Rheingans-Yoo,+Ross

I debated for Capitol Debate for three years in high school ('08-'11), but have not debated since. I’m now an undergrad at Harvard, but unaffiliated with Harvard Debate. I’m not up-to-date on this year's cards (or even this year’s popular Affs), but I do know which end of a DA is the impact, and which is the link; make of that what you will. I can flow; go ahead and spread. (it’s sad that there are corners of the country where that’s not a given...)

A few true things about me:

1) I’m a 1N/2A, or at least, was. I try not to let it color how I evaluate fairness.

2) I ran various soft-kritikal affirmatives (with some combination of drugs, poverty, or race) throughout ‘09-‘10 (Social Services), and hard-kritikal Afghan-fem (plus some race) for all of ‘10-‘11 (Military Presence). My partner and I played music, spit rap, did without a plan text, spoke in each other’s speech time—the whole nine yards. As such, it’s unlikely that anything from either team will make me stop flowing. I'm also fine with policy-oriented rounds, but don't, generally speaking, enjoy boring ones.

3) Cross-X is almost certainly binding. You’d have to give me a //really// good reason why it should be different than any other type of speech time.

4) Given my debate background, I’m liable to give a certain amount of partiality to arguments which privilege persons disadvantaged in the status quo. No one comes into debate without biases — but if you promise to make smart arguments, I’ll promise to give all of your disads and CPs a fair chance.

5) Kritiks need alts (or at least, explanations). Counterplans need solvency advocates. Theory needs real words in real sentences explaining why I should care. Theory probably doesn’t need cards.

6) I grew up under Daryl Burch, a gigantic topicality hack (among other things). I like my T with cream and sugar — I mean, with clearly articulated impacts and in-depth analytics. If you’re just reading blocks, any bullet point under five words is unlikely to make it onto my flow. (Not because I didn't hear it; just because you failed to make a coherent point.)

7) If “NUMBER OF DEATHS TIMES PROBABILITY DIVIDED BY TIMEFRAME” is your idea of impact calculus, you’re going to have a bad time, I’m going to have a bad time, and no one is going to be happy. Compare impacts, compare evidence, compare warrants, compare quals. Talking past each other means I'm going to have to flip a coin to weigh impacts.

8) If you say the words “call for this card” in a rebuttal, I’m very likely going to call for the card. If the card says less than you think it does, that’ll be very bad for you. If it says more than you say it does, I’m not really going to care. You’re much better off just explaining what’s going on in your evidence.

All that being said, when I walk into the room, I’ll make some assumptions; not because I necessarily believe them to be true, but only for the sake of giving both teams a known starting point. From there, it’s your job to push me off of it. I’m certainly not wedded to any of these, so that shouldn’t be hard, but until someone says otherwise, I’ll assume: - Debate as we know it is a good thing because it gives diverse voices a forum for substantive, two-way communication. Any argumentation that’s not destructive of that forum only serves to enrich it. - Conventions (e.g. accepted modes of speech, evidence, and argument, limitations of time/speaking roles...) tend to have the double effect of (1) facilitating engagement by keeping us on the same page and (2) marginalizing underrepresented voices. It’s up to you to tell me which of those, if either, should influence me in the context of the current round, and why. - As per convention, my role as the judge is to vote Aff on a (probably) net-good plan and Neg otherwise, because my doing so is good for debate. "Net-good" (and "probably") means according to the analysis in-round. If you want me to vote for some other reason, you need to say so.