Buildacase

Remember to take your time and go slowly, do not rush through the lessons.

If a word or debate term confuses you, search it up on this document: Common BP terminology.

Telling a story

My personal belief is that debating is actually an exercise in storytelling. This is because our brains are predisposed to digesting information in the format in which stories are commonly explained. Think about it: movies, anime, children’s novels, literature we read in high school, news articles, certain forms of research, policy briefs, and even our own day-to-day conversation and gossip… they all really follow the same arc.

In a story:

• There is background context which sets up the problem
• There is a problem
• There is a solution
• There is an explanation of the outcomes of the solution

NOW WHAT DOES A DEBATE ARGUMENT HAVE?!

• Contextualizing the debate/background info
• Explaining the problem
• Explaining the solution (the mechanism)
• Explaining the outcomes of that solution (the impacts)
• Explaining why the outcomes are relatively more important (weighing)

I rest my case. To be easily digestible and convincing to a judge, a debate argument just must be a self-enclosed, coherent story. Clear, convincing, and easy to follow debaters structure their debate speeches like simple stories.

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Linear Flow (how you will be structuring your arguments from now on):

1. What is the problem?
2. Why does the problem arise?
3. How does this motion make this problem better or worse? (Mechs)
4. Why does it matter that this change has occurred? (Impacts)
5. Weighing – Why is this important? Why is this impact relatively more important than other impacts?

• From now on, use the linear flow format as a rubric for structuring arguments. Practicing linear flow will drill into your subconscious how to quickly organize arguments
• More importantly for novices, it will also help you identify which parts of an argument you are missing.Many novices make the mistake of missing a mechanism and jumping straight to impacts, or not contextualizing a problem therefore making their impact seem irrelevant.

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Tiering analysis:

Tiering analysis is condensing arguments into an easy-to-follow structure. If you want to make your arguments less easily susceptible to refutation, more time-efficient, and more convincing, it is often a good idea to tier analysis.

There are many ways to do this:

1. Identify multiple roots, one mechanism for each to change them

• Root 1 -> Mechanism 1 -> Impact 1
• Root 2 -> Mechanism 2 -> Impact 2
• Root 3 -> Mechanisms 3 -> Impact 3

2. Identify 1 root, multiple mechanisms to change them

• Root 1
  • Mechanism 1
  • Mechanism 2
  • Mechanism 3
    • Impacts 1 2 3

Worked examples:

a) THBT microfinance organizations in the developing world should offer loans exclusively to women. (gov)

1. Root/Problem: Women often do not get financing without this, and other forms of finance don’t work for women:
   – Mech 1: Men control annals of power: the village elder is likely to be a man, religion tells you to follow men, your father likely has the business while your mother stayed at home
   – Mech 2: Lack of collateral: Many financial institutions require collateral, such as property or assets, to secure a loan. Women in developing countries may not own property or have assets that can be used as collateral, making it difficult for them to access credit.
   – Mech 3: Limited financial literacy: In some developing countries, women may lack financial literacy and may be unaware of the credit options available to them or how to apply for loans.
   
   – Impact: other forms of finance don’t work for women.

b) THO organized religion (opp)

1. Root/Problem: Without organized religion, communities are unlikely to form positive spirituality.
   – Mech 1: Hierarchized religious communities are uniquely power/structured/constant
   — Logistically set up for you to a further extent than other groups. Every single Sunday I can go to my church group, there’s often dates set within the religious calendar that carve out time to appreciate a sense of community (Easter) compared to forcing someone to do that initiative on their own.
   
   – Mech 2: More powerful in terms of number of people who practice it
   — You pray to the same God and share similar beliefs. Huge feeling that you are not alone because you have family who are part of your own religious group. Profound sense of “there are so many other people who are like me” which gives purpose and fulfillment because we are social creatures and need groups like that.
   
   – Impact: without organized religion, communities are unlikely to form positive spirituality.
   
   
   
   

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Wait, what is a mechanism? What is an impact??

