Full Debate Serbia WSDC 2024 Semi Finals (Bulgaria vs Greece) -This House would allow violent offenders to opt into Pavlovian conditioning as a substitution for prison time.

Serbia WSDC 2024 Semi Finals

• Motion: This House would allow violent offenders to opt into Pavlovian conditioning as a substitution for prison time.

• Info Slide: For the purposes of this debate, Pavlovian conditioning will cause a patient to experience severe nausea when committing or even thinking about violence. The effects of this conditioning are irreversible.
• Proposition: Bulgaria
• Opposition: Scotland
• Result: Prop won with a unanimous call.
• Video Attachment: WSDC 2024 Serbia Semifinals Bulgaria vs Greece

This debate is transcribed by Farhana Rahman for the Debating404 project.

Proposition 1st speaker: Kaloyan Kotzev

Opening

Panel, imagine a world where every time a violent offender gets this treatment, there is one less offender who is going to recommit. There is one more family that thinks that at least there is one single person less. But also, there is no one else who is going to feel the same due to this person not being any more of a criminal. Not like on the comparative, where we know that prisons aren’t effective, where prisons are bad, where prisons don’t do their job, but are simply there to make people suffer. And this is the case that is going to come from proposition.

Team—line of prop then, setup then firstly on why less violent crime is committed on our side, then why victims feel better on our side, and then why prisons are firstly better due to having less crime in them but also will save a huge chunk of money.

Set-up

So then, to set up:

Firstly, everyone who actually committed such a crime will opt in for the simple reason that they don’t want their freedom to be taken out. It is pretty intuitive. What we’re talking about—we’re talking about crimes where actually violence or basically intent of violence or threats of violence are actually there. For example, assault or threats to actually be shot if you don’t give the money for a person, or any sort of violent robbery, or threats of you actually being shot for something else.

Otherwise If you don’t opt in, you’ll simply go to prison. Therefore, if they argue otherwise, then both sides become symmetrical. Therefore, both sides have to take their burden. This is kind of important.

Argument 1: Why less violent crimes are committed?

Okay, then moving on to the first argument: less future offenses happen on our side of the house.
The setup of this argument is pretty intuitive. This argument is about what happens after you actually leave prison—what happens after those two years that you get when you beat up somebody, or ten years if you committed sexual assault, for example. This is factually true. If they want to argue that it’s a life sentence—good luck—that’s just not the truth.

Then why prisons don’t stop you from future crimes and even make you a worse person and a more violent criminal?

Firstly, you lose connections with family, friends, job, etc. Therefore, once I go out, I have nothing to go back to. I have a criminal record, so no one is going to employ me. I have a bad reputation because stigma exists towards people who have been to prison. Therefore, who actually I am? I’m basically forced back to stealing because I have no other income, we decenticise to violence too, this is the second mechanism.

Because prisons are violent. They are skirmishes, there are battles for influence or gangs even. This means you actually need to survive; therefore, you actually do anything. Your survival instincts kick in—you get into jungle mode, have to fight for your life, become extremely violent simply to survive even if you’re not that kind of person.

Thirdly, you still remain in a gang after you get out. Because, you’ve gotten out, but now you have nothing to go to. You’re either going to be threatened or your only friends are from this gang in prison. Therefore, you still remain there, still recommit—at the end of the day, you have to make something out after that.

Finally, and maybe most importantly—now you get more violent afterwards. Therefore, Once you get out, the chances are even greater. Now I’m even more likely to commit crime—violent crime—than before. That is why, for example, over 50% of people in the US actually recommit their crimes and also become violent as I explained.

Then why this actual method and conditioning fixes this?

Firstly, on incentive — I want to stop the pain biologically. Biologically, we need to survive. Our brains have evolved in a way that we don’t want to suffer pain, because if pain actually equals suffering — which is something that our brain kind of biologically just makes us refuse it since that’s how actually for example, death is caused, etc.

But the ability is pretty simple — I cannot beat up anyone or rob someone because I feel pain and nausea when, for example, I break my hand. I cannot write. This is the same logic here. meaning that we have far less crime on our side.

What are the impacts there?

He basically — on their side — he can recommit again. How does this look like?

This impacts new lives who haven’t been touched by crime before. Therefore, they go through the same exact trauma. But also, their families also suffer.

For example, if — for example — a daughter is beat up. Therefore, all her family is going to struggle. But also, people’s businesses where they have been robbed are going to be suffering too because now, if, for example, they’re poor and couldn’t have afforded to reassure it, then their action is screwed.

But also, it will be even more severe. Why?

Because I am a violent person, obviously. Therefore, I want to basically seek my revenge. I have been radicalized in my prison cell. Because I have said I have nothing else to do.

But also, I’m used to violence because I’ve seen nothing else for the past two years. Therefore, it is basically even if I was violent to some extent, now I’m a more violent person in extreme ways. Then, why is this extremely important? Because future victims are more than the current ones. Because more and more people get born. Therefore, more and more people can actually be attacked. Therefore, if we prove that their lives of victims at stake who are actually in the future who are more then we on violence by far.

