2ac at: t

We meet--- the plan mandates offering Cuba the option to export nickel to the United States

2ac at: burke

No impact to our technological thought, but abandoning empiricism turns the K Latour, 2 (Bruno, Professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, Environmentalism, pg. 303)
Who has forgotten Being? No one, no one ever has, otherwise Nature would be truly available as a pure 'stock'. Look around you: scientific objects are circulating simultaneously as subjects objects and discourse. Networks are full of Being. As for machines, they are laden with subjects and collectives. How

could a being lose its difference, its incompleteness, its mark, its trace of Being? This is never in anyone's power; otherwise we should have to imagine that we have truly been modern, we should be taken in by the upper half of the modern Constitution. Has someone, however, actually forgotten Being? Yes: anyone who really thinks that Being has really been forgotten. As Levi-Strauss says, 'the barbarian is first and foremost the man who believe in barbarism.' (Levi-Strauss, [1952] 1987. p. 12). Those who have failed to undertake empirical studies of sciences, technologies, law, politics, economics, religion or fiction have lost the traces of Being that are distributed everywhere among beings. If, scorning empiricism , you opt out of the exact sciences, then the human sciences, then traditional philosophy, then the sciences of language, and you hunker down in your forest -- then you will indeed feel a tragic loss . But what is missing is you yourself, not the
world! Heidegger's epigones have converted that glaring weakness into a strength. 'We don't know anything empirical, but that doesn't matter, since your world is empty of Being. We are keeping the little flame of Being safe from everything, and you, who have all the rest, have nothing.' On the contrary: we have everything, since we have Being, and beings, and we have never lost track of the difference between Being and beings. We are carrying out the impossible project undertaken by Heidegger, who believed what the modern Constitution said about itself without understanding that what is at issue there is only half of a larger mechanism which has never abandoned the old anthropological matrix. No one can forget Being, since there has never been a

modern world , or, by the same token, metaphysics. We have always remained pre-Socratic, pre-Cartesian, pre-Kantian, preNietzschean. No radical revolution can separate us from these pasts, so there is no need for reactionary counter-revolutions to lead us back to what has never been abandoned. Yes, Heraclitus is a surer guide than Heidegger: 'Einai gar kai entautha theous.' Rejecting tech leads to conservative backlash makes every impact worse Burke, 7 (Anthony, Senior Lecturer in Politics and IR at the University of New South Wales, Beyond Security, Violence, and War Against the Other, pg. 93-94) Once we attempt to enact an ethics of responsibility that challenges existing political ontologies, especially nationalist ones, a new danger appears: it seems unmooring. By playing out what Connolly calls 'a politics of disturbance through which sedimented identities and moralities are rendered more alert to the deleterious effects of their naturalisation upon difference' and 'a politics of enactment through which new possibilities of being are propelled into established constellations', the new ethics produces uncertainty - political and ontological. 'The politics of disturbance can backfire', he writes, 'inducing that identity panic upon which the politics of fundamentalism feeds'. By antagonising conservatives and provoking them to cling to fundamentalist certitudes, the deployment of such an ethics may unwittingly reinforce the very politics it is seeking to transform. The Israeli settler lobby, and the US government's fundamentalist faith in the utility of military violence as a panacea for insecurity and uncertainty, are powerful contemporary examples of this problem. As Michael Barnett suggests, the post-Oslo process exacerbated such problems: the growing divisions within Israeli society exemplified by Yitzhak Rabin's assassination in fact 'grew more severe, in no small measure due to his secular and liberal response'.84 Buber senses this problem in advance, arguing that a movement from a form of existence based on IIt to one that privileges the You forsakes a world that is 'ordered', 'detached' and 'somewhat reliable' for one that 'cannot be surveyed', that must live with contingency and surprise. This, he argues importantly, is still better, because it holds the promise of a more durable and stable world order: the encounters do not order themselves to become a world, but each is for you a sign of the world order. They have no association with each other, but every one guarantees your association with the world. The world that appears to you in this way is unreliable, for it appears always new to you, and you cannot take it by its word.85 Connolly writes of 'the persistent need for a precarious balance

between 'a politics of governance and a politics of disturbance, not only in the present, but in the regulative ideal of pluralistic politics itself'.86 This is not appreciated by conservatives or fundamentalists (among these we could perhaps include uncritical nationalists) who privilege the politics of statism, governance and 'security', and who see in the current structure of social truth and political order a promise of continuity, certainty and reassurance. It is not easy to avoid this problem, and I believe that the more common response - seeking to avoid it tactically either by softening one's message or by confrontation - will not work. Even if we're lucky enough to defeat such forces at the ballot box or, God forbid, by some more violent means, the discursive power of their thinking remains untouched and may become more organised and determined.

2ac at: deterrence

Deterrence is epistemologically verifiable---and our authors arent liars, stupid, or blinded by whatever ideology they criticizes Frederick Kroon 96, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Auckland, Deterrence and the Fragility of Rationality, Ethics, Vol. 106, No. 2 (Jan., 1996), pp. 350-377, JSTOR

I take it that from the point of view of the early proponents of nuclear deterrence this would not be a concession of any worth. They didn't just think that nuclear deterrers were doing something that happened to be rational (and even moral); they thought that in the specified circumstances nuclear deterrers were acting the part of properly rational agents, that nuclear

deterrers were doing what a fully rational agent would be doing if put in the same difficult situation, despite the monstrousness of what was threatened. Call this kind of position an "agentrationalist" view of nuclear deterrence. More precisely, agent-rationalists about nuclear deterrence are those who think that it is not only the act of threatening retaliation-in the sense of conditionally intending it-that is fully rational in the specified circumstances; the agent who threatens retaliation in these circumstances can also be fully rational, despite the fact that what she threatens to do is irrational. The contrary

position held by Kavka I call an "agent-irrationalist" view of nuclear deterrence. On such a view, deterrers must be irrational in some way, perhaps through having undergone a process of corruption that gives them irrational goals or makes them unable to understand the full implications of what they propose.9 (Although I am mainly interested in nuclear deterrence, the issues, of course, are wider. Thus agent-rationalism and agentirrationalism can also be understood more broadly as views concerning the rationality of agents who face "Special Deterrent Situations" in roughly Kavka's sense; these situations include our nuclear scenarios but also many other possible situations of conflict between agents. While the argument of this article may be general enough to extend to all such situations, I shall continue to focus on the nuclear case.)10 In the same way, we may talk of "agent-moralism" and "agentimmoralism." Thus agent-immoralism about nuclear deterrence holds that because of the immorality of the retaliatory act, and despite the moral desirability of the threat, no morally good agent can seriously threaten retaliation in the nuclear scenarios described.11 Any agent able to threaten retaliation must have undergone a process of moral corruption, or be affected in some other way by an element of moral imperfection in her nature. (This is again Kavka's view, but versions of the view are held by many others; David Lewis, for example.) These various positions are not, of course, exhaustive. Take rationality again. Some theorists think that there can be no situation in which threatening nuclear retaliation is rational.12 If so, no fully rational agent could be a nuclear deterrer. And in the mid-1980s (but no longer) David Gauthier held that because threatening retaliation is

sometimes clearly rational, it would ipso facto be rational in those cases for a deterrer to act on her retaliatory threats should deterrence fail. If so, agent-irrationalist arguments can't get a toehold, and we can no longer deny full rationality to nuclear deterrers. While I reject these various

positions, they are not the direct concern of this article. 13 The debate I am presently interested in is between agent-rationalists and agent-irrationalists, agent-moralists and agent-immoralists: philosophical opponents who all accept that

threatening (nuclear) retaliation can be rational and moral where acting on the threats is not. In this article I am mainly concerned to defend agent-rationalism about nuclear deterrence against its irrationalist critics. That is, my main goal is to show that we can coherently regard both of the following rationality claims as true: not only is the act of forming and maintaining deterrent conditional intentions perfectly rational in the nuclear circumstances envisaged, but in addition forming and maintaining such intentions is something that rational agents are fully capable of, despite their knowing that such intentions, conditionally enjoin an irrational act. I thereby take myself to be defending nuclear deterrence against an important and persuasive philosophical attack on the character of those running the policy. By implication, however, I will also be defending an agent-moralist view of nuclear deterrence and
hence defending deterrence against another kind of attack on the character of those running the policy. For the moral case turns out to be similar and in some ways easier. Although there are conclusive reasons of a moral kind against applying a nuclear sanction should deterrence fail, I claim that broadly the same kind of argument can be used to show that a rational and moral agent