It is common to be confused about definitions of mechanisms and impacts. For now, think of them as ‘structural reasons’ why something is true. Mechanisms tie claims to impacts. They are the ‘how.’ Something that facilitates/causes an effect that is important in the round. The difference between impacts and mechanisms is: impacts are the final outcome in an argument, whereas mechanisms ‘prove’ that outcome.

Here are a few example arguments to illustrate these terms:

• Worms and other micro-organisms in soil are important to protect because they facilitate the growth of plants. How? They help by creating tunnels in the soil to allow oxygen to reach the roots of plants, and they secrete important enzymes which help plants to grow (mechanisms).
• Vaccinations are crucial for public health since they prevent the spread of dangerous diseases and save countless lives. How? By administering vaccines, the immune system is stimulated to produce antibodies that can recognize and fight specific pathogens, pre-emptively protecting the body from diseases (mechanism).
• Education promotes economic growth. How? By equipping individuals with the necessary skills, knowledge, and qualifications to participate in the workforce, drive innovation, and contribute to productivity and competition in an economy (mechanisms)

For reference, a mechanism can be many things:

• Different actors: how will someone/something react?
• Different incentives: policies, norms, optics
• Different contexts: ‘The West,’ the Global South, Myanmar, AI revolution, etc.
• Timescales: short-term, long-term
  

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Super important disclaimer on how to practice:

Note 1: You should be practicing the exercises in Lesson 1 for at least 2-3 weeks, once every few days. You should do at least 10-14 preps SPREAD OUT OVER MANY DAYS, because our brain needs prolonged exposure to absorb skills into our longterm cognitive and motor ‘library’ (This is why when you cram the night before an exam, you forget the material a few days/weeks later). Practice self control, and do not move on until you have gotten a good foothold on linear flow. If you move on too early, you will hinder your own practice.

• You can move into Lesson 1-2: How to generate an argument though.

Note 2: Do not freak out about aspects that you are not training at this moment. Ie. If the video PM gives three arguments but you only give one, focus on making the first argument robust (without obvious gaps and generally believable) and then note down the other arguments afterward.

• Your goal here is to 1) Learn from how others make arguments and recognize every good debater follows similar structure, 2) Copy debaters’ arguments and make them your own
  • Perhaps you want to begin a document where you copy down arguments that you find persuasive! This is commonly known as matterfiling.

Okay, at this point, you should have at least a 50% understanding of the concept of linear flow. Do not aim for perfect understanding initially! It’s okay to be confused! That’s what the drills, practice assignments, and community Facebook page is for.

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Exercises:

Exercise 1: Getting familiar with linear flow.

1. I will give you a claim to prove. Your goal is to flesh it out using the linear flow rubric above. Then, you will read the worked example and compare your structure to mine. Remember, this exercise is not about training how complicated and fancy you can make your analysis. It is about making it simple and easy to follow, and to help you notice when you are missing parts of your argument.
2. Do this a few times if you are brand new to debating! If you are more familiar with debate, please move onto Exercise 2.
3. This exercise can take you anywhere between 10 minutes to 60 minutes. Be thorough.
   • Claims:
     • Banning zoos will lead to happier animals.
     • Coal and gas-based energy is preferable to nuclear-based energy.
     • Even if fail to discover anything new, space exploration is beneficial for most of humanity.

Exercise 2: The best way to practice linear flow on your own.

1. Open up a debate video. Here is a playlist of Gwen Stearn’s and I’s recommendations.
2. Prep the PM speech for motion in 15 minutes.
3. Watch the PM in the video, write down parts that you missed, or parts that were different.
4. Reflect upon missing parts in your arguments and consider how you would fill them in your own words.
5. Prep and give the PM speech again, using the material you learned from the video.
6. This exercise will take you approximately 30 minutes.

Exercise 3: Practicing with a partner

• This exercise is not meant for beginners. It will be far more efficient to do Exercise 2 once a day for a few weeks than to do Exercise 3. Please return to this exercise when you are more confident that you can generate realistic arguments/you do not frequently miss obvious arguments in motions.