Important notes here: Please acknowledge that, we know that they’ll talk about retribution, right? But here is the thing: people are extremely emotional where they actually feel such circumstances in violence, they are therefore irrational. And I would never believe the sentence is enough. How does this look like? If I can get like five to ten years for this case — if my daughter gets assaulted — it won’t matter. Because if the criminal is taking this five years, I’ll some want something harsher, like prison or death sentence. In this way, because this person assaulted my daughter, dear panel, I want him dead. It is kind of intuitive.

Therefore, this isn’t as important of a clash because, no matter the sentence, it will never be enough. I have no closure. I have no retribution. Therefore, at least we want to get something — by getting someone to not commit anymore. Or such people to actually not be on the streets. To actually have one less person to actually recommit such things, and less people to feel this horror.

Argument 2: Victims feeling better.

Let’s go to mechanization. You know that no one in the future will feel the same way. Why? Because I know this person wouldn’t recommit. Why? Because the state actually wants me to feel okay, so they actually explain how this process works and I’ll never ever worry again but even if that’s not the case, after some time, we have statistics that these people actually don’t commit again, and I’ll know that this isn’t the case. But also, this hasn’t happened on their side of the house because I know that this person is still out there and believe me, I know that these are so paranoid. But also, I actually believe that maybe he wants to revenge this way. Therefore, I’m even more paranoid.

What actually leads to closure? Because I feel empathy on our side of the house. Because at the end of the day I have empathy towards myself and the protentional new people who actually are going to get to the new victims. Because at the end of the day one less bad person—I’ve done my duty to protect one more person who committed this. But I also fear the revenge of the actor. Therefore, I actually know that this monster will search for me afterward. I’ll be in extreme paranoia. Because at the end of the day I have no control and also, I have fear. And when that combination actually acts—I am extremely, extremely, extremely, I am going to be extremely anxious and paranoid, and suffering.

Closing

Please vote against that. Propose.

Opposition 1st speaker: Leo Marinopoulos

Opening

Proposition creates a dystopian society in which people are irreparably lobotomized, tortured by the very criminal justice system that claims to care about justice, and against the will of society which delegated the punishment of prison time. Proposition is cruel. Proposition is unjust. Proposition is the enemy of justice and restitution.

Set-up

Let’s be clear about what this is actually about. Firstly, this is about committing violence and feeling nausea then, but it’s also about thinking about violence — not made clear by proposition. I will make very clear why that’s very important.

Secondly, this is severe nausea. For you to have the incapacitation that proposition requires, that you physically can’t do the crime you know, alcoholics very often commit crime while under the influence of alcohol, they assault of other people. So presumably this is a lot of incapacitations that they’re doing — very, very severe nausea.

That will become important later.

But thirdly, Prop doesn’t get the magic wand their way out of this. Maybe this is why they’re afraid of the POI — because let me tell you how Pavlovian conditioning happens. It happens in a very specific way. You expose the patient to stimulus, in this case presumably images of violence — and then you punish them with things like an electric shock. So in their heads, they connect the images of violence and pain. That is what creates the image of nausea that they so desire. I hope you begin to see how inhumane this is.

What will our side do? Firstly, we will explain why proposition is inhumane and why that justice element here should be the priority of the debate. Secondly, we will talk to you about restitution, and Alexia will talk to you about harm.

Rebuttal

What does proposition’s first speaker do? I want to, at the top, notice that nothing that he does actually tells you why they support an opt-in system. In fact, all of it is about incapacitation and about retribution. To that extent, I think they would be absolutely fine with just imposing this on patients. They have to tell us why that isn’t the case — why they only support it in the cases of opt-in? I think the reason why is because they value autonomy. I’ll explain to you why there is a side that basically cripples autonomy.

The second thing I want to note here is in terms of their argument — in terms of why prison is very bad and why this is something that you don’t want to go in. Like the criminal record — you can’t have a job, you can’t provide for your family, skirmishes in the prison, you might be shivved in.

Firstly, instead of fixing this, proposition is forcing people to lobotomize themselves to get out of this. This is literally coercion. They did the argument for us about telling us why the alternative is something that coerces you into lobotomizing yourself. That sounds horrible.

But secondly, these are issues you can fix. This is like a U.S./El Salvador thing almost exclusively. Singapore has fixed this with a very retribution-heavy thing. Netherlands have fixed this with a very rehabilitation-focused system. Different methods can give very good results, right? And obviously those are very good examples. But we think across many countries, you don’t have the type of horrible things that proposition describes. It is on their side that the state doesn’t solve these horrible things and rather delegates this thing to the person lobotomizing themselves.

Argument 1: Why violence and thinking of violence are core part of the human experience?

But I will now show you, in the first argument, why violence and thinking of violence are a core part of the human experience. Therefore, it is unjust to allow people to lobotomize themselves in the way proposition allows.

Why is violent thought and violence a core part of the human experience?
Firstly, because it’s hardwired into you. It is the natural extent of the emotion of anger. When you found out your spouse cheated on you, or that your friend was assaulted, you get massive nausea on their side because you think of that violence. The immediate reaction when you see or hear of your friend being assaulted — as they describe by the way, when they tell you about the father wanting to put the person who assaulted his daughter in jail, the immediate reaction of that father is to think about violence against that other person. It is core to our identity.

