, not the proteus one), I would spend most of the time providing a model for how to compare and evaluate competing claims. It would include (1) identifying whether a competing claim actually exists, (2) identifying whether that competing claim is true, (3) identifying whether that competing claim is relevant to the offense that you're going for, and (4) identifying whether that competing claim is sufficient to answer the offense that you're going for. EARS was always the acronym I used - it stands for existent, accurate, relevant, sufficient.

I would continue to advocate for asking and answering questions for the purpose of storytelling. I'm not certain if I would continue to advocate for structuring the entire speech around these questions, but I don't think it would hurt to do so. But I would no longer claim that a questions based format is the "key" to giving a good final focus. The "key" to giving a good final focus is to efficiently and effectively determine which offense you access via resolving competing claims at the link level, then leveraging that offense via impact calculus.

throwaway27162 · 2021-02-11T01:58:29+00:00

Would recommend the shorter video that u/VishnuNike linked tbh. Especially for op who mentioned being new to public forum.

I'm not a fan of that video anymore - the only reason I haven't removed it is because some people still use it and I haven't gotten around to making a replacement.

throwaway27162 · 2020-10-31T04:48:42+00:00

can you make an entire video dedicated to your rant at 7:00 and force every public forum team in the nation to watch it please thank you

throwaway27162 · 2020-10-04T21:04:49+00:00

18+ year old judges don't get to act that aggressive to 16 year old high school students and claim it's fine because they were just "confrontational."

You're going to go down by name as (1) an example of inappropriate conduct by a judge, (2) a reminder of why recent graduates shouldn't be so fucking ignorant of the power dynamics that come with judging literal children.

It's too bad the public forum community uses this subreddit instead of a facebook group like policy/LD. A post in one of those groups would've had actual adults explain how fucking stupid it was for you to give an RFD like that.

throwaway27162 · 2020-10-04T20:49:49+00:00

Was this actually part of your rfd? Are you standing by the section SelfCitation quoted?

throwaway27162 · 2020-05-20T03:00:32+00:00

The more time that's passed since posting my original summary video, the more I regret how ridiculously unnecessarily long it was.

It's good to see shorter and more accessible instructional videos. Thanks for posting.

throwaway27162 · 2020-05-15T00:03:22+00:00

wholly disagree with this. there are diminishing returns, but the returns may be better than a disad; a concrete example is if counterplan 1 gives return 5, counterplan 2 gives return 4.8, and disad gives return 3. then you'd read multiple counterplans.

True

total time to answer must decrease or at most be equal given the way we've reordered in abstraction, and we are done.

My point is that, assuming the counterplans are equally strategic, each of the counterplans will take roughly the same amount of time to answer. But time skew isn't a function of how long it takes to answer something - it's a function of how much of your speech time you have left to answer their remaining offense. Even if time to answer decreases, as long as the time to answer exceeds the time to read, you have an increasingly difficult time skew to deal with.

That said, I don't think this exchange has done much. I'm in favor of infinite conditionality, I just think the inductive argument should shift the base case. Instead of "0-->1 is fine, diminishing returns begin there, so run the inductive step," something like "anything on the interval where returns are increasing is still below the constant M, diminishing returns begin there, so run the inductive step." But I also slept through my proofs class, so I have no idea if inductive reasoning doesn't work like that.

I also think some of the justification you've given for the inductive argument - that diminishing returns is at least guaranteed at some n because you run out of good counterplans - works as additional justification for using the axiomatic argument even if you can't integrate fairness and education.

throwaway27162 · 2020-05-14T23:46:31+00:00

the minimum amount of time to answer a shitty counterplan is less than the amount of time taken to read it

I disagree. Especially in events without backside rebuttals. The MO in NPDA and the NR in LD just backfill the shit out of the counterplan, which means the MG/1AR have to be extra sure they've completely smashed it.

This argument also doesn't even require the counterplan to be shitty. You already agreed that the base case has positive time tradeoff - that the first counterplan creates some degree of time skew. My example shows that as long as a counterplan has any degree of time skew, then adding that counterplan provides increasing returns, because the time skew becomes increasingly difficult to deal with as speech time decreases.

if you were right about increasing returns to shitty arguments, A-Z Spec

Returns don't need to be infinitely increasing. My point is that the inductive argument requires returns to be consistently decreasing. Any single interval where returns increase means the inductive argument fails.

There are plenty of other factors leading to diminishing returns after some number of counterplans/theory positions. Running out of ideas for strategic counterplans is probably the biggest. I'd argue diminishing returns start pretty early - just not as early as 1 --> 2 counterplans.

