Langley '26 | PF for two years

Add me to the email chain: chunconnor@gmail.com (he/him)

While I come from the incredibly lay Virginia circuit, I have a decent amount of experience on the natcirc. I dislike much of the local debate. Why is cutting cards banned? Why are summary speeches still two minutes?? Is it really impossible to find any judge who at least has some idea of what debate is??? It should be pretty obvious which circuit I prefer...

Hard Prefs

Stolen from my friend Tobin- There are not enough people yelling clear or requiring their students be clear. Yes kids today don’t flow because they just look at the speech document- but guess why they do that? Because no one can understand what the other team is saying [...] even when I say “clear” people totally ignore it.

Here is what it means when a judge says “clear”: I cannot understand what you are saying, therefore I cannot count any of the arguments you are making. Without arguments you will probably lose.

What kids hear: “LOUDER” “1% slower please” “Can you enunciate for like 5 seconds and then go back to mumbling?”

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That being said, there are a few (pretty obvious) things that are absolutely set in stone, so you should definitely read this if you want a quick summary of my preferences. These are more lenient in novice/jv rounds (excluding respect)

1. Be respectful. Any bigotry or blatant rudeness will get you a quick L20.

2. Speed is fine- be coherent. I hold a high value in clarity because realistically if I can't understand you, I can't flow your arguments. Send a doc if you're going fast, but even then I prefer not to use it.

3. Obviously keep track of your own time. I will also be timing and stop flowing once the timer hits zero, give or take 3~ish seconds.

4. Evidence exchanges have a tendency to take way too long. If it takes you more than 30 seconds to grab a card your speaks will suffer. I'd prefer it if you sent cut cards before speeches or at the very least before constructive.

5. Theory is fine -- I have no defaults and ran it often, but I shouldn't be trusted to evaluate K's very well.

Other Stuff

Framing is fine. Reading carded frameworks in first summary is iffy and reading it in second summary is way too late unless you're responding to your opponents' framing. Pre-fiat "discourse" arguments aren't the most persuasive.

Make my job easy by explaining your clear path to the ballot. Collapse on your case, collapse on their case. Debate is quality > quantity so rather than going for five unweighed turns it makes way more sense to go for one with good weighing and a strong link chain.

If an argument is dropped in the next speech, it's conceded, and if an argument is not extended, it's not there.

Weigh. Lots of round come down to whoever is winning weighing. Do lots of it, but have good warranting and explanations if you want it to be a voter. Probability weighing is just another way of explaining why you are winning your link and is often just new defense in the summary speeches. If you go up in summary and say "we outweigh on probability because their argument about nuclear war is stopped by MAD," that's new defense I won't vote on.

Open cross, politely asking questions after the round, and asking spectators to close their laptops is fine.

Callouts, tricks, and 30-speaks theory arguments are not fine.

If I look confused I probably am.

i’m flay NOT GOOD FOR BLIPPY BACKHALF DEBATES

send all evidence

aaron.ftian@gmail.com

yes speed but be clear - i'll clear you and you can tell if i'm not flowing

will vote on any argument - i have some of my thoughts in my paradigm but they are not strict predispositions

don't be racist sexist etc

postrounding is good but dont be rude

i eval off the flow (tech>>>>>>>>truth) - i think intervention is terrible and will comfortably evaluate solely off of in round extrapolations unless directed otherwise (ie. you make ev indicts/say look at the evidence it's bad) - that being said i think indicts are only significant with counter warranting or opposing ev

i dont think links themselves are offense

presumption must be read latest by summary - i default presume neg

i look at weighing first then if they're winning a link, but I think "any risk" only kinda applies to fw like extinction cause a low risk of a link to ex. recession even if it outweighs would translate to a mitigated impact so you can't access that (that would have to be implicated though). any risk only makes sense in the context of categorically distinct impacts.

warrants are essential, extensions are as well to an extent - I should be able to reexplain your arguments based on the summary and final extrapolation

im generally unpersuaded by intervening actors - i think most of the time its a late breaking attempt at inserting unwarranted defense but will vote on it if read well or dropped

terminal defense takes out try or die

presumption requires zero risk

K

i enjoy a good k debate but explain things well

i think most k alts are cps

good for reps ks, most basic non util fw (phil), etc, but err overexplaining > underexplaining on anything that differs from policy

i'm very skeptical about discourse alts/voters - will almost never vote on "vote for us because we brought it up" unless its absolutely dropped in which case I will be sad

i usually went for other collapses vs the k so I'm not as well versed on deep clashes on TFWK but it's probably the most common and true argument - i think T violent/T bad dumps are likely groupeable and a lot more intimidating than they are substantive

Theory

i dislike theory but will vote on it (this only applies to out of round violations like disclo or round reports, T or in round abuse is different)

theory > ev challenge on ev ethics but i'll eval an ev chal too

i think ivis are fine - they should have the same "dtd" warrants or "voter" justifications as theory ie. you need to explain why it's a procedural issue or why it outweighs

I'll vote on rvis/ocis

reasonability needs a brightline, a ci can just be defending the violation

good for T - i think a lot of positions stretch the limits of the res

General

mediocre for tricks - explain well in the backhalf if ur going for them

cross is binding but point it out in speech cause I'm not flowing cross

if you're going for impact turns you should briefly extend the link to the res ie. their case but the threshold is very low

i think the same way crossaps are considered "new" responses, implications off existing arguments on the flow are also new to an extent ex. you probably should not get away with new wipeout in final just because the arguments s risk outweighs, ai development inevitable, and an extinction link from the res exist on the flow.

yes "sticky defense" but my interp is that if the second rebuttal doesn't explicitly kick a contention but they don't answer ANYTHING on it the first summary isn't obligated to extend dropped defense and if the second summary goes for that contention the first final is justified in extending rebuttal defense. However, if only specific pieces of defense are dropped on a contention that's frontlined to any extent, the first summary has to extend dropped defense and the first final is not justified in extending straight from rebuttal.

leon bro please