Demo Round: THW grant heads of state the right to an 'Internet Kill' switch.
Round 1: "The Young and the Old"
M1: THW not allow minors to be involved in politics.
M2: TH would scrap the government pension system
M3: TH house regrets the practice of 'tiger' parenting
Round 2: "Privacy and Intellectual Property"
M1: THBT copyright of visual media belongs to the subject and not the photographer
M2: TH would build a national DNA database
M3: TH would ban the collection and sale of location and usage information by smartphone companies
Round 3: "Sex and Money"
M1: TH would ban adult entertainment from casinos
M2: TH believes that it is wrong to raise money for social welfare through national lotteries
M3: TH would remove all sin taxes
Round 4: "Cross Border (International Relations)"
M1: THBT countries which pollute common waters should lose their Exclusive Economic Zones
M2: TH would not grant citizenship at birth to the children of foreigners on domestic soil
M3: TH would pay the militaries of other states to fight our battles
Round 5: "Mind and Body"
M1: TH believes that doctor should never lie to their patients, even for their own good
M2: TH celebrates the willingness of women to be 'sluts'
M3: TH would allow individuals to purchase behavior-modfiying drugs without prescription
Round 6: "Caught in the Middle" / "The Middle Kingdom"
M1: THBT China should leave the WTO
M2: THBT China should support the unification of the two koreas
M3: THBT China should actively incentivize celebrities and public figures who are non citizen ethnic Chinese to naturalise
Round 7: "The Audience"
M1: TH would make education in the high arts mandatory in schools.
M2: TH would require presidential candidates to disclose their official records upon public request.
M3: TH regrets the high priority given to sports in the national consciousness.
Round 8: "Transition and Democracies"
M1: TH prefers a secular autocracy to a fundamentalist democracy.
M2: TH would erase the legacies and tear down monuments dedicated to deposed dictators.
M3: TH would require election campaigns to be bi-/multi-lingual.
Break Rounds:
Pre-Octo Finals: "The Missionary Position"
M1: THBT states should actively protect the practice of home grown religion
M2: THBT the state should cease to recognize the specific 'right to religious freedom'
M3: TH would not allow religious missions to access the vulnerable
Octo-Finals:M1: THW target the families of our enemies
M2: THBT its legitimate for states to exaggerate threats to pass unpopular legislation they deem to be in the interest of national security.
M3: THW discontinue all Black Operations.
Quarter Finals:M1: THW make the raising of business and labour standards a prerequiste for development aid.
M2: THW punish financial institution who fail to maintain liquidity in situation of market fluctuation.
M3: THW discard tourism reliant economy strategies.
Semi Finals: "Venus"
M1: TH welcomes the development of feminist discourse that embraces and expounds on the physical and psychological differences between men and women.
M2: THBT seduction is a legitimate tool in achieving political ends
M3: THW send women as ambassadors to countries that oppress women.
EFL Final:THBT regional proximity should be prioritized when handing out aid.
Grand Finals:M1: THW force weapons manufacturers to make financial contributions to states where their products fueled conflicts.
M2: THW never offer amnesty to heads of states in the midst of possible regime change.
M3: TH condemns the failure to intervene in humanitarian and armed crises.
General thoughts:I really like a few of these motions. Many of them are good ideas, but I'm not sure teams at the prelim level would be able to apply them well enough for the adjs to judge.For eg, the motion about tiger parenting is an excellent and pertinent issue. The doubt I have with it is about its context sensitivity - a debate on that motion is very very liable to turn into a screwdriver-wrench debate. Ie, the Aff and Neg positions would end up becoming either context sensitive ("sometimes a screwdriver works best, sometimes a wrench works better. We cant say either of these is better all the time, so we need to debate about contexts"). Which basically turns the debate into a meta-debate, or, if the teams dont want to engage, a vanilla-strawberry debate ("I like Vanilla, you like strawberry. We live happily ever after"). An adj on that debate would end up having to enter to make his decision - not a happy situation for anyone in that room.Similarly, I wonder what the Aff for motions like the Govt. Pension System, Adult Entertainment in Casinos, National Lotteries, and similar motions would be. However,There are motions that I love - SFs was a good set, OFs was fantastic for teams that could argue out well enough, and the Pre-octos were interesting ideas. I'd have loved to watch a top room on the R7 Sports and R8 Autocracy motion. Oh, and the sluts motion was a joy to argue out in my head.Some remarks on some of the motions:Demo Round: THW grant heads of state the right to an 'Internet Kill' switch.
- good, classic motion for a demo debate. Would've liked a motion with a bit more philosophical argumentation, but this is a good one.
Round 1: "The Young and the Old"
M1: THW not allow minors to be involved in politics.
