Kirshon,+Layne

Layne Kirshon Debated at Kinkaid for 4 years (’06 - ’10) Currently debate at Northwestern (’10 - )

Tech over truth every time. This is really all you need to know. I have no preferences about the style or content of your arguments. All that is required is that I understand them. I'd prefer a good debate to poor adaptation; there are many arguments I find obtuse but the free market of ideas will allocate wins to good arguments more efficiently than intervention could, so I'm willing to vote on them. Everything else here are defaults and minor preferences, but arguments that change my decision calculus always override them (presuming they're won).

Zero risk? Intrinsically hard to reach, but reachable and probably easier in front of me than most. Glaring holes in affs and DAs should be treated as absolute take-outs, presuming debaters frame them as such. Therefore, in debates with low risk on both sides (ex: CP that solves the whole case with nearly no (or certainly no) NB) discussions of presumption are important. How low is low enough? You tell me. There is probably a difference between functional zero/functional certainty and true zero/true certainty based on whether or not an argument is addressed at all - to stay consistent with the analogy above, reducing the risk of the NB to "functionally zero" is a lot harder to win if you have not advanced a solvency deficit at all versus advancing an unpersuasive one. That being said, the distinction is only at the margins and winning that there is functionally no DA ergo presumption can certainly win in front of me.

Preferences: -Tech and brains almost always win the day, in that order - if you are faster and way smarter you're in a good place. Get really nerdy about your data and method, empirics, climate science, epistemology, whatever, just cover and sound like you know everything about what you're saying. Pure pathos is probably not the way to go in front of me. -Try or die can be overwhelmingly persuasive. take this to mean that impact UQ is important. -I'm agnostic about most theory questions, and am gettable on a wide range of issues. for the aff, intrinsicness, neg, just throw the plan in there. -Framework - it's a debate. Fairness can be an impact. It is if presumed by both teams. -I'm inclined to believe CP competition and legitimacy are two sides of the same coin. If teams separate them I will treat them as such, but it only seems logical that if there's a normative reason that a CP is legitimate/relevant then a model of competition that eliminates it is bad and vice versa. -Persuasive explanation nearly always trumps evidence. I will probably still call for lots of cards but won't read into them as much as some other judges would.

Defaults: Judging is hard and some biases are inevitable; in light of that I promise that I will actively minimize them to the extend that I can in return for the debaters resolving central issues of clash to obviate the need for subjectivity. However, intervention is inevitable because time constraints mean many things go unresolved. Here is how I will intervene. These are only defaults. Arguments to the contrary always override them. -if a CP is condo and there's no discussion of what that means I will be willing to kick the cp for the 2nr and default to the sq. -all theory args besides condo/dispo = reject arg, not VIs -competing interps on T and theory -T before other theory args -Theory impacts grounded in decision-making/advocacy-construction are paramount -Presumption is against change i.e. it doesn't necessarily flip aff if there's a PIC -Link o/w UQ in determining who wins net-offense

Other regular assumptions apply: don't cheat, case debates are good and underutilized, I really value clarity, don't be an ass but I understand aggression and ruthlessness.

Not reading a warming impact or de-dev can and should be made a voting issue. If neither side introduces either of those positions I will award a double loss (obvi not really, but i do like both of those arguments).

Have fun and ask questions if you have them.