Who is this man and why is he looking at me with those steely blue eyes?

Worst Case discussion at the 3nr.

There's a good discussion going on over at the 3NR over how best to answer "predictions good" claims on the Negative. Scotty says that the "predictions fail" arguments negative's usually read, like the monkey's throwing darts cards, aren't good enough because they aren't offensive. For me, the predictions fail cards don't HAVE to be offensive if they succeed in delegitimizing the methodology upon which the Affirmative rests, but I guess that's why I'm just a stock issues judge in disguise. I happen to think its the affirmative's burden to prove that their predictions of an impending harm as well as their predictions of the beneficial "solvent" effects of the plan are actually likely on the basis of some sort of data/scientific/social scientific grounds. That ain't K-centric, its just taking policy debate into the realm of the logical. In any case, Scotty's advice is good nonetheless. Having an OFFENSIVE argument against worst case scenarios would be a boon to debaters questioning the Aff's predictions. Check out the post and the discussion below it. Here is a bit of the card, written by the man in the picture above this post, that Scotty cites as moving in the right direction:

Frank Furedi, a sociology professor at the University of Kent, writes: "Worst-case thinking encourages society to adopt fear as one of the dominant principles around which the public, the government and institutions should organize their life. It institutionalizes insecurity and fosters a mood of confusion and powerlessness. Through popularizing the belief that worst cases are normal, it incites people to feel defenseless and vulnerable to a wide range of future threats."

Even worse, it plays directly into the hands of terrorists, creating a population that is easily terrorized -- even by failed terrorist attacks like the Christmas Day underwear bomber and the Times Square SUV bomber.

When someone is proposing a change, the onus should be on them to justify it over the status quo. But worst-case thinking is a way of looking at the world that exaggerates the rare and unusual and gives the rare much more credence than it deserves.