Georgetown Debate Seminar Practice Round Six

1a: Thibeau 2a: Day vs. 1N: Arjun 2N: N00BSLAYER WAXMAN

1ac: Very clear and fast. I think you could improve your articulation slightly by bearing down harder on consonants in the text of the evidence. I don’t see this as a huge deal, though, as the cards are certainly clear enough and the tags are crystal.

I refuse to “put away my alternate causation” because you told me to. I think that formulation’s a little trite; I’m waiting for the team to construct an entire 1AC out of these statements, starting with PUT AWAY YOUR PLAN VAGUENESS ARG BECAUSE THIS IS A PLAN

Develop more internal links to economy. I think that some teams might run inflation, so I think you should have a more NUANCED and UNIQUE internal link chain. (You should also straight internal link turn econ Das.) If, for example, the 1AC developed a productivity story, as identified this as a necessary condition for reversing the recession, you might be better insulated from internal link turns/econ Das. MORE importantly, a unique story

(eg we may rebound,
But current growth will be inflationary which is a disaster,
only productivity gains enable middle path non-inflationary growth that skips a business cycle and dodges a double dip – (running a google news search on [productivity inflation] will just spit cards,
broadband penetration key to productivity revolution,
double dip = depression)

helps create solvency deficits to generic advantage counterplans. The key to “new” isn’t always a brand new plan concept – it’s often just multiple routes for advantage variation. “Sort of new” often beats “really new” because it encourages teams to rely on old strategies. This is particularly true in the high dissemination pressure cooker of a championship tournament.

You need to refer to this card as something other than the S&M evidence; that sounds very odd.

1NC: Articulation is quite good. Either these drills are accomplishing something, or y’all were just some clear talkers coming in.

I’d say something about T. I’m unconvinced this aff is a social service. If nothing else, I think you could easily generate a time tradeoff; they can’t blow off this question. Rein 72 (3 step process) might be your best violation.

I wish that this K were more specific; there's just fantastic evidence that either issues a socialist critique or critiques the information economy overall. It's fine at a camp, but if this is really going to be a big deal aff, you need to roll out something better at Long Beach.

If we don’t roll this out by the end of camp, hit me up and I will find some great sources on this question.

1NC CX: I think this is great CX for the negative up until about 1:00. I guess it’s a tale of two cross-exes (although cross-ex two isn’t bad – it’s just not as good.) Potentially devastating relationship between arguments = tactically, rhetorically, and intellectually solid. You lose momentum when you start making moves toward link turning cap. C’mon, you can’t link turn cap. No one thinks this will really be in the 2AR. The aff might be “socialist” in some weak sense, but they’ve already set up to portray your market intervention as palliative, mixed-economy tokenism.

2AC: Good arguments and card knowledge. You need some efficiency, though. Easiest example is the cross-application of cross-ex arguments. Love that it happened, think it’s great, but you say in three sentences what the cross-x has set you up to say in two max.

I said roll the singularity in the post-round, but I’m rethinking that. There is the block, and 13 minutes of Singularity Bad offense (a real plausibility) could get ugly fast. I guess you have to save that for a slightly desperate play unless you roll it out in the 1AC, so you can set up a strong inevitability story.
You’re really confident on this spending DA. You’re either right or foolhardy, but the progress of the round vindicates your decision. Issue expertise is the ultimate efficiency, I suppose.

I think you should consider rolling out broadband -> universal p2p networking, then p2p models are the next evolutionary step past capitalism. Clean internal link turn with a number of net benefits: avoids transition wars, articulates an actual material path out of capitalism, doesn’t trigger a counterrevolution because it piggybacks on existent economic structures: http://integralvisioning.org/article.php?story=p2ptheory1

2NC: Well debated. You sound great in the explanation, and your case-K interactions are good.

I’d look to shore up two specific places: Role of the Ballot. How do you want this debate to function? I mean, I understand the alternative, but I’m not sure how you want it to frame the debate. Am I determining my ethical orientation to capitalism? Is the ballot a judgment on the affs place in the cultural superstructure, which need to be detached from simple representation? I don’t need an “alternative” in the sense of a “counterplan with some Latinate phrasing” – but I want to know what’s supposed to be up with my ballot when I cast it. I want that somewhat more specifically delineated than, you know, rejection or intellectual endorsement.

