Did truth testing die?

It seems like the "truth testing" debaters did not do so well at this year's TOC. Has the competing worlds paradigm finally won the war or is this just a coincidence?

who do you consider to be truth-testing/competing worlds debaters?

Competing worlds = plan/counterplan/disad-type debaters and stock debaters

Theis, Smogard, Lamothe, Moerner, and Garber are good examples.

Truth Testing = K's without alternatives, a prioris, etc.

Shivani, Bennett, Waks/Devin

Oh yeah. Truth testing is obviously dead. Devin Race didn't do well at all, did he? I think the idea that debaters fit into these categories is pretty dumb, too. Moerner and Garber have run a prioris before just as they have run plans before. There is no way that this TOC is a demonstration of a paradigm shift in the LD community.

I agree with Fontane that t-t is far from dead. In Texas, t-t is still a normative paradigm, and Texas is one of the larger debate states.

i'm honestly more of a TT guy even though I have been running a bunch of big ends-based cases. i think that a TT paradigm is most correct, but within that paradigm, some arguments are more conducive to good debate than others. on this topic, those arguments tended to be ends-based.

i don't think it signals a paradigm shift. it's mostly coincidental.

Truth-testing is not dead, but it is a death wish.

Offense-defense for life.

Money Over Bitches.

Out of curiosity why do you think TT is most correct, Graber?

bakeryjake wrote:Truth-testing is not dead, but it is a death wish.

Offense-defense for life.

Money Over Bitches.

If Jake Nebel says it's gone, it's gone. Welcome to the land of competing worlds, folks.

Db8rBoi wrote:Competing worlds = plan/counterplan/disad-type debaters and stock debaters

Theis, Smogard, Lamothe, Moerner, and Garber are good examples.

Truth Testing = K's without alternatives, a prioris, etc.

Shivani, Bennett, Waks/Devin

Who are you?

I am a truth tester.

Sorry to offend you Moerner. I know you and Garber run plans a lot and everything. It just sort of made sense that you all weren't totally TT.

There is no inconsistency between running plans and being a truth tester. I believe that comparing worlds is not a coherent position. Moreover, I see no problems with truth testing--theory is enough to hold back the a priori storm.

I don't really get why the "a priori storm" should even be a possibility. It's like saying that fighting in hockey is fine because there are referees who will break it up and penalize the players. It is still detrimental to the game.

For me at least, abandoning truth testing seems like a good idea because it would mean that a priori storms wouldn't turn rounds into clusterfucks like they do now. Even if the 1AR goes for theory, the round still ends up sucking with no concern for the topic of debate.

my ideal world of debate would not include the a priori storm, of course. but the issue is that comparing worlds is incoherent, as moerner said. it's not pragmatic, for a start. it excludes valuable discourse. the very name "comparing worlds" implies that states of affairs are subject to moral evaluation. only consequentialism upholds this. so essentially, debate no longer becomes a values debate at all. we are all consequentialists, and we say goodbye to kant and rawls. (props to prashant and eric for this thought.)

i suggest you check out eric palmer's article:
http://victorybriefsdaily.com/2008/04/15/truth-comparison-and-justification-in-ld-debate/

and the hockey analogy makes no sense in this context. fighting is probably all bad. arguments that would be excluded by comparing worlds aren't all bad. see: MVLA.

to jake: offense/defense paradigm is key but not incompatible with TT. if the round is about util, you'd better have good uniqueness ev/justification. if it's deontology, that doesn't mean defense wins; it means offense is evaluated differently.

p.s. moerner is sitting next to me right now. he says, "i only like hockey because of the fights."

graber wrote:
to jake: offense/defense paradigm is key but not incompatible with TT. if the round is about util, you'd better have good uniqueness ev/justification. if it's deontology, that doesn't mean defense wins; it means offense is evaluated differently.