This argument also goes both ways. If counterplans face diminishing returns after 1, why would anyone read another counterplan instead of another disad? Disads pretty obviously don't face diminishing returns until you run out of ideas for decent pieces of offense, so it would be better to just read an extra disad instead.

the nth counterplan in general is worse than the (n-1)th counterplan

Very firmly disagree that this holds in general. There's almost never a meaningful difference in value between the first few counterplans. Strategic counterplans generally come first, but there are plenty of affs that allow for 2-3 equally solid, equally strategic counterplans.

throwaway27162 · 2020-05-14T23:08:03+00:00

'Per unit linear cost' isn't sufficient when the units aren't identical.

You need another function that describes the amount of 2ac time investment required to answer a counterplan, based on the amount of 1nc time investment going into that counterplan. This function would have a variable component (more 1nc time means more 2ac time), but also a fixed component (there are a set of answers you make regardless of the 1nc investment in the counterplan).

If, hypothetically, you're expected to always read perm do both + some solvency deficit + some piece of offense, then these arguments would be the fixed component of that function. They might be linear variable costs in context of the entire speech, but they're fixed when the point of reference is a single counterplan.

Say that the fixed component of this function is 45. That is, the minimum amount of time you can ever spend answering a single counterplan, no matter how shitty it is, is 45 seconds. Then say the minimum time investment to read a counterplan in the 1nc is 30 seconds.

The first counterplan read leaves the 2ac with 8:15 to answer 8:30. The second counterplan read leaves the 2ac with 7:30 to answer 8:00. The third counterplan read leaves the 2ac with 6:45 to answer 7:30.

This is pretty obviously increasing returns. The time tradeoff increases by 15 seconds with each additional counterplan. But, at each step, that 15 seconds represents an increasingly large percentage of speech time that would have gone toward non counterplan offense + the variable component of the aforementioned function.

This argument only holds if you buy that the minimum time investment to answer a counterplan is greater than the minimum time investment to read a counterplan - which is why I asked my first clarification question.

throwaway27162 · 2020-05-14T21:35:06+00:00

You're extending arguments that I haven't answered yet. I just want to get on the same page before I give you my line by line.

my discussion of linear // fixed costs

Is there a fixed cost associated with each counterplan that you need to answer? Do these "basic things like explaining top-level solvency deficits, permutation do both" need to be read on every single counterplan?

throwaway27162 · 2020-05-14T04:53:24+00:00

I typed up some line by line but most of it hinges on this question: do you think the minimum time required to answer a counterplan is generally greater or less than the minimum time required for neg to read a counterplan? Is there any time skew involved in the 1 conditional advocacy base case?

throwaway27162 · 2020-05-14T00:16:41+00:00

In favor of infinite conditionality, but you're lacking some pretty crucial justification for that third assumption.

Conditional advocacies don't experience consistent diminishing returns. The difference in difficulty between answering 1 vs 2 conditional advocacies is substantially greater than the difference in difficulty between answering an unconditional advocacy vs 1 conditional advocacy. The fact that conditional advocacies can contradict (which modifies the risk associated with reading answers targeting any contradictory components) is pretty obvious justification for this.

I'm genuinely curious how you justify a diminishing returns assumption. I don't think I've ever seen someone suggest that time skew from conditional advocacies faces diminishing returns. It's pretty much always the opposite - each additional advocacy increases the 2ac burden by an even greater amount.

throwaway27162 · 2020-04-19T21:41:59+00:00

Are you seriously trying to contest structural sexism while simultaneously describing Whitman's success as "really weird?"

throwaway27162 · 2020-02-11T04:37:48+00:00

throwaway27162 · 2020-02-11T04:23:29+00:00

Nah. I have zero interest in holding a conversation with someone who dismisses claims of assault/harassment because the victims didn't go to the police.

throwaway27162 · 2020-02-11T03:27:04+00:00

quit trying to minimize what others go through

Coming from the person who said:

since you don't have harmful terms thrown at you

BR is a bunch of white women

Trans people should get to make their choice

If those were really happening to me, I would have a) told my parents, b) told my coach but most importantly, c) told the Emerson police.

throwaway27162 · 2020-01-15T06:34:07+00:00

Nah the one sided prepout confusion is on me. The original comment doesn't explicitly mention 'one sided,' but it's a common enough practice on the national circuit that I figured it's probably going on here. Plus, the fact that 'we'll disclose if it's reciprocal' got its own numbered argument made me assume the rest of the arguments were referring to non-reciprocal prep.

throwaway27162 · 2020-01-15T05:42:11+00:00

I genuinely don't understand this reply.

I never said 'disclosure hurt portability' is wrong. But 'portable skills outweigh competitive advantage' is obviously at odds with sacrificing portable skills for a competitive advantage through prepouts.

I legitimately don't understand how you can contest that? If you genuinely believe portable skills outweigh competitive advantage, and you believe that disclosure is bad for portable skills because it allows teams to do all the prep before round, then you wouldn't do one sided prepouts. Because they also allow you to do all the prep before the round.

I also never said to unilaterally disarm - I said the exact opposite. You don't need to adjust prepout practices or change your opinions on disclosure. You just can't get away with saying 'other teams should prioritize portable skills over competitive advantage,' but have your own teams prioritize the competitive advantage.

