Ooops, the 1AR dropped the politics DA. If you are like I was when I debated, you have heard stories of such a thing happening and then an "amazing" 2AR will somehow save the day and the aff will still win. It is difficult to imagine how such a thing can happen for most people, and it was for me too. Having judged debates for a while now, it is much easier to see how these things happen and can happen pretty frequently. This relates a lot to the hustling/short game example I gave in the dogmatic thinking post, because people who understand the concepts I am about to explain generally womp those who don't, and the victims never have any idea what hit them. So here are some quick concepts and then we will get into examples
1. Impact assessment vs relative impact assessment- Impact assessment is "our da is fast, big etc". Relative impact assessment is a specific comparison between two impacts expliaining why your's is more important.
2. Certainty vs near certainty- the differance between 100% and 99% is negligable. The differance between 100% and 50% is obviously bigger. Everyone can agree on this. The problem comes in more gray areas. I have heard some pretty funny statistical explanations in debate, I will now try to crudely explain some statistical concepts to illustrate this point that if taken to the absurd could easily result in you sounding stupid, so try and use a little thought. If you are really into math you can easily find lots of books/websites that will go into much greater depth than I will here and maybe even find some cards.
Also, I am going to talk about risks in terms of numbers. Many people think this is stupid, but it is tough to do it any other way.
The neg has a disad. You have a defensive answer. The judge decides that this reduces the risk of the disad by 1/3rd and so they give the disad 66% risk of the impact (extinction).
The neg has a disad. You have 2 defensive answers. The judge decides tha tthis reduces the risk of the disad by 2/3rds, and so they give the disad 33% risk of the impact (extinction).
This is a bit of an essentialization, but lets assume your 2 defensive arguments were one about the uniqueness and one about the link. So there is a 2/3rd chance of uniqueness and a 2/3rd chance of a link. Does this mean there is a 1/3rd chance of the disad?
No. Probabilities for sequential events are mutliplied (more precise explanation) so it is (2/3) (2/3) = 4/9. Thats 44%. Seems better for the neg right? Might be something the neg wants to point out. Thats almost a jump from 1 in 2 chances to 1 in 3.
Here is another way this might play out. The aff wins one defensive arg that reduces the U to 1/3, and the link to 2/3. Left to their own devices some judges might say "ok, the da is 1.5/3, or 50%. In reality the disad should be 2/9 or 22%. The margin of error is even greater here.
Lets assume there is a disad, an add on, and an advantage at the end of a debate. An error of 10-15% in calculating hte risk of each is a possible swing of 45%. Thats huge. And yet very few if any debaters ever make an argument about how to quantify or measure risk other than "they dropped it its certain".
3. Not all extinctions are created equal- teams rarely differentiate impact magnitude anymore, it seems enough that they read a card that says the word nuclear in it somewhere and that means extinction. Or the word "civilization", "survival" etc. Rarely is this evidence making the claim that every person in existance will cease to exist, usually because the impact in question does not have the ability to kill everyone. Regional environment impacts and wars involving non nuclear powers come to mind.
