MAIN BREAK
OXFORD UNION A
HARVARD A
SYDNEY A
LSE A
SYDNEY C
ANU A
MONASH B
SYDNEY D
MONASH A
MIT A
CAMBRIDGE UNION A
OXFORD UNION C
KINGS INN A
MCGILL A
HART HOUSE A
QUEENSLAND A
OXFORD UNION B
CAMBRIDGE UNION B
CAMBRIDGE UNION C
STANFORD A
YALE A
ATENEO A
MELBOURNE B
UBC A
UNSW A
QUEENSLAND D
QUEENS A
PRINCETON A
WELLINGTON A
YALE C
SYDNEY B
AUCKLAND A
ESL BREAK
LJUBLJANA A
ATHENS A
HAIFA A
ASDV BONAPARTE A
LEIDEN A
GREIFSWALD A
TEL AVIV A
IIU MALAYSIA B
ERASMUS A
LUMS C
LJUBLJANA C
MUNICH A
BELGRADE A
CHULALONGKORN A
LUMS A
GALATASARAY A
EFL BREAK
BELGRADE A (Also an ESL break)
STUTTGART B
MGIMO A
ZAGREB LAW A
ZAGREB A
BEIJING FSU C
BIU A
SPLIT C
MGIMO B
+ Cambridge C!! (according to twitter..)
I was just about to say – Jo and Charlotte have done well. And they’re both lovely. 🙂
That’s 21…
We know, they’re coming in very, very slowly and may be a bit off the mark. We’ll keep updating until they are 100% correct. WE SHALL PREVAIL.
Wasn’t complaining at you, Owen! I have a raucous party going on in my back sitting room. My husband is alone by the fire in the front sitting room. And I am glued to the desktop in the dining room because the laptop is too slow!
I have to give the credit for posting to Laura, she’s the fastest of the British bloggers. But we both knew you weren’t complaining. : ) We’re so anxious! Happy New Year and best wishes to all partying at your house…
Owen
Someone on Colm Flynn claims that there are 11 Australian teams out of 32. Camb B have definitely broken as Jack has just phoned his school coach to tell her.
Oh thank you Owen – we crossed in the ether I think! Mostly HSoD FPs aged 21 and their various women engaged in eating my food and some serious drinking / catching up (all at different unis – none of them St A!) – and not remotely interested in debating…
Motions
MBO: THB the west should recognise the dalai lama.
ESLQ: THW ban any scheme intended to ‘cure’ homosexuality.
EFLS: THW use faith based rehabilitation in prisons.
(The inverted commas are in the motion as given, which though I appreciate the possibly equity-reasons for, and certainly sympathise with the beliefs behind, worry might beg something of the question. For the opposition to oppose the motion with scare quotes included would presumably be conceding that these cures are merely so-called cures.)
The octo results have been announced (these, a side-effect of my spreadsheet, are paired based on their octo round).
SYDNEY A
MCGILL A
HARVARD A
HART HOUSE A
ANU A
CAMBRIDGE UNION A
SYDNEY D
MONASH A
OXFORD UNION A
QUEENSLAND A
MONASH B
QUEENSLAND D
SYDNEY C
PRINCETON A
LSE A
STANFORD A
This means Cambridge and Oxford B and C teams are now out, as are King’s Inn (meaning the Irish diaspora is now represented by Harvard A). British teams remaining: Cambridge A, Oxford A, LSE A.
Ed, Rob and I watched the round which put Harvard and Hart House A teams through over Sydney B and Cambridge B. I think the call is mistaken, as I felt the Toronto team were fairly unimpressive, whereas the material content and clarity of presentation of Sydney B’s extension was incredible and for once in debating actually responded intelligently to the points raised by the other team. The decision not to advance them seems baffling to me, though Ed and Rob found them unclear. I’m sad to say I didn’t think Jack and Jack (Cambridge B) put up a very great performance; Jack the 1st didn’t really engage with the really excellent stuff coming out of Sydney (though if you didn’t feel the stuff was that great, or you couldn’t tell what it was this claim would obviously not stand) and Jack the 2nd was a lot harder to follow than when I’ve seen him speak in the past; it read like a vaguer version of what had come earlier up the table.
I think I may declare myself Irish for the rest of the main break, though I suspect the rest of St Andrews will join the general following of Shengwu and JLM.
Hang on; another call was mental too. I heard from Lee and Eileen that LSE mistook Nepal for Tibet and spoke about that instead so, while I’m glad another IONA team got through, if this is the case i find that, well, more than a bit baffling. Eileen did say that 1st prop 2nd speaker didn’t correct them on this but /even still/.
So, more info:
The motion for the quarters: THW ban all procedures designed to alter racial appearance.