But secondly it is core to our imagination, to conceptualizing ourselves, the world around us, and our other identities. On proposition, you can’t think of violence — so if you go under the treatment, right? If you lobotomize yourself, you can’t think of Jesus on the cross if you’re religious. You can’t think of the revolution that birthed your country. You can’t even think about how, as a father, you would fight to defend your kids. You can’t think and conceptualize all of your other identities. Imagination is what allows us to be human, to think of the future, to think of who we are and our place in it.

Thirdly though, I think you don’t have, to a large degree, a choice in thinking about violence. Action movies, ads — all of these things always show you violence. Songs very often talk to you about violence. That’s nausea, debilitating nausea on proposition.

Versus, look, we get that freedom of movement is important to people, right? Prison restricts your freedom of movement — that’s an important right people have.

The difference we draw though is that freedom of movement is the right you have in order to achieve certain goals. I am able to go to church, for instance, because I have freedom of movement. The difference then that we draw with proposition and conceptualizing anger is that they are taking away your ability to conceptualize the things you want to do. Not only are they taking away your ability to do certain things with prison time, they’re taking away your ability to think of goals, to think of who you want to be, not just your ability to tackle those. And so, we think that this is unjust fundamentally for the following reasons.
Firstly, because it is often coercive. Why?

(A) Because people can’t conceptualize what it would be like to not even be able to think of violence. We think that this is something we don’t realize how often we do — so we can’t even opt in to some degree, because we can’t think of what it would be like.

(B) Because of, to a large degree, all of the pressures they tell you — right? Economic pressures. For many people, they have to get out of prison now in order to provide for their families, in order to make sure their kids keep going to school and don’t end up in some broken orphanage. These are the things you need to do very often. We think this is the coercive pressure that forces people to lobotomize themselves to not be able to conceive of themselves and their future on side proposition, this is unusually cruel.

Secondly, even if it is not actively coercive — even if this is a free choice, we think we don’t allow people to choose to divorce themselves of a core part of their humanity. The reason why is because what you become is no longer able to make choices, no longer able to be a functioning member of society when you’re lobotomized. You are essentially killing your future self. This is why we don’t allow you to sell yourself into slavery, for instance.

What are the impacts of this?

Firstly, that this is a horribly wrong practice. The state loses and society loses their moral authority to impose punishments on people.

Secondly, and crucially, you’re crippling the ability of these people to rehabilitate themselves. On proposition, if you want to reflect on what led you to commit the crime you did, you’re thinking about violence. You’re thinking about what thoughts led you to commit violence. Therefore, you’re getting significant nausea. That is something prevents people from accessing the ability to become better people to not want to be violent in the future.

POI: I believe it is good to stop violence. That’s why, for example, we forbid Nazi parties from existing even though this is limiting people’s ability to express themselves.

Answer: First of all, I’m not even sure we limit Nazi parties, as he says, in many places. Secondly, I don’t think being a Nazi person is core to your humanity, as I just explained conceptualizing violence is.

Thirdly, I’m now going to explain why we think the priority of this debate should be justice. That is quite simply because, on proposition, presumably they agree that there are certain restrictions and punishments we can impose. We don’t support cutting your hand off for stealing. We don’t support doing horrible things to you or torturing you. Why? Because we recognize that these punishments are unjust — even if they would probably lead to greater deterrence. Therefore, we think the priority of this debate should be justice.

I’ll finally tell you why proposition harms the restitutive function of the criminal justice system. We think the punishment of a crime was chosen for a purpose by the judge or the jury. The reason was that this was the harm caused to society by your actions. We think allowing or even forcing a criminal into a different punishment is wrong, because it denies recognition of the pain to the victims. The person who murdered their boyfriend gets the same punishment as someone who assaulted someone else. That is fundamentally not recognizing the differences that exist in every crime. That is wrong. That is not something the criminal justice system should stand by.

Closing

Don’t allow people to lobotomize themselves, vote opposition.

Proposition 2nd speaker: Valentin Katzarov

Opening

The idea of the justice system is to make people never do crime, rehabilitate victims. This is the idea of the justice system. If we prove that these things are good on our side of the house, then we have a moral justice system. Therefore, their arguments don’t stay in the debate because the morality of the justice system is fundamentally subjective outside of these two things that they just explained.

What are we going to hear in this speech? Firstly, on the two questions of this debate, to continue a bit on how these things are going to look, because they questioned it, I have to explain it now. Secondly, on the morality of these things. Thirdly, on why prisons will become better places.

Point of contention 1: How the nausea looks like?

Let’s begin with a clarification: how these things will look like?
They say, “Ah, every time you get severe nausea.”

We believe this to be fundamentally unrealistic and uncharitable to our case. Why? Because nausea is most probably proportional to the total crime you have done. This is extremely likely, because as they say, there’s a mechanization that creates this sort of particular thing. This means that if I think of something, most probably the impact on my brain will not be as severe as if I do something violent. Most probably, if I see it in an action movie and don’t even think about it without any sort of real person, the effect won’t be as big because it’s something imaginary when they see it in the movie while they don’t see it in real life, then it will be severer. It’s on a spectrum of how much you feel nausea – directly mitigating all their practical claims.

Then they say, “you expose them to violence.”

