WUDC 2023 決勝 Transcript
YouTubeにあがっていたTranscriptをそのまま文章化しました。OWだけなぜか無かったのでご了承下さい。(完全コピペなので僕は何もしていません。)
電車の中で読むなり、音源を聴きながら参照するなり、各自好きなように使ってください。(僕はよく高校生の頃電車の中で音源のTranscriptを読んでいました。昔は偉かったなぁ...)
Info slide: Ubuntu (“I am because we are”) is a philosophical belief that asserts that people's identities should be shaped by, and their obligations should primarily be owed to, their communities.
Motion: This House prefers a world where all individuals have a strong belief in Ubuntu.
Opening Government - Sofia A (Rumen Marinov & Niki Angelov)
Opening Opposition - Ateneo A (David Africa & Tobi Leung)
Closing Government - Tel Aviv A (Hadar Goldberg & Tamar Ben Meir)
Closing Opposition - Princeton B (Isaac Cape & Xiao-ke Lu)
Result:
Opening Opposition won the final on a 7-2 split.
- WUDC 2023 決勝 Transcript
- PM: Rumen Marinov
- LO: David Africa
- DPM: Niki Angelov
- DLO: Tobi Leung
- MG: Hadar Goldberg
- MO: Isaac Cape
- GW: Tamar Ben Meir
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以下、僕の独り言です。
スプリットの2 votesはOGです。
COは死んでたのですが、OG, OO, CGの3チームはどこが勝ってもおかしくないくらい拮抗していました。
あと個人的にはLOとMGのスピーチが好きです。
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PM: Rumen Marinov
In opening government, we believe that no man is an island and the extent to which you by yourself can do kindness in the world, collectively together we can achieve greater things in society, do more things together, grow the economy, achieve the most amount of political impact. On their side of the house, you will necessarily push to individualism and have the problem of collective action.
I've never been prouder to propose this at a tournament. What I will prove is that necessarily on this side of the house they will push to individualism, for a co uple of structural reasons.
First, notice the biological push that occurs. This looks like survival mechanisms that make you want to care about yourself because it's a couple of thousands of years old. So this is why necessarily you experience things like pain and this type of things
which push you to care about yourself. But secondly, other structural reasons prop up on their side of the house like for example capitalism that pushes you to individual narratives like for example, merit virtue. But also other narratives like for example, you should look after yourself and care about these particular things.
But I would note even if they have some extent of collectivism, this is usually to the benefit of other things like your family or your close friends, which actually takes away from your community. When you make a family this is what happens.
And I know what you're going to say here. They're going to say, "Oh what if you're an LGBTQ person?" You can still opt out on our side of the house, and this is extremely crucial nuance.
Because this narrative is not brainwashing you completely. If you're experiencing all these sorts of things, you can still opt out.
What is the bottomline here? This analysis also works on our side of the house because this shouldn't change, or at least to a certain extent, which means that this narrative is not likely to be super bad and is more likely to be a good one.
Now, why everyone? And this is something that is very important. On both sides of the house, you have communities
But the extent to which resources are pooled from these communities in terms of money, in terms of time, in terms of people working together - the extent to which you in particular care and invest in these communities changes. What happens on their side of the house? On their side of the house you have a collective action problem
because we're uncertain of what types of people engage in these communities and what type of people engage in these problems.
There are other reasons to opt into these things that make people necessarily not care.
Like for example, you have to migrate to another country because you want to pursue education or you may have other interests because maybe you're a Zoomer and you have other interests than your family's.
The problem is that virtually, some people will always be locked into these communities. For example, old people who happen to be handicapped have to live in their neighbourhood.
People who do not have access to education and who do not have access to all these things or are maybe working as a farmer in this particular case.
So this means that if you're able to push other people to care about this sort of thing this is a net benefit.
What are the things that they are likely to do? Firstly, they are likely to, for example, be more mindful and care for the community, start a business, or save money; no need for example for a school to be built in this sort of case.
Or just, you know, call your grandma.
Now this is really important because a narrative isn't necessarily pushed to you.
We help people who have no other option and have to rely on their community.
We drastically increase utility for these sort of people. But notice also secondly you're also engaging people not only externally but also internally.
Two reasons. Firstly, the narrative of the belief will be worse for people who are likely to be obligated in these particular ways.
This is everything, like for example your neighbour telling you I'll do that job you do this other thing but also setting up examples of people who do good things. This may not be perfect but the fact that people virtue signal and do this in a particular way means that you already have engagement and incentive to do this.
But secondly the narrative also penalises people who don't this in particular ways.
You're most likely to be told that this person is bad for not doing their duties.
Note, since this community is likely to be very important to you you're likely to cooperate with their struggles.
You're likely to get again not a case where they receive totally, but in aggregate people more about these things.
Why is this important? Because people opt out of different things that they can do. Like for example helping children out and giving them food.
And note this has practical tangible benefits to people because it's likely we can do more. We can do more policies, we can start with more businesses.
