or: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate
These are my first thoughts about the January / February 2024 LD resolution: Resolved: The United States ought to substantially reduce its military presence in the West Asia-North Africa region. I want to offer a clear disclaimer that these are off-the-cuff reactions, I have not done copious in-depth research on this topic, so these are not definitive thoughts. This is just a primer to get you thinking about the topic. You should take my observations with a grain of salt, and you should do the copious in-depth research to further your own understanding of key terms and arguments. Read the complete article below the fold.
0 Comments
Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate
I’ve gotten the chance to judge at a few Wyoming high school tournaments this year, and I’ve loved every second of it. When it comes to the LD rounds I’ve been lucky enough to judge, one thing stands out to me: that value criterion debates seem to be shaped more by rote habit than actual in-round strategic utility. My soul read of many of the debates that I’ve judged is that debaters have been told that the V/C debate matters, that they should spend non-insignificant amounts time on it, and they should win that theirs is better; however, many debaters don’t know why it matters or how it will shape the outcome of the round. This is not to say I haven’t heard good warrants about why pragmatism is preferable to the social contract, etc, but rather that it oftentimes seems like the V/C debating is not connected to a win condition. If you zoom out, it’s unclear why winning the V/C means winning the round. The thesis of this article will be that your V/C should either give you a win condition or you should drastically reduce the amount of time you’re spending debating it. Read the complete article below the fold. Lawrence Zhou sat down with me to discuss his starter set for the WFI's LD lab. Tune in to hear the 2014 NSDA LD Champion tackle the likely Jan/Feb topic: lethal autonomous weapons. You can find that podcast here:
https://anchor.fm/…/Starter-Set-101-Lethal-Autonomous-Weapo… For a ton more content, access to the starter set, and a week with some of the best debate instructors around, make sure to register for the Wyoming Forensics Institute: https://wyodebateroundup.weebly.com/wfi.html Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate
I think I had a few solid points in my first article. I still think one of the best neg argument is that a focus on democracy misdiagnoses the problem, and in doing so whitewashes democracy. It creates the idea that anything that is bad is anti-democratic, which leads us to ignore the very real violence that happens in and because of democracy. It also makes it harder to form solutions: if we decide intergenerational accumulation of wealth (IGAW) is bad because it’s anti-democratic, we might stop trying to fix the problem when we believe basic principles of democracy have been satisfied (leaving wealth inequality still in place). Keep reading below the fold for my thoughts on answering this and to see my new takes on the topic. Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming director of debate
The LD resolution for the NSDA national championship is: Resolved: The intergenerational accumulation of wealth is antithetical to democracy. This is a great topic, with a twist. The ethics of intergenerational accumulation of wealth have long been debated by philosophers. In 1960 Friedrich Hayek argued in The Constitution of Liberty: “Once we agree that it is desirable to harness the natural instincts of parents to equip the new generation as well as they can, there seems no sensible ground for limiting this to non-material benefits. The family’s function of passing on standards and traditions is closely tied up with the possibility of transmitting material goods. And it is difficult to see how it would serve the true interest of society to limit the gain in material conditions to one generation.” In Justice as Fairness John Rawls disagreed, stating: “If we ignore the inequalities in people’s prospects in life arising from these contingencies and let those inequalities work themselves out while failing to institute the regulations necessary to preserve background justice, we would not be taking seriously the idea of society as a fair system of co-operation between citizens as free and equal.” However, it is important to note this topic is not intergenerational accumulation of wealth good/bad. It’s also not inheritance or estate taxes good/bad (a practical way to discuss change vis-à-vis the topic). The topic is whether intergenerational accumulation of wealth is opposed to or incompatible with democracy. Keeping your arguments tightly bound to that relationship will be key to winning rounds. This article is our off-the-cuff reactions to the topic: our first take. Our hope is to have a follow-up pending a new announcement, but more on that later… For now, check out our 7 quick tips for debating intergenerational wealth and democracy below the fold. Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming director of debate
Thanks to the online UW practice debates, I’ve judged more debates on the Predictive Policing topic than I ever thought I would. Thanks to that, we at WDR have a few more thoughts we’d like to share on the topic. Below the fold find our 6 new tips for debating Predictive Policing. Authors: Amari Bertagnolli and Ki Radcliffe, University of Wyoming debaters
The March 2020 LD topic is: Resolved: Predictive policing is unjust. Predictive policing is “the application of analytical techniques—particularly quantitative techniques—to identify likely targets for police intervention and prevent crime or solve past crimes by making statistical predictions” (RAND, 2013). It’s less Minority Report (stopping crime before it starts) and more patrolling places where crime has been documented in the past. Right off the bat we want you to know you should spend more time prepping for being neg. Our big takeaway isn’t that you’re doomed if you’re neg, but it’s that you need to put more time into prepping to be neg because there are some structural weaknesses you’re going to have to organize your arguments around answering. Keep reading for our thoughts on the predictive policing topic and how to make sure you have a winnable argument when you’re neg. Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate
The January/February 2020 LD topic is: Resolved: States ought to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. This is an excellent topic with a wealth of literature on both sides. At early-bird national circuit tournaments like CPS and Blake the most popular affs were: whole rez (global disarm) and India-Pakistan. North Korea was also read (sometimes coupled with South Korea, likely to avoid "T-States = plural"). Iran will likely be a popular aff as well (perhaps coupled with Israel). Some outlier affs focused on particular weapon systems, like TNWs in Europe. I suspect K teams will gravitate to Israel affs and affs about the effects of nuclear testing on indigenous people (settler colonialism). Having been at the CPS tournament myself, I have seven observations on the topic: |
MissionWyoming Debate Roundup is dedicated to providing quality debate content to Wyoming and Rocky Mountain area high school debaters. We’re a resource for Wyoming debaters by Wyoming debate coaches. Categories
All
Archives
February 2024
|