So after a year and a half, I'm handing out awards. If you've already received the quest for this competition, you can't get a 2nd one. But I do note below whether I intend to give you a quest (and simply failed because you already have it). Included below your name is feedback I've written as I read your arguments. Each paragraph is a response to a different post, in the order that they came. I stopped (usually after 3 posts) giving feedback because it would likely be me repeating myself. Hopefully there's some use to it, despite the incredible amount of time it's been since these arguments were developed.
Also, a big thank you to askshobhya for staying on top of me to get this done.
@JACKinbigletters
You're right to rebut your opponent's claims about the safety of nuclear power. But a tremendous amount of your post is plagiarised. I found word-for-word extractions from several Wikipedia pages and the Wall Street Journal. Intentional or not, this would, of course, disqualify you from the competition.
@randomblah Quest & merit
Makes sense to talk about the real possibility of nuclear disasters. It is scary. A prominent objection here to go ahead and address is the very real damage that's being done to the environment using fossil fuels. Now it seems like a balancing act. Which one wins?
This is an excellent rebuttal that addresses my earlier worries. In particular, you've advanced the positive claim that renewable energy is the better alternative. I had read you as advocating for fossil fuels before, for whatever reason. Your analogy is a nice one to bring the point home and mentioning the Hanford leak is a really good idea. Not all ill-effects of nuclear power fall into the meltdown category.
@Doombreed Quest & merit
Smart move by making your terms clear early on. Well done engaging with your opponent's argument. You'll need to argue a bit more for why your view of value is the right one to have on this issue. In particular, you could dismiss the idea of monetary value as the right line to take.
On your next post, I'm worried you might be letting Legend take you down a bit of a red herring. If you want to engage in the utility argument (which I'm not sure is the way to go) why not talk about what the items are meant for? Or here's another approach - consider which item we would be worse off with if we lost. In other words, would our lives be worse if there were no tables, or no chairs? This seems to be more in line with the kind of value you're talking about.
This next post seems to be stuck a bit. We're rehashing the same points over and over rather than advancing the dialectic. If you've reached an impasse with your opponent, sometimes you're better off trying to take things in a different direction. The best move you make here is to argue to opposite of your opponent - that a world without chairs is worse than a world without tables. But you lost me when you returned to other things you can do with a chair (e.g. stand on it). Presumably, you can stand on a table. But this seems to be a red herring at this point.
@SirLegendary Quest & merit
Interesting opening and a neat idea to cash out value in terms of usefulness. There's a bit of a tension here because it feels like you're talking about two different kinds of value (monetary value and usefulness). I'd move away from how much something costs. Think about a microchip. These are pretty cheap nowadays, but I feel like their value to our wellbeing is massive.
Your second move is neat, but it doesn't strike me as obviously true. I feel like you can measure comfort - maybe not numerically - but it makes sense to say that X is more comfortable than Y. But I also wonder about the utility argument now. Is it really the case that all there is to this question is what you can do with the item?
You've hit the nail on the head with your next post by arguing that we would be worse off if we didn't have tables. This addresses the question of overall utility (rather than just what you can do with the object). You've also done well to work to move away from the talk of comfort. My intuition is that comfort, while an opinion, might still be measured. But you make some really compelling points here that make me think I'm wrong.
@Ishtaron merit
This is a very quick opening and feels more like a statement than an argument. But there is something here - that superiority should be defined by what a creature is able to produce. This is an interesting line to take, though it's not an obvious one.
Your response here is lengthy and well thought-out, though it might end up being a little overwhelming. Rather than engage with every single point your opponent is making, consider summarising their argument. That makes your response easier to follow and engage with. But another, more important thing to keep in mind is that your opponent has pointed out some things that plants can do that humans can't. I'm still not entirely clear on the exact details of your argument, but this seems like something that you should address directly.
@akshobhya merit
A very well-researched opening. But I'm not clear exactly what your argument is here. These are some neat organisms, but are they superior to humans? If so, what makes them superior?
