Moderator's report, by EN
Ladies and gentlemen, before I deliver my report, please allow me to address the gallant debaters.
Dear opposers, it is my duty to tell you that just before the debate, by the powers vested in me by our professor, and in the sweet name of transparency, I put a spyware on every single one of your computers, without you being even remotely suspicious about it. I feel compelled, in view of the poll’s result, to disclose to our readers all the wretched information I was sorry to get. What did you say about transparency being so great?
And as to you, dear proposers, you must admit that if I do that, the advantages of transparency for you would be such that you would hardly be able to defend your position anymore!
As fulfilling as it would be for me to be raised to knighthood in the Most Despicable Order of the Treachery, I will have mercy on you, since you already murdered each others in the past few days. That being said, let me narrate you this debate’s highlights.
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Our first speaker on the proposing side, M.J., chose to put to use the deterrence strategy. The only hitch is that it is often not very efficient when the threats have already been carried out… I have to concede, though, that the extended whine about the current state of affairs was very comprehensive, but as a matter of fact, my reaction was “On the bright side, it cannot be worse than that! ». I think that throwing in a little more pessimism about the future of mankind wouldn’t have hurt a bit… depending on whose side you are on, of course.
I wonder if the lack of a clear definition of the scope and the motion was part of M.J.’s tactic, but the following speakers fortunately seemed to agree on the fact that the debate was all about technological advances.
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It was the first opposing speaker who really stroke the first blow. He conveniently referred to topical examples of how much transparency can actually “save your life”, and I appreciated that, because he really stuck to the point of the debate when he could instead have fed us up with some insipid developments about how good your friend Google is (Dear reader, if you are a Googlebot please don’t feel offended). When he came to the Facebook privacy concern, the bitter aftertaste of his speech made me wonder if there was something personal about this…Let me tell you that with my little spyware, it was real child’s play to check if my hunch was right!
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The example of the Boston bombing subsequently unleashed the arsenal of Psy.D. Y.M., who may have been a little carried away in his rebuttal, and in his excitement unveiled the introduction his soon-to-be-published “Essay on Psychological Disorders in Terrorists”. I personally recommend it to you, dear reader. The second part of his speech was more in the spirit of his predecessor M.J., with the only difference that, by using his hidden abilities of crazy preacher, he convincingly predicted that the curse of the mighty Translucency will follow all those who didn’t vote for the motion.
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However, M.S. wasn’t in the least bothered, and replied by insulting the opposers and decorating it with fishy observations about the marital status on Facebook. In a commendable but I am afraid inefficient effort to crush the proposition, M.S. first argued that everyone is free to control the information they give away on internet, and on the other hand presented transparency as the price to be paid for all the services we get in exchange. He has not failed, to our great astonishment, to replay the corny old “Big brother” tune, only this time the intention was to extoll its virtues!
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This far-fetched logic was a gaping hole in the Walls of Jericho, and it was only natural R.H., the last proposing speaker, would rush into it. This was the starting point for him to display his skills in underhand and evil schemes. After a hilarious introduction, he just took the opposition’s arguments one by one and started destroying them, cold-bloodedly, and with supporting evidence. This relentless machinery could only be jammed by you, dear readers, who had almost killed the hopes of the proposers by massively voting against them.
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All that was left to do for the last opposing speaker was complaining! I most certainly am willing to recommend F.S. as my replacement for the Order of the Treachery. F.S., if you’re interested, please contact me privately, but I doubt if you’ll need any assistance, though. In her final words, she indeed revealed her mastery in the Art of disloyalty to the fullest. She simply took hold of the phrase quoted by our introductory speaker F.G., and shamelessly turned it into a sheer ad hominem argument. Apart from that, I really liked the very sincere testimony from a genuine Chinese; it was definitely welcome, if not necessary, in this debate.
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The time has come when one has to take stock of this debate. As Joseph Schumpeter said: “Nothing is so treacherous as the obvious”, and this debate was indeed far from obvious. All the debaters indeed deserve more than congratulations.
EN
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