In many cases in these existing communities people don't even talk about it to begin with so if we're able to make people want to do this, it's good.
People feel nice about when they do this sort of thing. When they're able to be rewarded by communities their indoctrinated into believing this and so they can help better on our side of the house.
Yeah? [LO] So the problem with your case is there's a magical penalty that apparently doesn't stop people from opting out but is strong enough to force you to do all these other things?
- Yes. Literally yes. Fourth argument.
Note, it's hard to engage in faults. Because it's something people don't universally care about, right?
For example, you could say, "Oh it's not my fault." You could be, for example, lazy. You could say it's not important because you don't have anything to do with this.
This changes on our side because things like voting and political activism are necessarily connected to your inner group.
The impact of this is people have a high likelihood to go out and vote a high likelihood to join political movements and social movements.
When politicians see these things they're likely to co-opt these types of mechanisms and talk about their part of the community.
This means you get vocal voting groups that exist that are working in democratic processes both in local elections like your local community but also in terms of national elections.
They're able to get a push of a 10% vote, 15% vote...
Their bargaining power increases.
The bottomline is very simple. Maybe in some cases some people will be coerced. But getting people to do all of their duties makes the benefits bigger on our side of the house.
For all these reasons propose.
LO: David Africa
It's the third time. I'm so glad I'm not OG. The first thing I'm going to do is outline a defence of status quo.
You still have communities, you still see yourself as an individual within that community. The primary source of your identity is your ability to dictate to yourself
and your primary obligation is to yourself. This doesn't mean that you never affiliate with your community but simply it is the way that that community gets you to affiliate with them in the first place that changes.
Maybe your obligation should not become you to the community but the community should convince you to stay within that community.
This stems from three competitive reasons. The first is simply put there is competition between communities which means there is a strong incentive to find better services
or to find better narratives to opt into. But secondly there is also a fear of dilution and general weakness which means they have to create policies where they can help others and create a strong community. Thirdly and obviously there's an option to disaffiliate out of any community at all because they're simply not good enough for you. The problem with Opening Government's flippant response to my POI is that these penalties and obligations manifest badly.
They always have and they always will. Theoretically you can opt out but it is never a realistic choice, for three structural reasons:
One, because everyone believes in it and therefore no one questions it,
it is almost impossible to come up with the confidence to speak up in status quo. Beyond that it is impossible or difficult to have reasonable and visible examples
of other people trying to speak out in the first place and it's difficult to leave, to move to other places and to mobilize enough support to give yourself a job, to give yourself community. If community is so important to government, we could never feasibly leave.
But secondly and worst of all is that once they feel the need to instrumentalise you you feel like you're strung along.
It's become a part of your identity which means it's hard for you to criticise internally because you feel so deeply connected to yourself.
And it's hard to criticise others because they feel like it's an attack on themselves. So realistically speaking, criticism is not an alternative of Government bench.
But thirdly and finally that it never occurs to you that the obligation is a problem in the first place and lays the blame on other groups of people
and other problems in your life despite the fact that it has and always will be your community's.
Status quo is a far better sight than this alternative. We move to the first argument. People live better, happier, and more fulfilled lives.
All people believe they have an obligation to community on Government but do not necessarily fit in.
We believe that over time, these groups become less and less good for you, less and less fulfilling, and make you less and less happy.
First, communities tend to impose arbitrary value on you upon birth. Another criticism to the point of Opening Gov is simply that they never explain how you opt out.
You might say in your head you can opt out but if you're that LGBT person in Opening Gov's example and you try to opt out of a homophobic community, how do you stop heteronormative standards from being forced down your throat?
How do you stop your parents at the dinner table from saying terrible things over and over again? It simply isn't a realistic alternative when you don't have the competitive incentives to want to improve that community over time such as the harms that were manifest in the first place. But beyond that, these communities are structurally likely to displace you because one, there are just millions of ways it will not choose to and beyond that, over time the mechanism of social change means that these communities
were built and optimised for the past. But as social change and time goes on you are simply not the person your community was built for.
They are built up with traditionalist, conservative beliefs that do not fit the worldview of today. But secondly, values and beliefs within communities become more malleable on Opposition bench.
The first thing is that more people question these things and criticise whether or not they're good. So maybe in Opening Government there are some obligations that are good and we can agree.
But there are some obligations that are bad. Some of them are always fine, some are at least corrupt, some are insufficiently accountable. And we observe that when more people question them, they are able to improve and drastically change the structures with actual political resources into some good.
I'd like to note this impact has two immediate outcomes. The first outcome is that the actual services themselves get better since the pool [of resources] is not done towards harming people but actual good in the first place. So government never proves that these resources are used for something good.
But thirdly and more importantly, is if you are bad and ineffective, people never opt into services in the first place and the community works for no one and for nothing.
