Zaikowski,+Jonathan

Experience: 3 years policy debate at Wake Forest University, 2A for all 3 years with rare exceptions. Judging: Very little experience, I'm still figuring out where I stand on a lot of these issues. I will, however, do my best to stick to what's outlined below.


 * I'll vote for anything.** My only criteria for an argument to be taken seriously is that it must have a warrant and be falsifiable. If you make a blippy three-second theory argument which the other team drops, I will likely not vote for it on the grounds that it doesn't meet the criteria listed above. But, if you make a well-warranted argument which the other team doesn't respond to, no matter how crazy it is, I'll treat it as a conceded truth-claim. I try to be as Tabula Rasa as possible, but I obviously have certain limits imposed on me just in virtue of how intelligent I am and how quickly I can flow/figure out an argument.

T/Framework/theory: I will of course vote on these if reasons can be presented for why I should, but I can also be talked out of it no matter how blatantly non-topical/cheating you are. I'm honestly not the best T debater, though, so you may want to be careful going for this in front of me due to the fact that I'm not particularly skilled at it myself. Please, do slow down a bit on standards.

K: Given what I've said above, I imagine I'll be hearing a lot of these. And that's not a bad thing, I enjoy good K debates, even hyper-generic ones. Just explain what your K is all about, avoid jargon whenever possible, and contextualize it to the affirmative/this round.

CPs: Do it to it. Only caveat, be careful with CPs that rely on a lot of theory to be competitive, I might have trouble figuring out what's going on before the round is over.

DAs: Can be good, smart stuff that actually links and interacts with the aff (START on the nukes topic, CIR on immigration), or can be boring and contrived BS (politics, the rev). This isn't to say don't run your politics DA, or even be deterred, just be aware that it's not my favorite. I don't have any real predisposition on link vs. uniqueness.

Projects: I don't know if we have any project teams at the Earlybird, but I'm of course open to voting for you. However, Tabula Rasa is a double-edged sword - if someone impact turns racism (or runs any strategy that is generally seen as unacceptable), I hope you're ready to debate the merits of what they say and not just assert that it's offensive and move on. Failure to do so will likely result in a swift trip to L-town.

Decision calculus: Again, I'm open to any paradigm you want to present, but if it becomes a wash I will probably end up defaulting to util is best, magnitude > probability > timeframe (and any risk of extinction outweighs structural harms, ethics, and ontology), and there's always at least a risk of anything.

In round etiquette: Treat your opponents with respect. Don't be an ass. If it's not your CX and you consistently speak over the person questioning you, I will just zone out on what you say and probably reflect it in your speaker points.

Random stuff: As you can see above, I was a novice going in to college debate and I'm actually looking forward to doing what I can to give back to the JV/novice community that gave me so much help. I'm a history and philosophy major - I love hearing historical examples, especially on Ks. I know very little about outer space. I'll do my best to give non-verbal cues when you're speaking. I'm just starting to judge as well, so this is new territory for me too. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. Seriously, it's much better to clarify how I feel about something before the round rather than get mad at me after.

Tl;dr: Tabula Rasa with the expected Wake Forest predispositions if I have to figure it out myself.