Maciel,+Christopher

In General: I try to insert myself into the round as little as possible. Because of this, it is to your advantage to clearly articulate and weigh warrants and impacts. This also means that my opinion of specific arguments doesn’t really matter that much. However, if you’re curious, you can keep on reading.

Theory: I am probably in the minority, in that I enjoy a good theory debate. I am probably in the majority, though, in that I think good theory debates are rare. I do think that a theory position should have an interp, a violation, a standard, and a voter. As a default, I don’t require abuse on theory in order to vote for it. Obviously, though, if that argument is won in the debate, I would require abuse. I am willing to vote for an RVI/IVI.

Critical Positions: I am totally fine with critical arguments. However, please have a clear framework and an alternative. Without these, I generally find that K debates get really messy. At the end of the round I don’t want to be looking through 5 pages of K flow trying to figure out what your arguments mean, much less how to evaluate them in the round.

If you think that I hate K debates, you’re wrong. I’m fine with them. I’m just don’t want to have to do a bunch of work at the end of the round to make my decision. You are the only one who can make my life easier.

CP’s: I don’t have a default on CPs. I think that PICs are fine. I’m fine with whatever status you want to make the CP. However, like I said under “Theory,” if a debater runs “PICs bad” and wins, then I will look to the impacts of the position and go from there. If you’re hitting a CP and are going to make a perm, don’t just say, “On the CP: Perm.” I will have no idea what this means. Provide a perm text.

Impacts: I don’t know what “dehumanization” means. You can say it. I’ll write it down. I don’t really get it. I think it’s debaters way of saying “something bad will happen to people…and it’s not death.” So, if you’re running dehum as an impact, please explain what you mean by it. I don’t mind if you always impact to nuke war/extinction; however, I do prefer that the scenario has a fair probability of happening.

I’m totally cool voting for defense, provided the other debater doesn’t win the argument that I shouldn’t vote for it.

Please weigh impacts. If you don’t do this, there’s a better chance that you’re not going to like my decision.

If you have any questions about my philosophy or just want to yell at me for voting against you, you can email me at cbmaciel@berkeley.edu