The second impact is that we put people that are more receptive to criticism. The obverse here is the initial mechanism at the initial part of my speech, which is that if you don't feel like this is a critical part of your identity you are more receptive to change within this community because you don't feel like it's an assault on your identity and you don't feel like stagnancy is necessary for stability and safety. Which means that we're more substantially more likely to allow for change, whether you're a person in power or a person who has to vote, because you can finally change rules in your household. But thirdly and finally is that communities themselves have a larger obligation to help people for the structural reasons we provided earlier in the intro. What are the impacts of these points independent of the structure of Government's case?
The first is that simply put, these classes and cultures are preconditions for many of the material needs they have to survive in order to have food, water, and so on, to have a sense of belonging. And so when these things are from the beginning terrible,
or they go worse over time because they know less and less about your life, or worst of all you are unable to vote for what is actually best for you, you live a much, much worse life and are completely removed from any benefit that might arise in the debate. But secondly it worsens these communities over time.
If Government is right that some communities are good and some are bad, more of the worst ones tend to arise and those have have the most intent to stay in power.
Thirdly and finally, people are less happy. They have less time to explore their own preferences. They have less time to explore the individual obligations they might have for themselves for the basic reason that they feel this is mostly subsumed by the community and hence they are less and less happy.
So maybe there are some basic conditions for happiness but they never have the sufficient conditions to know themselves and be happy.
Closing? [GW] So how would you define your community and do you think you only have one today?
- Probably when you have the capacity to question that community, you can have people come together to decide what that community means in the first place.
But the discussion of about what the qualifications are in the first place, that's when you actually get the benefits.
The weighing of this argument is quite simple. It's important, one, because it's the definition of access, right? If it's gated by racism, if it's gated by terrible notions within that community, even if you can pool resources, if it never gets to you because you don't have the opportunity to access them, or worst of all because they don't feel like it should be given to you, then there's no guarantee that this pooling of resources have the right distribution. But secondly and more importantly, is that it flips their main benefit.
If the community identity is good, it gets better. If the community identity is bad, then Opening Opposition fixes it.
The second argument, quickly, is that it makes conflict worse and more difficult. So the worst conflicts in the human race are spurred on by these communities and the willingness to instrumentalise and dehumanise individuals. The problem is that one, you drastically increase the capacity to mobilize resources, both on a human basis as well as a capacity for people to do things like calling to arms and so on, as well as the capacity to dehumanise others on the basis of what they feel like is their forced obligation to. But beyond that these resources become zero-sum between communities.
It's much harder to see the differences between communities - I lost my time by the way - it's much harder to see the differences or similarities between these communities because we are so focused on helping these communities your entire life. So when they spend more and more time in that one community, the problem is that many communities get weaker and weaker over time.
And they are jotted on by the larger ones that cause hate crimes, that cause destruction, that cause war. Maybe Opening Government is right that some communities are good.
But they never allow them to compete. That's why we oppose.
DPM: Niki Angelov
No one really cares about your games. And that's okay, because you have your own communities, you have your own things to care about, you have your own particular life. The problem is that if you are able to also care about what they think, it wouldn't be, maybe, that worse. It would be significantly worse to the extent that you need position to vote for some particular perspective.
You see, life is a lottery of birth. You didn't choose where you get to be born.
So plenty of individuals, who have the most capacity and privilege to enact some change in this community, make their own choice not through this view of life in these particular cases, they remove the only chance for these communities to rise in the first place.
This is what we stand for in Opening Government. A couple of things on this. I think a lot of the frame from Rumen explains to you why on the counterbalance we do not have the tipping point from active particular change. So you might still do some things but [on our side] they are likely to take the bigger chances and bigger risk.
So this means that you taking that corporate job in a big city versus you establishing an NGO or business for your community.
You choosing to go to the pressures of actually engaging in politics versus just staying in the house and making money and doing some work for your community.
This particular narrative is the tipping point of this case. We also think we're going to do it in a smart way, meaning that you are part of this community but you are also part - and this is direct response to Opening Opposition.
You will feel like an actual human being. You still engage in globalism, you still have access to Internet, you still have access to knowledge and all these things, but you also have the ability to recognise particular wrongdoings and problematic things
that your community is particularly doing. Which means that you are in the unique position to sort these particular things out.
We want individuals to continue calling out these particular things in order for them to enact actual change inside the community.
And they may choose not to do it, but nobody else will be able to. Which means all the other people who are not in that privileged position, like the LGBT person in that religious community...there is nobody else to help these people. So gradually things are going to get worse for them and gradually they'll have no active change.
I think you have to help them. And on principle I believe that you have that particular obligation exactly because you are in a unique position. You are probably one of the few that speaks their language, one of the few that understands the particular context in the historical, political and any other sense.
Maybe some of the cases you came from a particular privilege because you are smarter than other individuals in this particular place. You are the only one who has this burden because the inherent nature of society to make sure that you do something for these people.
I am very proud to support this. More responses.
Look, in the most extreme cases we don't think this obligation goes as far as to actually willing to die for your country.
