Collier,+Clara

I debated LD on the national circuit for four years, for Harvard Westlake and Marlborough high schools. I'm willing to vote on pretty much any argument (there are a couple of exceptions listed below), so this is mostly to help you understand my biases going into the round.

First off, I will not vote on presumption. I will not vote on moral skepticism. If you win skep, I will assume that the round is impossible to judge and I might as well pick a winner arbitrarily. It will probably not be you. I will not vote on a prioris. Anything else is fair game, but I have a strong preference for substantive topical debate. Do not run paragraph theory or have tons of spikes in your constructive. I will be very very unhappy.

I don't like frivolous theory. I'll still vote on it, but I'll give more credence to opposing arguments and it's going to hurt your speaks. If no one makes any arguments to the contrary, I'll evaluate theory as a question of competing interpretations. Again, if no one makes arguments to the contrary, I'll default to dropping the argument, not the debater. If theory is run as a voting issue, I have no problem voting on an offensive counter-interpretation without an RVI. In general, please try to be very clear about the role of the ballot in theory debates. I don't particularly like judging theory debates, and I'd very much appreciate it if you made my job as easy as you can.

I'm fine with critical arguments, and they can be fun, but I'm not really familiar with many continental philosophers. Go more slowly than you usually would. You're (hopefully) familiar with your case already. It is almost certainly more confusing than you think it is. If I don't understand an argument by the end of the round, I will not vote on it. If your arguments suddenly have new implications in the rebuttals, I won't vote on those either.

I enjoy policy-type arguments (plans, cps, disads, etc.). I'll default to perms as a test of competition. You can make me very happy by demonstrating an understanding of how probability works. That means substantive, reasonable link chains. Existential risk is a real thing and I'd love to see the concept correctly applied. If your disad is six increasingly improbably links and the two Bostrom cards that everyone reads, you are not applying it correctly and are probably just trying to get out of having to do weighing analysis. As a general rule of thumb, if you would be embarrassed to claim an implication outside of a debate round, please don't try to argue it in front of me. Again, I will vote on it, but I'll give a lot of weight to strength of link arguments and it will affect your speaks.

I'm not the best at flowing, so please signpost and slow down for taglines and author names. I'll say slow and clear as many times as I need to. This won't affect your speaks, but if I don't have the argument on my flow, I can't vote on it. In general, extend warrants and weigh substantively and be original and do all the other things judges usually tell you to do. Don't be mean. Try to explain your decision calculus very clearly because I am lazy and want to do as little work as possible. And if you have any more specific questions, please feel free to ask me before the round.