As for the judging.
Kudos:
In your first paragraph, you seem to hang your hat (points) on two key points:
1=National selection
2=pre-determined destiny
Both of these concepts were asserted as being true, without any analysis as to why they are true. As such, I am not particularly convinced that either of them are that impactful because whilst you state they both have massive impacts (the why I should part), without any explanation of how they have these impacts, I am just not convinced they actually are the impactful. Neither of these concepts are innately understood, or inherently correct. (The reason I say this is because of these concepts have been studied for much longer than either of us have been alive, and both are still heavily debated, so to assert them as if they are just true seems flawed at best.) Per-determined destiny is particularly problematic because of its lack of tangibility. You also make several other assertions, as well (i.e. humans are at top of the human chain and have a right to drive other species to extinction).
As I am not convinced you have provided any justification why your reasoning is true, I cannot provide much credit to any results you assert are a result of your justifications.
3
Tormented, you start off well by refuting the assertion that we killed off Mammoths in the past to survive, so it is OK now, but then weaken your point at the end by making two assertions of your own:
1=animals feel emotions
2=We can take a small portion of time and effort to perverse these animals.
I need some sort of justification as to why it is true animals feel emotions and why I should care more about the emotional pain of animals above Kudos’ point that humans often kill animals to survive. Why do I care more about the emotional pain of animals more than the survival humans? (Luckily, your point before this did go at least some where to explaining why Kudos’ point about survival may be moot).
By just asserting this would take a small portion of time and effort, without any explanation of what this time and effort required to illustrate the point, you left the door wide open for Kudos to come with her own assertion that ‘oh no it won’t’, meaning the point just did not stand by the end.
In your second paragraph, you did give some analyse as to why animals have inherent value, but you did not address the key point as why this justifies us keeping them around beyond it being a bit nice. Kudos is giving me survival of the human race (all be it superficially), a nice to have does not cut the mustard.
In the final paragraph, you say humans preserving some animals, but not others is a bit of a contradiction: true, but one could just as easily state that if we not willing save them all, then we can should not save any as they could say we should save all, not just a few. (There are also reasons why we may save some animals, but not others.)
Overall, although there were a few attempts at analyse, the key point (why I care more about your side than Kudos) was lacking, besides slightly knocking down her weakness point (it is ok to kill Mammoths), I did not see much gain here.
3
Kudos (two)
The exploration of the unknown parts of the world seemed a bit irrelevant for both sides.
I like this concession here, you accept that there is a beauty in some animals and things humans can do address Tormented points (though, I would say that keeping some capacity is a form of preservation), but then explain how it the conversation of all species that is problem. Whilst I do not think that it is the strongest point to say that if only few sub-species go, it is not end of them all, I can see how this address protecting beauty and the value of animals in some way, so willing to credit it.
The ‘better to use money elsewhere’ point is an interesting one because I can see why you would say that the money/resources are better spent on humans than animals: the problem is that you can say that this point about many things (it is better to spend money on our own poor rather than international development… etc), the problem is that this means two things:
1=that way the we use our money is so complicated as for it to be almost impossible to show that spending money on both is mutually exclusive.
2=if you are going to assert that this money is better spent on humans, you need to spend at least some time explaining why the benefits of preserving some humans outweighs the benefits of preserving some animals (especially when the actions taken to protect one often does benefit the other).
As such, I personally stay away from ‘where the money should go’ arguments. That being said, for what it was, I could see what you were trying to get at.
4
Tormented: great rebuttal in the second half of your first paragraph, explaining the inherent weakness of the ‘better spent elsewhere point’. The problem is that second paragraph was continuing to rebut an already beaten point – and from more of an emotional pervasive stance than pervasive reasoning. I was willing to accept the efficiency point in the final paragraph, and liked that you did not try to be absolutist here, but again, you were falling prey to the standing on a soap-box public speaking, emotional persuasive speaking than reasoned persuasion.
2
Kudos
It was clear the debate was running out of steam a bit here, you batted the ball back by trying strengthen the money point (it was not a woeful attempt, if bit short). However, I think what you could have said is that the humans in these people are equally victims and why we care more about them.
3
Tormented.
I thought this was the strongest example of how to make a point expressed by either side at any point: you showed why the money being spent is not mutually exclusive – and how the world could look under your model. The problem is that it was a bit hyperbolic to state that Kudos was being absolutist when it was explicitly state she would be happy for some animals to be in zoos (and other actions).
The problem is that whilst you probably have won the point of clash about where to spend money, you have not dealt with Kudos’ other two main points:
- Humanity’s needs
- Pre-determined destiny (as weak as it was, it did need some sort of response).
Besides the money debate, your two key points were dealt with to some extent by Kudos – and were not well fleshed out enough to deal with this:
1=animals feel emotions (Kudos did at least attempt to show harm to humans comparison)
2=We can take a small portion of time and effort to perverse these animals (Kudos stated take quite a bit and you seemed to take accept this quite explicitly).
3
Overall
Kudos = 3
Tormented = 2
|