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Last night I went to see a debate with Gab, a friend from NLC whom I somewhat offended by hesitating before answering 'Not at all' to her question 'Do I look like somewhat obsessed with Twilight to you?' (more of that not later), at Angel Place in the city. Part of the Intelligence Squared series, the topic was the somewhat interestingly phrased 'Better more cameras than more crime'. Based on the context of a British government initiative installing up to 4.2 million CCTV cameras in an effort to limit crime yet evidence showing that only 3% of crime was in fact stopped due to these cameras, this topic called for a chamber style of debate with three speakers affirming, three speakers negating, then audience interaction, then an audience vote which would reflect the impact of the speakers on the audience by comparison with a pre-debate vote to show the extent of any swing that may have occurred.

We missed the pre-debate vote because we were late by about 4 minutes or so (upon later inquiry, Gab was For, I was Against), so we had to settle with picking the thread up halfway through the chairman's introduction. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure what to expect from such an event. (perhaps it was this element of the unknown that made me want to attend one of these sessions) I do remember Duncan and Johnny T having went to one of these debates a year ago, and their response was that it wasn't that great. Nevertheless, I was hoping to hear some interesting arguments, engaging refutation and maybe even some humour. And to an extent, such things were heard.

The affirmative ran an interesting case, which went against my natural instincts as a competitive debater because this was a different style of debate that was more like public speaking, where there was no signposting, lots of case hanging, and pretty much no internal structure aside from the overarching theme that they were meant to talk about for each of their nine minute speeches. Lots of fact loading, study citing, and a weird hypothetical scenario from the 2nd Aff that told us we should be afraid at 9:30pm in Martin Place and that if we weren't afraid, we should all meet him afterward for a party in a backyard alley in King's Cross and see how you like it then you punk!...well not those exact words, but still, you get the gist. The affirmative case was that CCTV should be used in addition to other crime prevention methods (quite squirrelly I thought because that was the negative's countermodel), cameras are effective in stopping crime, we need CCTV to feel safe, and who gives a crap about privacy?

Now, what I thought was interesting is that the Negative team had a much better grasp of what their role was, and framing the debate. In that respect, they took away a lot of the ground the affirmative could've gained if they specified what crime and what cameras they were specifically talking about instead of making vague generalisations here then quoting facts here and then hypothetically insinuating something else somewhere else. The Negative team also had much better historical precedents, reasoning, overall better arguments on key issues such as privacy and were just able to better establish a cost-benefit analysis on whether the minimal effect if any such a surveillance state, if implemented, would be justified by such an abhorrent breach of one of our fundamental civil liberties.

My personal opinion at the conclusion of the debate remained unchanged, whilst Gab was persuaded to come to the Negative side. Although we disagreed upon the key issue of the debate (I maintained it was privacy), we both thought that the Negative were on the whole a more compelling side, and that CCTV was simply impractical and the money spent could been put elsewhere.

Yeah, dunno why I blogged this. Just figured you probably didn't really want another poem, and I'm no way near committed nor brave enough to do that 30 letters thing. So there we go. Comment on whatever you like, and let me know if there's anything in particular you want me to blog.

Thanks for your continued support of Agglom.

Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.