1. Offense amounts to the sum of a side's impacts. In TT, debaters can (and are encouraged to) win on arguments that lack impacts. Example: "The resolution is false because states have no international moral obligations." That argument has an implication (the resolution is false, so you should vote neg), but not an impact that can count as offense in the technical sense (unless the neg attributes a harmful effect to acting as if we had international moral obligations when we really don't). While this does not mean that O/D is completely incompatible with TT, it does mean that adopting O/D is functionally the same as adopting WC (World Comparison) in terms of structuring the relevance and irrelevance of arguments.

2. The "different" evaluation of O in a deontological TT debate is not an evaluation of O at all. Let's say the aff standard is "increasing utils" and the neg standard is "not violating side constraint S." If the aff increases utils but violates S, they still have O because they have proven advantages to affirming; it is merely a question of whether their O outweighs the harms of violating S. You might say, "Jake, this sounds an awful lot like consequentialism." Yeah, that's because O/D is all about impact comparison and weighing; since both sides often win impacts, they have to weigh O. If deontology's "different" evaluation is that we cannot weigh against S, then it's not really O; if it's that violations of S automatically outweigh other impacts, then we're engaging in the type of comparison that makes O/D a basic facet of WC, and that comparison could occur in WC.

So, what is your understanding of offense, and how does TT jive with that (Question 1)? Question 2 is, how do you propose deontology be evaluated within O/D?

I'd also like to hear why it is "incoherent" and "not pragmatic" to view a debate round as a contest between two competing advocacies (Question 3). What type of "valuable discourse" is excluded, other than arguments with no impacts (Question 4)?

I am generally with Jake on this one. However, I think that in order to make an O/D paradigm make more sense we need to go a step further and just get rid of the V/C structure or at least as it is currently used.

O/D is about the comparison of impacts/offense and the V/C skews that comparison. If a debater wins that standard X is more important that standard Y, that does not mean that standard Y has no importance. If there is only a minimal link won to standard X and a massive impact to standard Y then the V/C framework would probably lead to the wrong decision being made. So I think making this shift is necessary for O/D to make sense as a way of making decisions.

Although, the arguments would look different I still think that there is a place for deont arguments even in a world where we adopt O/D and we eliminate the V/C framework. The way that deont arguments are used right now, a violation of a single side constraint is enough to win regardless of the severity of the violation or the importance of the side constraint. Instead we should have to compare violations of side constraints against other offense. While this is not as philosophically pure it makes a lot more sense for making a decision about policy. In the real world policymakers do not only consider utilitarian or deontological arguments but weigh the relative importance of those concerns on a case by case basis. While lying is probably wrong generally, we have no problem with spies lying to gain intelligence because it can protect lives. On the other hand the deontological problems with torture might make it unjustified no matter what the benefit is.

So what would that kind of weighing look like? Well that would obviously take time to fully develop but I think there are few approaches one could take. There could be debaters about the relative importance of certain deontological side constrains and when it is acceptable to override them, similar to the example above. I think that although it sounds very vague, there is a possibility for interesting debate there. While arguments that focus on the size of the harm necessary to outweigh a side constraint are probably difficult to make, arguments that instead focus on the moral weight of the side constraint might be more feasible. There are also other meta-standards that could be more fully developed to deal with the problem. Examples could include, the risk of the impact (guaranteed rights violation v. speculative benefit), the causal relationship between the resolutional action and the impact (there is actually a fair amount of literature out there about this), or even forms of weighing that we are already very familiar with like risk of link. Obviously more thought would need to be put into this but I think it is feasible.

Truth testing makes me sad, O/D is the way to go. If an argument would legitimately be important in making a choice on policy or whether any action should be taken then it can fit into the O/D paradigm. If it is not important in making a decision then why should I give a shit?

JohnnyFontane wrote:

bakeryjake wrote:Truth-testing is not dead, but it is a death wish.

Offense-defense for life.

Money Over Bitches.

If Jake Nebel says it's gone, it's gone. Welcome to the land of competing worlds, folks.

Oh, and I agree.

As a general response to the "a priori storm" argument:

Procedurals occur as much in a comparative paradigm as they do in a tt one. T, theory, aspec, the list goes on of shitty no risk arguments that can be run in a comparative debate fairly easily.

