POTD
Kratos is supreme!
Time for the gigantic mega post! I’ll have to categorize this one…
Debate:
Wee, four hour mini bus trip. Pretty uneventful actually. So whatever, I’ll skip ahead.
So, the resolution is: “Resolved: The actions of corporations ought to be held to the same moral standards as the actions of individuals.”
Some quick background before we begin:
Common Aff arguments: Lots of harms when we hold corporations differently. These include: letting the individuals within the corporation hide wrong doing, excessive corporate power, disregard for human welfare, and similar things. Really, most aff cases are the same, they almost all state that by holding the corporations the same way we get a benefit.
My aff case: In my frame work I establish that morality is only useful when applied to humans, I.E. that morality only matters if it is helping alleviate human suffering. Thus I set up the value of morality and the criterion of decreasing exploitation. In the framework I set it up so that showing a decrease in human suffering (exploitation, this is explained in case) is enough to affirm. And then I basically lay out the ways in which exploitation is decreased.
Common Neg arguments: For neg there is slightly more flexibility. Some people set up cases similar to the aff cases, that is, they try and show that negating has comparative benefits. On the other hand some neg cases try and prove the resolution necessarily false based on universal principles. Arguments of this sort consist of: morality doesn’t exist, the corporations aren’t morally culpable, there are morally relevant differences, etc.
My neg case: It’s just a pretty standard culpability case saying that a corporation is like a thought concept, so it can’t be morally culpable for its actions. The same way Nazis, and not Nazism is responsible for the holocaust, corporate actors and not the corporations are responsible for whatever action.
Round 1: I was neg. This was against some random opponent. I really thought I won this round, because quite frankly his case was terrible. “Since corporations won’t be held to these responsibilities they will turn into utilitarians.” Umm, okay… No warrant, and I that “harm” is pretty silly. But apparently I lost the value-criterion debate, so he got all of his impacts and thus won.
Round 2: I was Aff. This round was annoying as hell… My opponent made really bad arguments, and terrible responses to my arguments, but I dropped her third contention and her freaking underview. And she was on the neg! All that offense she had made it nearly impossible to cover with the limited time in the 1AR. The most annoying thing was the judge said he really wanted to vote for me, but couldn’t just because of that stupid spread. Ah well.
Round 3: I was Neg. Whatever. Her case was overall just pretty strong, and she was a good debater. I felt like I should have lost that round. But I got 30 speaker points, and my judge said it was one of the smoothest deliveries she had ever heard.
Round 4: Aff again here. The two of use were both running benefit cases, but I had the kid’s case and I outweighed his benefits. A pretty easy round. 29 speaks ^^.
Round 5: Neg here. I adapted to my judge really well, the kid dropped my neg case, I kill his value criterion, it was just a pretty good face crush.
Round 6: Aff… I debated a kid (actually I stayed at his house, and he plays Magic, and he’s an overall cool kid) who set out to have fun at this tournament, so he ran… reptilian illuminati. The case stated that we are all being mind controlled by an evolved species of raptors, the illuminati, and that the only way to free ourselves is through the access of the right side of our brain. All of his cards came from David Ick, founder of the Green Party in England (this is why the Green Party will never win an election.) The case wasn’t actually horrible (if the judge decides to go with debate instincts over common sense that is) because against any response I made he could claim that I was brainwashed by the illuminati, so my argument is just an attempt to cover up their presence. However I responded by drawing a caricature of a illuminati, thus accessing the right side of my brain and disproving the presence of the illuminati. I also said that if the judge would buy my opponent’s argument he would also have to buy my argument my opponent was actually brainwashed by the Lupines, an evolved race of lycanthropes. And he dropped my case, so it was an easy win. I had also contemplated reading a poem to access the right side of my brain, and I spent a lot of prep time trying to write a rhyme. Nothing rhymes with illuminati that I could think of. Anyways, in response to my drawing he said I had drawn it with the left side of my brain, since I did it utterly without emotion or conviction. So during my next speech I acted like I was very upset by that, and I channeled my pure emotion into a second drawing, thus accessing my right side. Then the judge gave me 25 speaker points. If he had given me just a few more I could have gotten a speaker award. What a meanie. Maybe if my drawing was better? But man, I deserved more points for coming up with such a novel response.
Anywho, my final record was 3-3, and no one on my team did much better.
WARNING: Politically Correct stuff galore below!
I found it singularly hilarious that the Lynbrook team had a single white kid. And maybe three guys. I was also quite disappointed that I didn’t get to debate any of them, since I told Aaron I would beat some for him. But my record was too sucky to debate them. And another thing I observed, this will sound weird, but Indian girls should shave! And I mean their faces. I can’t tell you how disconcerting a moustache is on a girl. But that is pretty unrelated to anything else. Besides that the Lynbrook team was full of attractive Asian girls that I didn’t have a chance with… <_< Also, apparently Hopkins has a reputation, because the Lynbrook coach said we were one of the teams to watch out for.
After the first day we went to our home-stay. And stayed up till one telling messed up stories. And the second we watched Blazing Saddles and then went to sleep. Hmm. We also went to a really good Italian restaurant called Mondo’s. It was the first real meal I had had in some time, so I was made mucho happy.
So in summary: I think I could have done a lot better if I had put more work into debate, but I didn’t have the time to commit. I’m still deciding whether or not I’ll be doing debate next year.
Music: Yay! Music!
So I’m probably neglecting to talk about a lot of new bands I got, but I didn’t get those CDs as recently, so I just won’t talk about them
X&Y and Rush Of Blood To The Head, by Coldplay: Well, Coldplay, is one of those bands that I really want to like, but I somehow can’t. The singing is overall subpar, ugh, I can’t even hear him half the time. And the instrumentation although cool, if the same in every song! I’m serious, all their songs sound exactly the same. Not cool. Except for a couple stand out tracks I was very disappointed by Coldplay. I’m not sure what they are aiming for, but they sound like a combination of The Frey and Death Cab for Cutie, and the result isn’t too great.
Franz Fredinand, by Franz Fredinand: This album, was very cool. The guitar playing is cool as heck, and the songs are fun. Yeah, not much else to say, but I like it a lot. Especially Take Me Out, which is a cool song.
And I have a hard calc test coming up, in addition to the AIME on the same day.
Sorry for the long post...