We also don't think this should go so far as to say we have to pay taxes to this community because taxation is theft. But more importantly, we still have the capacity to choose how we engage in this particular narrative based on the particular belief of the consequences but the main goal is that you do something. That you do something that you believe will help these communities and you think about this and you make the right choices on this particular basis.
You still care about you, you're still not going to put yourself in the worst position.
But we're going to engage with this narrative in an effective way.
So in happiness. I think happiness is there on our side of the house. First of all, we can uniquely achieve happiness on our side of the house through this narrative, which is important to you, because you derive your happiness from the fact that you are part of your community.
Why is this better on this side of the house?
The thing is that we get happiness on our side of the house because you get direct access to a particular meaning of your life.
On their side of the house, we don't know. Is it because you're religious or something like that?
It's far more important to derive happiness from helping other people and it makes you make the hard choices in the first place, which is extremely important. Finally on profit and incentives to create profit.
The things like states trying to counter nationalism will probably happen on both sides of the House and due to the extent to which you care about your community, at least on our side of the House, the building process is much bigger because you don't escape to the city and you don't leave the people behind that have no other options especially if you are a privileged person.
Before I continue, Opening.
[LO] This relies on the premise that the most extreme owe the community in the first place, when the problem is that we constantly look for people to exclude them because we constantly force obligations upon them that they can't reach.
- No, you're picking and choosing particular situations. We don't have multiple situations on our side of the house.
We don't have to defend you dying for these particular situations.
I explained to you why we have the particular obligation. Finally in this round, what matters the most is that there is the capacity for these communities to do better, and you uniquely do it only for us.
It means that when that person decides to go back in some other way, especially individuals that are different - some are big egotisticals, others are not so egotistical -
all this spectrum, especially those with previous background, because those with backgrounds are likely to see the whole picture in these scenarios, and are more likely to feel the pain. Now, knowing they are actually part of the community and feel they have an obligation so they learn more in terms of your ability to breach the equity gap between communities and understand that people need our help.
For one last time, I'm so happy to propose.
DLO: Tobi Leung
In the world of Proposition, unity is a fact that alienates you from your very sense of self, discourages you from discovering your own preferences, and emboldens the worst forms of tyranny.
The first thing I want to do is explain why individuals feel deeply alienated and unhappy in their world.
Because to the extent that their material is the same, that you can derive happiness from helping your community,
problem: they never say why they have the capacity to help their community. And I would suggest, in any human society, very few people will have the resources to give back to their parents, especially those in the most vulnerable and marginalised situations, where they need as a precondition to be able to be able to help, to prioritise themselves to an extent.
And this is where I flip their material. The vast majority of people fail their obligations far more often than they're able to meet them, even in the smallest ways. Most people become slaves to their job, can't pull their grind off, can't help their parents, can't vote in elections because there are other things that preoccupy them by manner of necessity. The difference is that on that side of the House, that unhappiness and intense feeling of failure you feel, as a result of everyone saying you have an obligation, intensifies.
And this is where their case falls apart, right.
Because their side assumes there is a magic pill that leads you to believe in social conditioning. The mechanisms of social conditioning remain largely the same.
This is made at legal punishments. It's in their world where communities become more harsh, become more dogmatic, and become more willing to impose stricter punishments when you have failed to meet their your obligation. So when they talk about the elderly who cannot contribute, who cannot hold a job, these are the people that society comes to resent on their side. These are the people who are more unhappy.
Look at how marginal the entirety of Proposition's case is, secondly, to all the material we gave you from David as to why alienation results. First, you aren't given the time and capacity to find your preferences.
Yes, we do need to have some motivation from your community; that doesn't mean your preferences are automatically aligned with what the community says your preferences should be. Individuals will still want time to pursue their passions.
The problem is in your world they're constantly discouraged, and are never given the avenues to explore their passions.
They aren't given things like access to education, given things like access to extracurriculars, because in their world these things are seen as distractions, rather than useful things that individuals ought pursue. Secondly, even when you find your passion, you're constantly forced to make sacrifices, you're constantly never tolerated and never given the option to voice out your own preferences. But third, because even if you are able to engage in your passions to some extent, you feel constantly burdened because you feel like the opportunity cost of not helping your community is what you're sacrificing. Take the example of an Asian child who thinks constantly that he has to help his family, he has to help his parents. Even when he genuinely enjoys playing video games, every waking moment of that means his happiness is plagued by the thought that he isn't doing enough for his community, that he's failing his obligation. And this is where the analysis from David is crucial.
Because we explain why the expectations of communities get worse in this world, why the obligations become harder and harder to meet as a result of people not being able to opt out, and communities have no profit distribution mechanism that facilitates them.
Even if you get better collective action, those people are just unhappier and that is worse.
Secondly, let's engage with OG and explain why this narrative makes communities themselves worse.
Because the entirety of OG's substantive case is that communitarianism motivates people to engage in collective action, fulfilling social obligations and do things like hold elections. The problem with this is that at no point do they explain why these are at all exclusive.