is nonetheless able to form and have the relevant conditional intention to apply such a sanction. And nothing, as far as I can see, would restrict this conclusion very strongly to certain favored accounts of morality, such as some version of consequentialism. While agentmoralism is not the focus of this article, I hope to say enough to justify these claims. Why suppose for a moment that rational agents cannot form and sustain such deterrent intentions? I can think of five more or less seductive arguments to this effect, some reconstructed from the literature on the topic, others independently plausible. All are based directly or indirectly-on the content of the conditional intentions contemplated and on the implications for a rational agent who contemplates such intentions. Recall the problem. Because of what any such intention enjoins, we allegedly have a
circumstance where an agent satisfies the following conditions: P: PI, the agent is (fully) rational; P2, she conditionally intends to do something E if a certain event C happens; P3, it is clear to her that if C should happen it would be irrational to do E. This triad of

conditions appears inconsistent, however, which suggests that no

rational agent can have such a conditional intention in full knowledge of what it involves. But then neither, it seems, can a rational agent form such an intention in full knowledge of what it involves; deterrence can't even get started unless the deterring agent first becomes irrational. Different agent-irrationalist arguments provide different ways of
showing how the tension inherent in (P) argues for agent-irrationality. But before I begin my survey of these arguments, let me say a bit more about the idea of agent-rationality itself. The substance of my critique will be that, one way or another, agent-

irrationalist arguments variously mislocate or misdescribe aspects of this idea. What follows is supposed to be uncontentious. To describe an agent as rational is to characterize the agent as epistemically responsible: such an agent responds to evidence in the right sort of way, believing propositions when the evidence supports them (but at any rate not when it is cognitively unsafe to adopt such beliefs) and deciding how to act by taking proper account of her desires and beliefs regarding the likely outcome of actions. This is clearly a dispositional notion, for someone is correctly described as rational to the extent that she is disposed to function in this way, not just that perchance she always does function in this way. But note that the disposition is characterized in terms of a more local rationality: options open to a person have the property of being rational if they are supported by her evidence in the right sort of way or if they reflect her beliefs and desires in the right sort of way. Effective deterrence controls escalation and is the best predictor for war Sharp 8 Assoc. Dep. General Counsel for Intl Affairs @ DOD & Adjunct Prof. of Law @ Georgetown (Former Dir. Of Research at the Law Library of Congress, Democracy and Deterrence: Foundations for an Enduring World Peace, Air University Press, Maxwell Air Force Base, May, 2008, Dr. Walter Gary Sharp Sr.) http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA493031&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

Moore concludes in Solving the War Puzzle that war arises from the interaction of all three Waltzian levels (individual, state or national, and international), whereas some proponents of the democratic peace principle focus only on government structures to explain war and some traditional realists focus only on the international system. Both realists and democratic peace proponents tend to emphasize institutions and systems, whereas Moore reminds us that peopleleadersdecide to pursue war: Wars are not simply accidents. Nor, contrary to our ordinary language, are they made by nations. Wars are made by people; more specifically they are decided on by the leaders of nation statesand other nonnational groups in the case of terrorismwho make the decision to commit aggression or otherwise use the military instrument. These leaders make that decision based on the totality of incentives affecting them at the time of the decision. . . . . . . [Incentive theory] tells us that we simply have a better chance of

predicting war, and fashioning forms of intervention to control it, if we focus squarely on the effect of variables from all levels of analysis in generating incentives affecting the actual decisions made by those with the power to decide on war.42 Incentive theory focuses on the individual decisions that lead to war and explains the synergistic relationship between the
absence of effective deterrence and the absence of democracy. Together these three factorsthe decisions of leaders made without the restraining effects of deterrence and democracy are the cause of war: War is not strictly caused by an absence

of democracy or effective deterrence or both together. Rather war is caused by the human leadership decision to employ the military instrument. The absence of democracy, the absence of effective deterrence, and most importantly, the synergy of an absence of both are conditions or factors that predispose to war. An absence of democracy likely predisposes by [its] effect on the human decision for war; that is, major war and democide . . . are the consequence of individual decisions responding to a totality of incentives.43

leadership and leadership incentives, and an absence of effective deterrence likely predisposes by its effect on incentives from factors other than the individual or governmental levels of analysis. To understand the cause of war is to understand

2ac at: anthro

Their author doesnt actually think we should let a bunch of people die Kochi and Ordan, 8 (Tarik, lecturer in the School of Law, Queens University, Noam, linguist and translator, conducts research in Translation Studies at Bar Ilan University, An Argument for the Global Suicide of Humanity, Borderlands, Volume 7, Issue 3) It should be noted nonetheless that our proposal for the global suicide of humanity is based upon the notion that such a radical action needs to be voluntary and not forced. In this sense, and given the
likelihood of such an action not being agreed upon, it operates as a thought experiment which may help humans to radically rethink what it means to participate in modern, moral life within the natural world. In other words, whether or not the act of

global suicide takes place might well be irrelevant . What is more important is the form of critical
reflection that an individual needs to go through before coming to the conclusion that the global suicide of humanity is an action that would be worthwhile. The point then of a thought experiment that considers the argument for the global suicide of humanity is

the attempt to outline an anti-humanist, or non-human-centric ethics. Such an ethics attempts to take into account both sides of the human heritage: the capacity to carry out violence and inflict harm and the capacity to use moral reflection and creative social organisation to minimise violence and harm. Through the idea
of global suicide such an ethics reintroduces a central question to the heart of moral reflection: To what extent is the value of the continuation of human life worth the total harm inflicted upon the life of all others? Regardless of whether an individual finds the idea of global suicide abhorrent or ridiculous, this question remains valid and relevant and will not go away, no matter how hard we try to forget, suppress or repress it.

Focusing on non-human lives turns the alternative their author Kochi and Ordan, 8 (Tarik, lecturer in the School of Law, Queens University, Noam, linguist and translator, conducts research in Translation Studies at Bar Ilan University, An Argument for the Global Suicide of Humanity, Borderlands, Volume 7, Issue 3) Finally, it is important to note that such a standpoint need not fall into a version of green or eco-fascism that considers other forms of life more important than the lives of humans. Such a position merely replicates in reverse the speciesism of modern humanist thought. Any choice between the eco-fascist and the humanist, colonial-speciesist is thus a forced choice and is, in reality, a nonchoice that should be rejected. The point of proposing the idea of the global suicide of humanity is rather to help identify
the way in which we differentially value different forms of life and guide our moral actions by rigidly adhered to standards of lifevalue. Hence the idea of global suicide, through its radicalism, challenges an ideological or culturally dominant idea of life-value. Further, through confronting humanist ethics with its own violence against the non-human, the idea of global suicide opens up a space for dialectical reflection in which the utopian ideals of both modern humanist and anti-humanist ethics may be comprehended in relation to each other. One possibility of this conflict is the production of a differing standpoint from which to understand the subject and the scope of moral action.

Their link card is horrible--- its about hamburgers and the food industry --- the ag tech advantage is based off of having enough food to feed humans and animals in times of crises Extinction outweighs and turns the impact Matheny, 7 (J. G. Matheny, Ph. D. candidate, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, December 6,
2007, Ought we worry about human extinction?, online: http://jgmatheny.org/extinctionethics.htm) Moral philosophers have not written much about human extinction. This may be because they underestimate

the potential benefits of human survival and/or the risks of human extinction. If we survive the next few centuries, humanity could allow Earth-originating life to survive a trillion years or more. If we do not survive, Earth-originating life will probably perish within a billion years. If prolonging the survival of Earth-originating life is morally important, then there may be nothing more important than reducing the near-term risks of human extinction. Keywords:
extinction, population ethics, intergenerational justice, catastrophic risk, existential risk, risk analysis, animal welfare, environmental ethics Word count: 3,400 Introduction It was only in the last century, with the invention of nuclear weapons, that the probability of human extinction could be appreciably affected by human action. Ever since, human extinction has

generally been considered a terrible possibility. Its surprising, then, that a search of JSTOR and the Philosophers Index suggests contemporary philosophers have written little about the ethics of human extinction. In fact, they seem to have written more about the extinction of other animals. Maybe this is because they consider human extinction impossible or inevitable; or maybe human extinction seems inconsequential compared to other moral issues. In this paper I argue that the possibility of human extinction deserves more attention. While extinction events may be very improbable, their consequences are grave.