I think you’d have a more strategic K argument if you could absorb large components of the aff. A tight carded focus on the possibility for “digital democracy” in a capitalist frame would be a fantastic point for structuring your whole argument. I mean, seriously – when class has predetermined our relationship to what’s apparently the most vital mechanism for democratic participation, is it really plausible to presume that one welfare program will overwhelm it? Won’t that just become a powerful argument against net neutrality, so that the elites can more easily distinguish their access from “welfare broadband?”

That slightly tighter democracy focus – and an examination of how imperialism redeploys the concept and term “democracy” – would allow you to do one of two things – either:
a. make this a PIA/PIK/whatever – a K that just does a lot of the plan but Ks a representation.
b. leverage their democracy args to bolster your framework position. Put simply, try to box the 1AC into an argument that democracy’s the nexus point of the debate through a reverse pit of doom.

Make more explicit arguments about method. (Almost) any block on the (cap) K must necessarily include a segment where you paragraph and/or read evidence that capitalism prefigures and predetermines their truth claims (ie, those advantages are lies; we should distrust their evidence because the filter of ideology leads them to grossly misinterpret historical data.). This is especially true in an impact turn debate – methodology is a built-in issue-specific ev comparison filter.

CX: The question is not why revolutions occur - the question is why they don't. When teams start complaining about the plausibility of the transition, flip the terms of the debate. Capitalism’s an inherently screwed up system in which a tiny fraction of the global population commands most of the planet’s resources. Some alternative to capitalism isn’t simply possible, but logically inevitable. We don’t have to defend a roadmap to post-capitalism – it’s your burden to prove that this economic structure’s sustainable. The transition’s a given, so the only relevant variable is our relationship to it.

1AR: Good focus and choices.

You need to deal with the question of method a little differently. You sort of treat method as an impact instead of a filter. You should put out some reasons to prefer your method of truthseeking. Empirical evidence, falsifiability and, perhaps most importantly, specific data-driven internal links to short-term extinction impact should be aggressively advanced as the way to resolve this debate.

2NR: Great speech – I think you clearly answer a number of questions, but some remain murky. In this 2NR, it should be all about the transition. The 1AR focuses on three primary questions:
1. This transition – is it even possible?
2. If so, how does that alt concretely have much of anything at all to do with it?
3. That whole short term extinction thing on the case, that’s still pretty important, right?

The ideal 2NR has to come to grips with these questions. By “come to grips” I mean one of two possibilities: either 1. Answer the questions or 2. Criticize them. If you win uniqueness – if capitalism’s really due to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, I think you can proceed to answer one – “yeah, it’s more than possible, it’s gonna happen one way or the other” and perhaps dodge two “inevitable transition should change our approach to a conscious transition – we don’t have to lay out a blueprint for seizing power, but a politics that enables us to consciously change our orientation before everything goes to shit.

You correctly run to the inevitability debate, by the way. I just think you need to tease out the implications of that substantive nexus point for the function of my ballot and a/t alt solvency griping.

Method needs to be clearer. Lies! Their ev is all lies! False consciousness! Running dogs! OK, I’m being hyperbolic, but there’s an arg for hyperbole because it’s so crucial to my round resolution. Role of the ballot also needs some clarity, as discussed above. I think 2NRs should resolve that really clearly, because the block and 1NC probably didn’t DEFINITIVELY clarify the position, so you have to reorient. Far too many high school debaters fall prey to the idea that obscurity throughout the whole round is just tactical brilliance. I don’t think you do, but think those two questions out and rehearse the answers before you roll into a neg cap bad round.

2AR: Great speech.

Micro:

Start strong. Your second argument is strong, but you basically open with a promise to make fun of Zizek later. A juicy prospect, but the argument would have been better.

"Literally game over" - this is meaningless unless you’re actually calling on me to stop the timer and yell “TKO!” Which I wouldn’t do.

Macro:

You deal with inevitability very well.

How do you want the aff to function? If you win framework, what does it get you? Do I disallow the alternative, or consider it irrelevant? Perform the cost-benefit analysis on the hypothetical enactment of the plan, and thus disregard the non-unique effects on ideology in order to avert large risks of short term extinction? Yeah, probably something like that. I’ve just seen too many affs blow it on the K by winning framework but failing to impact their arguments, and losing to “turns case.”

Good job, all! Elim quality debate.

