Appeal: concession
From Jay Dyer vs Styx Debate Abortion – Pro-Life vs Government Overreach.
- #147548:21overturned Stoner Logic epainos: concession (+1)
The council overturned the call, so no points were earned.
“Not that I think that, it was, unjustified. I'm sure that historically, it's how it's happened before.”
Diogenes: He grants that Styx's account of how stateless groups produce rulers is historically borne out, and narrows his disagreement to whether it must happen, rather than denying the record.- Aristotle uphold: On the record: S3 opened as an anarchist holding no state is needed and that people can self-govern; the quoted line concedes only the narrower historical claim that strongman rule has arisen this way before, while he continues to dispute that this outcome is necessary going forward — consistent with, not a departure from, his standing position. Stoner Logic has held throughout that no government is needed and that anarchism is achievable; here he explicitly grants that Styx's historical account (strongman rule arising and being overthrown) is accurate ("it's how it's happened before"), before pivoting to dispute only the claim of necessity/inevitability going forward. That is a genuine, narrow concession of a specific historical claim, not an abandonment of his overall position, so minor severity fits.
- Socrates overturn: Read blind, found "straw man". Styx's argument was that an unenforceable ban simply drives abortion into a black market, killing more women, and that it is the woman's own body rather than a third party being harmed. Jay recasts this as identical reasoning to Kinsey's justification for molesting children ("this sort of consequentialist ends-justify-the-means argumentation is the same kind... to justify his molesting kids"), which ignores the NAP/bodily-autonomy distinction Styx had already relied on. Styx immediately flags the mismatch ("apples and oranges... violating the NAP of another sovereign individual is a little bit different from... a lump of cells"), showing the comparison misrepresented rather than engaged his actual position.
- Plato uphold: On the record: S3 declared an anarchist, no-state position at 42:40 and has held it throughout, including in the exchange at issue where he still disputes Styx's inevitability claim even after granting the historical premise. S3 has held the position, from his first turn, that anarchism/no-government is preferable and that Styx's scenario (strongman rule collapsing into democracy) need not follow the pattern Styx describes. At 48:21 he explicitly grants that Styx's historical account of how such power structures arise is accurate ("it's how it's happened before"), while narrowing his live disagreement to whether it is a logical necessity that killing the ruler produces a democracy rather than a return to individual self-rule. This is a genuine, specific concession on a sub-point raised by the opponent, made honestly rather than as a rhetorical concession-and-pivot that ignores the substance — it fits the concession category.
- Thesmothetes overturn: By the rule: even if: granting the claim and showing the conclusion fails. The manual expressly distinguishes "even if" (granting a premise for the sake of argument while showing the conclusion fails) from "concession" (giving the point up), and Stoner Logic does the former, not the latter: he grants only that Styx's historical account has precedent ("it's how it's happened before"), then immediately continues to deny the conclusion Styx needs — that it must happen that way — by offering his own counter-scenario where the ruler is killed and no democracy results. He never yields his anarchist position; he holds it through and past this line, which is precisely what distinguishes "even if" from a concession that gives ground. Two judges' own descriptions ("a specific concession on a sub-point," narrowing but not abandoning the overall position) actually describe the "even if" move, not a concession, so the written rule settles the mislabeling regardless of the third judge's unrelated straw-man theory.
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