As a response to ctheis's stuff about Standard X and Y, and how a bigger impact would go unnoticed in a heavy framework debate:

What if Standard X excludes impacts of standard Y from actually being impacts. Like, say for example standard X is extinction good, and standard Y is extinction bad. How would a bigger demonstration of extinction in the affirmative world address the arguments made in standard X? If framework then is just a form of metaweighing that can preclude all of your opponent's offense, why not just tech out the standards debate and win every round?

As a general query:

Why does everyone prefer O/D to TT? If my understanding of this is that O is all your impacts and D is just responses or takeouts without impacts, then why would one prefer O/D? It seems the main reason is that people win on defensive arguments and that that's unfair. However, people affirmatives have already developed plenty of strats against straight reffing and if that's the problem why not just 1.) Improve those strats and 2.) Get better at theory?

As a general point of discussion, it seems that the locus of the debate is that truth testers like the form debate is (or was, if you think TT is dead) when you discuss the rez as descriptive truth statement, since it tends to shift debate to the framework level. CW prefer their paradigm b/c TT opens the door to a host of unfair practices. It seems like little endeavor has been made to reform TT to fix that problem and rather we just CTRL+C CTRL+V a kind of policy maker CX paradigm into LD. I have three comments about this:

1.) Why not reform truth testing? I'm sure its possible with good theory or framework to beat back shitty horizontal spreads, and contingent standards seem to have made the aff's job easier than it once was.

2.) Those who prefer CW, as an aside, why would you want to do LD and change the entire system to be more comparative when there already exists a perfect form of comparative debate in CX. It seems like the things a comparativist would want are already standardized in CX and LD would require massive reform to incorporate all of the CW changes. If you add in that a large group of people like the tt model, then why not just have a mass migration from LD to CX and make everyone happy?

3.) As noted in the other TT v CW thread, there is a risk of novices deferring to CX if we become full comparativist b/c we would essentially become the same form of debate but structurally limited in comparison.

To address your question about standards: If you want to say that certain impacts do not matter you can just make that argument as a weighing argument. I don't understand your question about the overloading the standards debate. That is what is happening right now and is what I am saying the problem is... That is why we should just directly compare arguments without the standard.

to answer your questions...

1.) The reason is that TT does not make sense as a way of addressing normative resolutions. Almost all LD topics are questions of what course of action should/ought be taken or if some action is (insert some normative term here). Even in the latter case although the sentence says something "is" (insert term) those terms are always normative in nature. Also, although the unfair practices that come with TT can be beaten back with theory they shouldnt have to be in the first place. Also, if there are so many legit theory arguments against TT arguments why doesnt that just prove that the paradigm promotes unfair debate?

2.) First, TT is not really unique to LD. Ever hear of hypotesting? The reason CX works the way it does is because they have already dealt with this issue and after years of debate decided that hypotesting (just like TT) doesn't make sense as a debate paradigm. Beyond that though LD has many things that make it unique other than a TT paradigm. Some people like working alone, like the smaller work load or like the different topics that are addressed by our resolutions.

3.) Same as above. There are plenty of differences that will keep LD going.

ctheis wrote:I am generally with Jake on this one. However, I think that in order to make an O/D paradigm make more sense we need to go a step further and just get rid of the V/C structure or at least as it is currently used.

I agree wholeheartedly. Get rid of V/C. Every case run without a V/C facilitates the growth of O/D.

ctheis wrote:To address your question about standards: If you want to say that certain impacts do not matter you can just make that argument as a weighing argument. I don't understand your question about the overloading the standards debate. That is what is happening right now and is what I am saying the problem is... That is why we should just directly compare arguments without the standard.

to answer your questions...

1.) The reason is that TT does not make sense as a way of addressing normative resolutions. Almost all LD topics are questions of what course of action should/ought be taken or if some action is (insert some normative term here). Even in the latter case although the sentence says something "is" (insert term) those terms are always normative in nature. Also, although the unfair practices that come with TT can be beaten back with theory they shouldnt have to be in the first place. Also, if there are so many legit theory arguments against TT arguments why doesnt that just prove that the paradigm promotes unfair debate?