Human extinction would not only condemn to non-existence all future human generations, it would also cut short the existence of all animal life , as natural events will eventually make Earth
uninhabitable. The value of future lives Leslie (1996) suggests philosophers nonchalance toward human extinction is due in large part to disagreements in population ethics. Some people suppose it does not matter if the number of lives lived in the future is small -- at its limit, zero.[2] In contrast, I assume here that moral value is a function of both the quality

and number of lives in a history.[3] This view is consistent with most peoples intuition about extinction (that its
bad) and with moral theories under which life is considered a benefit to those who have it, or under which life is a necessary condition for producing things of value (Broome, 2004; Hare, 1993; Holtug 2001, Ng, 1989; Parfit 1984; Sikora, 1978). For instance, some moral theories value things like experiences, satisfied preferences,

achievements, friendships, or virtuous acts, which take place only in lives. On this view, an early death is bad (at least in part) because it cuts short the number of these valuable things. Similarly, on

this view, an early extinction is bad (at least in part) because it cuts short the number of these valuable things. I think this view is plausible and think our best reasons for believing an early death is bad are our best reasons for believing an early extinction is bad. But such a view is controversial and I will not settle the controversy here. I start from the premise that we ought to increase moral value by increasing both the quality and number of lives throughout history. I also take it, following Singer (2002), this maxim applies to all sentient beings capable of positive subjective feelings. Lifes prospects The human population is

now 6 billion (6 x 109). There are perhaps another trillion (1012) sentient animals on Earth, maybe a
few orders more, depending on where sentience begins and ends in the animal kingdom (Gaston, Blackburn, and Goldewijk, 2003; Gaston and Evans, 2004). Animal life has existed on Earth for around 500 million years. Barring a dramatic

intervention, all animal life on Earth will die in the next several billion years. Earth is located in a field of thousands of asteroids and comets. 65 million years ago, an asteroid 10 kilometers in size hit the
Yucatan , creating clouds of dust and smoke that blocked sunlight for months, probably causing the extinction of 90% of animals, including dinosaurs. A 100 km impact, capable of extinguishing all animal life on Earth, is probable within a billion years (Morrison et al., 2002). If an asteroid does not extinguish all animal life, the Sun will. In one

billion years, the Sun will begin its Red Giant stage, increasing in size and temperature. Within six billion years, the Sun will have evaporated all of Earths water, and terrestrial

temperatures will reach 1000 degrees -- much too hot for amino acid-based life to persist. If, somehow, life were to survive these changes, it will die in 7 billion years when the Sun forms a planetary nebula that irradiates Earth (Sackmann, Boothroyd, Kraemer, 1993; Ward and Brownlee, 2002). Earth is a dangerous place and animal life here has dim

prospects. If there are 1012 sentient animals on Earth, only 1021 life-years remain. The only hope for terrestrial sentience

surviving well beyond this limit is that some force will deflect large asteroids before they collide with Earth, giving sentients another billion or more years of life (Gritzner and Kahle, 2004); and/or terrestrial sentients will colonize other solar systems, giving sentients up to another 100 trillion years of life until all stars begin to stop shining (Adams and Laughlin, 1997). Life might survive even longer if it exploits non-stellar energy sources. But it is hard to imagine how life could survive beyond the decay of nuclear matter expected in 1032 to 1041 years (Adams and Laughlin, 1997). This may be the upper limit on the future of sentience.[4] Deflecting

asteroids and colonizing space could delay the extinction of Earthoriginating sentience from 109 to 1041 years. Assuming an average population of one trillion sentients is maintained (which is a conservative assumption under colonization[5]), these interventions would create between 1021 and 1053[billion] life-years. At present on Earth, only a human civilization would be remotely capable of carrying out such projects. If humanity survives the next few centuries, its likely we will develop technologies needed for at least one of these projects. We may already possess the

technologies needed to deflect asteroids (Gritzner and Kahle, 2004; Urias et al., 1996). And in the next few centuries, were likely to develop technologies that allow colonization. We will be strongly motivated by self-interest to colonize space, as asteroids and planets have valuable resources to mine, and as our survival ultimately requires relocating to another solar system (Kargel, 1994; Lewis, 1996). Extinction risks Being capable of preserving sentient life for another 1041 years makes

human survival important. There may be nothing more important. If the human species is extinguished, all known sentience and certainly all Earth-originating sentience will be extinguished within a few billion years. We ought then pay more attention to what Bostrom (2002) has called existential risks -- risks where an adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential. Such risks include:
an asteroid or comet strikes Earth, creating enough debris to shut down photosynthesis for months; a supervolcano erupts, creating enough debris to shut down photosynthesis; a nearby supernova unleashes deadly radiation that reaches Earth; greenhouse gasses cause a radical change in climate; a nuclear holocaust creates enough debris to cause a killing most or all of humanity; or a high-energy physics experiment goes awry, creating a true vacuum or strangelets,

nuclear winter , shutting down photosynthesis; a genetically engineered microbe is unleashed, by accident or design,

destroying the Earth (Bostrom 2002; Bostrom and Cirkovic 2006; Leslie 1996, Posner 2004, Rees 2003). To me, most of these risks seem very unlikely. But dishearteningly, in their catalogs of these risks, Britain s Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees (2003), gives humanity 50-50 odds of surviving the next few centuries, and philosophers John Leslie (1996) and Nick Bostrom (2002) put our chances at 70% and 75%, respectively. Estimating the probabilities of unprecedented events is subjective, so we should treat these numbers skeptically. Still, even if the probabilities are orders lower, because the stakes are high, it could be justified to invest in extinction countermeasures. Matheny (2007) found that, even with traditional social discounting, investing in asteroid detection and mitigation is justified under standard cost-effectiveness analysis. Ought humanity be saved? Even accepting that future lives have value and that extinction risks can be cost-effectively reduced, there could still be reasons not to worry about human extinction. For instance, human lives might have negative moral value, in which case human extinction could be a good thing. This might have been Bertrand Russells sentiment when he wrote, Although it is a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out, sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation.[6] In the 20th century, more people, in absolute numbers, died of war, famine, and pestilence than ever before. But in the same century, more people did not die of war, famine, and pestilence than ever before. So even if we're especially pessimistic about average human welfare during the last century compared to others, it would be hard to argue that total welfare decreased. As long as average welfare was greater than zero that is, the average life was preferable to suicide then the century was a success for humanity. We will be capable of even greater moral nightmares in this century than in the last, but we will also be capable of securing greater welfare for a larger fraction of humanity. I suspect in this century, the average life will again be worth living, assuming we survive the century to judge. We should be more pessimistic when we review how nonhuman animals have fared in the last century. At present around 50 billion animals are raised and killed each year to feed humanity. (Many million animals are used for clothing, product testing, research, and entertainment, but their numbers are insignificant by comparison.) Since World War 2, with the invention of "factory farming," farm animals welfare has

significantly deteriorated, as they now live in conditions that frustrate their most basic instincts (Singer, 2002, chapter 3). At the same time, were probably the only animal on Earth that routinely demonstrates compassion for other species. Such compassion is nearly universal in developed countries but we usually know too
little, too late, for deeply ingrained habits, such as diets, to change. If improvements in other public morals were possible without any significant biological change in human nature, then the same should be true for our treatment of nonhuman animals, though it will take some time. Even without any change in public morals, it seems unlikely we will

continue to use animals for very long at least, nowhere near 50 billion per year. Our most brutal use of animals results not from sadism but from old appetites now satisfied with inefficient tech nologies that have not fundamentally changed in 10,000 years. Ours is the first century where newer technologies -- plant or in vitro meats, or meat from brainless animals -- could satisfy human appetites for meat more efficiently and safely (Edelman et al, 2005). As these technologies mature and become cheaper, they will
likely replace conventional meat. If the use of sentient animals survives much beyond this century, we should be very surprised. This thought is a cure for misanthropy. As long as most humans in the future don't use sentient animals, the vast number of good lives we can create would outweigh any sins humanity has committed or is likely to commit. Even if it takes a century for animal farming to be replaced by vegetarianism (or in vitro meats or brainless farm animals), the century of factory farming would represent around 1012 miserable life-years. That is one-billionth of the 1021 animal life-years humanity could save by protecting Earth from asteroids for a billion years. The century of industrialized animal use would thus be

the equivalent of a terrible pain that lasts one second in an otherwise happy 100-year life. To accept human extinction now would be like committing suicide to end an unpleasant itch. If human life is extinguished, all known animal life will be extinguished when the Sun enters
its Red Giant phase, if not earlier. Despite its current mistreatment of other animals, humanity is the animal kingdoms best long-term hope for survival.