The first thing I'll point out is that self-interest can be motivate individuals to act as well.
It is possible to rely on self-interest and come to collective solutions. You want future outcomes to benefit you.
You love your parents as an individual which is why you help them. You recognize that aid for society and the economy writ large still raise your own quality of life, which is why you work towards them. And here's the kicker: it's in their world where individuals are less likely to consider what outcome is best for society because they don't view themselves as having that role and that responsibility. They believe the community is the only actor that can dictate what's best, which is why they never seek to imagine these in the first place. You are bound to what leaders tell you is the best outcome, which is why on net you actually get worse outcomes from them.
But secondly, I point out, for many of their own impacts to work you need a level of individuality.
You need to have the motivation to climb the social ladder before you can give back to your parents. You need to have the economic capacity to do things like that.
And insofar as individuals are less likely to take that step, less likely to move away, less likely to pursue a job in a different city, because they feel like they're failing that obligation, you don't get any of the benefits you yourself pander for.
But thirdly, here's where we flip it. I point out that solutions to collective action problems are both more likely to be sought out by people and better done when communities actually feel like they can benefit the individuals in question. Because Government assumes that the mechanisms by which communities decides which outcomes they work towards work towards remain the same. But that cannot be the case. Because many mechanisms we rely on in status quo, like the vote, are premised on the recognition that individuals are superior to their community. In fact, premised on the idea that their communities don't know everything.
Accountability requires a level of independent thought and requires a meaningful opt-out, which is why they cannot get their impact.
I'll give Closing.
[GW] Look, do you view debate as your community, as well as the community you were born into?
Okay, so this is where I want to flip the point of intersectionality. Communities become less polarised when people have more than one community in Opposition
for three reasons: First, because every obligation, and your ability to feel every obligation, is seen as zero-sum.
You are either your obligation to the debate community, or fulfilling it to your nationality in the instances where you compete.
Secondly, because individuals themselves are less exposed and less likely to see other communities.
Why would my parents, in a world where they think my only role is to be a servant to my community, allow me to engage in debating? Allow me to spend the holidays in Madrid rather than spend time with them?
Sorry, Dad. But thirdly, you are forced to make tradeoffs to the most immediate community because that is the one with the most power.
I want to note here: communities themselves standing is not an outcome that can win Proposition the debate insofar as they don't explain why those communities are good.
We explain why on net communities get far, far worse, which is why our material and our responses put us ahead.
Thirdly, let's talk about conflict. This argument is independently debate-winning, and we heard absolutely minimal response, which is just to say that nations have an incentive to propagate conflict and nationalism on either side.
Clearly the difference is a few things. First, it manifests in how willing people are to disengage from that conflict, and disengage from the terrible things the states are going to do to them. It manifests in how willing you are to question.
How willing you are to form counter-identities and counter-communities, to say that you are revolutionary, secede from your state, declare yourself as an independent actor rather than continue to be forced to exist in the community you were born into.
But secondly: it manifests in how willing you are to demonise other people, when you see them as fundamentally different from you.
Because you don't consider yourself as individuals, you consider yourself as part of your community, that is when you are far worse
For those reasons, oppose.
MG: Hadar Goldberg
OG - good guys - want to talk about good communities getting better.
OO want to talk about some bad communities that get worse and alienate people
and explain why communities will feel less need to serve individuals.
In our extension we're going to show how people in the counterfactual world are likely to perceive community, and what communities they are relative to identifying, meaning we will settle the question, which is more impactful?
We will show why communities still have an interest to compete for you, and why people are likely to give back to all of us rather than just an individual at the community that they might share. One piece of extraneous rebuttal, then the extension.
I want to point out something from the WUDC Judging Manual because I feel like OO should have read it.
In "This House prefers a world..." motions, there's no retrocausality. The motion gives us fiat to assume that people just believe they have obligation to their community.
This is why the retrocausality which they argue, about how the community will have to enforce it and push the narrative forcibly on you even if you don't agree with it, is something I just can't claim per the debate.
Secondly, I also want to remind that the wording of the motion is "all individuals", which extends to politicians and leaders that decide policy in the first place. We think with all this logic, it's likelier that communities in any case are incentivised or even if not incentivised believe that they should aid their own people. Cool, let's chat about what actually changes in the debate.
Quick characterisation: OO concedes in Leader of the Opposition that on both sides of the debate, people have community affiliation in addition to their self-interest because you can integrate OG by saying you still have caring for your community and that is obviously correct. Note, however, without characterising which of the incidents in which you then don't prioritise your communities, this also mitigates their own impact in the debate because it means that all the communitarian prioritisation of my own people is quite symmetric.
What are the instances in which today people prioritise themselves over their community?
- A) When they think the personal benefit to them is larger than what they would get from the community;
So many people also have a self-interest to care about the community because the community serves them.
But in instances when they think they could get more than from the community directly, say if i could make a crime and get away with it, a reason in which I attempted to prioritise myself.
