Paradigm

Spencer Grosso
Ransom Everglades

(I mostly flow in my head because i have a strange brain so fear not if you dont see me typing)

Spencergrosso@gmail.com (Yes, I want to be on the chain)

Debated PF on the national circuit for 4 years

-Tech>Truth, debate is a game

-Speed is fine, I’ll yell clear up to twice in one speech, If you continue to be unintelligible after that, it’s on you. (I’m not yelling clear in online debate. Send me speech docs and be clear)

PF rules:

-Offense is offense and offense must be warranted and weighed. I don't care if it was brought up in case or rebuttal, i dont care if you called it a contention, turn, ad/disad, overview, whatever. If you give me a reason to vote for you, it must be weighed. I won't care about the "turn" you spent 10 seconds on and didn't implicate in any way just because your opponents dropped it.

-Any offense brought up in either 1st constructive or 1st rebuttal not responded to by second rebuttal is considered dropped.

-Defense doesn’t need to be frontlined until 2nd sum but its still smart to do it in 2nd rebuttal.

-Everything that you want me to vote on should be in both the final and the summary except I don’t require defense in first summary.

General preferences/leanings:

-I default to consequentialism/utilitarianism, but I’m open to looking at the round through a different lens if I am given a warrant as to why I should and I'm pretty good about that I've voted based off anti util framework many times.

-I tend to prefer strong, clear link chains over big sounding impacts that may or may not have a risk of solvency to them, but again if you do good meta weighing as to why I should prefer your 0.001% probability solvency for human extinction, I’m open to it.

-I heavily despise exclusion. If I can tell your opponents either have access problems or are brand new to debate and you’re dumping 300+ WPM speech docs, reading something progressive, or debating in any way that is clearly designed to make your opponents unable to contest you, I'll doc speaks.

Evidence Rules:

-The more evidence you send me, the better. If both teams are comfortable just emailing their full cases ideally with cards at the start, I like that. Same with rebuttal is awesome. I'll never look for holes in your evidence unless they are specifically pointed out to me by your opponents, so you lose nothing by giving me evidence.

-I’m generally lax with paraphrasing as long as I feel the literal words of the card are accurately represented by what you read.

Non Ad/Disad argumentation:

Be explicit on role of the ballot and why I prefer one type of argument versus another, if you don’t, I will default to: Policy/Framework>Kritik>theory>tricks.

Framework:

-Cool stuff.

Kritiks:

-I’m open to them and I’m even kind to them as long as you’re clear with the link and the implication in every extension. I find a lot of debaters assume they’re winning a link on the K if it goes uncontested so they undercover it when extending it into later speeches. Just like any other argument, if you drop warrants, I drop you.

Theory:

-It is my belief that theory needs to exist to prevent real abuse and encourage education, so I tend not to look too kindly on theory that I see as being brought into the round which sacrifices educational value for the sake of getting a win (dates, disclosure, paraphrasing etc.) that being said I’m open to all those shells, if you warrant it, win it, and weigh successfully why I should vote off it, I’ll vote off it.

-In PF, I don’t necessarily require responses to theory in the very next speech(if it’s read in 1st constructive, I don’t require a response until 2nd rebuttal) this is because I think theory should be normalized as typical argumentation so people feel more comfortable when it is run, so I treat it as a normal argument in terms of rules when responding to it.

Tricks:

-To win with tricks, you have to do the following:

1. Warrant why it gives you a path the ballot

2. Opponent must drop it

3. There must literally be no other offense in the round, I will quite literally evaluate any risk of any kind of offense before I evaluate your a priori.

Presumption:

-I don’t grant presumption on my own, u need to tell me to do it. I’m pretty open to the logic behind presuming 1st so if you argue that, I’ll probably grant it to u.

Speaker Points:

-The speaker point system is complete crap and I refuse to legitimize it. The way I see it, you start with a 30. Speaks are docked only for malpractice(rude, prejudice, debating in a way I deem as harmful) If you don’t commit any sins, you get a 30. If the tournament doesnt let me tie it, ill do 30, 29.9, 29.8, 29.7.

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TIME YOURSELVES AND TIME EACH OTHER. If anyone asks me to time them I will quite literally start crying and I'm an ugly crier so we all lose in that scenario.