1 (edited by ~Wornstrum~ 16-Jan-2012 19:27:42)

Topic: Political Debate!

To have a bit of fun here in the Politics thread, we (Zarf and I) have decided to try and hold a political debate between willing members of the IC community on world/international politics. The way this will work, is everyone who wishes to participate puts their name in this thread. Once there is an adequate number of participants, everyone will be assigned to a particular topic (including the side that you are to argue. Yes, this does mean you could possibly be put on a side that you may not agree with, but will have to argue it anyway).

Judging will be impartial to the participants of the debate, so judges cannot participate in the debate.

RULES:

1) Only 2 people are assigned to a debate, 1 on each side, and only these 2 people are able to comment/post in the selected thread.
2) Each post must be kept below 3000 words (seriously, if you need more than 3000 words you are either putting way too much effort into OR it is copied and pasted)
3) Each person has 3 days to prepare their argument after the topic is assigned, and each response must be within 24 hours of the last post, and everyone has 3 posts each to make their argument.
4) Not really a rule, but referencing is recommended in order to help make your arguments people.

The list of topics will be updated at a later time, but we will try and pick current events that will try and avoid being too particular on one topic (ie. Someone living in Europe may not know anything about a particular bill in the US, so it would make it a little difficult...it may however be worded in a way that deals with the bill itself in a theorhetical sense).

I would like to start this within the next 7 days (gives enough time to come up with topics as well as allow enough time for people to register). So if you would like to register, please post your name in this thread smile

POTENTIAL TOPICS:

With the Kyoto protocol set to expire later this year, should world leaders attempt a follow-on treaty?
More to follow...

Addition:

If we get enough debators, we will run this as a tournament. If the numbers are correct, it will be run in groups of 4 (2 x 1v1), with 2 winners from each group advancing to the next level.

For example:

ROUND 1:

GROUP A
1v1

GROUP B
1v1

Winner of Group A vs Winner of Group B
Winner of this debate proceeds to the next round

Loser of Group A vs Loser of Group B
Winner of this debate vs the Loser of the "Winning" debators

ROUND 2:

Depending on how many groups we have, it will work down until we have just 2 players left (who play off for the finals)

Will confirm this when we have an idea on the number of people though...

JUDGES:

Primo
Walking_Corpse
~Wornstrum~

If there are any questions, or would like to discuss any of this, please join #politics in IRC

I give your invention the worst score imaginable. An A minus MINUS!
~Wornstrum~

2 (edited by Zarf BeebleBrix 16-Jan-2012 18:41:55)

Re: Political Debate!

In, unless objections exist against both Worny and myself participating (even if we do participate, it will be necessary for us to either construct topics in advance or give Primo the framework for topic construction).  If, however, we have either uneven numbers of competitors or a challenge to the legitimacy of the event due to our participation exists, I'm willing to step aside and work on the functionings of the tournament (full disclaimer: I tried to set this up once before, but it didn't go well largely due to my inactivity... so the reliability issue may be in question for me). tongue

Make Eyes Great Again!

The Great Eye is watching you... when there's nothing good on TV...

Re: Political Debate!

hehehe this should be funny

i'll sign up for this

neither man nor machine can withstand the fury of winter

Re: Political Debate!

I will with the provisio that I cannot debate with any on my ignore list.

Everything bad in the economy is now Obama's fault. Every job lost, all the debt, all the lost retirement funds. All Obama. Are you happy now? We all get to blame Obama!
Kemp currently not being responded to until he makes CONCISE posts.
Avogardo and Noir ignored by me for life so people know why I do not respond to them. (Informational)

Re: Political Debate!

I will watch with great interest.

Words will always retain their power.  Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen: the enunciation of truth.

Re: Political Debate!

I'll give it a shot, if I have enough time to spend when this starts tongue

Maar doodslaan deed hij niet, want tussen droom en daad,
Staan wetten in de weg en praktische bezwaren,
En ook weemoedigheid, die niemand kan verklaren,
En die des avonds komt, wanneer men slapen gaat.

