Topics

OPEN FINALS

Topics Announced: 4:20PT / 7:20ET
Rounds Start: 7:42PT / 7:42ET

1. Government benefit programs should offer extra benefits to people for being parents.

2. Creators of AIs should be held legally liable for all harm the AIs cause.

3. Australia should significantly increase its investment in nuclear energy.

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OPEN SEMIS
Topics Announced: 2:30PT / 5:30ET
Rounds Start: 2:52PT / 5:52ET

1. The USFG should disallow all tax deductions for donations to charity.

2. The USFG should tax non-profit organizations.

3. Public ownership of sports teams is superior to private ownership of sports teams.

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NOVICE FINALS
Topics Announced: 12:15PT / 3:15ET
Rounds Start: 12:37PT / 3:37ET

1. The USFG should ban online sports betting.

2. The USFG should eliminate taxes on tips.

3. The United States federal government should enact AI regulation equivalent to that of the European Union.

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QUARTERS/NOVICE SEMIS
Topics Announced: 10:15PT / 1:15ET
Rounds Start: 10:37PT / 1:37ET

1. Countries should adopt sunset clauses that legally force them to review and either re-authorize or revise their constitutions every generation.

2. The USFG should prohibit social media companies from deplatforming individual politicians.

3. The "pink tide" in Latin America has done more harm than good.
   INFO SLIDE: The "pink tide" is a turn towards leftist political movements in Latin American nations in the late 20th and 21st centuries. The dissolution of the Soviet Union allowed leftist parties to operate independent of fears of Soviet control, and reduced the intensity of anti-communist intervention from the United States. Many leftist parties took this opportunity to consolidate power. Economic difficulties across Latin America intensified this process in the 21st century. Many argue that the death of Hugo Chavez marked the end to this trend, and by the mid-2010s, Latin American governments began to move rightward.

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OCTOS/NOVICE QUARTERS

Topics Announced: 8:15PT / 11:15ET
Rounds Start: 8:37PT / 11:37ET

1. Texas should end its busing of migrants.

2. On balance, Medicare for All is preferable to a public option.

3. Secondary boycotts do more harm than good.
   INFO SLIDE: A secondary boycott happens when a group of employees go on strike because of a dispute with their employer, and employees of other employers refuse to work with the company whose employees are striking. For example, when employees of McDonald’s in Denmark went on strike to force McDonald’s to recognize their union, other Danish unions such as dock workers and truck drivers refused to unload or deliver McDonald’s cargo, even though the dock workers and truck drivers were not McDonald’s employees.

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ROUND 5
Topics Announced: 4:50PT / 7:50ET
Rounds Start: 5:12PT / 8:12ET

1. Assassinating foreign dictators during peacetime is never justified.

2. This house regrets the narrative that “children are the future.”

3. Protest groups based on class identity are more effective than those focused on specific policy issues.

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ROUND 4
Topics Announced: 2:35PT / 5:35ET
Rounds Start: 2:57PT / 5:57ET

1. The USFG should ban the disenfranchisement of felons.

2. US States ought to prefer the decriminalization of cannabis to the legalization of cannabis.

3. Police commissioners should be directly elected by their local community.
   
   

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ROUND 3
Topics Announced: 12:55PT / 3:55ET
Rounds Start: 1:17PT / 4:17ET

1. US States should enact policies to promote elementary school choice.
   INFO SLIDE: "School choice" programs are those which give parents more options regarding where their children go to school. The most prominent school choice program is school vouchers. In this system, each family can still enroll their child in public school as normal, but if they want to send their child to private school, the government will help them pay tuition by taking whatever money they would have spent educating the child at public school, removing that money from the public school's budget, and instead applying it to the cost of tuition at the private school of the parents' choosing. This can be summarized as "the tax dollars travel with the child."

2. When in conflict, United States colleges and universities ought to prioritize preparing students for careers over maximizing their learning.

3. In societies that have recently overcome violent internal conflicts, the education system should prioritize promoting national unity over teaching the unvarnished truth of what happened.

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ROUND 2
Topics Announced: 10:40PT / 1:40ET
Rounds Start: 11:02PT / 2:02ET

1. The USFG should remove its tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.

2. Colombia should impose countervailing duties on US corn exports.

3. Brazil should join the Belt and Road Initiative.

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ROUND 1
Topics Announced: 8:55PT / 11:55ET
Rounds Start: 9:17PT / 12:17ET

1. Human existence has some particular purpose beyond that which we individually choose to give it.
   INFO SLIDE: In “Existentialism is a Humanism,” Jean-Paul Sartre says that for humans, “existence precedes essence.”

2. We cannot be our authentic selves when others are watching.
   INFO SLIDE: In his play No Exit, Jean-Paul Sartre says, “Hell is other people.”

3. One should behave only in ways that one would accept everyone behaving.
   INFO SLIDE: In “Existentialism is a Humanism,” Jean-Paul Sartre says, “our actions...at the same time create an image of man as we think he ought to be.”