Re: opportunity benefits

[lucius K <lkahng@osf1.gmu.edu>]

> >You criticize opportunity cost counterplans by viewing them not as
> >opportunity costs but as direct costs! To say that opportunity is lost 
> >no
> >matter how improbable is to equate the counterplan as nothing more 
> >than a
> >barely non-unique disad. 
> 
> Which is exactly what an opportunity cost counterplan.  At least with a
> disad the negative has the burden to prove the inevitability of a benifit.  A opportunity cost counterplan abdicates this responsibility and should be rejected on that merrit alone.  Only fiat solves this delimna.

Wrong. Its exactly an opp cost counterplan that forfeits fiat. A
counterplan that is used to test opportunity cost has fiat. Therefore an
opp cost counterplan IS NOT a non-unique direct cost.
> 
> >Take anarchy. Anarchy is not going to happen 
> >in
> >the US for a _long_ time. To say the Aff plan may some day prevent 
> >anarchy
> >is to run it as a direct cost disad.
> 
> Probably never, which is my point.  By running anarchy as on opportunity
cost of plan you only prove how rediculous the concept actually is.  Only
> fiating anarchy, however you plan to do that, can prove the opportunity
> is lost.

Right. Anarchy is an opp. cost counterplan with fiat.

>  
> >To say the Aff plan prevents the opportunity to do the Anarchy 
> >counterplan
> >now is an opportunity cost. Neg. doesn't argue propensity of anarchy 
> >to
> >make it unique, the negative uses fiat to make it a unique opportunity
> >right now. 
> 
> Right, the opportunity cost of anarchy in the future is no reason to
> reject the affirmative today.  Only a direct cost warrants such
> rejection.
> 
> >Neg gets fiat, (at the very least to prevent the shoul/would fallacy) 
> >Neg.
> >doesn't get same advocacy burden of Aff.
> 
> Why not?  Recprical power of fiat comes with the recprical burden of
> advocacy.

Your logic is flawed. Because of parametrics, the Aff plan represents
the resolution. The negative doesn't represnt any resolution but rather
all worlds that are more desirable than the plan (within the restrictions 
of relevance, competition, fiat, etc.)

Thus if the negative proves the plan false, this automaticly translates to
proving the resolution false. Neg ballot. If the the Aff proves the
counterplan false, it doesn't translate to mean all alternatives to the
Aff plan is less desirable. Just that that particular counterplan is.
This is why the negative doesn't advocate the counterplan but rather must
advocate negating the Aff plan. For the Aff to win, they must first prove
more desirable than the SQ, then prove more desirable than Negative
counterplans. 

This doesn't mean however that the Aff has to prove they are more
desirable than all posible alternative options, only that they are more
desirable than alternative options that the negative presents in the form
of counterplans. If the negative drops their counterplan and choses not to
run another but to rather defend the SQ, then the judge assumes that the
Aff plan is the best option in comparison to other alternative options,
but still there is the question if the Aff is a better option than doing
nothing (the SQ).   

That is why the counterplan is dispositional and why Aff doesn't win if
the Negative loses the counterplan.

						Lucius K
						George Mason

P.S. look for the "Anti-Battistella" posts for further explaination.



>  
> >> >If this is true, I ask you to take my last justification 
> >> >for
> >> >considering opp cost and apply it the other direction.  
> >> 
> >> Which is?
> >> 
> >> >The best you 
> >> >get is
> >> >a vague non-unique advantage that one less bad choice exists for 
> >> >policy
> >> >makers, but so many bad choices exist anyway that it probably 
> >doesn't 
> >> >make
> >> >a bit of difference.
> >> 
> >> Which is all you get with an opportunity cost counterplan.
> >
> >	?
> >
> >> 
> >> 
> >> >Chris Smith
> >> >Woodland Park HS Debate
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 					Dom Battistella
> >> 					ODU Debate
> >> 
> >
> >						Lucius K
> >						George Mason U.
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 					Dom Battistella
> 					   again
>

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References:

• Re: opportunity benefits
• From: mattbatt@juno.com (Domenic M Battistella)

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