2. Original Sin? The Prior Q is Why We Need Critiques to Test Assumptions

Figure 4: Treating prior questions as preclusive gateways creates a false obstacle to policy action.

1. The assumption that debate needs critiques as a gateway to test assumptions was always a wrong assumption leading to false promises of weighing mindsets over a supposed solution. Every case quote comparison already questions discourse and underlying assumptions. The innovation of the critique was around when Shanahan (1993) and others misapplied ontology to debate and perpetuated a false dichotomy as if spelling critique starting with the letter “K” is different from scrutinizing case quotes. Shanahan departed from debate after letting his true Being-in-the-World of debate reveal itself to us after a round of publicly revealing his ass onto us (NPR, 2008). And we were told critiques were needed so that making assumptions does not make an ass out of you? One can see the pattern showing he was like an argumentative asshole trolling debate spelling case criticism with the “K” to give it “Special K” syndrome higher status. Philosophic priority was already considered in case debate, but commoditizing it as a separate argument lets debaters win on that in isolation instead of relevance. Ontology can be used properly to prefer ethical meanings in defining topic words and in impact calculus like letting our reflection on how to protect “Mother Nature” reveal itself to guide how we act toward nature as we inevitably affect it somehow. Shanahan and others pioneered critiques as needing alternatives to avoid saying nothing unique and just how bad the system already is. But there is no need for alternatives, as the winning quotes are universalized as a principle we call on readers to adopt. Critiques can be reasons to oppose economic and military policy in principle, and say that while our authors would likely advocate a global revolution in general, that is beyond the round's discussion. We are training to shift public mindsets one at a time. These have always been general solvency turns, like opposing on principle as prior interventions made it worse.

2. Original Sin? The argument outlined here is to debate like that apple in the Bible that Eve wanted to bring about enlightenment. Now we know how the community eats its own tail constructing false dichotomies like early societies did. And if you don’t know, well now you know. Imagine if early thinkers like Eve had applied this paper’s synergy perspective in early Genesis: “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1, ESV)” and “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5, KJV): Eve comes to Eden’s garden of knowledge but doubts keeping her mind concerned with the original plan to avoid sin in return for the temptation of more meaning following a false promise of a higher truth where she will know an unknowable unknown like only God can know. Judges come to the topic’s garden of knowledge but doubt keeping in their minds concerned with the original plan to avoid harm in return for the temptation of more meaning following a false promise of a better world where the alternative shines deeper insight so the judge’s “eyes shall be opened” and projects that if all society should think that way then the root problem of the issue is solved. The root issue for Eve was supposing she can come to know good and evil in absolute terms as if projecting higher perspective onto the consciousness of others. The devil’s logic fallacy constructed the idea of evil as a historical invention for millenia by making good people analogize competitors as evil, judging from that higher lens, so as to justify their lesser harm to fight the greater evil, not seeing that their own actions are then seen by society as why evil comes to be. Yet another assumption to check is that this could be a simulated multiverse or the judge may be asleep dreaming an antinomial reality. Readers should close their eyes to see who can give an honest answer to, “Are you asleep?” And now, your eyes shall be opened to see the fallacy of asking to know an unknowable and ignoring common sense. How can one ever know how many currently-unknown unknowns will always remain unknowable?

3. Students come to debate here to discuss social changes to support. The critique changes to interesting quotes cherry-picked journals to make the reader feel ethically superior, like getting high on intellectualism, while avoiding discussion of how to apply theory to solve a specific problem. They say we can reject supposed outcomes as the plan we fiat is not real, only in a discussion, and that reading theory would solve the issues better as our “eyes shall be opened” to a whole new world of possibilities, but there’s a catch – it requires rejecting the old system we're in so as to oppose any discussion of a useful solution as the case's mainstream discourse fails to name-drop their authors. But why are we forced to defend the old system and not join a new one? Modern cultures have evolved to see groups competitively, but parts of the Western tradition overdetermined the good-evil binarism and applied it to competing groups over minor differences as synapses connect neurons to experiences to emerge human reasoning via analogy, which often fails to check the naturalist fallacy. The critique impacts cannot be weighted against an action and are just reasons that perspective is correct. Do not click the ad on the side that we can discuss capitalism instead. We cannot construct capitalism as something to debate as “good” or “bad.”: Even if capitalism makes progress, we can have more value to life by criticizing its flaws. Under this framework the cynic is always right, because any proposal can be imagined better in a world with better mindsets, and that is precisely why the framework is unfalsifiable.

4. This paper's author lost the most to truisms like “lives have no value under capitalism anyways, which outweighs transition wars” which parallels atrocities justified using quotes of principle. Given family history under communism, that caused departure as debate lost its purpose at the higher level in terms of adding value to lives by motivating colleagues to crowdsource on a common purpose, like in other disciplines. A strategy that promises to dismantle capitalism while producing no solutions research, and that then becomes a credential for a corporate career, shows that the critique functions as a competitive tool rather than a commitment. Just like how judges in all legal systems operate, debate judges want to set a precedent for proper explanations and burdens to meet by overruling these prior decisions so newer judges can cite. Bodnick (2023) writes how women are driven out of debate seeing nihilist role-models they'd have to become to succeed with modern debate's critiques that “promote a worldview with pernicious implications for American politics among a group of people who are likely to end up in positions to have a serious impact on American politics. […] High school debate has become an activity that incentivizes students to advocate for nihilist accelerationism […] Too often the activity is no longer a forum for true discussion, but a site of radicalization.” We would become cunning linguists that appeal to many without questioning if the policies we are selling are actually sound. Debaters who think of criticisms in terms of a “K” may become like Joseph Goebbels using a doctorate in literature to rethink Nazi speeches to “reject the system” to mass appeal. Berman (2020) criticizes rejecting the system appealing to higher ethics: “For them it is the whole system that is wrong, the alleged 'systematic racism,' not the real crimes of the lawbreakers. An unqualified attack on 'the system' was a hallmark of the Nazis' rhetoric against the democracy of the Weimar Republic. […] Consider the list: programmatic silencing of dissenters, purging of editorial pages, growing fear of transgressing murky viewpoint prohibitions […] the stereotypical language of the social justice movement in its opposition to 'the system.' They sound more like Heidegger promoting the Nazi revolution.” Their authors may sound ethical, but extremists can hijack the way their critique makes one feel they will look ethical, so as to suppress inferior mindsets facing harm.