Notice this is what’s created in this way. Like they say, “Why not impose it?”
Here’s the refutation to their moral point: we don’t own these people’s choice.
Firstly, this may sound scandalous — but they also don’t give them choice. They send them to prison, right? so we don’t own them choice.

So, let’s begin with this, why is this the case? Because you don’t give them choice either. These people have broken the social contract, the contract with the state, so the state can choose not to protect them from this particular thing and give them a certain punishment that fits this sort of particular thing. So having in mind they’ve broken the contract, then we can take away the choice. But we are more charitable than them. We actually give them choice. We say, “Okay, they can choose between prison and this specific thing.” We believe later everybody will choose this specific conditioning. But at the end of the day, we give choice. We give more autonomy so if this is the metric they want, then i think that something coercive is better than no choice at all for autonomy, I think this is kind of intuitive. Then what else can I say?

They say, “Ah, you will continue to think about it because it’s human nature.”

Notice, you get used to not thinking about it. My first speaker explains this. They say avoiding pain and suffering is the most fundamental biological instinct — this is why we change things in our lives. So we  can take them at their best and say you’re going to feel incredibly bad — this is only for a short period of time. Not conceding anything — but even if true — it’s short-lived. Which means this is severely mitigated because you adapt, as my first speaker has already explained.

Their big impact is “you can’t watch an action movie.”
Guys, come on — let’s be serious. We are talking about life. We are talking about assault. We are talking about victims of crimes that they did not consent to which is also pretty immoral, if you ask me in this sort of particular way.

Then they tell us, rehabilitation can’t happen on our side.

Guys — rehabilitation happens with us as well. The point of rehabilitation is to not make the crime again. Guess what — you will never make the crime again on our side of the house. That seems pretty rehabilitary to me in this sort of particular way.

Now the weighing. If we take their best case and say that there is some immoral thing happening — I’m not sure if this is the case. Let me tell you, crime is also very immoral. But the way crime is immoral is much bigger, because it also has practical impacts. So, if we have morality of crime being wrong, and then only moral points — then you should weigh with us because we also have practical impacts.

POI: We showed you why thinking of violence is core to you conceptualizing yourself and the world. You say, “Just don’t think about these things.” Do you see anything wrong with that?

Answer: No. I say, “You get used to it.” Humans have gotten used to absolutely everything in their lives. We’ve evolved a lot. People can choose what they think about, panel.

You can choose whether you listen to me right now or you don’t listen to me right now. You can choose whether you buy this or not buy this, even though I recommend buying this, because it’s more analytical than their whole, “Ah, this is how you conceptualize things.” I conceptualize myself in so many other things. I conceptualize myself in things I do, I conceptualize in things I enjoy doing. Come on, they have to prove a lot more to have a principle in this debate.

Argument 3: Why prisons become better?

Let’s continue to our third argument prisons become firstly better but also not requiring as much funding, which is I think very much crucial.

Notice why with them, prisons require a lot of funding, and they are generally violent.

Firstly, they require a lot of funding because you need to feed the people on a daily basis — three times a day. Food is expensive. We know this. I don’t need to prove this.

But secondly, you need to build prisons. Notice, this change things when they’re broken. For instance, when a bed breaks, you need to buy a new bed — in this sort of particular case.

But also why are prisons incredibly violent?

Because of the violent offenders that go there. Like, the financial scammer is most probably not going to do violence because he has not shown a tendency to exhibit violence beforehand. He simply — he doesn’t have the ability to do this. Or at least, we believe he doesn’t have the ability to do this because he has not done a violent crime where he could have done a violent crime. He has chosen to scam people in this sort of particular way, right?

So, prisons require money and are miserable because these violent offenders often start riots in prisons. Because they want to. Because they have to let their emotions out. These violent offenders often beat up other people in prison because they were on their nerves, for instance, or didn’t want to give them their lunch in this sort of particular case — didn’t respect them enough, didn’t look at them enough and all these sorts of things and guess what? Also, this kind of seems immoral. You know, to get beaten up in prison — kind of also very immoral, if you want to speak about morals.

So why, with us, this is better?

Firstly, notice how these violent offenders are outside of prison. This means that now, these violent offenders cannot start riots. These violent offenders cannot beat up other inmates. And it’s much less likely for somebody that has never beaten people up to start beating people up then somebody who has the tendency to beat people up to beat people up, you know?

Then what happens?

Secondly, you need — there are less prisoners overall. So, you need to pay food for less prisoners. You need the prisons are less overcrowded because there is a problem with overcrowding in prisons. Because simply, there aren’t enough buildings. Because generally speaking, it’s not very populistic to say, “I’ll give more money to the prisons,” because people believe these people deserve suffering. So mostly, politicians don’t give a lot of money to the prison system, right?

Then notice, what are the impacts of this?

There are less misery conditions for nonviolent offenders. They don’t get beaten up in prison, they don’t install riots that they get stabbed in this sort of particular way and we believe this is fundamentally immoral. Why? Guess what?The judge has given them this sentence. The judge didn’t give them the sentence to get stabbed with a knife. So, taking by their logic it’s kind of immoral for me to get stabbed by a knife in prison because the judge didn’t give me this.