7 (edited by Zarf BeebleBrix 16-Jan-2012 21:39:43)

Re: Political Debate!

Current competitors:

Zarfy
Chaosdarkmech
Einstein
RisingDown

Make Eyes Great Again!

The Great Eye is watching you... when there's nothing good on TV...

Re: Political Debate!

Any chance we can make it a rule so that only *reputable* citation sources can be used??

<@Nick> it always scares me when KT gets all dominatrixy
* I_like_pie is now known as pie|bbl
<@KT|afk> Look at him run!
<@Nick> if you tell him to slap you and call you mommy
<@Nick> i'm leaving and never coming back

Re: Political Debate!

1: What is "reputable?"
2: Probably best to leave that to the debate.  If I call someone's source out as bull, and it's likely their source is bull due to the arguments I lay out... then you can use those implications, as necessary, to ignore portions of evidence which are bull.  The other guy gets a chance to respond to the charge... and you have a debate!  But if it was just a rule judges are to enforce... it's possible a judge would say "I don't think this is reputable" in a situation where debaters may have no warning about the reputable-ness of the source, and no way to either justify the source or replace it with a better source.

Make Eyes Great Again!

The Great Eye is watching you... when there's nothing good on TV...

10 (edited by You_Fool 17-Jan-2012 19:31:49)

Re: Political Debate!

I'm in!


oh and flint, don't think of it as responding to the poster, but to the argument... that should be a useful loophole... otherwise I look forward to a default win if I get drawn against you at any point...

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but i am Jesus"
"Nothing is worse than a fully prepared fool"

Re: Political Debate!

That is true... within this particular context, an individual is perhaps required to divorce themselves from the arguments they're making, having completely different intents, demeanors, and content from what was originally considered the content to ban... thus, within the specific context, the "person" you're debating against functionally may not be the same "person" (from a sociological, not biological perspective) as who you banned.

Just a suggestion/extrapolation.  smile

Make Eyes Great Again!

The Great Eye is watching you... when there's nothing good on TV...

Re: Political Debate!

I wanna see flint when he has to debate a real life opponent that he has "ignored for life". I hope it's on CNN. Should be interesting smile

Re: Political Debate!

I wanna see Genesis when he has to debate a someone in this Political Debate. Should be interesting wink

I give your invention the worst score imaginable. An A minus MINUS!
~Wornstrum~

Re: Political Debate!

To be honest it wouldn't be very interesting, because I have to say my way of seeing things is pretty much like Justinian's, in a "realpolitik" sense of things. I would probably get bored reading all the ideological rants and fall asleep with a grin on my face. Oh well neutral

15 (edited by xeno syndicated 17-Jan-2012 23:18:03)

Re: Political Debate!

> Walking Corpse wrote:

> Any chance we can make it a rule so that only *reputable* citation sources can be used??

how about we make it a rule that no citations can be used - more realistic this way, no?

I don't really have time for proper debating, so if I am in, this no citation rule might be better for me, actually.

Re: Political Debate!

What's your definition of "realistic" to which you are suggesting we should aspire?

Make Eyes Great Again!

The Great Eye is watching you... when there's nothing good on TV...

Re: Political Debate!

Is that question to me Zarf? I'm not suggesting you should aspire to anything, it's a free world and you're entitled to have your opinions and express them the way you like to. I'm just saying that in the real world, politics does not follow ideology, unless it's reacting to something.

A prime example is the US invasion of Iraq (I'm not bashing it again, just giving example): you could see it wasn't a decision based on ideology after the US government bounced from one ideological explanation from another, trying to justify it with iraq not complying to UN sanctions, then wmd's, then freeing iraqis, etc etc. It was never an ideological issue but a geopolitical one, and that is why I think it's a waste of time to debate political ideology on an online board. tongue

Re: Political Debate!