2.) First, TT is not really unique to LD. Ever hear of hypotesting? The reason CX works the way it does is because they have already dealt with this issue and after years of debate decided that hypotesting (just like TT) doesn't make sense as a debate paradigm. Beyond that though LD has many things that make it unique other than a TT paradigm. Some people like working alone, like the smaller work load or like the different topics that are addressed by our resolutions.

3.) Same as above. There are plenty of differences that will keep LD going.

Ok, a few things.

First, I'm confused whether you're ok or not with heavy framework debate in the CW paradigm. What I mean is that loading up the standards debate can potentially preclude the entirety of your opponents offense. Then you just have to win one impact and you win. Going back to the extinction good/bad debate, not much impact calc needs to have been done in the round as fw seemingly acted as a superior form of weighing.

Onto the #1 point, you say that LD resolutions are always about some course of action that ought be taken. The usage of "ought" rather than "should" is significant. Ought can have multiple meanings, even ones that do not relate to a hierarchy of value (like "Ought as logical consequence"). The vast array of cases with different interpretations that radically alter the framework debate seem to be proof that resolves cater to TT. Also, you respond to the theory thing by saying that those practices shouldn't exist. Remember I said that neg bias and procedural strat are already common in policy and the harm supposedly solved by CW seems to not really get solved at all. People will always recycled neg strat, and there is plenty of ways to combat horizontal spreads. You say if there are a ton of legit theory args that means the paradigm promotes unfair debate, but policy has existed for a long time and theory is even more omnipresent than it will ever be in LD, does that make comparative practices even more unfair?

Onto the second point. Yes, I know about hypotesting, but right now policy debate has completely abandoned that paradigm. The reason it didn't work in policy was the way they structured their cases and args. We have a different structure so it won't be a problem. You say things like 1v1 are an independent incentive to join LD over CX, but my arg is why not just join NFA-LA in college, debate CX (and learn teamwork), or form your own 1v1 policy without radically restructuring an event that some people like as a test of the descriptive truth of the resolve?

As I have said I think that the debate hinging on the FW is bad. That is why I do not like the V/C. What we typically view as FW should instead be weighing.


1.) So the fact that there is a definition of ought that means "logical consequence" does not answer the substance of my argument here. Typical interpretations of that term are normative and other words that are used in resolutions like should, or just are normative. LD resolutions are normative. Also, interpretations of ought as "logical consequence" the way they are run make absolutely no sense. On the ICC topic people ran that interpretation to justify arguments that said the U.S. would or would not join the ICC. "logical consequence" is not the same as likely to happen. It means there is a certainty. Logical consequence is a specific logical concept in which there is a relationship between a set of propositions in which the former entails the latter. For example, all birds have feathers.Penguins are birds. Therefore, penguins have feathers. No LD topic will be able to proved in that definitively. Next you say that the fact that there are multiple interpretations of topics means that resolutions cater to TT. Well people run CW FW too so I don't understand how that proves anything. Of course people can come up with other interpretations but the question is which is best. Your argument about theory in policy fails to take into account the differences in the culture of the events. Policy is inherently more theory friendly. A more apt comparison would be one between different paradigms. Can you come up with a legitimate and good theory argument against a O/D paradigm? If so then we can talk.

2.) The reason hypotesting did not work was not because of the structure of policy arguments it was because it lead to unfair practices, just like it does in LD. We read a ton of articles about policy theory written during that period at VBI. You should do the same it is interesting stuff. Your argument about other events that are available in college really doesn't answer that there is only one event in high school that offers one on one competition. Also, even if we use a similar paradigm as policy that does not erase all differences that exist (topics, research, culture, etc).

I don't understand why the "let's keep this LD" argument is compelling. For one, I don't think the CW vs. TT discussion is happening solely because people wish that LD resembled policy more closely. I feel like this is just part of the process of our form of debate developing, and we consequently are running into many of the same problems that policy saw with hypotesting. I think it would be far worse to continue using a flawed paradigm that restricts debate's growth.