Getting to the point. The 1AR dropped a politics disad with a middle east impact (steinbach). The 2NC gave a weak impact overview with args like "our disad is immediate, it turns the case- war means we won't promote renewables" etc. The aff has a US-china war advantage (with one of those sea of fire impact cards) the neg is winning minimal defense against. The 2NR says the following for impact comparison
"Politics is cold conceeded, that means its 100% risk of extinction. Don't allow any new 2AR arguments. They've conceeded our steinbach card- middle east war causes extinction. Our disad happens faster than the case- also conceeded. The 1AR conceeded that the disad turns the case- war in the middle east means the US would not promote renewable energy anymore- totally takes out the case. If we win 1% defense to the china advantage then you instantly vote neg because we outweigh, just the fact that we read evidence there should be enough"
This isn't a great 2NR, but I am essentializing to make a point and don't really care to type out a 5 minute speech. Here is how I would give the impact analysis in the 2AR:
"Yes, we boned politics, but that doesn't mean game over. Impacts need to be evaluated by a function of probability times magnitude- just because they get 100% of politics doesn't mean you auto vote neg if we can reduce the probability of thier impact. The 2NR claim that their disad has an extinction impact is false- their evidence says quote "a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong probability". Nowhere does it say a middle east war ends every life on earth. Lets talk for a minute about what a "new argument" is. If in the 2AR I said "no link, obama doesn't push the plan", that is a new argument. Pointing out a factual inaccuracy or logical hole in the negatives statement is not a "new argument". If the other team has not made a complete argument, we don't have the burden of responding to it. Plenty of examples of this exist- judges won't vote on disads if you don't extend the impact, they won't vote on dropped theory arguments if you don't explain why you have to reject the team and not just the argument etc. You can only vote on a complete argument, and a complete argument consists of a claim, a warrant, and evidence. They have no evidence or warrant for thier claim that middle east war causes extinction. None. Zero. This is not a complete argument and should be given zero weight as such. Second, the claim that war prevents us from solving similarly has no warrant- no explanation has been given at any time for why a war in the middle east would stop domestic production of alternative energy. Finally, their "1 percent" doctrine is ludicrous- you need to weigh the relative impacts- i.e a quantified risk they are winning vs the risk we are winning. Lets assume you give this crappy impact card the weight of killing everyone in the middle east - thats 190 million people. Between the US and china there are 1.5 billion people. Our Bangkok post evidence says a US china war causes an all out nuclear exchange turning all of asia into a sea of fire. Lets assume that only kills 1/2 the total population, 750 million people. In order to win our impact outweighs we only need to win that it outweighs their disad we only have to win a little more than a 25% chance of our advantage. Finally, impact comparison is not a new argument. It's the job of the final rebuttals to weigh things out and resolve them fore you. The 2NR had a shot to do so, just because they didn't doesn't mean we can't. They don't need a 3NR- us arguing the case outweighs the dropped disad isn't only a predictable 2AR argument- its the ONLY argument we could concievably make. That the 2NR didn't do a better job trying to shut this down is their fault, not ours. "
This isn't even that good of an overview, but you would be amazed at the wonders those kind of arguments can pull off.
You might think this is a stupid exercise in futillity, but having been around debate for a while I can with confidence state the following
1. The number of people who think "true not new" > the opposition
2. The number of hyper strict, line by line oriented judges <> the number you think would
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3 comments:
The logic of this makes alot of sense, but I'm not sure how it would play out.
It just seems like "true =/= new" mindset is trumped by the "If it were that important, you should have said it in your last 2 speeches."
Thinking about this in the context of other parts of the debate, I wouldn't vote if in the 2AR the aff points out for the first time the neg didn't read ev for a politics link if the neg asserted it throughout the round/the 2AC/1AR didn't breathe on it.
But then again I once got sat 31-1..
Rajesh,
I agree with you completely in my personal opinion. An anecdote:
One of my coaches once posited the following hypothetical basically exactly the same as yours:
1NC reads politics with no link, 2AC straight impact turns it. Debate goes on. 2AR says "wait, they didn't read a link, there is no disad".
I was like "uhh, neg. The aff can't do that, that is ludacris". I can't remember all the people we polled on this, but I was in the minority (you should ask Dave, I'm 99% sure he sided with Lupo on this). I was basically the only person who thought they couldn't do that (other than Roy, who we won't really count).
An easier way to think about this might be: can you think of a lot of times you either were in a debate or saw a debate where the neg thought they got screwed because the judge voted on an argument they thought was new in the 2AR? Probably a lot of them.
In response to rajesh, I think this has been mentioned somewhere before, but I think there's a delineation between a new 2AR argument that shifts the focus of the debate in a way the 2N couldn't have predicted and a new argument that if unmade requires the judge to intervene. Like, if the 2AC straight impact turns a DA w/out a link, and the 2AR points that out, were it in the 2AC, the 2N would have probably kicked the DA in the 2NC and the debate would have taken a different route, as opposed to something like 2AC link turns, 2NC says nothing but "extend our link ev" and the 1AR says "extend our link turn ev" with zero explanation, if the 2AR spends 5 minutes doing link comparison, the alternative to that is probably the judge making the call which is arguably worse.
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