Georgetown Debate Seminar Practice Round Seven

1A MARKOV 2A KEJRIWAL V. 1N DAY 2N THIBEAU

This was a fantastic round, really, with a level of depth and sophistication on the technical details of broadband policy that I’d find impressive in December – and it’s July. Each speaker should be proud of the effort and scholarship that went into this debate. I have some technical comments and some substantive ones, working backwards from the 2AR and going through the rebuttals:

2AR: You need to project confidence or you’ll be consistently frustrated by middle-weak panels. You’re intellectually impressive, but a less experienced critic might have received the impression that you’re losing during the 2AR. Debate is partially an exercise in projecting a persona, and I think that’s haunting you more than any specific technical or substantive deficiency. For real - this is a +/1 1 win/tournament question.

Specific ways to correct this:
a. Volume. Be louder. We’ve been over this before.
b. You overuse “even if” formulas. I think it’s useful and good to employ this sort of reasoning, of course, but you need to avoid the appearance that your 2AR is a desperation halfcourt heave. You say, at one point, that “even though their evidence may seem better and more predictive…” Ugh. Sounds desperate – rephrase.
c. Don’t tell the judge that s/he *could* evaluate an issue a given way. Judges are passive creatures – tell us what to do in strongly worded imperatives.
d. You ask your partner “is that OK?” at one point. Don’t do that.

Substantively, you do need to bear down harder on this double solvency question. The relative benefits of the perm will probably determine this debate if they fall behind on politics uniqueness, so you should be drawing out the individual warrants for double solvency and explaining the actual function of the perm. This merits 30 seconds, and potentially more, given its status as a potential nexus point.

2NR: In both of the Thibeau 2NRs I’ve seen, you were technically excellent, and demonstrate a rare command of both debate-technical and substantive details, as well as strategic vision re: case-disad relationships. You’ve been hampered by the evidence set, though. This takes one primary form: you have a single point of offense (politics) in both the block and the 2NR. This lack of diversity ends up making your 2NRs really big. You never drop, and always engage excellent clash. Still, you have very uniform emphasis as a result. You can’t afford to identify a nexus point or slow down slightly on crucial arguments because your strategy makes most every argument crucial.

Fix the 2NR by fixing the 1NC. Y’all need an internal net benefit to your counterplan that makes it a stand-alone win strategy. It’s worth developing this in this instance because of the early memetic penetration of this aff.

I'm impressed with all the weighing arguments, but felt that you should have devleoiped a reason that health care solves their intenral link chain. IT certainly might, by delineating more disposable income, for instance, that allows free market broadband purchases. It would be easy to get some cards on this, and it would be incredibly high yield.

We speculated on this briefly in the round. It sounds like the counterplan will probably pass costs off onto municipalities, which might trade off with municipal wi-fi; that’s promising as a DA to the CP, despite uniqueness problems. I am SURE there is some way that we can incorporate the reactions of the telcos or cable providers to construct a net neutrality disad. (That’s just such a huge debate; there must be a link.) I think we need to devote some more thought, though, to better specific disads or internal net benefits to make this 1nc more dangerous and this 2NR less diffuse.

1AR: Great speech - impressive efficiency, and generation of new arguments. Great efficiency on the theory debate as well. You invest heavily in a geographic distinction between urban and rural broadband access – is this carded? It should be.

I’d consider carding this further with rural-specific internal links to the aff, and impacting it as a distinct add-on somewhere in this debate. The CO2 add-on – or other telecommuting good addons – would probably be a wise choice.

Consider a refinement of your embedded clash system. Instead of labeling your argument sections as “link” or “impact”, you could label them according to YOUR argument – “telcos love the plan” or “health care isn’t crucial to the economy.” I’d experiment with this for a 1AR or two to see if it helps you.

1NR: excellent. Your mastery of details leads me to believe that you’ve read a good deal on this subject, and I’m either impressed with your research or your ability to fake it – probably your research.

My major criticism revolves around strategy, not tactics - the 1NC position forces you to violate the cardinal rule of standalone relevance - could the speech win without the 1NC? It can’t, and I think that’s a shame. This is an evidence failure. You simply need more offense – either on the case or on a distinct net benefit. You could collapse to a smaller fraction of 1NC case defense arguments and potentially go for T? I don’t like that stylistically – I want you to exploit your knowledge of the intricacies of this debate, but I think that the kluge move might have more tactical utility.