This House would ban the publication of software which is specifically designed to enable access to the darknet. WODC2015

Judge: Tejretics
Win awarded to: Bossyburrito
Reasoning:
Neg only offers contentions based on *common* critiques of the DarkNet, and dropped the majority of the Aff's constructive case. Aff was able to demonstrate that the core basis of rebellion defies basic concepts of morality and justice, and shows that the state is merely an enforcement of morality. To value morality, the DarkNet would have to be abolished or it would challenge the core essence of morality. The Neg pretty much drops the entirety of this.

The majority of the Neg's responses to Aff case were defenses, which are not used in an impact calculus form of an RFD. Let me first illustrate what a "defense" actually is, as opposed to an offensive contention or rebuttal. A defensive argument is one that evades the essential principle of the argument by, in essence, evading the core argument itself. RXR says, for example, against the Aff's hit-man argument as an objection that people would hire hitmen via. other means if this was banned. While true, it would *reduce* the hiring, thus the link and impact still stand, and the defense doesn't challenge the impact. Only an offensive argument challenges impacts, and one must vote based on offenses.

Thus, I vote Aff.

Feedback:
I recommend the negative side to use more offensive arguments, e.g. by showing that the DarkNet would not cause an overall rise in hire of assassins, etc. rather than straight on defensive arguments, that evade the original push of the argument and fail to impediment the core impacts of the argument. I also recommend that the Neg attack the Aff's core constructive--the Neg's rebuttal was defenses on *analogies* of the Aff, not the Aff's case concerning morality itself, which would have to be refuted offensively.

I would also recommend that the Neg check their grammar, as there were some errors, e.g. "rebuttaled" instead of "rebutted", etc.

Good debate.

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Judge: whiteflame    TOP JUDGE
Win awarded to: Bossyburrito
Reasoning:
I'm going to cover each of the arguments lightly here, but I'll only be analyzing them as single units for now. I'll get to an overarching analysis in the conclusion.

Pro's case:

Pro starts out by offering an extensive framework, where he basically builds from the ground up analysis of why those impacts that are most important to the debate. At times during my reading of this, I felt that it actually seemed a little much, as Pro was arguing the basis for why impacts that he had yet to present were the most essential to this debate, but it still made sense why Pro was presenting this. He wanted to make sure that his impacts could automatically outweigh anything presented by Con, and as such, this is where he spent the most time in his opening round. He didn't have to do much of anything to defend it, as Con essentially drops the whole thing. The only response I see is one that comes too late, appearing in the final round, and which doesn't do anything to challenge the basis by which Pro argues that limiting governmental power is immoral. Pro gave extensive analysis to that effect, and it can't be dismissed by simple disagreement. Pointing out that the Darknet isn't purely a means for evil acts doesn't damage the framework either, as it's not contingent on that being a reality.

As for the main contention here, that the Darknet acts as a means of rebellion, Con actually does Pro several favors here, showing specifically how the Darknet is used as a means of rebellion. All Con really contests is the example Pro uses, i.e. the hitman problem. However, not only does he provide him a litany of other examples that Con states confidently are means of individual freedom and therefore means of acting out against a government, but I don't think he does enough to dismiss the hitman example. Pro showed that seeking justice after acquiring the services of a hitman is much more difficult to do when those services are bought and paid for through the Darknet. Both sides seem to agree that, to some extent, the Darknet facilitates access. Sure, some and perhaps even most people who would pursue a hitman would get one by other means in any case, but that doesn't negate the reality that the Darknet is an effective and often used means for acquisition. Maybe the bait and switch idea Con presents would end its usage, but that just means that Pro's case works a little faster.

But what Con is really missing in these responses is the key point: the Darknet is used as a means of rebellion. It's right in the title. Pro wasn't seeking to prove, first and foremost, that the reduced usage of hitmen is net beneficial, though that was a point under this contention. He's proving that the Darknet itself is a means of acting out against a government and, thus, a means of limiting government action. This links directly to his framework, and Con really does nothing about it but supercharge the point.

Con's case:

In contrast, Con focuses on a slew of individual cases to showcase why the Darknet can be seen as net beneficial. The unstated framework is that we should evaluate the debate based on individual freedoms and who upholds them better, but being unstated and therefore unsupported, I'm left with little in the way of means to weigh Con's argument within the debate. But that will come later.