Though I understand that the ethical dimension of LD is one distinguishing factor, I don't feel like the CW paradigm necessarily precludes deontology. From my understanding, teams can challenge the utilitarian calculus in policy. At the point where our debate is supposed to reflect policy considerations, I think Theis's argument about defaulting to utility makes sense. I am interested in seeing what Garber/Moerner have to say about the importance of preserving the deontology debate through the TT paradigm.

I agree with most of Chris's responses to Alex, but I'd just like to add a few things:

Alex Bennett wrote:What if Standard X excludes impacts of standard Y from actually being impacts. Like, say for example standard X is extinction good, and standard Y is extinction bad. How would a bigger demonstration of extinction in the affirmative world address the arguments made in standard X? If framework then is just a form of metaweighing that can preclude all of your opponent's offense, why not just tech out the standards debate and win every round?

Why not just frame those arguments as what they really are? "Extinction good" arguments are impact turns, not "metaweighing" or even framework. "Extinction good" does not preclude the aff's offense; it turns the aff's terminal impact! Also, what's your point? What are you even trying to prove here? How does this constitute a defense of truth-testing?

Alex Bennett wrote:Why does everyone prefer O/D to TT? If my understanding of this is that O is all your impacts and D is just responses or takeouts without impacts, then why would one prefer O/D? It seems the main reason is that people win on defensive arguments and that that's unfair. However, people affirmatives have already developed plenty of strats against straight reffing and if that's the problem why not just 1.) Improve those strats and 2.) Get better at theory?

Straight ref is not a defense-only strategy. I believe that straight ref is fair, and I also believe that O/D is better than TT. If a CW judge saw a straight ref that did not generate any offense, then the aff would win. The neg advocacy in a straight ref is typically the SQuo, so I see no reason why straight ref is incompatible with CW. So, no, that's not the problem.

Alex Bennett wrote:
1.) Why not reform truth testing? I'm sure its possible with good theory or framework to beat back shitty horizontal spreads, and contingent standards seem to have made the aff's job easier than it once was.

Whether or not it is possible to beat a given strategy is not the question of competing interpretations. This is a question of good debate vs. bad debate. Why should we encourage spike wars, low-commitment advocacies, side inequities, defense-only strategies, underdeveloped comparison, and unfair burdens in an academic activity? Also, what do you mean by "contingent standards," why are they legitimate, and why should the aff have to resort to them in order to win?

Alex Bennett wrote:
2.) Those who prefer CW, as an aside, why would you want to do LD and change the entire system to be more comparative when there already exists a perfect form of comparative debate in CX. It seems like the things a comparativist would want are already standardized in CX and LD would require massive reform to incorporate all of the CW changes. If you add in that a large group of people like the tt model, then why not just have a mass migration from LD to CX and make everyone happy?

This is not a system change; Chris and I do not advocate changing the NFL rules, regulations, or speech times for LD. We are describing and encouraging a paradigm shift to restructure the relevance and irrelevance of arguments. This does not require a massive reform; it does require that minds change, which is already happening. Also, I do not agree that "there already exists a perfect form of comparative debate in CX." LD has a lot to learn from CX, but CX is not perfect. Much of this is clearly based on personal preferences, but I would prefer LD to CX even after the Revolution--even if every judge and every debater adopted a CW paradigm. LD would still be a unique event (as Chris has argued), so would CX, and I would still like both.

Also, so what if "a large group of people like the TT model"? That doesn't make them right. That doesn't mean they own the event. And it also doesn't mean that a widespread adoption of CW would make them quit LD; what other event would they do? You said earlier that debaters should just run theory on an ad hoc basis against the harmful practices associated with TT; how about, instead, the Truth-Testers present a principled theoretical defense (with offense!) of their own paradigm? It certainly hasn't happened yet.

Alex Bennett wrote:
3.) As noted in the other TT v CW thread, there is a risk of novices deferring to CX if we become full comparativist b/c we would essentially become the same form of debate but structurally limited in comparison.

Find me a novice who quits or does not join LD because it is too "comparativist," and I will suck your dick.