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[the__lord]

Debate #1

Winner: imaybeparanoid

skaloop did an excellent job, since he was at a disadvantage on this topic, but he fell short of pulling off the upset.

Debate #2

Winner: cargill

Since the debate was already decided when I wrote this, I shouldn't have bothered to read this book, but I did my best to fly through it anyway. In the end, badlydrawnjeff didn't make a convincing enough

Comments

[killtacular]

you really think that any government policy whatsoever is morally acceptable as long as it is "manifested" via legislation and the opinions of 12 random people?

[the__lord]

No. But it is difficult to prove that it is morally unacceptable, and I wasn't convinced.

[killtacular]

well I wasn't trying to prove that it was universally morally unacceptable, just that it should be morally unacceptable for you based upon my argument. so either you buy bw's non-answer, or you just write in your own views, in which case i was screwed from the start.

[ex_brainles]

You and this "non answer" thing does confuse me.

[mrexcised]

Thanks to those who suported my argument, apparently there was some dissention in the judges ranks, 2 on 2 split decision that I somehow lost. I won't pretend to understand how, based purely on the merits of the two arguments, I DID lose, but hey. Shrug.

[the__lord]

Eh, you won, 3-2.

[mrexcised]

Whoa, did I? Sweet, must have miscounted.

I do have a question though...are the votes based solely on the merits of the two arguments put forth? It seems to me that some of the voting has more to do with which position the voter is closer to in their own thinking than it is about which debator better supported their side of the debate.

Just wondering what peoples thoughts were?

[the__lord]

I can only speak for myself, but I generally vote for who made the most compelling argument, in light of the facts as I understand them. I tried putting a balanced council together, in order to keep the impact of personal bias to a minimum, and I think it's worked well so far.

[ex_lovecraf]

I would have liked to see this topic more thoroughly debated...

The extremely late start totally screwed me. I just didn't have anytime to sit down and write a reply from Thursday on.