Framework the neg has to defend the status quo or a competitive policy alternative and the affirmative needs to defend the effects of its advocacy and some of its representations. Permutation do the plan and endorse the suicide of humanity without rejection we can affirm and understand species-being, which solves ethical exceptionalism they criticize Alt doesnt solve the case, which outweighs even if we see humans as a social construct that still doesnt remedy <<<< >>> explicit political action is necessary to avoid multiple scenarios for planet ending destruction No link we never privileged humans our impacts all terminate in the destruction of the entire planet--- i.e. the Baum and Trewavas ev

Abandonment of humanist values facilitates atrocity and threatens extinction

548 Annals 45, November, Sage)

Ketels, 96 (Violet B, Associate Professor of English at Temple University, Havel to the Castle! The Power of the Word,
In the Germany of the 1930s, a demonic idea was born in a demented brain; the word went forth; orders were given,
repeated, widely broadcast; and men, women, and children were herded into death camps. Their offshore signals, cries for help, did not summon us to rescue. We had become inured to the reality of human suffering. We could no longer cold blankness of inhumane silence. We were deaf to the apocalyptic urgency in Solzhenitsyn's declaration from the Gulag that we must check the disastrous course of history. We were heedless of the lesson of his experience that only the

hear what the words meant or did not credit them or not enough of us joined the chorus. Shrieking victims perished in the unbending strength of the human spirit, fully taking its stand on the shifting frontier of encroaching violence and declaring "not one step further," though death may be the end of it only this unwavering firmness offers any genuine defense of peace for the individual, of genuine peace for mankind at large .2 In past human crises, writers and thinkers strained language to the breaking point to keep alive the memory of the unimaginable, to keep the human conscience from forgetting. In the current context, however, intellectuals seem more devoted to abstract assaults on values than to thoughtful probing of the moral dimensions of human experience. "Heirs of the ancient possessions

of higher knowledge and literacy skills,"3 we seem to have lost our nerve, and not only because of Holocaust history and its tragic aftermath. We feel insecure before the empirical absolutes of hard science. We are intimidated by the "high modernist rage against mimesis and content,"* monstrous progeny of the union between Nietzsche and philosophical formalism, the grim proposal we have bought into that there is no truth, no objectivity, and no disinterested knowledge.5 Less certain about the power of language, that "oldest flame of the humanist soul,"6 to frame a credo to live by or criteria to judge by, we are vulnerable even to the discredited Paul de Man's indecent hint that "wars and revolutions are not empirical events . . . but 'texts' masquerading as facts."7 Truth and reality seem more elusive than they ever were in the past; values are pronounced to be mere fictions of ruling elites to retain power. We are embarrassed by virtue. Words collide and crack under these new skeptical strains, dissolving into banalities the colossal enormity of what must be expressed lest we forget. Remembering for the future has become doubly dispiriting by our having to remember for the present, too, our having to register and confront what is wrong here and now. The reality to be fixed in memory shifts as we seek words for it; the memory we set down is flawed by our subjectivities. It is selective, deceptive, partial, unreliable, and amoral. It plays tricks and can be invented. It stops up its ears to shut out what it does not dare to face.8 Lodged in our brains, such axioms, certified by science and statistics, tempt us to concede the final irrelevance of words and memory. We have to get on with our lives. Besides, memories reconstructed in words, even when they are documented by evidence, have not often changed the world or fended off the powerful seductions to silence, forgetting, or denying. Especially denying, which, in the case of the Holocaust, has become an obscene industry competing in the open market of ideas for control of our sense of the past. It is said that the Holocaust never happened. Revisionist history with a vengeance is purveyed in words; something in words must be set against it. Yet what? How do we nerve to the task when we are increasingly disposed to cast both words and memory in a condition of cryogenic dubiety? Not only before but also since 1945, the criminality of governments, paraded as politics and fattening on linguistic manipulation and deliberately reimplanted memory of past real or imagined grievance, has spread calamity across the planet. The cancer that has eaten at the entrails of Yugoslavia since Tito's death [hasj Kosovo for its locus," but not merely as a piece of land. The country's rogue adventurers use the word "Kosovo" to reinvokc as sacred the land where Serbs were defeated by Turks in 1389!9 Memory of bloody massacres in 1389, sloganized and distorted in 1989, demands the bloody revenge of new massacres and returns civilization not to its past glory but to its gory tribal wars. As Matija Beckovic, the bard of Serb nationalism, writes, "It is as if the Serbian people waged only one battleby widening the Kosovo charnel-house, by adding wailing upon wailing, by counting new martyrs to the martyrs of Kosovo.... Kosovo is the Serbian-ized history of the Floodthe Serbian New Testament."10 A cover of Siiddeutsche Zeitung in 1994 was printed with blood donated by refugee women from Bosnia in an eerily perverse afterbirth of violence revisited." We stand benumbed before multiplying horrors. As Vaclav Havel warned more than a decade ago, regimes that generate them "are the avant garde of a global crisis in civilization." The depersonalization of power in "system, ideology and appa-rat,"

pathological suspicions about human motives and meanings, the loosening of individual responsibility, the swiftness by which disastrous events follow one upon another "have deprived us of our conscience, of our common sense and natural speech and thereby, of our actual humanity ."12 Nothing
less than the transformation of human consciousness is likely to rescue us.

The alternative is utopian there is no concrete action that can be taken to resolve the impact Representing human impacts is good key to our relationship with nature Plumwood 2 (Val, PF PHILOSOPHY - UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY, Environmental Culture: The ecological crisis of reason,

PG. 138-40) Recognition, prudence and survival But by providing reasons for considering nature based on human prudence, are we not perpetuating the verv human-centredness and instrumentalism we should seek to combat, considering nature only in relation to our own needs and as means to meet those needs? This issue reveals another major area of difference between the cosmic model implying elimination of human bearings and the liberation model of human-cent redness of the sort I have given. Only in the

confused account of anthropocentrism as cosmic anthropocentrism is it essential to avoid anything which smacks of human bearings and preferences in the interests of pursuing superhuman detachment. On the liberation account of human-centred ness, there is no problem or inconsistency in introducing some prudential considerations to motivate change , or to show why, for example, human-centredness is not benign and
must lead to damaging consequences for humankind. To gain a better understanding of the role of prudence in the kinds of changes that might be required, let us return to the marital example of Bruce and Ann. Let us suppose that instead of leaving right away, Ann persuades Bruce to try a visit to a marriage counsellor to see if Bruce can change enough to save their relationship. (We will have to assume that Bruce has some redeeming features I have not described here to explain why Ann considers it worthwhile going to all this trouble). After listening to their stories, the counsellor diagnoses Bruce as a textbook case of egocentrism, an individual version of the centredness structure set out above. Bruce seems to view his interests as somehow radically separate from Ann's, so that he is prepared to act on her request for more consideration only if she can show he will get more pleasure if he does so, that is, for instrumental reasons which appeal to a self-contained conception of his interests. He seems to see Ann in instrumental terms not as an independent person but as someone defined in tenus of his own needs, and claims it is her problem if she is dissatistied or miserable. Bruce sees Ann as there to service his needs, lacks sensitivity to her needs and does not respect her independence or agency. 24 Bruce, let us suppose, also devalues the importance of the relationship, denies his real dependency on Ann, backgrounds her services and contribution to his lite, and seems to be completely unaware of the extent to which he might suffer when the relationship he is abusing breaks down. Bruce, despite Ann's warnings, does not imagine that it will, and is sure that it will all blow over: after a few tears and tantrums Ann will come to her senses, as she has always done before, according to Bruce. Now the counsellor, June, takes on the task of pointing out to Bruce that his continued self-centredness and instrumental treatment of Ann is likely to lead in short order to the breakdown and loss of his relationship. The counsellor tries to show Bruce that he has underestimated both Ann's determination to leave unless there is change, as well as the sustaining character of the relationship. June points out that he may, like many similar people the counsellor has seen, sutler much more severe emotional stress than he realises when Ann leaves, as she surely will unless Bruce changes. Notice that June's initial appeal to Bruce is a prudential one; June tries to point out to Bruce that he has misconceived the relationship and to make him understand where his real interests lie. There is no inconsistency here; the counsellor can point out these damaging consequences of instrumental relationship for Bruce without in any way using, endorsing or encouraging instrumental relationships. In the same way, the critic of human-centredness can say with perfect consistency, to a society trapped in the centric logic ofthe One and the Other in relation to nature, that unless it is willing to give enough consideration to nature's needs, it too could lose a relationship whose importance it has failed to understand, has systematically devalued and denied - with, perhaps, more serious consequences for survival than in Bruce's case. The account of human-centredness I have given, then, unlike the cosmic account demanding self-transcendence and self-detachment, does not prohibit the use of certain forms of prudential ecological argument, although it does suggest certain contexts and qualifications for their use. In the case of Ann and Bruce, June the counsellor might particularly advance these prudential reasons as the main reasons for treating Ann with more care and respect at the initial stages of the task of convincing Bruce of the need for change. Prudential arguments need not just concern the danger of losing the relationship. June may also try to show Bruce how the structure of egocentrism distorts and limits his character and cuts him off from the main benefits of a caring relationship, such as the sense of the limitations ofth~ self and its perspectives obtained by an intimate encounter with someone else's needs and reality. Prddential arguments of all kinds for respect are the kinds of arguments that are especially useful in an initial context of denial, while there is still no realisation of that there is a serious problem, and resistance to the idea of undertaking work for change. In the same way, the appeal to prudential considerations of ecological damage to humans is especially

appropriate in the initial context of ecological denial . where there is still no systematic acknowledgement of human attitudes as a problem, and resistance to the idea of undertaking substantial social change. Although reasons of advantage or disadvantage to the self cannot be the only kinds of considerations in a framework which exhibits genuine respect for the other, the needs of the self do not have to be excluded at any stage from this process, as the fallacious view of prudence as always instrumental and egocentric suggests. Perm double bind either the alt can overcome the link to the plan or it cant overcome the status quo Alt doesnt solve if it does its worse for non-humans