Two crucial reasons why this goes better on our side:
A) Because some identity that is grounded in community means that hurting the community is equivalent to hurting myself. If I base my identity on my community as well, it also means that I'm less likely to hurt you. But secondly, it means that there's no need to get caught. Note: throughout most of history, we had the issue of actually enforcing laws.
Half of all murderers never see a day in prison, not to mention crimes that are much harder to prove such as rape, simply because it's really hard to deter people. It's really hard to catch them in incidents, and people have a bias to believe they won't get caught.
Under our side they don't need to get caught. Their own guilt, their own conscience, will always haunt them.
Third, when people don't know or rationalise to themselves that what they're doing isn't hurting their community because they can't read minds. So they assume that their actions are just going to benefit others even when they are actively harming them because, say, they don't know that a friend of theirs might also be part of the community because they're in the closet.
Under our side, we have a much stronger push to actually pro-actively think,
what are the implication of the actions I'm doing?
Fourthly, people think that they are bad and don't deserve that you care for them or prioritise them.
We think that under our side, you know that not just you, but everyone around you also believes in that, meaning that you know that they care for you and are going to serve you in the future.
This means you are less likely to have stigmas against people in the first place, and think they are going to care for you as well, which means that they deserve good treatment of you. Who are you likely to see as your community?
We think several crucial things: A) People have multiple communities.
When I came up to the stage, people shouted "Tel Aviv" as much as people shouted and were rooting for Sofia. However we also shouted for them, "ESL"
because it's another one of the communities we have as well. Presumably we also have some non-debating communities but these are obviously less important. We think that this means that people learn from a very young age to extend our community farther than just the one they're born in. Note how this already engages OO because communities still need to compete for you and your identity isn't locked to just one community.
If indeed as OO say, I am gay and the community doesn't accept it for some reason, in addition to the community I was born into, I also have a big gay community, which is great. Secondly, we think that people also see in the way that it manifests that it's not just about them because I also prioritise the community over myself, as everyone in the debate conceded.
This extends to the large community, not just my whole family. It means that incentive is not about proximity.
It's about much wider than that. Thirdly, we also view community in this world based on what the community does for me.
Note, the wording in the info-slide: I feel obligated to the community. It directly ties to what the community has done for me.
This is what I'm more likely to feel affiliated with me rather than just the colour of my skin.
This is what I'm likely to see as community. Opening? [LO] The big analytical gap here is that the community gets to define what our obligation is in the first place-
Here's the thing.
A) Literally everything I said is likely to be implemented by the community itself.
But the community teaches me to prioritise the community, not just myself, but my own family.
The fact that I learn to reason I should care is because of obligation.
Okay, moving on then. What are the impacts of this? Firstly, we think that this means in this world, people have significantly less stigma and racism.
Note: OO says, on both sides there is communitarianism. The difference is, today, I associated with my nationality
or my race. I am less likely to apply to things that are relevant to my obligation to them and more likely to associate with things that are about my direct identity, meaning that it's less likely to be about wider circles.
Secondly, we also get people who do less bad things, less crime in the first place, proving less active harm, not just more donations.
Thirdly, it also means people who treat each other better personally because they extend community to each individual around them, which doesn't have to go through specific societal systems that we choose for Gov.
MO: Isaac Cape
I think the truth of this round is that Opening Opposition has been highly worst case. And Opening Government and Closing Government have been highly best case.
It's probably unfair to imagine that communities are going to punish you massively for the types of things you decide to do on either world.
So the contribution from Closing Opposition - I know this might be a surprise at this point in the round since nobody wanted to take a POI - is that we are going to claim
A) since we've been co-opted by the American crowd that selfishness is good;
and B) we're going to deal with the best case of Opening Government and Closing Government
and explain why it's the case that these communities act, even if out of love, in ways that restrict you and prevent you from accessing choice.
We think that communities have subtle pressures that manipulate you, and mean you cannot make decisions that are in your best interest.
Opening Government and Closing Government in this round praise these communities and how many communities they're actually a part of, and yet still criticise the status quo when it's possible.
I'll do a couple of things then. First, refutation. Then a constructive argument about why these obligations are negative, even though they come from a good place, accepting the highest possible burden in this round, and explaining why it is still awful in the world of Government.
I just want to respond quickly to Closing Government then. The first thing they say is you can freely leave these communities and that is a good thing.
One, even if we accept this to be true, this hurts massively. It is very, very difficult to turn your back on community.
But the reason why they say that it is so easy for them to be able to turn their back on debating is that they don't feel this very very overwhelming sense of obligation that we think this world creates.
So it is possible to turn away but in their world it is a situation that is fundamentally traumatising and limits you.
But more than that, they say there are infinite ways to find community. The reality is, that in the status quo, you are given the capacity to define and choose which communities you are actually a part of. Because there are competing groups and there are groups that you need to set yourself apart from at any given point. You decide under one or the other because they are perceived as trade-offs, they are seen as mutually exclusive.
