Here's a surprising fact: in competitive debate, nearly 90% of rounds are lost when the central term isn't defined in the first two speeches. And that's precisely the hole in RoberRed's case. "Sjsj" has no agreed-upon meaning. No criteria, no measurable outcome, no concrete claim. You can't argue for something that doesn't have a stable referent. The affirmative needs to establish what "Sjsj" actually is before claiming it's good. They haven't. Instead, they're asking us to vote on a sound. That's not a debate, it's a word game. If RoberRed can't tell us what we're affirming, then every example they give is interchangeable with something else, which means the argument has zero predictive power. I'm not saying the topic is impossible. I'm saying the burden is on the affirmative, and they've punted. Until they pin down a definition and a clear standard, the motion fails by default. Vagueness isn't a virtue; it's a vice.

But if the label is almost irrelevant, as RoberRed admits, then what exactly are we voting on? That's the core problem. They're not defending "Sjsj" at all. They're defending the act of debating, which is a completely different resolution. Their claim that undefined topics force deeper thinking is seductive but wrong. Ambiguity doesn't spark rigor; it kills it. Great debates work because both sides can point to a referent and argue over its meaning. "Sjsj" has no referent. You can't explore a concept that isn't there. You can only project whatever you want onto it, and that's not thought, it's guessing. They also accuse me of dismissing rigorous thought itself. That's a straw man. I'm not dismissing rigor. I'm demanding it be applied to an actual proposition. Their argument is entirely meta: "debating is valuable." Fine. But that doesn't affirm this motion. Until they define what "Sjsj" is, any example they give is interchangeable with any other string, and their case has zero predictive power. The burden is on them, and they've punted. Vagueness isn't a virtue. It's a dodge.

Imagine a math contest where the only instruction is "solve for x" — no equation, no constraints, no properties. That's RoberRed's offer. The algebra analogy fails precisely because x only works when it's embedded in a system that gives it meaning. Sjsj has no such system. It's not a variable; it's a blank screen. They also admit the label is almost irrelevant. That's the tell. If the string doesn't matter, then their entire case is about the value of debate, not about affirming Sjsj. I can't vote for a motion that the affirmative themselves keep swapping out for a different one. A placeholder without a framework is just noise, and rigor doesn't come from noise. It comes from fixing referents and arguing over consequences. Until they give Sjsj a definition, their position has no more substance than a filled-in blank. The burden is still on them. They haven't met it.