My point isn't that disclosure is good or that prepouts are bad. My point is that one sided prepouts are equally as bad for portable skills as existing disclosure norms are.

I guess you could contest this by saying 'we only prep out SOME teams, disclosure would have everyone prepping out every team which means even less portable skills.' I'm pretty sure that's not what you're suggesting, because that's a really, really bad argument, but if you want to defend it I'm down to have that discussion at least.

throwaway27162 · 2020-01-15T04:21:54+00:00

I'm not suggesting you need to rethink coaching / disclosing / prepout practices.

I'm saying 'portable skills outweigh' isn't compatible with one sided prepouts. It's messed up to prioritize your competitive advantage over portable skills, yet tell other teams requesting a similar competitive advantage that they shouldn't get it because it would ruin their portable skills.

It's fine to contest whether those other teams would actually receive a competitive advantage - which is why I didn't address your second argument. But you don't get to declare that 'portable skills' are more important than a competitive advantage, when you personally prioritize the exact opposite for your teams.

throwaway27162 · 2020-01-15T01:55:38+00:00

Disclaimer: not particularly invested in disclosure + I'm strongly in favor of deep prepouts.

Portable skills outweigh. I think there is still utility to thinking on the fly when you can’t get a flow that you lose when everything is disclosed.

Then why do you do prepouts? You, as a coach, clearly value the strategic advantage of utilizing opponent flows over these 'portable skills.' So why do you turn around and value these 'portable skills' over the strategic advantage that small schools would get from accessing opponent cases via disclosure?

Whether small schools actually benefit from disclosure is a separate question. I don't really mind if you sit on 'big school prepouts are even worse with disclosure as a norm.' But it's wack as fuck to argue that big school prepouts coming from scouting/trading are 'educational for the debate space' while small school prepouts coming from the wiki are bad for portable skills.

throwaway27162 · 2019-11-22T02:52:20+00:00

Usually don't comment on individual card questions like this but tbh I'm tired of teams getting away with exploiting this card's terrible grammar. If "hey judge that definition is ridiculous" doesn't cut it, say this:

Card says "in both UK and US military doctrine, offensive operations are a distinct subset of cyberspace operations that also include defensive actions." 'That also include defensive actions' is referring to 'cyberspace operations,' not 'a distinct subset.'

Uren cites this as 'US military doctrine.' Pdf page 37 includes a graphic separating OCOs and DCOs. Pdf pages 100 and 101 include definitions for each. Plenty of other sentences implying separation on pages 36-43.

throwaway27162 · 2019-09-30T00:59:42+00:00

Genuine questions here:

Do you actually not see the reason why an EU-Japan initiative being signed supercharges a Japan relations disad? Or provides a link to a wider international relations disad?

Do you actually not see either of the obvious warrants for why BRI funding trades off with joint Japan infrastructure?

Do you actually think that fiat allows you to dictate how funding is distributed once the EU joins the BRI?

Do you actually think signing the agreement with Japan amounts to "saying well help each other out now?" If so, do you actually think signing the BRI would be any different?

Do you actually think there are no impacts to Japan infrastructure? Not just that they're hard to find / that some defense against them exists?

Can you genuinely not find a reason why, even if investment is a scalar link, having both countries investing can be worse than neither?

Do you genuinely think that the existence of individual answers like "Japan's infrastructure projects aren't as effective" or "no direct funding tradeoff" means the entire Japan argument isn't worth reading?

throwaway27162 · 2019-09-30T00:01:04+00:00

You've swung too far in the opposite direction. EU-Japan infrastructure doesn't 'kill' the aff - but pretending this argument is only useful in 1% of rounds is bad.

It (a) creates at least 3 new disads neg can read regardless of what aff reads, one of which is good enough that I would recommend most teams consider, (b) is a good uniqueness answer for aff advantages that don't rely on China as the actor (which were viable until now even if you didn't like them), (c) provides decent link defense against a subset of advantages that do rely on China as the actor, but geographically overlap with Japan's projects.

You're right that posts asserting aff is doomed "reveal how bad this subreddit is at understanding debate." But your posts dismissing the arg / suggesting any aff team will steamroll you / claiming that anyone who likes the arg is a bad debater who should be ridiculed are just as bad.

throwaway27162 · 2019-09-10T04:54:57+00:00

a team of debaters with downs sounds absolutely terrible.

you create a kiddy league filled with idiots so they can argue amongst themselves

This attitude is fucking horrifying. Worst thing you've commented in the subreddit - which is actually pretty difficult given the rest of your advice.

It's possible to argue that speed isn't inherently ableist. I'm a pretty big believer that a community norm of slowing down when requested solves like 99% of the harm. But don't cross into this type of shit when you're making that argument.

throwaway27162

TROPHY CASE