Then what happens?  Secondly, notice how there is less violence in prison which  means now these people will not radicalize further because as
my first speaker explained when you see violence everywhere, when you’re part of a gang, you’re pushed to your limits. Now, these financial scammers for instance and any other kind of nonviolent criminals are not pushed to their limits. So, they don’t begin doing violent crime.

Closing

If you want to be moral, but also practical — vote for us.

Opposition 2nd speaker: Alexia Sextou

Opening

Proposition doesn’t get to wave a magic wand and tell you that somehow, randomly, without explaining to you how this nauseousness is going to be proportional to the kind of violence that you think of, and it’s also going to be cherry-picked for what you see and for the distinction as to whether this is going to be a film or not.

Let me explain to you how Pavlov did his experiment. He took a bunch of dogs, he rang a bell, and he brought food to the table. And what that did is that it allowed the dog to connect the sound of the bell to food. At which point, when Pavlov took away the food and rang the bell, he saw the dog salivate because it connected the sound of the bell with the idea that this means it will eat.

What proposition is doing is that its necessarily causing people nauseas to the point where they’re feel so nauseas, where they’re incapacitated completely by exposing them to images or feelings of violence. They cannot make this distinction feasibly by the point in which they’re trying to train human beings to respond to any stimulus of violence with having spasms, with having their stomach be so severely bad to the point where they fall on the floor and turn purple and God knows what, so they do not commit that crime.
Therefore proposition doing, is torturing people forever with something irreversible, as per the info slide of the motion. They’re lobotomizing people for eternity so that the person never offends again. If this is the world you want to live in—Prop. But clearly it’s not, because it’s immoral, because it’s inhumane, and because it’s monstrous. No person deserves this. Because we, as a society, have placed limits on the kind of punishment that people receive. So even if this is something people choose, there are limits to that choice. This is why, for example, we don’t allow people to sell themselves into slavery or cut off their hands, even if we think they deserve it. We don’t do this as a society because we understand there are limits to justice and limits to punishment.

We stand for prison time because it’s not just what the courts decided this is what society decided is just. When people opt out of that and choose an alternative punishment even if it’s better, even if it’s worse, it is not consistent with society’s values.

Two things in this speech:
Firstly, rebuttal—which is going to take out all of Prop’s arguments. At the point where, by the way, all of their impacts scale with how many people opt in. They never explain how many people do. If anything, they do the analysis for us and tell us people will be coerced into it. That’s horrifying if you listen to my intro.
Secondly, my own argument as to why this has significant third-party harm.

Point of contention 1: Prisons

First, address their prison claims.

They say prison is really really bad. You lose connection with family. Prisons are violent and apparently you have gangster friends and this is the only person you can hang out with after you come out of prison.

But I want to bring some reality to this debate and tell you that there’s a spectrum which exist for violent crimes. That is to say 40% of violent crimes that exist in the US vary from example one-to-one assault at a bar, all the way up to more consistent abuse such as domestic abuse. The most extreme cases would be like Jeffrey Dahmer really really bad. But we think this is the minority of cases which exist. The majority exists within that side of the spectrum.

Now why is this important?

Because prison is important for both sides of the spectrum. Why? Firstly, because there’s a government incentive to do rehabilitation under our side of the house in the terms of the capital and the money that we would be using. They’re using this to lobotomize people, get doctors, and get electric chairs. We’re using that money to invest in that rehabilitation. We have the fiat to do this.

But secondly, because under our side of the house, prison is better because the individual, in the vast majority of cases from this side of the spectrum, can understand and override the feeling of anger that drove them to disrespect the law in the first place. We allow them to reflect. We allow them to talk about this with psychologists. We allow them the time to think about this. Because, by the way, we don’t make them fall on the floor at the first thought which they have.

The third reason is because prison, we think, is enough of a deterrent in the status quo. At the point where, in the most extreme cases that they talk to you about, it’s very, very long. We think this deters people enough to the point where they can make the decision to not actually enact the crime.

But even if they override that deterrence, we think it is so much better when in prison, they are actually able to override that. Their side is the one which, by the way, even if we don’t deter people, eventually after they come out of prison, they’re unable to self-defend. The individual that, by the way, did a one-time crime in which they hit a guy at the bar, in their side and from their model—the next time that they will need to self-defend for whatever reason, they can’t do this because they’re going to drop on the floor and turn purple, and their eyes are going to go crazy because you’re literally lobotomizing them.

This is inhumane, and this is causing so much more crime. In the sense that if people can’t self-defend from future crimes, you also have lower the ability for them to be able to escape that crime in the first place.

Point of contention 2: What victims want?

Secondly, then on victims feeling better — which, by the way, is very, very patronizing for you to assume that victims want to inflict this horrible pain that is eternal on people. Because note, this isn’t just monitoring your thought, by the way, all of the time. It is also something that is extended, which is to say that this is something that is irreversible. So their side is when to in places punishment irrespective of the magnitude of the crime. So, whether I am — I did the bar thing — or whether I’m Jeffrey Dahmer, same thing for proposition. And by the way, it is forever. I have this nauseous reaction for eternity. Very patronizing for you to assume this is what victims want, even though they felt the pain of what it means to actually be violated. This is horrible.

