Thursday, January 26, 2012

THBT we have become slaves to technology - poll result and moderator's report card

Dear readers, dear debaters, i have the huge responsibility to judge this debate and to choose which team will win this debate. I sincerely hope that, after reading my text, you will all agree with my judgement. The final score of the vote is really tighten and it shows how much this subject is controversial. But that is long enough for an introduction, let's talk about the arguments proposed by the debaters.
 
The first proposer decided that the debate would not be a good or bad debate, what was a good thing. The clash point was consequently the  definition of slave. He explained us that technology had spread everywhere. That was a point opposer couldn't deny but it is not because technology is everywhere that we are slave.

The first opposer made a great effort to define the other important words of the definition, as « we » and « technology ». His definition of slave, as someone who is forced to work, has not be criticised by proposers and that is why opposers had an avantage at the beginning.

Then, the second proposer said that technology was harmful, that we couldn't really control it. The examples of Fukushima and medicines were good but in my view, it was easy for opposers to turn down this argument. Then he compared technology with drugs and he said that we were technology addicts. The explanations convinced me but the link with slavery should have been better explained.  

The second opposer pointed that small mistake very well. He added that we have a good control over the machines and that in reality the danger of technology were nothing but science fiction. Here again, the link with slave was not explicit enough.
 
I really appreciate the last part of the debate The third proposer give another definition of the word slave, which was essential but a little bit late. He explained why dependence leads to slavery and cleared the position of the proposers. He criticised efficently the argument « we can live whithout technology » and the conclusion was reall good too.  

Last opposer seemed to contradict the second, when he admitted that we were forced to use new technology. The comparison with food was really good but « aren't we slave of food in a way ? » Then, the fact that technology empower us and allow us to do a lot of thing was maybe the best argument and that should have been said before.
 
To cut a long story short, i would say that the debate around the world slave become the main clash point too late. There has been no debate about the definition of technology which was good in my opinion but the debaters could have been more extreme, saying that we don't really need brand new technology or that it was depriving us of all our freedom. 

I give the victory to opposers because they did a really better start even if all proposers arguments were clear at the end. I congratulate all the debaters for their speeches and I hope that all the readers will enjoyed the debate as much as I did.

by FZ

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