One of the really important things that
Aristotle did for us was advance this
idea of order or form in the world. We
actually owe, for example, biological
classification. Genus
species, those types of categorization of
biological entities, to Aristotle.
Aristotle is foundational not only for
us in humanities, but also in the natural
sciences as well. As Aristotle is philosophizing about the world and
going on these infamous
walks, where he would ponder all of the
all of the different components of the
world. He developed  this idea
and advanced this concept called
emergence. Emergence is is this
spontaneous order that 
comes about from different
forces in the world. Think about the
beauty and the intent and the
intentional structure of a snowflake, or
another common example is the way that
winds can move across a desert and
create sand dunes that have this very
specific geographic order to it.  From this concept of emergence we
understand a very common phrase, which is
that the whole is greater than the sum
of its parts.
That's a great stepping stone for our
discussion today when we're going to be
understanding advanced tactics for the
negative side of the topic. The thesis the foundation of what we're
going to be talking about when we're
understanding advanced tactics is making
multiple arguments work in concert with
each other so compliment each other.
This isn't exclusively
something that you're going to do on the
negative side. It's just a
really important to do on the negative
side because on the neg it's very important to
focus the debate as much as possible. So
in this discussion we're going to first
identify some of the things that you
might consider thinking about in terms
of strata
when you're on the negative side of the
topic, and then we're going to implement
some really practical and very common
examples of arguments working in concert
with each other. The first will be disadvantage
and counter plans, the next will be a
double bind of topicality in a disadvantage.
Next we're gonna be talking about
vagueness and a disadvantage.  So let's begin.
Our discussion with understanding some
things that you might consider when
you're on the negative side of the topic.
Go ahead and cross-reference the
disadvantage talk here because it's
really important to understand how risk
functions in debate, and especially risk
when you're on the negative side of the
topic. So, very generally speaking, what
you're doing when you're running a
disadvantage or criticism when you're
running an argument on the negative side
of the topic is you should be expressing
risk. Your job is to explain why your
opponents advocacy is problematic, why it
might actually cause more problems. As
soon as you create risk you're
explaining why your opponents are not a
great option in terms of policy. There's
actually an opportunity cost for voting
for your opponents. The trouble though is,
if you just run disadvantages, if
you just explain the risk of your
opponent's plan, sometimes, it's framed as
defense.
Very often you'll hear people say things
like, "Oh, at least we're still trying to
solve the problem in the rebuttals."
When you have an advocacy on the affirmative, 
that is doing real serious work in terms
of solvency, and only disadvantages that
are run against it it becomes
problematic. This is when we're
discussing bringing arguments to work in
concert with each other, so that they can
complement each other. It's a really
simple strategy on the negative. What you
should be doing is you should run a
disadvantage or a criticism to show risk
and the run a counter plan or an
alternative to solve back for that risk. 
Think about how simple this! This
really frames the debate in terms of the
affirmative's own language and their own logic.
The affirmative side has a risk story too and
they call that harms. Then they
have a solvency story.
So, if you're able to expose risk with
their plan, with your opponent's advocacy,
and also solve back for that, then it
clearly demonstrates that the negative
side is able to do some very serious
work in terms of exposing the problems
of that advocacy and then offering
solutions to those problems. So the first
example of two arguments working with
each other on the negative side of the
topic is a disadvantage and a counter
plan. Let's next move to a really common
example within a debate which is a
double bind. A common double bind on
the negative side of the topic is
topicality and a disadvantage. So first,
let's discuss what a double bind is. A
double bind is a dilemma in
communication where two independent
arguments negate each other. So by
successfully responding to one argument
you're actually 
strengthening another argument. This is a
very particular situation and a really
effective debate strategy. Let's talk
about a common one that you're gonna see
very frequently run. I'm on the negative
side of the topic which is topicality
and a disadvantage. Topicality is very
often an argument about ground. Let's contextualize this a little bit.
If you run Topicality, and your argument on
Topicality is that because the topic would
normally or predictably or reasonably
guarantee the negative side a certain
amount of ground, that your opponents,
the affirmative interpretation
specifically limits your ground. Because
they're trying to be strategic and
perhaps unfair very commonly you're
gonna hear ground as a voting issue
along with abuse. Saying that by
taking away this ground there, your
opponents are being abusive to you, then
immediately after this argument the
double bind becomes a disadvantage
alongside the Topicality. The disadvantage
doesn't necessarily need to establish a
link to the case or some specific
mechanism any longer because ground
right the disadvantage the double bind.
