1. To everything--turn, turn, turn…

2. Overview  Discuss major “topic impacts”  Discuss how to prepare for and win impact debates  Impacts discussed will include  Leadership  Growth  Colonization/’Get Off the Rock”  Future Tech

3. Impact #1: Leadership  Also called “hegemony” or “heg”, or sometimes “preponderance”  Like many impacts, is debated as both “heg good” and “heg bad”  Leadership is divided along two axes  Hard power: military and economic might  Soft power: cultural and ideological attractiveness  Impact modules exist for both “heg good/bad” and “soft power good/bad”  Term to know: “Space Leadership”

4. Leadership [cont’d]  Heg good thesis: U.S. influence serves an important balancing and stabilizing function, and a U.S. withdrawal would spur conflicts as states move rapidly to fill the power vacuum (Khalilzad ‘95)  Common impact scenarios include:  Great power wars (global nuclear war)  East Asian wars  European wars  South Asia wars  Mideast wars  Economic collapse  Terrorism  Proliferation—allied and adventurist  Democracy  Competitor states bad—Russia, China  Revisionist states bad—Iran, North Korea, Venezuela

5. Leadership [cont’d]  Heg bad thesis: U.S. intervention in the affairs of other states risks the U.S. getting drawn into wars, and increases resentment/blowback against the U.S.  Common “heg bad” scenarios include:  Terrorism  Proliferation  Economy (overstretch)  China containment bad/resentment  Russia containment bad/resentment  Arms racing/super weapons  Democracy (domestic and international)  Regional wars everywhere the other side says “heg is good”

6. Leadership [cont’d]  Soft power good thesis: Actions that increase the international standing of the U.S. (such as human exploration) are good/actions that decrease the international standing of the U.S. are bad  Common scenarios include:  Economy  Disease  Terrorism  Environment (general)  Warming  Proliferation (cooperation internals, esp. Iran)

7. Leadership [cont’d]  Soft power bad thesis: increasing the international reputation of the U.S. allows it to encourage other states to do bad things  Common impact scenarios include:  Missile defense deployments bad  Iran containment/attack bad  Terrorism/counterterrorism bad  Democracy promotion bad

8. Leadership [cont’d]  Keys to winning a heg debate:  Control short-term uniquenes—heg high/low now  Control long-term uniqueness—is heg sustainable?  Emphasize timeframe arguments (every impact will have the same magnitude)  Have MORE scenarios than your opponent  Read defense against your opponent’s impacts

9. Impact #2: Growth  Is continued economic growth good or bad? Conventional wisdom says “good”, but there are a lot of good cards either way  Debates tend to center on the relationship between economic expansion and  Frequency and intensity of conflict/war  Environmental destruction and preservation  Will most commonly be encountered as a disad (esp. politics) impact  Useful because can be used to turn everything

10. Growth [cont’d]  “Growth good” tends to assume that it is inevitable, hardwired into the human condition, and is capable of self-correction (solving the problems it produces via tech, ingenuity and wealth)  Typical impacts include:  War (parallels to WW2)  Space (turns the case)  Environment (wealth effect)

11. Growth [cont’d]  “Growth bad” tends to assume that economic expansion occurs within a finite resource/environmental systems that are incapable of supporting continued growth  Typical impacts include:  War (K-wave theory, upswing wars)  Environmental collapse, w/ various scenarios  Equity/ethics

12. Growth [cont’d]  THE key question—will human ingenuity be able to keep ahead of impending pollution and scarcity problems  Space exploration complicates this in multiple ways  Should get to understand explanations for WW2—are used on both sides

13. Impact #3: Get off the Rock  Should humans endeavor to avoid the problems of living on Earth by moving into outer space  Is inextricably linked with questions of  Resource utilization (including energy)  Colonization  Will be ubiquitous on the topic—an advantage to many affirmative cases

14. Get Off the Rock [cont’d]  Colonization considerations include:  Location—Lunar, Martian, Orbital  Design—Dyson spheres, orbital rings, can colonies, etc  Harm mitigation—radiation, gravity  Life support provision—oxygen, water, energy, food  KEY QUESTION—where will the energy and construction materials come from…

15. Get Off the Rock [cont’d]  Threats that could be addressed by a move to space  Cosmic disasters  Environmental destruction (including climate change)  Nuclear war  Resource shortages (over-affluence)  Tech disasters (more in section #4)

16. Get off the Rock [cont’d]  Other reasons to go to space include  Averted lives (Bostrum)  Cultural renewal  Life ethic  Overview effect  Tech spinoffs

17. Get off the Rock [cont’d]  Reasons to avoid shifting to space include  Aggressive aliens  Equality concerns  Escapism concerns  Launch disads—debris, ozone, warming  Space Diseases

18. Impact #4: Future Tech  Expanding the exploration and development of space is strongly linked with continued technological development  Space explorations SPURS innovation, leading to new technologies and applications  Space exploration is ENABLED by technological advancement  Many advantages and disadvantages will touch upon questions of “near future technologies”

19. Future Tech [cont’d]  Fields with rapidly developing technologies include  Artificial intelligence (singularity)  Biotechnology/synthetic biology  Human/machine interface (cybernetics)  Nanotechnology  Robotics  These fields are also characterized by “convergence”— the merging of previously distinct zones of technology  New development: self-replication

20. Future Tech [cont’d]  Three basic schools of thought about technology  Optimists (utopians)—new tech is awesome, no worries, mate  Pessimists—new technologies are disruptive and dangerous, and must be controlled (Joy, Rifkin, etc.)  Pragmatists—tech development is inevitable, should use regulations to maximize the good and minimize the bad (Kurzweil, Rees)

21. Future Tech [cont’d]  Optimists generally believe that  Most technologies are benign or beneficial  Most humans are good/behave responsibly  Regulatory regimes can be minimally invasive

22. Future Tech [cont’d]  Pessimists generally believe that  Some technologies have pathological tendencies and malignant effects (they enable “evil”)  Many humans will behave selfishly, a-morally, or with evil intent  Regulatory regimes should be designed to stunt the development of dangerous technologies

23. Future Tech [cont’d]  Pragmatists generally believe that  Technologies tend to be neutral—their ethical merits depend on the user  Humans tend to use technology towards beneficial ends, but there are some “bad apples”  Regulatory regimes should be designed to promote the development of defensive technologies  Technological advancement cannot be stopped (law of exponential returns [Kurzweil])

24. Politics Impacts  Most of these apply to both elections and agenda  Debt ceiling  Trade deals (SKFTA, CFTA, PFTA)  CTBT  Immigration reform  Climate change  Patent Reform