Plumridge,+Josh

Plumridge, Josh JOSH PLUMRIDGE: I debated in high school and college, although for less time re: college. I've judged off and on since 2001. I guess I would say an aggregate of 9 years of judging. I've coached teams multiple times. Sometimes they even did really well! The last two years I've judged a lot. I'm very familiar with the ocean topic. __**Topicality **__ You can of course win a t arg without collapsing down to only t in the 2nr, but it would greatly help if you didn't go for four things in the last speech. I kind of love T when it's run with care, with love - when it's not just an excuse to spread the 2ac, when the standards/impacts debate is fleshed out, when it's made clear why the aff interpretation of the res sets a bad precedent for debate. I am flow-oriented and I like technically sophisticated debates, but if the 2nr extends 4 different impacts to an effects t arg, for instance, but there are ZERO warrants, and the 2ar straight up drops the phrases "ground abuse" and "explodes research," I'll still be inclined to not vote on T, because that's just blippy shallow debate. This is why it's often necessary to collapse down to just T because you'll need 5 minutes to elaborate on the nature of ground abuse and limits and potential abuse and all of that. __**Kritiks **__ Arguments that are more sophisticated than the oil prices disad deserve a more sophisticated touch. The only way in which I have a higher threshold for the K is simply that most teams don't know the literature and are bad at running them. If you can explain a solid link to the K, you have a good chance of winning. Sadly that's a big ask for many. You need to know more than, the aff exists in the status quo system of capitalism. Even if you don't have a piece of evidence that says NOAA feeds the capitalist system, you can make your own analysis. Be inventive. For instance, while the aff claims searching the bottom of the ocean for medical miracles is innocuous/benign pure science, a) depoliticizing science masks capitalist atrocities, like a rocket scientist who masks the true horrors that his missiles exact by saying, hey I just tweak molecules and energy and get a paycheck. and b) their advantages prove that their impacts are inevitable in a capitalist system because if we didn't have pharmaceuticals we wouldn't have anti-biotic resistance in the first place, and their famine advantage proves our link and impact because without capitalism we would have equal global access to surplus crops. If the neg block's response to the perm is "but this still links to the K because they use capitalism - extend the smith evidence" I will be bummed out (and that emotional deprivation will translate into a bad ballot result). Use your mind. Generic link versus specific link is a weird dichotomy. If the neg wins that fiat is nonsense and the aff's construction of the ocean is part of the de-materiality of the ocean as a space upon which humans act and have acted, and the link card's awesome, and their neg block on it is fleshed out, it's okay if the 1nc evidence doesn't say "oh btdubs this is applicable to OTEC." __**Counter plans**__ I like them a lot. Especially clever PICs. I really hope the cp debate doesn't devolve into walls of blippy theory. I actually like theory a lot, but only if it's advanced coherently, rather than in some silly glib manner. Read them! They're the best. This section's size is inversely proportional to how likely I am to vote on them if you know what you're doing. It's even more compelling if the aspect of the aff you're excluding is based on the demands of their own solvency advocate. I don't think I should really have to have a disad section. Why did you make me do this? Same thing as the rest of what I said. If the extent of your internal link debate coming out of the 2nr is winner's win, and you win, it's because the other team was simply outclassed and didn't have time to say literally anything. I like complex disad debates. If you're the kind of debater who debates like camp files read, and you say, C is israel attacks, D "that's extinction" you might have a tough time. But if you know a lot about international diplomacy, or can connect the dots of a fairly cataclysmic scenario with deep knowledge of let's say, the iranian nuclear dismantlement talks, or the way OPEC affects the price of oil, and how that precisely affects government spending in russia, go for it. __**Theory etc. **__ I'm a big fan of vagueness arguments against affs. I can't lie. I think it rewards bad debate to allow affs whose text is: "The usfg should substantially increase ocean mapping" or "the usfg should substantially increase incentives for offshore wind." My personal preferences go WAY beyond that. Specificity will win you rounds. I'd prefer if you said, our actor is a white house directive, our implementation is NOAA, our funding is 5.6 billion which dovetails well with our solvency advocate from February 17th at 6:56 pm, etc (assuming it's a policy aff :-) ). I really like procedurals that are connected with a substantive argument in the 1nc that forms a double-bind. __**Kritikal Affs **__ Yeah I spelled it like that. I rarely find myself voting against K affs on procedural / theory grounds. Basically never, but I'm willing! It's usually just that K teams are really good at either destroying the neg in teched out framework debates or they at least muddle it enough that I look to the actual substance of the debate, and by that I obviously mean the litany Agamben cards. In a magical abstract world in which all other things are equal (each debater is equally talented and did an equally good job), I think fairness outweighs education massively. Like I said, it seems to never get to this. Interrogating the history of a slave ship or our psychological relationship to the pacific garbage patch is probably not topical. I guess that's why it's not a novice case area. But you'll probably be fine unless the neg is just as good as you at f/w. You're the best!
 * __Disads __**

__**Stylistic notes **__ I like speed as long as you're clear. Duh. Please don't be cocky or disrespectful to the other team. It has never helped someone win. You will probably not win on "a dropped arg is a true arg" unless you heavily impact that drop. I don't care if you sit down or stand up, dress up or dress down, tag team or no. I'm not going to say I'm a policy maker or tabula rasa. Both are literally false for almost every judge on the circuit. The more you create your own voting hierarchy and offer compelling impact analysis, the less likely it is that I'll have to intervene. Finally, I obviously prefer offense versus defense, but I also believe in curtailing the hegemony of risk analysis in debate. Sometimes the 2ac reads an impact takeout instead of a turn, and it's a 100% takeout. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: 1.5;">Research is an important part of the activity, but I probably won't call for cards at the end of the round unless a particular card is disputed. It's not my job to read them. If you don't read them clearly during your speech then, well, you probably should have. __**<span style="font-family: open_sans_bold; font-size: inherit; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: middle;">Tech **__<span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5;">__**:**__ ===<span style="background-color: #fefefe; font-family: open_sans,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5;">I give 8 mins prep but stop the timer when the flash drive hits the hands of the receiving team. As an example of my approach: if the 1ar is going to read ZERO cards in the 1ar, then the negative team shouldn't whine. You don't deserve their pre-written analytics. You can access them through your ears. If they're unclear, maybe I won't understand them either. ===

You're the best!