Verdict+Hyun

Verdict • concise 250-300 words (word count excludes quoted material) • states clearly why Position 1 or Position 2 ‘won’ the trial • use at least one piece of textual support that was key to the winning argument

Was the following statement PROVED OR DISPROVED in the trial? “The world and everything in it is unplanned accident, existence is meaningless; the past is irrelevant; nothing matters.”

As a verdict, I believe that the position two, arguing against the statement: "The world and everything in it is unplanned accident, existence is meaningless; the past is irrelevant; nothing matters," won the trial. To begin with, the arguments of the position one were limited because of the extremity of the position. It was visible in some characters that they did not really believe what they were saying. Apart from the obvious, it seemed as if most of the points made by position one were addressed and opposed effectively by the position two. It was also visible in some characters that they were unprepared and had different ideas than did their lawyers/duplicates. The position one lawyers were effective in getting the full opinions out of their characters. One of the places where position one's arguments were weakened greatly was when one of the characters stated that the world is meaningless, so one should start enjoying it. This was broken down due to its lack of logic and evidence. Another point was when position one stated that the god's point of view of things should be used to determine how we live. Although position two already gave an opposing speech about it that broke the statement down, position one did not really reply and therefore kept restating the same broken-down statement. Although position one had good arguments out of an extreme topic, they were not active in breaking down position two's arguments. However, the lawyers of position one showed excellence in preparation and organization. But again, because they did not show active response to the opposition, the proposition was not successful in convincing the verdict of their side of the trial (Which is ironic, to try so hard to "convince" someone in a "meaningless" world). I applaud both sides for the hard work.