Durham Open 2014
Durham Open tournament was held in Durham on the 8-9 November 2014. Here are the motions that were debated in the 5 elimination rounds and the Semis, and finals:
Round 1: This house would ban religious organizations from providing rehabilitation services to drug and alcohol addicts.
Round 2: This house believes that democracies should extend voting rights to migrant workers.
Round 3: This house, as a feminist, would oppose products marketed to help women protect themselves from date rape.
[Info slide – Undercover Color are a company that are developing a nail-varnish that changes colour in the presence of date-rape drugs such as GHB and Rohypnol. Many bars provide bottle toppers such as ‘the Spikey Bottle Topper’ that encourage customers to protect their drinks.]
Round 4: This house believes that Arab-Israelis who successfully seek election to the Knesset should opt not to take up that seat. [Info slide – The Knesset has 120 seats. 12 seats are taken up by Arab-Israelis, who are divided into six parties.]
Round 5: This house believes that the state should construct false historical narratives that promote social cohesion (e.g. racial and religious tolerance)
Semi-Final: This house believes that true women’s liberation is incompatible with the existence of organized religion.
Novice Final: There is a potion which can stop you falling in love. This house, as an 18 year old, would take the potion.
Open Final: This house believes that FB should manipulate users’ newsfeeds in order to promote progressive content. [Info slide – In the past few years Facebook has engaged in a series of experiments manipulating the content that users are exposed to (e.g. skewing news feeds to show more happy/sad posts, showing or hiding posts about having voted) to determine whether this can have an effect on user’s actions/attitudes. In 2012, Facebook modified newsfeeds to test the effect of exposure to news articles about the upcoming elections, and whether it increased or decreased voter turnout. Research data suggests that these methods are effective at increasing voter turnout.]
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