Debate topics

The debate exercises in tutorial are not in standard debate format, but you must come prepared to argue a position. You are assigned to one or the other side in advance. If you are not sure which side you were assigned to, please check in the netgrade system under "other tutorial activities" (last item).

We have attempted to design the debate topics so that either side can be debated reasonably in this class.

December debate activity

Grades and some feedback for the December debate activity are available in the netgrade system (and have been for a while now).

March debate activity

On March 23rd, we will talk about the desirability of legal restrictions on e-mail "spam".

Rather than asking anyone to take the position that there should be no legal restrictions at all on e-mail spam, the two positions will be that we should attempt to make ALL e-mail spam illegal, or that we should only attempt to make SOME e-mail spam illegal.

So the resolution is: Be It Resolved That some e-mail spam should be legal.

The 'yes' side should argue that there are some categories of e-mail spam which we would like to permit. The 'no' side should argue that (while enforcement will never be perfect) there is no kind of spam which we would, ideally, like to permit.

April debate activity

On April 6th (the last tutorial), we will talk about the role of privatization in the August 2003 blackout.

The resolution is: Be It Resolved That privatization caused the blackout on 14 August 2003.

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