Machan, 4 (Tibor, Distinguished Fellow and Prof. @ Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship & Business Ethics @
Chapman U., Putting Humans First: Why We Are Natures Favorite, p. 11-13) Now, one can dispute Hospers, but only by averting one's gaze from the facts. If animals in fact did have rights as you and I understand the concept of rightsrights that entail and mandate a hands-off policy toward other rights possessors most of the creatures now lurking in lawns and jungles, at the very least all the carnivores, would have to be brought

up on murder charges. This is what all the animal rights champions fail to heed, including Ingrid Newkirk, radical

leader of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), who holds that it is unacceptable for us to use animals in any way at all.13 This is why they allow themselves such vile thoughts as that "the world would be an

infinitely better place without humans in it at all."'4 If the scenario is absurd, it's so not because the concept of
animal rights has been unfairly reduced to absurdity but because there is nowhere else to go. The idea of animal rights is impracticable to begin with; any attempt to visualize the denizens of the animal world benefiting

from and respecting rights must collapse into fantasy willy-nilly. The concept of rights

emerged with the rise of human civilization precisely because it is needed by and applicable to human beings, given the specifically moral nature of human beings and their ambition to live with each other in mutual

harmony and to mutual benefit. Rights have nothing to do with the lives of wolves and turtles because of what animal rights champions themselves admit, namely, the amoral nature of at least the bulk of the animal world.15 Advocates of animal rights in at least one way do admit the vast gulf between animals and humans and that humans alone are equipped to deal with moral issues. When they address us alone about these matterswhen they accept all the carnage that

is perpetrated by other living things, including what would be infanticide and worse if human beings were to engage in itthey clearly imply that human beings are indeed special . They

imply, first and foremost, that people are indeed the only living beings capable of understanding a moral appeal. Only human beings can be implored to do right rather than wrong. Other animals just don't have the capacity for this. And so the environmentalists don't confront them with any moral arguments no matter how politically incorrect the animals may be toward one another.

2ac at: complexity

Framework --- simulate the enactment of the plan, weigh consequences against the alt --- key to policy education, fairness and individual agency Hanghoj, 8 (Thorkild, assistant professor at the University of Aarhus, Copenhagen, http://static.sdu.dk/mediafiles/Files/Information_til/Studerende_ved_SDU/Din_uddannelse/ phd_hum/afhandlinger/2009/ThorkilHanghoej.pdf)
Thus, debate games require teachers to balance the centripetal/centrifugal forces of gaming and teaching, to be able to reconfigure their discursive authority, and to orchestrate the multiple voices of a dialogical game space in relation to particular goals. These Bakhtinian perspectives provide a valuable analytical framework for describing the discursive interplay between different practices and knowledge aspects when enacting (debate) game scenarios. In addition to this, Bakhtins dialogical philosophy also

offers an explanation of why debate games (and other game types) may be valuable within an educational context. One of the central features of multi-player games is that players are expected to experience a simultaneously real and imagined scenario both in relation to an insiders (participant) perspective and to an outsiders (co-participant) perspective. According to Bakhtin, the outsiders perspective reflects a fundamental aspect of human
understanding: In order to understand, it is immensely important for the person who understands to be located outside the object of his or her creative understanding in time, in space, in culture. For one cannot even really see one's own exterior and comprehend it as a whole, and no mirrors or photographs can help; our real exterior can be seen and understood only by other people, because they are located outside us in space, and because they are others (Bakhtin, 1986: 7). As the quote suggests, every person is influenced by others in an inescapably intertwined way, and consequently no voice can be said to be isolated. Thus, it is in the

interaction with other voices that individuals are able to reach understanding and find their own voice . Bakhtin also refers to the ontological process of finding a voice as ideological becoming, which represents the process of selectively assimilating the words of others (Bakhtin, 1981: 341). Thus, by teaching and playing debate scenarios, it is possible to support students in their process of becoming not only themselves, but also in becoming articulate and responsive citizens in a democratic society.

Economic rationality is the best way to evaluate peoples decisionstheir cards still assume rationality at its simplest forms Montero 13 - DPhil, University of Oxford (Tiago Montero, Starlings uphold principles of economic rationality for delay and probability of reward, February 8, 2013, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23390098, JL) We argue that rationality principles, understood as the demand for logical consistency in preferences, should remain an integral and indispensable feature of predictive theoretical models of behaviour both because they support the logic of the models and because our data show that they do hold in the demanding tests we describe. This can be expanded to assert that, for a given state of a decisionmaker and its environment, predictive models can safely include the assumption that choices will display
properties such as transitivity. If either the subjects or their environments are not held constant, then rationality is not being tested. Some recent theoretical contributions consistent with this view have not made this defence of rationality explicit. For instance, it has

been shown that intransitivity in preference between food sources may be adaptive if the subject is driven by the experimental procedure to infer differences in the state of the world when presented with different choices [31,35]. However, such differences in preferences still express rationality (i.e. transitivity) in terms of the subjects maximand (i.e. Darwinian fitness) and are in fact expressions of state-dependent rationality once the information driving the agents behaviour is included, as it should, in the description of its state. In our view, reports that both human and non-human decision-makers systematically breach rationality principles ([1,2,18], but
see also [20] for an alternative view) should not promote the demise of Homo economicus or non-human equivalents, but be

instead used to explore and illustrate how the rationality/optimality approach used by both theoretical economists and behavioural ecologists applies to real-life agents. In a parametric series of
quantitative tests, we corroborated that the behaviour of captive starlings actually does fit the demands of well-established economic rationality principles [9,12]. Starlings choices between multiple options differing in either delay to or probability of a f ood reward

complied with strong stochastic transitivity and with the principle of independence from irrelevant alternatives, regardless of the added options richness relative to a target option pair. We did not use alternatives differing in more than one dimension simultaneously. Such tests are complicated because the scaling of utility (or preference) to physical dimensions probably includes nonlinearities when different properties are traded against each other [1,3,6,18,32]. Demonstrations of full rationality in unidimensional choices such as those shown here and results obtained in transitive inference experiments across multiple species that are consistent with these results [4248] suggest that rational choice, rather than its opposites, is widespread, and should be the foundation from which to interpret observations of logically inconsistent behaviour. Our view is that most reports

of apparent violations of logical decision principles in non-human studies result from failing to follow preconditions for their validity, such as constancy of the agents physiological or informational state, or lack of satiety effects from the commodity [10,27,2931,35,36]. Variations in preference following
variations in subjects energetic reserves, or when the testing conditions allow subjects to infer differences in their circumstances,

are perfectly consistent with evolutionarily normative, rationality-based theoriesas is clear from
Houston et al. [31] and Houston [26]. This matters because if it were convincingly shown that when necessary conditions are controlled, logical principles do not apply to decision processes, the foundation of normative modelling in behavioural biology would melt away. This is relevant

to decision-making across multiple taxa, including humans, and highlights the value of integrating decision research across economics, psychology and biology. Linearity might not be true but complexity isnt 100% true either Dr. Sebastian L. V. Gorka et al 12, Director of the Homeland Defense Fellows Program at the College of International Security Affairs, National Defense University, teaches Irregular Warfare and US National Security at NDU and Georgetown, et al., Spring 2012, The Complexity Trap, Parameters, http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/parameters/Articles/2012spring/Gallagher_Geltzer_Go rka.pdf These competing views of Americas national secu rity concerns indicate an important and distinctive characteristic of todays global landscape: prioritization is simultaneously very difficult and very important for the United States. Each of these threats and potential threatsal Qaeda, China, nuclear proliferation, climate change, global disease, and so oncan conjure up a worstcase scenario that is immensely intimidating. Given the difficulty of combining estimates of probabilities with the levels of risk associated with these threats, it is challenging to establish priorities. Such choices and trade-offs are difficult, but not impossible. 30 In fact, they are the stock-in-trade of the strategist and planner. If the United States is going to respond proactively and effectively to todays international environment, prioritization is the key first stepand precisely the opposite reaction to the complacency and undifferentiated fear that the notion of unprecedented complexity encourages . Complexity suggests a maximization of flexibility and minimization of commitment; but prioritization demands wise allotment of resources and attention in a way that commits American power and effort most effectively and efficiently. Phrased differently, complexity induces deciding not to decide; prioritization encourages deciding which decisions matter most. Todays world of diverse threats characterized by uncertain probabilities and unclear risks will overwhelm us if the specter of complexity seduces us into either paralysis or paranoia. Some priorities need to be set if the United States is to find the resources to confront what threatens it most. 31 As Michael Doran recently argued in referenc e to the Arab Spring, the United States must train itself to see a large dune as something more formidable than just endless grain s of sand.32 This is not to deny the possibility of nonlinear phenomena, butterfly effects, self-organizing systems that exhibit patterns in the absence of centralized authority, or emergent properties. 33 If anything, these hallmarks of complexity theory remind strategists of the importance of revisiting key assumptions in light of new data and allowing for tactical flexibility in case of unintended consequences. Sound strategy requires hard choices and commitments, but it need not be inflexible. We can prioritize without being procrustean. But a model in which everything is potentially relevant is a model in which nothing is. Perm do both

