Krishnan,+Shankar

Shankar Krishnan Ridge High School (2013-2017), UC Berkeley ('17 - '21)

New Paradigm (old one is still at the bottom for reference if you want):

1. Do whatever you'd like as long as you don't make arguments that reinforce oppressive norms 2. I have found that I give speaks based on strategy and creativity. This also means I want to see YOU debate, not just read prewritten responses. I give good speaks to people not robots. 3. I have a pretty low threshold for extensions and warrants but I need you to extend individual arguments not sets of arguments; examples of what you shouldn't do: 4. I defer to cross-ex over in-round arguments (if by the end of cx you have misconstrued your own arguments to your opponent ill stick by those) 5. I have biases just like any other judge but hopefully they're not egregious enough to affect the round - if they are then I will add them to the paradigm
 * "extend the framework"
 * "extend all the arguments about _"
 * "extend the offense"

Feel free to ask any specific questions before the round.

***Updates*** After judging for the first time, I have realized some things. 1. I am a classic FYO judge 2. I am a speak fairy - i average like 29.3 3. I will no longer vote on an argument if I can't explain even a semblance of a warrant back to you because otherwise I will squirrel

1. What "type" of arguments did they read as a debater?
I read a lot of types of arguments during my debate career, from tricks my sophomore year to kritiks and performance arguments my junior year to reading more LARP oriented positions my senior year, and read traditional arguments throughout my career.

2. What are their qualifications/experience as a debater?

I debated 4 years at Ridge High School in NJ on both progressive and traditional circuits. In my career I competed at 16 bid tournaments, got to 10 bid rounds, and got 6 bids, qualifying to TOC twice. I had a winning record at TOC junior year and got 3rd at NSDA nationals my senior year.

3. What arguments will they evaluate? Anything excluding arguments that exclude people or are offensive.

4. What arguments do they "like"?
I have this very nebulous concept of “creativity in debate,” by which I mean I like arguments that are “creative.” Honestly, I myself do not know what criteria I use to determine what is “creative,” but do know that if I find your argument to be creative then I will give you higher speaks. Most of the time the arguments I think are creative are the ones most people call “stupid,” so take that as you will.

5. What are other paradigms to reference?
<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I was either coached by these people at some point or really enjoyed having them as a judge so I might judge like them -- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- Bailey Rung <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- Jack Wilson <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- Arianna Montero-Colbert <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- Christian Quiroz <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">-Matthew Pregasen <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- Benjamin Koh <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- Michael Stewart <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- Adam Tomasi <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- Yana Kropotova

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">6. What are their defaults?
<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I don't default anything I think if a layer is irresolvable I'll just move to the next highest layer and if I can't move lower I don't know what I'll do I'll figure it out as it comes along.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Random Paradigm Stuff
<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Theory vs Kritik <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> To quote Brother Martin Page, “The debate between theory and K is a pre-fiat impact calculus—your weighing between theory and a role-of-the-ballot should be a comparison of impacts within the debate space.” I find most “theory is oppressive because it sets a rule” arguments to be quite silly (although I read them 99% of the time when I read a K against theory). Just weigh them against each other.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Implicit Clash: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> I think that explicitly evaluating implicit clash is silly and goes way too much into the realm of intervention for me to be comfortable. However, I inevitably may end up evaluating some implicit clash, and thus I want to give some comments on what I view as implicit clash and what I do not. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Let us say you read a kritik, and one of the pieces of link evidence is tagged as indicting all of the theory shells in the aff, as in “all theoretical shells in the aff link” or something along those lines. Just because that piece of evidence is not crossapplied to every theory evidence in the aff does not mean that it is implicit clash to me if it is extended as being a link to all theory. I think it is perfectly reasonable to believe that this is very explicit clash, as the argument is basically an overview on theory. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Now let us say that you make an implication that performance comes before all of the 1AC arguments because performance is how we present arguments which precludes the evaluation of the content of the arguments. Again, I do not think it is an extension of implicit clash to claim in the 2NR that performance precludes the 1AR extension of a 1AC paragraph shell because the warrant of the argument made in the 1NR is that performance precludes the evaluation of the content of arguments (theory is an argument), and the argument was implicated as coming before all 1AC arguments (a 1AC paragraph shell is a 1AC argument). <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> However, let us say that you read Foucault and read a card as to why truth is subjective. Let us say the 1AC extends rule following skep to say that all role of the ballots are infinitely meetable. I think it is implicit clash for me to say that Foucault says truth is subjective, so rule-following skep doesn’t apply because Foucault doesn’t claim to have a static rule but says that rules are constantly changing based on hegemonic structures. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Maybe I am conflating implicit clash and just blatant intervention. Honestly, if you think I evaluated implicit clash or intervened in the first two scenarios, maybe I don’t know what implicit clash is. If somebody can convince me otherwise then I’ll change my perspective.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Thoughts about Kritiks: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- I think that every speech is a performance, so I find arguments that claim that “performance is key” and you vote off of the “1AC because it is a performance” to be silly. However, if you claim that narratives are key to solvency because we need empathy to realize the true harm of a situation, that’s a different story.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- Unlike other judges, I think reject alts are very sufficient. I have no problem voting off of reject alts and your speaks will not suffer. However, I do believe alternatives should be carded (This does not apply if you extemp a kritik. If you extemp an analytically warranted kritik and win the round, I will be hard pressed to not give you a 30).

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">-I do not think that tricks and kritiks are mutually exclusive, in that you can read kritikal tricks. Honestly, these types of debate make me the most happy as I think that they hold the most potential for creativity both in terms of the literature and the application of arguments.