1. Grab a partner, one of you is the PM and the other is the LO.
2. Prep the motion out separately in 15 minutes, then give the speeches to eachother.
3. Critique each others’ speeches — noting responses you would give to their arguments, parts that you find unpersuasive/underweighed (Effectively prepping both sides together to make arguments airtight).
4. Give the speeches again on your own time/to each other again.
5. This exercise will take you approximately 45 minutes to 60 minutes.

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Applied examples of linear flow:

Notice how different motions have different parts of the argument to focus upon. For example, sometimes a mechanism is quite straightforward and you can focus on weighing, other times you need to dedicate a lot of time to explaining how a mechanism works. We will return to this later in the course, but take note!

Simple example: THW ban zoos

OG argument: Banning zoos means we get happier animals

1. Problem: Zoos rip animals of their freedom to move around and hunt, which makes them depressed and lazy.
   1. This is because:
      1. Land is expensive and zoos are located in places close to lots of people which is expensive land because there is a high demand for land, therefore animal enclosures tend to be small and at the minimum regulatory size. This means tigers and lions cannot run around and stretch their legs like they are biologically predisposed to from thousands of years in the wild.
      2. Live prey is expensive, people don’t want to watch bloody violence, and zookeepers don’t want to risk the predator being harmed in a freak accident, so animals are fed dead, frozen, industry-standard food. This means they do not have the opportunity to hunt their prey and fulfill their biological need for hunting.
      3. It sucks to be watched, yelled at, have constant cameras going off, have kids throw plastic bottles into your pen, be near highways and surrounded by nasty fumes, etc. This is not a quiet, isolated existence that most animals are predisposed to
         1. This is the equivalent of taking a human and putting them in a cage on Mars with aliens: no idea what is happening, no ability to express their desires, just an object of entertainment for creatures you do not understand.
2. Solution (Mechs): But we ban zoos now, so zoos just poof disappear. Our model is that we slowly begin to relocate animals into nature reserves and the wild.
3. Outcomes of the solution (Impacts): Nature reserves are comparatively better than zoos for animals for a bunch of reasons:
   1. More room to exist/be with animals/act like an animal instead of a caged creature
   2. No longer around humans, further away from cities
      1. I got tired and gave up impacting here but you get the idea.
      2. Also I got lazy and didn’t explicitly write out the weighing, but we can cover that later.
         

Complicated example: THBT that leaders of minority religions in European states should encourage their congregations to refrain from public displays of their faith

OG argument: We make people within the religion feel safer and more comfortable

0. Context1: Public displays of faith including wearing religious headwear in public or symbols such as crosses, as well as public prayer.
1. Context2: There is significant violence against religious minorities in Europe because of historical and socioeconomic reasons
2. Problem: Religious minorities are already pressured to stop public displays because of this violence, but feel shame because they are socialized to feel no public displays is unfaithful → Consequently, there is significant shame, anxiety, and infighting surrounding decisions to publicly display faith.
   1. This results in:
      1. Many people who cannot cope with the harassment (younger people) feel pushed away from the religion
      2. There are tensions and splits within religious communities based on different interpretations of what is faithful
3. Solution (mechanism): When religious leaders send this message, it is likely to lessen the shame people feel, because now it will be described as okay.
   1. People are likely to listen to the religious leader because:
      1. Religious people tend to not question people at the top of hierarchies because they are seen as the most holy, most close with God, and messengers of God’s will
4. Outcomes of the solution (Impacts):
   1. People within religious communities feel less tension between their faith and their lived experience, they turn to their religious communities more in times of suffering and feel more connected, which enriches their religious and social connections and gives them fulfillment. Also, within religious communities then, there is less likely to be violence or infighting over scripture.
   2. There is less violence against religious minorities, because most attacks are committed against religious individuals who are visibly religious (obviously, because you can identify them the easiest)
      1. When there is less violence against religious minorities, there are a few secondary impacts:
         1. You get less retaliation from religious people, because there is less of a need for vengeance.
         2. You also do not empower hateful people to cause religious people harm, because now they do not see religious people being harmed (which reinforces their belief that they would be supported in their endeavors to harm people) and they do not see retaliation from religious people (which means they are not provoked to retaliate once again).

Next Lesson: Lesson 1-2: How to generate an argument