With the disadvantage is that link and
is something that you should have been
able to predict. That a reasonable person
would give a negative side that
particular ground in a debate on a
particular topic. If the affirmative team
is in a very sticky situation
because if the aft team stands up and
says no link to the disadvantage then it
proves the topicality argument right
because the abuse and a ground argument
that take place on the topicality say that
this is something that you should have predictably within the debate. If
you're limited  by getting not
being given that
ground it's abusive to you. So, very often
what Affirmative teams will do is they'll debate
Topicality and concede the link story because
they don't want to get caught up in an
abuse story or abuse debate relating
to ground. It puts them in a strategic
disadvantage similar to the double bind
of topicality and a disadvantage. You'll also
hear teams run an argument called
vagueness and disadvantage. Sometimes
you can stand up and ask a question of
your opponents and a very good answer
and an honest answer is I don't know
because your opponent simply do not have
the answer to that question. Sometimes
your opponents will strategically not
give you that information because
they're trying to be, some people would
say abusive, but how about just not good
sports persons. If that
situation happens a vagueness argument
can be helpful, by saying that
plan text is particularly vague. That
there's no explanation for how a
solvency story is able to come about and
because of that vagueness you don't know
how to apply your disadvantage link
story or the internal mechanism. Just
like in the argument before where you
say that there's a certain amount of
predictable ground with topicality and the
disadvantage link then should be
established because of that
predictability. With vagueness you're
saying that a certain amount of
specificity is required to be able to
argue anything. That indeed no
solvency could come about if your
opponent's weren't being specific to
explain how that solvency were to come
about. Very often with vagueness
you'll see an abuse argument but
you'll hear people say something like
potential abuse because it doesn't
to be nefarious someone could simply not
know the answer to that question. But
what that potential abuse is, is
that, you're really arguing for what
is and isn't predictable or what is and
isn't or what should and should not be
specified within debate. You're
establishing an argument that says that
the disadvantage should be allowed to
function because you should have a
certain amount of specificity to be able
to apply the sophisticated strategy that
you need to be successful on the negative. 
Let's contextualize this further with a
case example. Say one of your
opponents stands up and wants to advocate
for solar panels. In principle solar
panels are a great idea, we should
probably be looking to them as an energy
alternative for our culture our society
much more sustainable too than fossil
fuels, etc. All of those things are true
but that doesn't mean that there aren't
costs or risks associated with solar
panels. So on the solar panel debate if
you needed to run an argument you stood
up and you asked a question and you say
explain how rare earth minerals are
going to be affected by your plan,
or the mining of rare earth minerals are
going to be affected by your plan or
advocacy.  Your opponents say they
won't, there's no there's no change in
the way that rare earth minerals would
work or if they said I don't know you
might be able to talk about vagueness
here depending on the interpretation of
the topic. You might be able to run a
topicality argument here, but you know
rare earth minerals are the matter or
the content that actually makes up these
highly sophisticated pieces of
technology. So if we were to implement
more more of this technology we'd have
to do more mining of these very
important minerals. The
disadvantage you would run perhaps a
vagueness argument or a topicality
argument that say that this is ground or
specific information that you should be
extended within the debate. The
disadvantage link should be established
so you simply run a disadvantage of rare
earth mineral mining bad. You run a
vagueness argument or a topicality
argument to establish that link story
then maybe you run a counter plan or
something to solve back for that rare
earth mineral risk story. You
can talk about better regulation or
perhaps alternative technologies but
something that would eliminate the risk
argument that you're that you're
discussing with the rare earth mineral
example. Aristotle is teaching us a
lot of really interesting stuff about
how to understand the world the concept
of emergence is his way of saying that
there's a certain spontaneous order
sometimes it takes place in the world.
From that order he we understand the
concept that the whole is greater than
the sum of its parts. To borrow from this
metaphor I think that's an awesome
physics phenomenon, the analogy
would be sailing, which it is actually
possible to sail faster than the wind.
It takes a highly skilled captain to do
so. The sails have to be trimmed just
perfectly and there's a lot of
sophisticated maneuvering and navigation
that take place to be able to do this.
But think about that the boat even
though it's sitting in the water it has
to fight all the resistance of the water
as well as all of the resistance from
gravity etc etc can actually trend can
actually transport itself faster than
its driving force the wind. 
That's such a beautiful metaphor to
understand and to apply to your life
perhaps, but certainly to debates which
is, if you can figure out how to make
things work in concert with each other.
How to make things work efficiently with
each other and make them work as a
system right so that they work in
concert with each other. You'll find that
you're going to be able to accomplish
quite a lot more. The the very beautiful
thing that you can do on the negative
side of the topic is, make arguments
complement each other and work with each
other as effectively as possible.