Combining interpretative approach and complexity key Cairney 10 (Paul, Chair in Politics and Public Policy BA (Hons), MSc, PhD at Aberdeen University, Bridging the Methodological Gap Between the Physical and Social Sciences: Complexity Theory and Mixed Methods http://www.psa.ac.uk/journals/pdf/5/2010/121_496.pdf, SEH)
Although the structure/ agency discussion is not unproblematic, it at least suggests that there are people thinking seriously about how to overcome the wider philosophical issues regarding how we characterise and observe complex social systems. It also opens the door to mixed methods and projects which seek to produce lessons between them. The debate on the relationship between structures, rules, institutions and agency is central to the key questions in political science regarding who or what exercises power and why policy changes. It is also inextricably linked to the methods that we use to answer those questions. For example, when

using complex systems theory and mathematical modelling to explain policy dynamics we may focus on the explanatory power of rules and norms that bind behaviour. When using an interpretive approach and qualitative methods we may focus on the links between meaning and individual action; the extent to which rules are understood differently and not followed uniformly. A mixed methods approach is therefore crucial to not only establish but also qualify the value of complexity theory in political science. The divide between quantitative and qualitative research in the social sciences has been compared to a religious or cultural divide that often undermines serious collaboration (Mahoney and Goertz, 2006: 227). It remains to be seen if the
decision itself to collaborate negates much of this divide and if both sides can combine methods while remaining reflective about possible differences in philosophical assumptions.

Conditionality is a voting issue --- skews 2ac time and strategywe withhold our best offense, cannot cross apply, only time to set up offense --- education--- multiple condo options is less rigorous on the final question of the debatebreadth is inevitable over the year --- argument skillscondo encourages arg irresponsibility that kills advocacy skills --- 2nr critical thinking most important and real world --- c/i The 1AC is scenario planning, it explores causal chains to make choices uncertainty isnt unknowability and imperfect knowledge can be good

Han 10 (Dong-ho Han, Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, January 26, 2010,
Scenario Construction and Implications for IR Research: Connecting Theory to a Real World of Policy Making, online: http://www.allacademic.com/one/isa/isa10/index.phpcmd=Download+Document&key=unpublished_manuscript&file_in dex=1&pop_up=true&no_click_key=true&attachment_style=attachment&PHPSESSID=3e890fb5925 7a0ca9bad2e2327d8a24f)

How do we assess future possibilities with existing data and information? Do we have a systematic approach to analyze the future events of world politics? If the problem of uncertainty in future world politics is increasing and future international relations are hard to predict, then it is necessary to devise a useful tool to effectively deal with upcoming events so that policy makers can reduce the risks of future uncertainties. In this paper, I argue that the scenario methodology is one of the most effective methods to connect theory to practice, thereby leading to a better understanding of future world events. The purpose of this paper is to
introduce the scenario methodology to the field of IR in a more acceptable fashion and to explore its implications for a real policy world. To achieve this goal, I will explain the scenario methodology and why it is adequate to provide a better understanding of future world events. More specifically, I will clarify what the scenario method is and what its core components are and explain the importance and implications of the scenario method in IR by analyzing existing IR literature with an emphasis on security studies that primarily provide the prospect of future security issues. 1. Introduction How do we assess future possibilities with existing data and information? Do we have a systematic approach to analyze the future events of world politics? Given various theoretical ideas for predicting and analyzing future events in the field of international relations (IR), to understand these events properly it is important

both to cast out all plausible outcomes and to think through a relevant theory, or a combination of each major theory, in connection with those outcomes. This paper aims to explain the scenario methodology and why it is adequate to provide a better understanding of future world events. After clarifying the scenario methodology, its core components, and its processes and purposes, I will explore other fields use of this methodology. Then I will explain the importance and implications of the scenario method in the field of IR. I will conclude with summarizing the advantage of the scenario method in a real world of policy making. 2. What is the Scenario Methodology? This section begins with one major question what is the scenario methodology? To answer this, some history regarding the development of this method should be mentioned.1 Herman Kahn, a pioneer of the scenario method, in his famous 1962 book Thinking about the Unthinkable, argued that the decision

makers in the United States should think of and prepare for all possible sequences of events with regard to nuclear war with the Soviet Union.2 Using
scenarios and connecting them with various war games, Kahn showed the importance of thinking ahead in time and using the scenario method based upon imagination for the future.3 According to Kahn and his colleagues, scenarios

are attempts to describe

in some detail a hypothetical sequence of events that could lead plausibly to the situation envisaged.4 Similarly, Peter Schwartz defines scenarios as stories about the way the world might turn out tomorrow, stories that can help us recognize and adapt to changing aspects of our present environment.5 Given a variety of definitions of scenarios,6 for the purpose of this research, I refer to the scenario-building methodology as a means by which people

can articulate different futures with trends, uncertainties, and rules over a certain amount of time. Showing all plausible future stories and
clarifying important trends, scenario thinking enables decision makers to make an important decision at the present time. Key Terms in

core of the scenario method lies in enabling policy makers to reach a critical decision at the present time based on thinking about all plausible future possibilities. Key
the Scenario Methodology The concepts in the scenario method include: driving forces, predetermined elements, critical uncertainties, wild cards and scenario plot lines.7 Driving forces are defined as the causal elements that surround a problem, event or decision, which could be many factors, including those that can be the basis, in different combinations, for diverse chains of connections and outcomes.8 Schwartz defines driving forces as the elements that move the plot of a scenario, that determine the storys outcome.9 In a word, driving forces constitute the basic structure of each scenario plot line in the scenario-making process. Predetermined elements refer to events that have already occurred or that almost certainly will occur but whose consequences have not yet unfolded.10 Predetermined elem ents are givens which could be safely assumed and understood in the scenario-building process. Although predetermined elements impact outcomes, they do not have a direct causal impact on a given outcome. Critical uncertainties describe important determinants of events whose character, magnitude or consequences are unknown.11 Exploring critical uncertainties lies at the heart of scenario construction in the sense that the most important task of scenario anaysts is to discover the elements that are most uncertain and most important to a specific decision or event.12 Wild cards are conceivable, if low probability, events or actions that might undermine or modify radically the chains of logic or narrative plot lines.13 In John Petersons terms, wild cards are not simple trends, nor are they byproducts of anything else. They are events on their own. They are characterized by their scope, and a speed of change that challenges the outermost capabilities of todays human capabilities.14 Wild cards might be extremely important in that in the process of scenario planning their emergence could change the entire direction of each scenario plot line. A scenario plot line is a compelling story about how things happen and it describes how driving forces might plausibly behave as they interact with predetermined elements and different combinations of critical uncertainties.15 Narratives and/or stories are an essential part of the scenario method due to the identical structure of analytical narratives and scenarios: both are sequential descriptions of a situation with the passage of time and explain the process of events from the base situation into the situation questioned.16 Process and Purpose of Scenario Analysis Scenario

analysis begins with the exploration of driving forces including some more than just organizing future uncertainties; rather, it is a thorough understanding of uncertainties, thereby distinguishing between something clear and unclear in the process of decision making.17 As Pierre Wack has pointed out, By carefully studying some uncertainties , we gained a deeper understanding of their interplay, which, paradoxically, led us to learn what was certain and inevitable and what was not. In other words, a careful investigation of raw uncertainties helps people
uncertainties. However, scenario building is figure out more critical uncertainties by showing that what may appear in some cases to be uncertain might actually be predetermined that many outcomes were simply not possible.18 Exploring future uncertainties thoroughly is one of the most important factors in scenario analysis. Kees van der Heijden argues that in

the process of separating knowns from unknowns analysts could clarify driving forces because the process of separation between predetermineds and uncertainties demands a fair amount of knowledge of causal relationships surrounding the issue at stake.19 Thus, in scenario analysis a thorough understanding of critical uncertainties leads to a wellestablished knowledge of driving forces and causal relations.20 Robert Lempert succinctly summarized the scenario-construction process as follows: scenario practice begins with the challenge facing the decisionmakers, ranks the most significant driving forces according to their level of uncertainty and their impact on trends seemingly relevant to that decision, and then creates a handful of scenarios that explore different manifestations of those driving forces.21