The rooms are as follows:
Oxford A
Queensland A
Monash A
Sydney D
Harvard A
Hart House A
Monash B
Queensland D
Cambridge A
Sydney A
ANU A
McGill A
LSE A
Stanford A
Princeton A
Sydney A
I’ve opted to watch Cambridge. They’re up against teams which came above them in the break, so I figure there’s a fair chance they’ll go out. If they do, I’d like to have seen them speak. If they don’t, I guess I have reason to be vicariously pleased as a tab. Daniel has followed my original plan to watch LSE, along with Lee, Eileen and the Irish. If LSE do get through, as Dan believes, I can always watch them next round. Glasgow are here with me. All the other St Andrews folks have followed Oxford.
ESL teams through:
IIU MALAYSIA B
ERASMUS A
TEL AVIV A
LUMS A
GREIFSWALD A
HAIFA A
BONAPARTE A
LEIDEN A
The EFL break has not been announced. Belgrade (the EFL team who made the ESL tab) are out. LUMS A were 15th on the ESL tab.
As regards the rounds before A) Ross McGuire says that the judges felt the Sydney Extension felt like a list of (good, true, relevant) facts without the accompanying arguments demonstrating relevance. I guess I sort of did the relevance arguments in my head. Cambridge they felt were unclear, and the believed the argument Hart House alluded to (that recognition of the dalai lama and his government in exile reinforces the Tibetan cultural identity against Chinese homogenisation) was never successfully rebutted. B) /Apparently/ the Nepal mistake was just a slip and one could just ‘for Nepal read Tibet’. Others are less convinced, but he was never called on it in the round.
1st Prop: ANU
1st Opp: Cambridge
2nd Prop: Sydney
2nd Opp: McGill
I saw this round being recorded, so I’m fairly sure you’ll be able to check at some point to see if I’m correct in my reading, but I’m inclined to call the round for the top half given some of the truly crazy stuff which started showing up in the bottom half of the table.
2nd Prop 1: Race altering surgery is bad because it reinforces the idea that race is a physical characteristic, that there is “such a thing as a nordic skull shape.” This is crazy for two reasons. (1) There is such a thing as, for example, a nordic skull shape; if there wasn’t, paleo-archeologists would be pretty useless. You can tell gross geographical origins from bones. (2) If race is not a physically manifested characteristic a) either there are no differences between the physical characteristics of indivudals or b) you have no way of identifying which physical characteristics to be changed by surgery are ‘racial characteristics’ and so the proposition itself is incoherent.
2nd Opp 1: The claim was made that allowing people to change their race would combat racism. This is because, if you come to see race as a mutable characteristic, which can be changed, then it no longer becomes a question of people being successful or not because of their race but only a matter of people being successful or not. This is crazy because the obvious rejoiner is simply that if all the ‘successful’ people in minority races, who can afford the surgery, became white then ‘whiteness’ would be equated with success a) further enhancing the stigma of racism and b) further enforcing the ‘birth lottery’ of race, in so far as white children would get for free what those who underwent race altering surgery had to work for.
2nd Prop 2: The second second proposition speaker claimed by way of rebuttal, that if 2nd proposition were right that race altering surgery would mitigate racism by making people see race as a mutable characteristic, then by increasing the incidents of racial change this would exacerbate the harm alluded to in the 1st proposition claim that allowing people to alter their race through surgical means was harmful to third parties, namely those of the same (original) race. But this just incoherent, in so far as the claim that race altering surgery would mitigate racism is a claim set against the notion that it is harmful to third parties. To run both together is to say something of the form; either drinking wine increases or decreases your chances of getting cancer, but if it decreases it then that’s bad because more people, knowing this, will drink wine which is bad because win increases your risk of cancer.
None of the crazy was pointed out by the other side however, which makes me worry. Some people (Glasgow) are inclined to call if for Cambridge and Sydney; so I worry that McGIll’s failure to spot how nutty some of the points being run by Sydney were might have knocked ANU out, which seems unfortunate as the 2nd speaker from ANU was absolutely fantastic. On the bridge side for those rooting for IONA and/or Cambridge and/or Oxbridge, it’s hard to imagine a sensible call which wouldn’t see Richard and Harish going through.
I’ve just found this now – what a great idea!
I was chairing the panel in that Quarter, and want to record that I don’t agree with all (much?) of the analysis here – this misses many of the flaws with the opening gov team, and misses a great deal of the analysis that came from Sydney. For the record, the words ‘Nordic skull shape’ don’t appear anywhere in my notes – and I do take some of them in shorthand.
We were also…less convinced of the merits of the 2nd Gov speaker than you, Duncan. However, for the real geeks among us, Tuna’s blog has the debate up there. The panel talked for 33 minutes, and arrived at full agreement. Interesting debate; clear CG and OO.
However, go and judge for yourselves!