Censorship

I don't think this goes anywhere that's immediately clear. It feeds into Pro's contention to an extent, but mainly what it does is beg questions. Why is a loss of capacity to use the Darknet a slam at personal freedom and ideology? Wouldn't the only instances in which that occurs be those where a person who would not be able to post something on the general Internet (i.e. something a government doesn't appreciate)? You're right that this is an attempt to “oppress peoples rights for the government own interests”, but I don't see a comparison of these interests here. Why should I prefer those individual freedoms? Pro gave me an extensive explanation of why a government represents far more people and therefore the interests of far more to outweigh. I don't see that analysis from Con.

What's more, I don't get these moves to cite the Constitution. Since when was this debate about the U.S.? It seems to me that Pro never mentioned the U.S. anywhere in this debate. Why should my priority be to regard what the Constitution says? Con begs the question by stating that we should care mainly about the Constitution, but never explaining why. Even if I buy that this is within the U.S. and is therefore unconstitutional, I'd then have to wonder what the harm of engaging in an unconstitutional act is. It would have been interesting if Con had turned this into a debate over what's best for a government and its freedom of action, and in particular sought to discuss the results of limiting personal freedom vis-a-vis government freedom of action, but I see none of that in Con's argumentation. Merely stating that most people really like the Internet simply doesn't go anywhere.

Hitmen/Track and Trap

As I stated above, I don't think Con approached this point very well. All of his responses are either mitigation or attempts to garner the impact, which doesn't work out well for him. Even if I buy complete mitigation here, it just means I'm turning to the larger arguments Pro is making and using Con's points as examples. It would have been nice if Con explained that these track and trap programs may be used to subvert the criminal system instead of just trying to stop its access to the Darknet (he almost gets there in the final round, though not completely even there), but even then, I don't see a reason why subversion is necessarily more beneficial than the harms of limited government action that Pro talks about in his framework.

Vigilantes

This point ends up getting used and abused by Pro. I don't doubt by the end of the debate that Anonymous is a good group in that it benefits the general public (albeit with vague impacts about reducing the number of child pornography websites), but that doesn't change the fact that they're subversive and they are a major group basically focused on rebellion. Con digs himself a deep hole with this argument and gives himself no way out. If the hidden heroes, as Con refers to them, are vigilantes acting against basic legal structures for some nebulous societal good, they're still villains under Pro's framework, and Con doesn't dissuade me of that view.

Protesters

This point holds the same problems as both the censorship and vigilates points. It would have been nice for Con to spend some time talking about these corrupt countries, and how their power to censor their people and remove their voice is increasing the amount of harm they can cause. It would have been a good start to a response to the framework, but Con never gets there. Con doesn't seem to get that this “valuable information”, by being released in defiance of the government, is fundamentally more harmful than good. He needed to outweigh that harm, and I don't see him doing that.

Conclusion:

Put very simply, Pro won this debate on the framework. Pro provides an extensive and well-elucidated framework for what should be viewed as most important within the debate as a whole. Con's failure to respond to any piece of that framework until the final round (and to do so in such a minimal way there as to have barely left a dent in it in any case) ends up ruining his case. I'm left asking a very important question by the end of the debate as a result of Pro's framework: why should I prefer any or even all of Con's impacts to Pro's? Pro gives me substantial reasoning as to why impacts that restrict the freedom of action of the government are necessarily the most damaging, and backs up his weighing analysis very strongly from the outset, providing a number of links that I felt were unnecessary. Even without a substantial number of those links, Pro's the only one giving me any weighing analysis, and so I can't help but prefer his impacts. Even if the government produces absolutely no net beneficial outcome as a result of banning the Darknet, the fact that they're making a clear attempt to ensure that they better control events within their society is sufficient reason for me to vote Pro all by itself.

Feedback:
For a debate about a subject that requires a substantial amount of research to understand well, I didn't feel like either debater made an effort to explain what the Darknet actually is. The focus of this debate was mainly on how the Darknet is used, but I feel that that required some explanation of how the Darknet functions in order to understand why these parties would employ it.