Scenario planning solves predictive failure

Han 10 Dong-ho Han, Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, January 26, 2010,
Scenario Construction and Implications for IR Research: Connecting Theory to a Real World of Policy Making, online:

http://www.allacademic.com/one/isa/isa10/index.php?cmd=Download+Document&key=unpublished_manuscript&file_index=1& pop_up=true&no_click_key=true&attachment_ style=attachment&PHPSESSID=3e890fb59257a0ca9bad2e2327d8a24f)

building of scenarios in analyzing world events could solve the difficulty of the matter of prediction in social science research . Predicting the future is not an easy task. In the field of IR, researchers making predictions tend to focus on their parsimonious assumptions and arguments drawn from a specific school of thought in which they are engaged. They present the rigor of their theoretical explanations by refuting other theoretical perspectives and make a prediction based on the victory of their theories over other approaches. The problem, however, is that making a prediction based on established theories and approaches can easily be disrupted as unexpected contingencies like wild cards occur.83 In other words, in a real world of politics too many uncertain factors are engaged and thus politics can be understood as a non-linear process toward unpredictable outcomes.84 There are many real cases of the difficulty of prediction in social science. The failure to predict the
In addition to providing the eclectic foundation for using multiple theoretical lenses in the field, the end of the Cold War is one of them.85 During the Cold War era, many scholars explored the causes of U.S.-Soviet confrontation and predicted that the Cold War would last quite a long time.86 Other scholars arguments for a quicker end to the Cold W ar were simply dismissed along with such upcoming events as the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Despite the difficulty of prediction in world politics some factors are relatively clear and easy to figure out, regardless of ones theoretical background. For instance, it is hard to deny that U.S. power and influence is one of the critical factors in understanding the present world. In this sense, Robert Jervis
is right when he argues that Since the United States is the most influential power in the world, to predict the future of world politics requires us to predict the future of American foreign policy.87 When it comes to the study of a specific region in world pol itics, though, things are more complicated. While understanding important variables such as U.S. foreign policy helps us to analyze more accurately the future course of international politics in general, in order to predict the future dynamics of regional politics in particular something more is needed.88 Given the complexity of regional issues making a prediction is still not an easy task. Given this backdrop some scholars argue that prediction in the social sciences could be possible if we had some critical information regarding specific issues.89 Among others, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita makes

his case for the possibility of prediction, arguing that if we know some information concerning identified policy makers with some stakes, their policy preferences (i.e. what they say they want), how salient the issue at stake is among these actors, and how influential these policy makers are in terms of changing and shaping the outcomes, then we can predict upcoming policy decisions and thus overall political outcomes based upon these influential policy makers strategic interactions with one another.90 Bueno de Mesquitas prediction comes from the logic of how decision makers make various policy decisions in a game-theoretic term, with the support
of a computer-based simulate model. In other words, by using mathematical techniques such as computer simulation models in predicting the future Bueno de Mesquitas argument is mostly dependent on rational choice theory which assumes self-interested people and dictates their strategic interactions.91 Even if Bueno de Mesquitas efforts could partially work and tend to be successful in predicting some emerging properties, it cannot be denied that various predictive efforts are limited and for the most part even impossible when dealing with surprising events and unexpected contingencies.92 Moreover, these predictions may sometimes be just estimates which are hard to project for the long term.93 The

scenario method seems to be a good fit particularly in this regard; that is, in order to cope effectively with upcoming surprises and uncertainties it is essential to rehearse as many future possibilities as one can and scenario thinking facilitates this reasoning process. Despite sharing some similarities with other predicting tools
such as a computer simulation model, the scenario method is fundamentally different from these methods. As one advocate for scenario analysis points out, scenarios are more than just the output of a complex simulation model. Instead they attempt to interpret such output by identifying patterns and clusters of the millions of possible outcomes a computer simulation might generateHence, scenarios go beyond objective analyses to include subjective interpretations.94

<<<Ontology/epistemology>>> Debate solves even if not all predictions are correct debates that predict and weigh outcomes improve accuracy

Tetlock and Gardner, 11 (Philip Tetlock is a professor of organizational behavior at the Haas Business

School at the University of California-Berkeley, AND Dan Gardner is a columnist and senior writer for the Ottawa Citizen and the

author of The Science of Fear, received numerous awards for his writing, including the Michener Award, M.A. History from York, "OVERCOMING OUR AVERSION TO ACKNOWLEDGING OUR IGNORANCE" July 11 www.cato-unbound.org/2011/07/11/dangardner-and-philip-tetlock/overcoming-our-aversion-to-acknowledging-our-ignorance/)

The optimists are right that there is much we can do at a cost that is quite modest relative to what is often at stake. For example, why not build on the IARPA tournament? Imagine a system for recording and judging forecasts. Imagine running tallies of forecasters accuracy rates. Imagine advocates on either side of a policy debate specifying in advance precisely what outcomes their desired approach is expected to produce, the evidence that will settle whether it has done so, and the conditions under which participants would agree to say I was wrong. Imagine pundits being held to account. Of course arbitration
only works if the arbiter is universally respected and it would be an enormous challenge to create an analytical center whose judgments were not only fair, but perceived to be fair even by partisans dead sure they are right and the other guys are wrong.

But think of the potential of such a system to improve the signal-to-noise ratio, to sharpen public debate, to shift attention from blowhards to experts worthy of an audience, and to improve public policy. At a minimum, it would highlight how often our forecasts and expectations fail, and if that were to
deflate the bloated confidence of experts and leaders, and give pause to those preparing some great leap forward, it would be money well spent. But the pessimists are right, too, that fallibility, error, and tragedy are permanent

conditions of our existence. Humility is in order, or, as Socrates said, the beginning of wisdom is the admission of
such slide, unfortunately.

ignorance. The Socratic message has always been a hard sell, and it still isespecially among practical people in business and politics, who expect every presentation to end with a single slide consisting of five bullet points labeled The Solution. We have no

But in defense of Socrates, humility is the foundation of the fox style of thinking and much research suggests it is an essential component of good judgment in our uncertain world. It is practical. Over the long term, it yields better calibrated probability judgments, which should help you affix more realistic odds than your competitors on policy bets panning out. Perm do both Even imperfect predictions are better than the alternative

Ulfelder, 11 (Jay Ulfelder is Research Director for the Political Instability Task Force, Science Applications International
Corporation "Why Political Instability Forecasts Are Less Precise Than Wed Like (and Why Its Still Worth Doing)" May 5 dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/why-political-instability-forecasts-are-less-precise-than-wed-like-and-why-itsstill-worth-doing/)

If this is the best we can do, then whats the point? Well, consider the alternatives. For starters, we might decide to skip statistical forecasting altogether and just target our interventions at
reliable guide than our statistical forecasts, so this solution only exacerbates our problem. Alternatively,

cases identified by expert judgment as likely onsets. Unfortunately, those expert judgments are probably going to be an even less

we could take no preventive action and just respond to events as they occur. If the net costs of responding

to crises as they happen are roughly equivalent to the net costs of prevention, then this is a reasonable choice. Maybe responding to crises isnt really all that costly; maybe preventive action isnt effective; or maybe preventive action is potentially effective but also extremely expensive. Under these circumstances, early warning is not going to be as useful as we forecasters would like. If,

however, any of those last statements are falseif responding to crises already underway is very costly, or if preventive action is (relatively) cheap and sometimes effectivethen we have an incentive to use forecasts to help guide that action, in spite of the lingering uncertainty about exactly where and when those crises will occur. Even in situations where preventive action isnt feasible or desirable, reasonably accurate forecasts can still be useful if they spur interested observers to plan for contingencies they otherwise might not have considered. For example, policy-makers in one country might be rooting for a dictatorship in another country to fall but still fail to plan for that event because they dont expect it to happen any time soon. A forecasting model which identifies that dictatorship as being at high or increasing risk of collapse might encourage those policy-makers to reconsider their expectations and, in so doing, lead them to prepare better for that event. Where does that leave us? For me, the bottom line is this: even though forecasts of political instability are never going to be as precise as wed like, they can still be

accurate enough to be helpful , as long as the events they predict are ones for which prevention or preparation stand a decent chance of making a (positive) difference. No impact Social science, empirics and objectivity makes policy predictions relatively accurate
Adequate Basis for Policy-Relevant IR Theory, 15:1, Sage) For these and other reasons, many social theorists and