So with that out of the way, extension. Your obligation comes from a sense of proactive love.
Your parents aren't going to be ones that shame you endlessly every single night.
It's not gonna be the case that your friends consider you evil. I don't think this is fair. Instead, let's characterise this as the average community.
Places where there is a sense of love, places where people do in fact care about you. And they want you to succeed and they want to support you.
Why is it the case that even within the confines of these communities, you are still fundamentally excluded? Accessing the benefits of Opening Opposition but doing so in a world where they actually exist.
One, there are cultural ways in which these things are expressed. So it's for example always watching movies where characters always get back to their families or always get back to their most close communities. So fundamentally speaking then, culturally, this is a restrictive choice.
And even if we think that this choice serves a sort of utile instrumental benefit, we think that you shouldn't care at any level because we're not utility robots. We're people that derive satisfaction from making choices that benefit ourselves and our things that actually realize our own interests. To the extent that this is manipulated in their world, even socially and subtly, this is still something that's principally regrettable. Second, I think that this creates - no thanks - a strong sense of responsibility.
The reason is that it is overwhelming. You perceive it in different ways, right.
Love in their world is a very different thing. Whereas now I believe my family, in our side, is a group that loves me unconditionally. In their world that is fundamentally tied to a set of condition.
I doubt whether or not that love is something that is real. I feel like I need to give back because maybe that love runs out when I don't.
So to that extent, even if they're not telling me that, to the extent that this narrative fundamentally permeates society it is something that still overrides my decision.
Third, I think it's just the types of decision-making habits you become accustomed to. So things like making decisions that benefit your siblings at your expense.
These are very very small things but they are things that condition you to prioritise others at your own expense.
But fourthly and finally, I think that alternatives and doing other things is just consistently portrayed by the media and other groups around you as just being something that is selfish, as something that is not in the interest of the group.
It's not acting as a good human. So if it's the case that you act selfish in our world why is selfishness something that we actually think is just acceptable and is actually preferable? One, I think that having autonomy to redefine your communities and the communities you are part of is something that is uniquely accessible on our side. So you can decide which communities will benefit you, and which ones are holding you back, which is what OG and CG seem so hellbent on accessing. And this is really really good for social mobility, because we can decide which community is actually restricting you. You can decide when your conservative parents are actually holding you back and therefore you can move to another community and you don't feel the sense of backlash and internalised guilt that their side imposes. Second, even if this isn't true, people can still specialise. And specialisation is something that just makes people more effective.
You can find communities that are most beneficial. You can define yourself in relation to your professional career, for example. Or in terms of your romantic life.
These are things that allow people to do what they are best at and these are areas that you derive the greatest sense of satisfaction from because they are fundamentally rewarding. Third, it is moderated at some level by opposing narratives.
Before I explain, this, I'll take OG. [DPM] Would you save a drowning baby...
This is so random, right? It's not about the drowning baby. The claim is that there are several reasons why suddenly you're pressured.
And selfishness is something that is good. But not that this means we're going to leave the freaking drowning baby.
Why are we doing this whole best case-worst case thing? Let's just deal with what happens in 99% of scenarios. It is moderated by opposing narratives.
Again being charitable, God forbid. Okay, you moderate because there are other areas that have to exist in society
based on people telling you that you ought to care for your family, that already exists in status quo. These are all norms that exist religiously, that exist in society at large, so that neutralises the extent to which any given narrative can completely permeate your sense of existence.
But furthermore, I think this destroys the idea of community. Because you're aware of what you also opt out of, you feel like you did that to make decisions,
And that trades off with giving back at the highest level because in their society, if it's true what CG says that you abandon your community at some point or you grow to dislike them at some level that trades off with giving back, because you feel like that community actually failed you
I think leaving this community then is a precondition to doing good because maybe their choices are fixed to a sense of meaning. Why is this harmful?
A few sets of impacts. One, even if the communities actually treat you nicely, you preclude the access to multiple sets of identity.
This activates OO's material on conflict when you define yourself by your job, when you define yourself by your romantic interest.
But second, I think principally this is flawed to the extent that you probably believe that the obligation extends beyond these communities as well.
For example, to the world by processes like colonialism. But thirdly, there is a general sense of isolation that sets in in their world.
It's that you just end up spending more time with your family and these groups that are close to you at the expense of others.
So even in the best case: even though you're loved, the subtle pressures to shift you in ways that are awful, and so the best case for Gov is awful. We oppose.
GW: Tamar Ben Meir
First off, I have two points in my speech. I'm going to talk about how this affects individuals and I'm going to talk about how effectively they work inside the community. But before that, a few answers to Closing Opposition.
I think that what Closing Opposition misses and what Opening Opposition misses as a whole is that when people view themselves as part of a community with identity and obligation towards that community, it's not just the individual has an obligation to the community.
It is community of other individuals within that community that feel the obligation and identify with other individuals within that community as well. That means that all of their analysis on the likely reaction of this community to my desire for change and how it's likely to keep you within the community is false.