Pro: Not much to say to you directly. I'd say that some of the framework analysis can be stripped out and used later to support your impacts, but if this is how you like to do it (probably more LD-ish) that's up to you.

Con: Make sure you understand the debate your opponent is trying to have just as well as you understand the debate you want to have. Just because you want a straight up net benefits debate doesn't mean that you can get away with using that perspective for your rebuttals to a case that clearly has a more specific and well-articulated focus. You could have presented many of your contentions in a similar fashion to how you did here if you had used them with a little more care and presented an alternative framework. Without those inclusions, you let Pro control the discussion, and that's never good.

And speaking further on the framework, know and state why your arguments are the most important. When Pro's giving all of his weighing analysis up front, you have to be ready to respond in kind at some point. You can't just lob a large number of contentions at him and hope to outweigh by sheer volume, nor can you hope to outweigh on the basis of what you deem most important without explaining why it matters most. Don't just claim that your impacts matter most.

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Judge: Blackflag
Win awarded to: RXR.
Reasoning:
This debate was interesting, but ultimately disappointing to read. I was a little lost on where both debaters were going with their arguments too. Obviously this judgement wont count towards the WODC 2015 decision for this debate, but I am going to write it anyways because I feel this debate could use another judge's perspective..

The first two arguments by @BossyBurrito were to be upfront, really poor. The first two sections, "The Basis of Good" and "The Proper Role of Statecraft," had the obvious intention of providing context for later arguments. In these two sections there was no context of the resolution, background on what the Darknet is or does, or convincing narrative/rhetoric that should of been there to provide an early hook.

The first two sections would be better suited for an essay, not a debate speech. Sometimes background is needed though, but it needs to be correlated with the resolution. Someone listening to your speech needs to be able to form a clear connection between your background and what you are arguing for. Since no actual connection was drawn between the Proper Role of Statecraft and The Basis of Good, I had pretty much no later cognition created from most of your opening speech. Establishing convincing arguments is a lot more important in your opening speech then providing an unnecessary amount of filler content on what defines morality and how states should work. To be brutally honest, I wasn't convinced by anything said in these two sections anyways, and some parts were even cryptic and reminiscent of texts by Nietzche and Kant.

There was a lot of expectation that I was to be convinced by the first two sections to accept almost all of your later arguments, which was not only a risky strategy, but a poorly executed strategy. It was almost like I was listening to a lecture and not a speech, and that is something you should try to avoid in a debate.

The final section of Pro's opening speech is where he finally begins to talk about the Darknet. It was frustrating to see that after hearing all that unnesecary, poorly executed, and non-rhetorical content in the first two sections, that there was only half a sentence of explanation on what the darknet actually was. Even more frustrating was the fact that I only recieved one line of narrative, and a cryptic argument on how the Darknet is a rebellion which was poorly spoken and explained. There was absolutely zero impact from Pro's first round, and if I hadn't known what the darknet was prior to this debate, I would of been ultimately confused and bored to the point where I would just stop reading.

While Con's opening speech was not so great, it was certainly better than Pro's opening speech. There was a lot of bad speaking and bad grammar, but that was outweighed by the fact that there were a lot more established impacts, a lot more flow, and a lot more clarity not including the bad spelling. The arguments could of been better written, but at least their were arguments, and not all of them were bad.

Con was smart to embrace the idea that the the darknet WAS a rebellion. For someone who was left absolutely confused by Pro's opening speech, I wasn't left blind by this tactic which was obviously thought out beforehand. Claiming that there are activist and protest groups speaking out against the policies of the government and that it was a "good" rebellion was a really strong impact, and I felt it was delivered in a non-exagerrated manner.

It was also good that Con gave specific examples of a group using the darknet to fight crime and take down horrendous sites. The next two sections were rebuttals. One provided a tactic for enforcing law on the darknet. I will go more into this later, but it was an instant negation of the implied statement that Pro made that there was no way for law to interact with the darknet. The second section was in regards to hiring hitman. Con was on the right track with his first statement that banning darknet software wouldn't reduce the number of hitman hired, but then he made another statement in direct contradiction to his first. I overlooked this because I understood what he meant, but this section was poorly written and should of been expanded upon.