Chernoff 9 (Fred, Prof. IR and Dir. IR Colgate U., European Journal of International Relations, Conventionalism as an
social scientists have come to the conclusion that prediction is impossible. Well-known IR reflexivists like Rick Ashley, Robert Cox, Rob Walker and Alex Wendt
have attacked naturalism by emphasizing the interpretive nature of social theory. Ashley is explicit in his critique of prediction, as is Cox, who says quite simply, It is impossible to predict the future (Ashley, 1986: 283; Cox, 1987: 139, cf. also 1987: 393). More recently, Heikki Patomki has argued that qualitative changes and emergence are possible, but predictions are not defective and that the latter two presuppose an unjustifiably narrow notion of prediction.14 A determined prediction

sceptic may continue to hold that there is too great a degree of complexity of social relationships (which comprise open systems) to allow any prediction whatsoever. Two very simple examples may circumscribe and help to refute a radical variety of scepticism. First, we all make reliable social predictions and do so with great frequency. We can predict with high probability that a spouse, child or parent will react to certain well-known stimuli that we might supply, based on extensive past experience. More to the point of IR prediction scepticism, we can imagine a young child in the UK who (perhaps at the cinema) (1) picks up a bit of 19th-century British imperial lore thus gaining a sense of the power of the crown, without knowing anything of current balances of power, (2) hears some stories about the US UK invasion of Iraq in the context of the aim of advancing democracy, and (3) hears a bit about communist China and democratic Taiwan. Although the specific term preventative strike might not enter into her lexicon, it is possible to imagine the child, whose knowledge is thus limited, thinking that if democratic Taiwan were threatened by China, the UK would (possibly or probably) launch a strike on China to protect it, much as the UK had done to help democracy in Iraq. In contrast to the child, readers of this journal and scholars who study the world more thoroughly have factual information (e.g. about the relative military and economic capabilities of the UK and China) and hold some cause-and-effect principles (such as that states do not usually initiate actions that
leaders understand will have an extremely high probability of undercutting their power with almost no chances of success). Anyone who has adequate knowledge of world politics would predict that the UK will not launch a preventive attack against China. In the real world, China knows that for the next decade and well beyond the UK will not

intervene militarily in its affairs. While Chinese leaders have to plan for many likely and even a few somewhat

unlikely future possibilities, they do not have to plan for various implausible contingencies: they do not have to structure forces geared to defend against specifically UK forces and do not have to conduct diplomacy with the UK in a way that would be required if such an attack were a real possibility. Any rational decision-maker in China may

use some cause-and-effect (probabilistic) principles along with knowledge of specific facts relating to the Sino-British relationship to predict (P2) that the UK will not land its forces on Chinese territory even in the event of a war over Taiwan (that is, the probability is very close to zero). The statement P2
qualifies as a prediction based on DEF above and counts as knowledge for Chinese political and military decision-makers. A Chinese diplomat or military planner who would deny that theory-based prediction would have no basis to rule out extremely implausible predictions like P2 and would thus have to prepare for such unlikely contingencies as UK action against China. A reflexivist theorist

sceptical of prediction in IR might argue that the China example distorts the notion by using a trivial prediction and treating it as a meaningful one. But the critics temptation to dismiss its value stems precisely from the fact that it is so obviously true. The value to China of knowing that the UK is not a military threat is significant. The fact that, under
current conditions, any plausible cause-and-effect understanding of IR that one might adopt would yield P2, that the UK will not attack China, does not diminish the value to China of knowing the UK does not pose a military threat. A critic might also argue that DEF and the China example allow non-scientific claims to count as predictions. But we note that while

physics and chemistry offer precise point predictions , other natural sciences, such as seismology, genetics or meteorology, produce predictions that are often much less specific ; that is, they describe
the predicted events in broader time frame and typically in probabilistic terms. We often find predictions about the probabil ity, for example, of a seismic event in the form some time in the next three years rather than two years from next Monday at 11 :17

am. DEF includes approximate and probabilistic propositions as predictions and is thus able to catagorize as a prediction th e former sort of statement, which is of a type that is often of great value to policy-makers. With the help of these non-

point predictions coming from the natural and the social sciences, leaders are able to choose the courses of action (e.g. more stringent earthquake-safety building codes, or procuring an additional carrier battle group) that are most likely to accomplish the leaders desired ends. So while point predictions are not what political leaders require in most decision-making situations, critics of IR predictiveness often attack the predictive capacity of IR theory for its inability to deliver them. The critics thus commit the straw man fallacy by requiring a sort of prediction in IR (1) that few, if any, theorists claim to be able to offer, (2) that are not required by policy-makers for theory-based predictions to be valuable, and (3) that are not possible even in some natural sciences.15 The
range of theorists included in reflexivists here is very wide and it is possible to dissent from some of the general descri ptions. From the point of view of the central argument of this article, there are two important features that should be rendered accurately. One is that reflexivists reject explanationprediction symmetry, which allows them to pursue causal (or constitutive) explanation without any commitment to prediction. The second is that almost all share clear opposition to predictive social science.16 The reflexivist commitment to both of these conclusions should be evident from the foregoing discussion.

Even if the neg wins if you win that we cant prove that the world is objectively structured in the way that our advantages depict, it doesn't make them untrue we can still make reliable and predictable observations about the world, and act on them Miller in 02 (Katherine Miller, Prof. of Communication at Texas A&M, Communication theories: Perspectives, processes, and contexts, 2002, p 35-36)

If positivism, in its classical and logical forms, is largely rejected, what philosophical foundation should take its place as a framework for social research? Very different answers to this question have been proposed. Some social researchers argue that flaws in the positivist foundation require a radically different philosophy of sci- encee, one in which the realist ontology, objec- ive epistemology, and value-free axiology of positivism are vehemently rejected and replaced with forms of inquiry that honor nominalism, subjectivism, and omnipresent values. The posi- tions of these scholars are discussed in great detail in Chapters 4 and 5 as we consider interpretive and critical petspectives on communication theory. However, some scholars believe that a rejection of

positivism does not require a total rejection of realism, objectivity, and the scientific goal of value-free inquiry. However, these scholars reject the notion of absolute truth, reject the unassailable foundation of observation, and reject the assumption of an always steady and upward accumulation of knowledge. In these rejections, scholars have forged a new philosophy of science that D. C. Phillips (1987, 1990, 1992) has called post-positivism. The metatheoretical tenets of this position are discussed in the next section.

Metatheoretical Commitments Ontology In Chapter 2, we discussed three ontological positions: the realist, the nominalist, and the social constructionist. To summarize, a realist believes in a hard and solid reality of physical and social objects, a nominalist proposes that the reality of social entities exists only in the names and labels we provide for them, and a social constructionist emphasizes the ways in which social meanings are created through historical and contemporary interaction. Both the realist

and the social constructionist positions make contributions to the ontology of post-positivist researchers in the communication discipline. Researchers in the post-positivist tradition can be seen as realists in that they support the position that phenomena exist independent of our perceptions and theories about them (Phillips, 1987). However, this realism is tempered by the argument that humans cannot fully apprehend that reality and that the driving mechanisms in the social and physical world cannot be fully understood. As J. D. Smith (1990, p. 171) states, "Realism is essential . . . because it
poses 'at least in principle, a standard by which all human societies and their beliefs can be judged: they can all have beliefs about the world which turn out to be mistaken'" (Trigg, 1985, p. 22). Phillips argues, however, that a post-positivist ontology

does not deny the notions inherent in approaches advocating a "social construction of reality" (Berger & Luckmann, 1967). Rather, Phillips (1990) draws the distinction between beliefs about the reality and the objective reality (pp. 42-43). Making this distinction allows a post-positivist scholar to appreciate (and investigate) multiple realities that are constructed by social collectives through communicative inter-action. For example, a post-positivist scholar could study the ways that beliefs about the imminent
end of the world influence the behaviors of mountain survivalists, members of cults, and fundamental religious groups. However,

the fact that a social group has arrived at certain beliefs about the world does not make those beliefs about the social or physical world necessarily true. As Phillips (1990) notes, "It is clear that Freudians believe in the reality of the id and superego and the rest, and they act as if these are

realities; but their believing in these things does not make them real" (p. 43). It could be further argued that post-positivism is consistent with social constructionist views in two important ways. First, many post-positivists would argue that the process of social construction occurs in relatively patterned ways that are amenable to the type of social scientific investigation undertaken by post-positivists. Individuals have free will and creativity but they exercise that creativity in ways that are often (though not always, certainly) patterned and predictable. In the field of mass communication, Barbara Wilson (1994) argues convincingly for this point
regarding her own study of children's responses to the mass media: I believe that children's interpretations and responses are as richly individualistic as snow-flakes. However, I also believe that there are common patterns that characterize a majority of young viewers and that those patterns are as predictable and explainable as the basic process by which all those unique snowflakes are formed from water, (p. 25) Second, many post-positivists would argue that social constructions are

regularly reified and treated as objective by actors in the social world. Thus, it is reasonable to study the impact of these reified constructions on our communicative lives. Tompkins (1997) has made this
argument with regard to his organizational communication research with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): The engineers, scientists, managers, bureau-crats, and other kinds of members did not believe in a socially

constructed world. They believed the rockets they made did in fact go to the moon. Moreover, they believed that NASA and the contractor firms who worked for them were real. They believed that these organizations could succeed or fail by objective criteria and that their bosses could hire or fire, reward or penalize individuals actions with real consequences, (p. 369) Thus, a social constructionist ontology is consistent with a post-positivist position that emphasizes both the patterned nature of the social construction process and the regular and predictable effects that reified social constructions have on social actors. Thus, the ontology of post-positivism is not necessarily the belief in a hard, immutable, and unchanging social world implied in a strict realist stance. Rather, a post-positivist ontology entails a belief in regularity and pattern in our interactions with others. The ways in which these regularities and patterns are
studied within post-positivist theory are considered in the next section.

Perm double bind either the alt can overcome the link to the plan or it cant overwhelm the status quo