- needs a good clear def. The debate would end up being about 15-18 yr olds, which is a bit narrow.M2: TH would scrap the government pension system
- Aff DIE!!! Unless they set up a restrictive def of forcible donation to pension funds (SG CPF) in developed nations. Even there its tough.M3: TH house regrets the practice of 'tiger' parenting
- discussed aboveRound 2: "Privacy and Intellectual Property"
M1: THBT copyright of visual media belongs to the subject and not the photographer
M2: TH would build a national DNA database
- Classic motion this one is. M3: TH would ban the collection and sale of location and usage information by smartphone companies
- Whats the opp case for this? Privacy etc already applies. Motion wording gives Aff the prerogative to define it in an unopposable manner.Round 3: "Sex and Money"
M1: TH would ban adult entertainment from casinos
- Why? Casinos are adult only places anyway. M2: TH believes that it is wrong to raise money for social welfare through national lotteries.
- Interesting idea of morality and redistribution. I'd love to see a top room in this motion, but might've been better to save this for a break round.M3: TH would remove all sin taxes.
Round 4: "Cross Border (International Relations)"
M1: THBT countries which pollute common waters should lose their Exclusive Economic Zones.
- Teams that haven't read up DIE :-DM2: TH would not grant citizenship at birth to the children of foreigners on domestic soil.
M3: TH would pay the militaries of other states to fight our battles.
Round 5: "Mind and Body"
M1: TH believes that doctor should never lie to their patients, even for their own good
M2: TH celebrates the willingness of women to be 'sluts'.
- I love it. The motion ie :-D.M3: TH would allow individuals to purchase behavior-modfiying drugs without prescription
- needs a really clean tight def to prevent the debate from meandering.Round 6: "Caught in the Middle" / "The Middle Kingdom"
M1: THBT China should leave the WTO
- Whats the imperative? Could lead to a context debate if not done wellM2: THBT China should support the unification of the two koreas
- I LIKE!M3: THBT China should actively incentivize celebrities and public figures who are non citizen ethnic Chinese to naturalise
- Imperative?? None that I could see.Narrow debate I'd think.Round 7: "The Audience"
M1: TH would make education in the high arts mandatory in schools.
M2: TH would require presidential candidates to disclose their official records upon public request.
M3: TH regrets the high priority given to sports in the national consciousness.
- I like all 3 motions - especially love the last one!Round 8: "Transition and Democracies"
M1: TH prefers a secular autocracy to a fundamentalist democracy.
- would be a good debate with good teams. Teams below that will find it tough. 'Autocracy' could be exploited by opp to tie up Aff in contradiction unless defined well.M2: TH would erase the legacies and tear down monuments dedicated to deposed dictators.
M3: TH would require election campaigns to be bi-/multi-lingual.
- Choice, self-interest to do that, etc? What would Aff say in response?Break Rounds:
Pre-Octo Finals: "The Missionary Position"
M1: THBT states should actively protect the practice of home grown religion
- One of the MDO possibles that was discussed. Hence, I like this motion :-PM2: THBT the state should cease to recognize the specific 'right to religious freedom'
- Love this one. For the principle ie. I wonder how the debates went. This is a tough motion to debate on for sheer level of argumentation.M3: TH would not allow religious missions to access the vulnerable
Octo-Finals:M1: THW target the families of our enemies
M2: THBT its legitimate for states to exaggerate threats to pass unpopular legislation they deem to be in the interest of national security.
M3: THW discontinue all Black Operations.
- I like the 1st and the 2nd. The 3rd one is also nice, but i'm unable to put my braincells to it right now.
Quarter Finals:M1: THW make the raising of business and labour standards a prerequiste for development aid.
M2: THW punish financial institution who fail to maintain liquidity in situation of market fluctuation.
M3: THW discard tourism reliant economy strategies.
Semi Finals: "Venus"
M1: TH welcomes the development of feminist discourse that embraces and expounds on the physical and psychological differences between men and women.
M2: THBT seduction is a legitimate tool in achieving political ends
M3: THW send women as ambassadors to countries that oppress women.
- Interesting motions. the 3rd motion is similar to the finals of last year's Aberystwyth IV ("THW send flamboyant gay ambassadors to countries that oppress gays"), albeit more straightforward. I wonder what Aff would argue on the 2nd motion. But it is quite intriguing as an idea.Grand Finals:M1: THW force weapons manufacturers to make financial contributions to states where their products fueled conflicts.
- Direct responsibility, sale, etc etc. Not a big fan esp if I were Aff. SQ does have penalties for sales in case of warzones or sales to militant groups, etc. Plus, in most cases, such sales are always done through governments or arms dealers through backchannels. Weapons manufacturers aren't always in the loop.M2: THW never offer amnesty to heads of states in the midst of possible regime change.
- Good one. I'd fancy my chances on this motion as Opp. A good debate about the idea of justice and peace and which of those has primacy.M3: TH condemns the failure to intervene in humanitarian and armed crises. -
Somewhat odd. Its a very small step. Prop centric i'd think.