Because other individuals in my community see my pain. If they identify with it, if they feel like my pain then they're less likely on your side of the House to be more open to adapting in order to make me accepted.
This means that Closing Opposition's framing of the fact that it's more traumatising to be with the community on my side I think is actually false at the end of the day. Because when Hadar gives you analysis on how communities view themselves, and the circle of communities and how people relate to each other, this proves that on our side, because the rest of the community feels like it is obligated to you as well, that is where you're more likely to adapt you're more likely to accept you branching out and all of those things. But moreover, we think today communities act that way because of the selfishness of individuals, because of the knowledge that other individuals prioritise themselves over the community.
So leaving the community is likely to harm them. By explaining to you the exact situation in which today, people prioritise themselves over the community, and that's exactly what we are doing on the other side, that is where we showed you that communities are likely to react differently.
Even if OG said similar words our explanation of the impacts and how these impacts help communities relate to the individuals within the community is unique to our side and significantly more engaging with the claims coming out of Opposition than on Opening Government.
But secondly the case from Closing Opposition for trying to run a principle that you're allowed to be selfish, when I don't think they prove that with additional analysis they need to make. Here's what I think is not true. We think that there is a balance.
You're allowed to prioritise yourself as long as the harm you're causing to other people doesn't overweigh that. I think what Hadar showed you by showing you where people prioritise themselves today and why it's likely to change shows that's exactly where the balance sits. Because people prioritise themselves in cases like crime, in cases like corruption, in cases where you are prioritising yourself significantly.
That's why I think Closing Opposition are now out of this debate. Let's talk about the quality of life of individuals.
What do Opening Government want? Opening Government wants people to do more for their community.
Things like material needs and having a sense of relief from helping their community.
Opening Opposition tells you that today, individuals who want to help their community in order to help themselves, also have an incentive to do many of these things. So I have an incentive, just selfishly, to build schools and to donate and to do all those things.
What is Hadar's unique contribution to this question and why is it important? We don't show you the additional benefits people might have by paying one more school or something like that. We show you that today, the specific places where people prioritise themselves over the community are places which cause active harm to other people. These are places where people commit crimes against other people within the community in order to help themselves. This is where the trade-off between individualism and community happens.
When the actions that we're taking aren't actually a benefit to yourself as a community but rather actually is that they only benefit yourself. This means that we're showing on our side we get significantly less of this active harm.
Why do we think that less of this active harm is the important thing? It's because we think that less of this active harm is what leads to more people within the community having access to do the good things that people have the incentive to do anyways today
Even if people have an incentive to build schools today, when I'm only prioritising myself at the expense of other people
not everyone has access to it. If I know that people are going to commit crimes instead of going to class
or just ruin the building that I'm donating I'm less likely to do it in the first place. That means we show you both an expansion of impacts that Opening Government say themselves because people aren't only doing things for themselves but for the rest of their community.
But also show you why it's logically prior that these people, that other people within the community are going to harm them
if other people in the community are going to take away or mitigate or minimize the benefits that I am sacrificing for, I am less likely to do them in the first place. Where does this put us in relation to Opening Opposition? Opening Opposition says that communities are bad and arbitrary and get worse because they're not accepting of change. What did we show you?
We showed why the explanation of the counterfactual of being more tolerant is symmetric because there is still competition, that's what Hadar has showed you, but also their claim on the narrative is actually less likely because of what I told you about the sense of obligation in those ways. That means that the competitive incentive means that
I don't want to be humiliated. I don't want to make people feel bad within my community. I want to make them feel good within my community so that they don't go to another one. That is their material that symmetrically exists on both sides. But also the fact that other individuals within the community also feel bad when I give punishment towards others. They also feel bad when they make other people feel bad about having feelings because I also that then when something happens to me that is also when individuals are less likely to do that, flipping your case and making it more likely under our side. Before I continue, I'll take Closing.
[MO] When you force people to give back society minimises policies like welfare. Why isn't this all comparatively worse access
- There are some communities that say you should also give back to your community. We agree with that.
What we're saying is that the specific cases in which the individual prioritise themselves happen significantly less on our side leading to significantly more positive outcome. That means that you have actually more choice in the community that will accept them and in addition people have more access to the needs that they have in that community meaning they're less likely to want to opt out in the first place because the community will help them towards that.
What is the impact on conflict and behaviour towards other communities? We think that OG don't talk about this at all.
And Opening Opposition push to say when communities prioritise themselves over others that's exactly when we become racists in conflicts right now.
But we think that they don't engage with the fact that the origin for conflict isn't just I care more about my community.
It's when I actively have to fight for resources over other communities and can't share.
That is when I have an incentive to tell other communities that they're bad and can't have access. When we show you that more people have access that communities are better overall that we have less harm we also show you that there's less stigma towards other communities, less legitimising the actions against them, but also less fighting for resources that will cause the outbreak of conflict in the first place. For those reasons, please propose.