But secondly, right — if it is the case that courts decided that the right decision is this — for this person to go to prison, at the point where the individual has the choice to opt out of it, this is really bad. Because victims don’t find comfort in the fact that someone gets to play around with what punishment they will face — even if they think it’s worse because they’re guilty — or even if they are not quite sure how badly this lobotomy is, and they choose it because they think it’s easier. Giving these people choice is really bad, and victims are much less likely to want this.

Point of contention 3: Societal limits to criminals.

Lastly, very quickly on prisons. They tell you it’s expensive. By that same logic, would you also kill them? Would you also torture them because they take space? Send them to an island? No — because as a society, we understand that that is absurd, and there are limits to what you do to the people that commit crimes, even if it is the most extreme. But obviously, in the cases where people are very violent in prison, you still put a detention in them, right? You lock them up for like a day. This is something that works.

They don’t tell you why prison time is something so insufficient that they have to do this immoral thing to people across the scale — regardless of what crime they did.

Argument 2: Why Pavlovian conditioning places a disproportionate burden on third parties?

My own argument then as to why Pavlovian conditioning places a disproportionate burden on third parties — at the point where it’s extremely traumatic and disruptive to everyday life. And note, this is going to deal with the vast majority of cases where people, for example, were convicted of manslaughter for a car crash, or they fought at a bar, or because they engaged with violence because of drug use.

The first reason why there’s third-party harm is because, practically, it limits the activities with which you can engage them. For example, you can’t go out with your family because you know that, for example, there’s a risk of you having a nauseous attack outside, or you’re consistently worried about the stimuli that you might have.

The second is financially — every time you have this, your family is going to have to consistently call an ambulance, call a doctor, because obviously this is going to have health effects that will make your body go nuts.

But thirdly, emotionally — are you telling me that your co-workers and your peers are going to watch you, like, reap on the floor every single time you think about violence? This is insane. It’s so traumatic on those around you, at the point where it’s so unfair because they didn’t choose this, you chose to have this for you, but the rest of society didn’t. Those who see you and deal with the aftermath didn’t.

Closing

On the side of humanity: Opposition.

Proposition 3rd speaker: Tanya Anastasova

Opening

Being sexually assaulted, being beaten up — these are things that are intuitively your right not to happen to you. These are things that proposition is standing against, and things that are the reasons today you are proposing.

I must admit I was touched by these speeches, but unfortunately, this is not a theatre. It was beautiful, it was amazing. However, dropping examples and impacting something that you never actually explained why is the most important thing but rather explain what is important. They run from the responsibility to be comparative, and they run from the responsibility to actually prove their mechanisms rather than just giving examples and illustrating until forever.

So, what is proposition going to do in this speech? Firstly, on the principal clash by simply, firstly rebuttal, and secondly, outweighing the criminals as actors that we should care about. And secondly, rebuttal and why we should win this debate.

Summary

Firstly, let me clear up what you have from proposition of debate.

First argument, we explain to you why we are literally saving lives. We’re saving new people from being harmed. We’re saving these people from experiencing things that literally limit their body autonomy, that limit their dignity. Things like being, for example, beaten up are things that you didn’t have control over and things that harm you both physically and mentally. We believe that as a criminal justice system, it is our main goal to limit this sort of thing.

Secondly, we speak on retribution. We explain to you why the victims feel better when they feel like they have done a good deed, when they feel like they aren’t going to live in paranoia for the rest of their lives that this monster is going to come and harm them again. We explain to you why this is probable, simply through the prism of the perception of these victims and how exactly they feel. Never engage it.

Thirdly, on prisons, we explain to you why the prison will become less violent, which then results into criminals being less radicalized when it comes to their actions after being let out of prison. Because let’s face it guys, they will exit prison at some point. The majority of life sentences are not the case. The majority of time, if you do something even if you are a sexual assault, you get 10 years max. So, when these people exit, we should care about what they’re doing.

Clash 1: Violence.

Okay after rebuttals of their principal arguments, let’s bring some nuance into what they’re talking about. They say it’s in your nature to think about violence.

Sure. But that’s what people are they’re talking about, I don’t understand — they’re talking about offenders that are already convicted. This person already harmed someone. This person already, for example, committed an armed robbery. So, we know who to give this sort of medication to. These are people that are already criminals and when you have cleared that up, rebuttal as to why the principal doesn’t work.

First of all, by the extension of their logic, these people don’t control what they’re thinking about, so they shouldn’t suffer for it. Okay?

So why should we send them to prison, where they’re intuitively going to suffer, when these thoughts transition into actions? And this is something that we have proven in our argument — as to why this sort of medication is effective and why it prevents, even they can see that this medication literally prevents you from thinking straight and you having life abilities. Therefore, you probably concede to the fact that you cannot offend simply because you don’t have the physical ability to do so.

When this is true, we don’t believe that it is moral by their logic to send these people to prison, where they’re limited of their freedom. When they’re not only stripped of freedom to what they think, because their social group is bad, because the environment is depressing, and all of these things, but you’re also restricting their ability. You can’t go out. You can’t choose what activities you do in prison. So, these people are much more limited on their side of the house. Even if you choose to care about these people again, by the extension of their logic, they must explain as to why this sort of treatment is much worse than prison, which they comparatively never do. They just impact why it’s bad.