Your second post is again really well-researched. I'm learning a lot by reading it. But as far as an argument, it's really, really difficult to follow. What you need is your main claim hanging right in front of your reader; without that, it's hard to tell what you're doing. It looks like the claim on offer is that plants have certain abilities that humans don't have. They can create their own food, etc. But there's this other claim about how much we rely on plants for our own survival. The first point feeds into your opponent's argument while the second just isn't clear. Humans depend on water to survive. Does that make water superior to humans? Actually, I'm not even sure what we mean when we say superior at this point
Another really well-researched post. But there are 2 really important things here. (1) You're overloading your reader with information. This isn't a biology class. It's really fun to read about and I'm learning a lot, but that's not the point of your post. (2) I'm completely lost on what it means for an organism to be superior at this point. Colour? Impressiveness? Longevity? Usefulness? It's just totally unclear to me.
@trigon123
A brief start that doesn't seem well-defended. Can we find new materials or cures for diseases? That's not obvious, to say the least. Finding other planets or aliens seems completely out of the picture given our current technology (and maybe even any future tech).
@nichodemus quest & merit
This is a very solid and well-written opener. You've done well to address objections to trigon's argument (I, too, had similar worries) and have presented some clear and compelling reasons why the US shouldn't increase funding for space exploration. One point I'd like to see better developed here is a positive claim. Perhaps the task of funding space exploration belongs to all affluent nations. In other words, maybe it should be a joint effort amongst many different nations, like the ISS. This puts you in more of an attack mode. Not only are you defending your claim, you're offering an even better alternative that your opponent will need to deal with.
@R2D21999 merit
Yours is a brief intro with a potentially very problematic line. You seem to suggest that humans making something might put it in the market for having rights. But this is clearly false. Toasters, keys, and doorknobs are not in the market for having rights. So there must be something else going to that puts androids in this market.
Your next response seems to be a hiccup. You're talking here about having a conscience - a sense of right and wrong. But your opponent was talking about consciousness - an awareness or a sense of self. But putting this aside, it looks like you're talking here about whether a robot can recognise morally correct acts. It's not clear to me how this connects to the robot having rights.
@HahiHa quest & merit
A clever move to talk about universal human rights, identify a specific necessary condition (i.e. consciousness) and then argue that androids don't have that. Of course, this just shows that androids fail to meet a condition for 'humanness'. That ends up being a trivial claim. The worry is whether they should have access to the same rights as humans - despite being non-human.
Your response to R2 is spot on. You expressed some of the worries that I had as well. You could even run the primate argument a bit farther. Primates in general (and maybe even most mammals) seem capable of some sort of genuine emotion. The great apes, in particular, have complex social structures with well-defined roles and a sense of community. Heck, they even seem to have a primitive sense of ownership and sharing. This ties in nicely with your point about innate emotion rather than a programmed simulation.
Another solid, though brief response. I would suggest here to not put the debate in your opponent's hands. Actually, I take that back - this can be a good tactic - just not here. This is because the concept of rights is a really, really tricky topic. Even the claim that rights are there to protect us is contentious.
@apldeap13 merit
The ability to fly does seem like a really cool ability to have. You could feed this into your opponent's point, though. Perhaps higher mobility means a better life. You also note that people go to greath lengths to see different birds. That seems like a good point, but why do they do that? Does being admired by people make an animal's life go better? If so, why?
You've done well to bring the question back to mobility. But, like your opponent, you need to give a reason as to why mobility (rather than quality of life) is the correct approach.
@Zophia merit
This seems like the clearest initial approach. If you have to make a choice between being a dog or being a bird, you should pick the one that has a better quality of life. I would suggest making this point a little more obvious for your readers, though.
This is a great move to make in response to your opponent's arguments, though I'm not sure about the smashing into glass thing. One thing to note here is that you guys seem to be talking past one another. Your focus is on the quality of life of the animal, and I don't think your opponent has picked up on that. So the best move at this point is to make it really clear that that's what you're going for and to give an argument as to why that's the best approach.