Con made a brief argument at the end about how banning the darknet is an attack on liberty, but he didn't expand upon it much. I was still kind of convinced, because just making that statement had me going "Yeah, I guess it is actually counterproductive to what I want to see from my states." None the less, this point needed to be pushed a lot harder.

Pro's second round clarified a little on the first. It became obvious that the reason Pro was opposed to the darknet was because he believed the government should have an iron fist. This is a controversial statement, and in a debate speech you are trying to make convincing statements. Constant advocations of authority are an immediate turn off, so as a judge I need convincing arguments to come prior to the controversial statement to make me say, "I guess that is a good point, and it stood against his opponents refutations." Jumping ahead a little bit, I don't feel Pro's avocation of authority was stronger than Con's avocation of Liberty, and that has a lot to do with the fact that Liberty isn't as controversial and requires less to back up and sound convincing.

I hated everything else about the round, but mostly because it is something I see a lot of debaters doing that they shouldn't. Claiming that you've proven something is a good way to bypass having to argue a point again, but make sure you have proven yourself beyond a doubt. I felt that Pro hadn't proven anything, so by having Pro skip arguing a point it made me continue believing Pro hadn't proven anything. It sounds more like laziness to be honest.

Pro conceded partially that you can actually enforce law on the darknet, although he maintained his cryptic arguments from the beginning and that turned me off.

Round 3 is where I became certain of the winner. Pro was really lazy this round, opting to not argue by issuing statements that he had already proven everything he could of. Not really. Con put a lot more effort into his third round, and I liked that. Con screwed up on his first round argument with his contradiction on hitmen, but he resolved the error this round. I was convinced personally that hiring a hitman is easy, and Pro did nothing to dispute this belief for me. The other arguments stood as winners from the earlier rounds, and this might of been different if Pro had chosen to actually argue them. Con actually reinforced his arguments, which shows a lot better conduct and drive than Pro was showing.

I ended up agreeing with Con. He provided more reasons, although not a lot more, for why the darknet shouldn't be banned. He also did refute Pro for the most part. The argument on authority was left standing for the most part, but it was so considerably weak and unconvincing that I didn't assign it any real impact. Perhaps if Pro had pushed the point on authority in every round instead of just claiming his view was correct, I would of been convinced enough to assign it a major impact in this debate.

Good job to both of you on your first round of the WODC 2015. This is a clear winner for RXR, although I have a strong sense that he will lose this debate due to his social standing. I am hoping anyone who agrees with me and reads this will judge in favor of RXR, but if you do legitimately believe BossyBurrito won, then you should obviously judge in his favor.



Feedback:
You're not writing an essay or giving a lecture. Make sure every paragraph you write relates back to what you are arguing for. If I read a whole paragraph and can't connect it to the resolution, then for the most part that paragraph was filler and turns me off from everything else you say.

Talk as if you are trying to desperately persuade the judges. Don't respond in a way you wouldn't respond to a real person you are really trying to convince in real life. For real! A good example was when Pro said "I already proved this." When you are trying to convince someone of something ,you don't respond to a counterargument with a refusal to respond, that is silly.

Check your spelling and grammar. More importantly your word flow. Con made a major mistake in his first round when he contradicted himself, and it took two rounds just to win me over again on the point he was trying to make. Cryptic language is incomprehensible (Pro), but so is grammatically incorrect language (Con). Both will have me confused and bored.

Using just one argument and hoping that it is enough to win you the debate is a risky and bad strategy. Even having a second argument established in the first round gives you a little more flexibility if your first argument falls short.

Get me passionate about what you are arguing for and keep me passionate until the end of the debate. Only Con appealed to my emotions and beliefs, and he did so very weakly at that. Use more rhetoric, political or emotional, and make sure you narrate whenever possible.

Avoid controversy unless you have the proper tools and arguments to back it up. When your trying to convince someone of something, you usually only give them the arguments you know they'll want to hear. If you feel that the majority of people wont want to hear an argument you might have, you need to either drop it or provide a huge amount of convincing material to back it up. Arguing authoritarianism was a risky strategy, especially when there are so many other routes one could take throughout this debate.

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