Which, by the way, leads me to the next callout, which is that this contradicts their second claims. When they’re trying to claim that “Oh, but it’s too little,” but then, “It’s too much.” For example, it’s too little of a punishment to give this person the pill and give them the sort of medication, but then it’s too much for them to be principled. You have to either buy their first argument or the second.

POI: If it were true that it would decrease crime by 10%, that’s a big number. Would you cut off the legs of people who commit serious assault?

Answer: Of course. Very happy to do that.

Why? I don’t care about these people. I could not care less. Why? Simply weighing as to why the actors on our side of the house — which are the basic civilians, which is you, which is me, are more important than this person who is already criminal.

Clash 2: Actors.

First point of weighing: these are immoral actors.

This is something that comes even in our second speech. These actors, for example, limited the body autonomy of another individual, limited their rights. Therefore, it is justified for us to limit their rights — which is why prison exists and the concept of the criminal judicial system exists. It’s okay for us to limit them when they have limited the rights of someone else. So, they never explain what the problem is there.

But comparatively, we must care more about the members of the public. Because they obey the law. Because they sacrifice their full freedom, for example, to obey the law and to live by certain rules in their life — just to have that freedom. And they deserve to have that.

But secondly, the citizens are functional citizens a part of society. These people are working. These people are obeying the law.

On the comparative, prisoners either stay in prison forever, where they do nothing but just sit there and don’t contribute to society in any way — or secondly, they just exit prison and join gangs, which are actively harming the state that society is in.

So, what is the bottom line here, dear panel?

The bottom line is that when we don’t care about the actor, we shouldn’t care about the severity that this actor is suffering, when we prove a more important actor that is suffering much more.

Which leads me on to my next point of weighing. When on our side of the house, we’re preventing crime from happening. We’re preventing things, for example, like people being killed, from people being sexually assaulted. We believe these are things that harm you much deeper than you just getting nauseous and falling onto the floor a few times.

Rebuttal

They present rehabilitation as a thing that exists — but they never explain why it works. Sure, the state does it, but why is it effective?

We explain to you why it is not effective. When radicalization in prison exists, when these people are not willing to admit to themselves that they did something wrong, in order not to feel terrible for themselves as preventive mechanisms. This is something that they never prove in our case in that sort of way.

Then they say, “Oh, but some victims don’t want it.”

Okay — but some victims do want this. So, what we bring to you in this debate is a comparative as to why the future victims are more important than retribution of the old victims and why is that the case?

Firstly, for future victims are far more in number than the current victims. Because when this person exits prison, for killing, for beating up one person — he is going to exit and beat up another person, and then another person.

Second point of weighing: we believe that our case proves why the severity of these crimes will actually increase after this person has gone to prison. Due to radicalization, due to him having no other choice. So, you have this acceleration of impact if you buy, that they’re equally important, when ours gets worse over time, you should protect the people, when more violent crimes are to happen.

But thirdly on solving, what is moral and what is not is up to every single person’s judgment in this room. Everyone has their different life story. Versus practice – which is something that we agree upon. We agree upon that everyone in this room should live. We agree upon the fact that everyone in this room has the body autonomy not to be sexually assaulted, not to be beaten up. So, if you believe that the most important thing in this debate is to protect the most fundamental human right — which is to be protected by your state, which is to have your life, which is to have your dignity.

Closing

You should vote for the most important fact that you are protecting the normal citizens. And today, you are proposing.

Opposition 3rd speaker: Max Papaioannides

Opening

By the end of 1984, Winston’s mind was cleansed, and it didn’t matter that he had no bad thoughts. It didn’t matter that he was executed because, at that point, he was no longer a human. He was no longer someone with agency, with a capacity to think, with a capacity to self-actualize, to perceive what it is to be human, to perceive what it is to be himself. That is never something we can take away from people, and that is why you should vote on opposition if you believe that your humanity is an innate right, an innate right you can take away from yourself, an innate right that the state can’t coerce you into giving away.

I’ll talk about three questions in this speech. First of all, what are the constraints of the justice system? Second of all, why proposition’s measure stripped humanity in a coercive way? And third of all, I will engage in very direct weighing of why ours should be their priority.

Rebuttal

But let’s first address the biggest and largest flaw with proposition’s argumentation — that the motion calls on them to defend choice, that they would allow people to opt into this system. But none of their arguments are about that choice. All of their arguments are about how this is a good form of punishment, how it is better at incapacitating, how it is better at making the victims feel whole, and they say that this is a priority.

By logical extension, then, if this is the priority, then they should not defend allowing people to opt into that. They should defend forcing that on people.

And note, what opposition needs to prove in this debate is not the motion. So even if we concede all of their first speech and tell you this is a good punishment — we should give it to everyone, then opposition takes this debate. Because their case is not about the motion. Their case is about the info slide, and these are two distinct things.

But let’s say you don’t believe this is attack. Let’s say you believe that proposition still has a reason or case, even though it is entirely logically inconsistent to give these people the option.

Clash 1: Constraints of the justice system.

Firstly, what are the constraints of the justice system?

We think we respect the basic dignities of humans, the basic dignities that civilizations have fought very hard to get from their state — the state which did used to execute people out in the streets for stealing apples to feed themselves. We fought hard to get to the point where the criminal justice system has these constraints. Why?