Sorry, Gen... that was a question to xeno (in that xeno was suggesting "no sources" is more realistic than "use of sources").

Make Eyes Great Again!

The Great Eye is watching you... when there's nothing good on TV...

Re: Political Debate!

Oki doki. Extra information ftw.

Re: Political Debate!

Hahahahahaha

I give your invention the worst score imaginable. An A minus MINUS!
~Wornstrum~

Re: Political Debate!

My ignore list has two levels

Noir, Avogardo, and one unlisted person are the higher level, where their crime was such a magnitude that I swore on my soul to not communicate with them willingly, or may my soul burn in hell.

Thus their attempts to get me to talk to them would be considered an attempt to destroy my life and afterlife. Thus if they tried to decieve in real life then reveal I would feel compelled to kill them.

Now I do not suffer such depression anymore, so no more would ever be put at that level.

Now You_Fool and Decimus are super trolls. They live off of giving displeasure to others, and griefing. When they try to act like they are willing to debate it is an attempt to get 'off the list' so they can start trolling again.

Decimus, being a racist as well as a troll, will never get off the ignore.

You_Fool I could try... but I will hold the mods to consider his actions in the future, and perhaps ignore him as well if he won't stop trolling. Let the circle of punishment grow if he won't change his ways, thus peer pressure will teach him a valuable lesson.


Btw the term ignore is a bit 'off' from the actuality. I won't reply is the actual statement, nor to copies of their comments (typically, for most times I do not even read a word they typed). If I find I was tricked, I delete all posts replying to the tricker. I do not reply.


For the three you can take this to the bank... saying that somehow I could talk to them is akin to saying a human can survive a year in absolute vacuum naked, or that a kitten can survive being dumped into the sunk or that Obama really did close Gitmo in his first year in office as promised.

If both Wornstrum and Zarf explicitly promise to punish You_Fool if he starts trolling again, I will remove him from the list (for now at least).

Everything bad in the economy is now Obama's fault. Every job lost, all the debt, all the lost retirement funds. All Obama. Are you happy now? We all get to blame Obama!
Kemp currently not being responded to until he makes CONCISE posts.
Avogardo and Noir ignored by me for life so people know why I do not respond to them. (Informational)

Re: Political Debate!

I am dissapointed, I was sure I was a soul burning type person sad

Also I can make the promise that I will not "troll" in the context of this debate structure, I also don't really care enough anyway outside of this to muster the desire to "troll" on a greater level.... we all grow up eventually...

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but i am Jesus"
"Nothing is worse than a fully prepared fool"

Re: Political Debate!

Well Einstein, Forum mods cannot ignore his comments (because we need to moderate). However, the debate is designed (and I discussed this with Zarf as well) in a way that IF you did get paired up with You_Fool or anyone else that you are ignoring, you can ignore him (lose the debate) but still be able to qualify to move on to the other round (provided you only lose 1 debate in that round). If I was to grant someone special rights, I would need to grant others (ie. If You_Fool decided he didn't want to debate Zarf, I would need to give him a special "pass"), and would need to do this for everyone. So the only fair way to do this, is to leave the "groups", "debates", and "sides" completely to chance (I will be randomly drawing names out of a hat, to see what lands where), but I have set the groups up to accomodate for everyone in the fairest way. I hope you are able to understand my position and the choices I have made, and really look forward to your participation and debate smile

I give your invention the worst score imaginable. An A minus MINUS!
~Wornstrum~

Re: Political Debate!

Jesus did say "turn the other cheek Flinty", you don't hate Jesus do you?

Re: Political Debate!

He also said to spite evil.

Everything bad in the economy is now Obama's fault. Every job lost, all the debt, all the lost retirement funds. All Obama. Are you happy now? We all get to blame Obama!
Kemp currently not being responded to until he makes CONCISE posts.
Avogardo and Noir ignored by me for life so people know why I do not respond to them. (Informational)