Because it’s not just about the criminals, panel. Society is represented by the system it chooses to enforce, and that is a system no citizen consented into. Did they offend or did they not offend means that society still represents you — that the policing, that the punishment, is one which is done in the name of the people. And you can’t paint the name of the people by stripping others of their humanity and their name. That is the first reason as to why we have constraints on the criminal justice system.

And the second reason, we have constraints is because very often it gets it wrong. It gets it wrong when it over-prosecutes and convicts African Americans on three times the likelihood of a white American. It gets it wrong when 15% of convictions for the death penalty are later overturned after the fact even though the person was executed. And because it disproportionately affects the poor who can’t access legal defence and the minorities who are victims of discrimination, it is why we should say earn on the side of caution — make sure punishment isn’t irreversible. That is why we do not take away people’s legs, proposition. That is insane.

And third of all, because it enters a slippery slope. Now slippery slopes are generally bad faith arguments, but we don’t need to do that because they accepted the slippery slope. That by their logic, they would cut off people’s legs because they were convicted, even though that conviction might later be overturned. They would also, by the way, realistically be okay with preventative policing. Punishing people before the crime happens. Imposing a curfew so people don’t go outside. Because guess what proposition, night is when most crime happens. So, you wouldn’t want people risking all of that to prevent all of these victims from happening. You are probably the people who would also arrest someone before they commit a crime because some sort of algorithm or statistic has proven they are more likely to reoffend.

Even though we think this might prevent victims, we think that the oppression of the state needs to be limited by these constraints because the state has a much greater capacity to coerce you than any other citizen because of how asymmetric that relationship is.

Clash 2: Stripping away humanity in a coercive way.

How does then their form of punishment strip humanity?

Because I think it does something very simple — it strips a basic element of life. Element of life, which is in religion, which is in media, in advertisement, in your national identity, culture, etc. And we think this is not something you can scale, because the info slide very clearly says “severe nausea, if think about violence.” They don’t get to have the sort of scale of severity.

This isn’t, by the way, just about violence. Because the brain would go into self-defence mode. It can’t compartmentalize. Therefore, every thought which is tangential to violence would eventually be washed out. You would eventually cleanse your mind of all of that. And you’re losing so much of your capacity to think, so much of your capacity to engage with reality.

They come to you, they try to make a parallelism between this and the freedom of movement, which we limit. But the freedom of movement is logically secondary to your freedom to set priorities. By having thought, you move, because you want to do things. You can only want to do things if you can think.

And we think, look, you don’t always have control over your thoughts. You do over your actions. That is another distinction. And we can only punish you for those actions — because those have caused harm. We think that the thoughts themselves are harmless. They are innately human. And that is what you’re stripping away.

POI: Understand that if you cannot do the punishment, then don’t do the crime. You have a choice. Therefore, your principal argument is not important. Because you actually opted into this. You actually did this crime. Therefore, you actually are a bad person, and you should be punished to the severest extent, if you actually committed sexual assault?

Answer: Their logic would use a death penalty on everything. If you know the punishment, it means it is okay to inflict upon you, so long as there is a paper notice somewhere saying “death penalty applies for all” — they would apply that. That is the level of oppression and coercion team proposition stands up to defend. And we think that, yes, you might deter crime anyway from bicycle theft to a bar fight to sexual assault. But that is not the society and that is not the oppression we want to live in.

Clash 3: Weighing on priorities.

Let’s engage then in a bit of weighing.

First of all, certainty. We think that there are a lot of ways of getting people not to reoffend. In a lot of countries, the rate is about as low as 15%. However, there is certainty that the lobotomy will be catastrophic to you.

Second of all, the magnitude of harm. Because the majority of violent crimes are not sexual assault or murder, they are getting into a bar fight. They are violent theft, things which might be traumatic but did not strip the basic elements of your humanity. And we think that the punishment should be proportionate to the level of harm you have caused the other person. When you’re coercing people into taking such a massive harm, you are not being proportionate.

And lastly, alternatives exist. There are other ways of limiting crime. This is the reality we brought you in first and we also manifest.

Proposition too tells us that people don’t want to fund prisons because they think criminals deserve bad things. But people are also afraid of crime. This is why policing and getting limitations on crime is often the top voting priority, anywhere from national to municipal elections, which is why people accept the necessary funding for “bad” people, so they can build prisons, they can actually contain them. This is why we don’t just line up the firing squad and shoot every criminal — because people understand that this is a worthwhile sacrifice.

And lastly, they tell you, “Oh, you’re going to start fights, and you’re going to make prison wars for everyone.” We put people in special detention for this. Solutions exist. If someone is being violent in prison, they are taken to a different place where they can’t affect violence.

Okay, what is this debate very clearly about, dear panel?

They tell you they try to get fewer victims. We don’t know. And in reality, maybe they do. But what we do get is that we ensure the state doesn’t strip you and doesn’t take away the most basic of your humanity and for that reason, we are not countries like Iran, which execute people for crimes.

Closing

We are not the type of country which chops off your legs for criminality and that is the type of society you want to live in — if you’re a criminal, or if you’re someone who gets wrongly convicted of a crime. Very proud to oppose.