BHS

Baudrillard/Absurdism/Batallie
FILE
Vocab
Heuristic a way to solve a problem.
Noumenon a thing that exists that cannot be sensed, for example, socks disappear
in the
Puzzle Box: A framing argument that says policy debate is bad
Jang Kritik: Oh boy here we go

Biosphere argument: Your evidence locks nature as numbers on a piece of evidence,

nature isnt something we can control, hurricanes and diseases will always prevail,
and their understanding of nature is it as a subject that must be held rights,
obviously nature is
Nuke war: The existence of nuclear weapons are viewed as a deterrent

1NC Of

Puzzle Box
The following are gateway issues, the af must answer these
first before they can prove the af solves
The affirmative assumes false phenomenologies of the
universe to justify their actionsthis reductionist view ignores
noumenatic qualities and wrongly localizes the world to static
predictabilities.
Baltzer-Jaray 13. (Kimberly Baltzer-Jaray, JOURNAL OF CAMUS STUDIES 2013.
ABSURDISM: THE SECOND TRUTH OF PHILOSOPHY. MMG)
One of the most significant and controversial notions Kant introduced is the
distinction between phenomena and noumena: the conception of a gap between
how something appears to a person and how it is in-itself , or to put it another way, how the
mind assembles the cognition of an object from the sense data provided could differ
from how the object actually is in the world.16 For example, Kant thought that objects must be
perceived in space and time, and that space and time are fundamental for experience. Hence, space and time
are not only psychologically prior, but also logically prior to experience. According to
Kant, humans have pure forms of space and time hardwired in their minds, in the
Faculty of Sensibility, and so all sensory stimuli are processed through them . What this
means, in the simplest of terms, is that when experience begins, the first intuitions consist of
(1) there are things outside of myself (a primal distinction between me and not me; my feeling of
embodiment against the world), and (2) that I can feel my conscious mind process data
sequentially (I feel my mind being aware in a series of time rather than as some chaotic mass). The extension
of this notion is that Kant recognized that objects themselves do not necessarily exist in space and in time the

He also acknowledges that it is highly possible that

things in the world exist in dimensions we cannot perceive, have colors our eyes
cannot distinguish, are made of textures our touch cannot sense, and have tastes
for which we have no receptors. Kants point is that we have to accept that our
experience of the world is limited to the capacities we have. We have to admit that
objects may have more intrinsic features than we can perceive and these are
aspects we simply cannot know. For Kant, the noumena will never be seen or
understood, no matter the amount of training in philosophy you have or how hard
you analyze all the phenomena of a thing. Its simply an issue of cognitive and biological limitations.
This is the limit of human knowledge. Kants noumena , I would argue, is the first
true recognition of the absurd (in philosophy). The beauty of this distinction is that it is
largely epistemological in nature; it speaks to what we can know using the faculties
we possess, and where the limits of our knowledge are. However, it does have
ontological consequences in that objects themselves retain the possibility of having
qualities we cannot sense or know; the world can have its mysteries and chaos, and
thats fine. Because of the way we are biologically and psychologically constructed and have evolved , we
cannot or may not ever be able to know everything about the world around us. Not
every question has an answer; not every mystery can be solved. Unlike Locke and Berkeley, Kant
identical way we perceive them, or at all.

doesnt rely on substance or God to address the absurd, nor does he become the skeptic and deny much of our
knowledge like Hume. The

absurd for him is a fact of life; see it, understand it, live with it,

and move on. Noumena, like Camuss notion of the absurd, are silent, indifferent,
impenetrable aspects of the universe that defeat every attempt we make to
understand them. They may be the underlying sources of phenomena, but that doesnt imply they are
knowable, predictable, or logical.

The 1ACs form of scenario building is not objectively true it

is media staging hack fraud, we compile a Frankenstein of
evidence to escape the body and satisfy the bored eye
Kroker 02 [Arthur, March 20, editor of Ctheory.net We Look for Images]

A story of body invasion? Not really. Contemporary society is no longer the culture
of the disembodied eye. Today, we play out the drama of our private existence
along and within the iris of the image-machine that we once dismissed as somehow
external to human ambitions. Our fate, our most singular fate, is to experience the
fatal destiny of the image as both goal and precondition of human culture. As goal,
the power of the image inheres in the fact that contemporary culture is driven
forward by the will to image as its most pervasive form of nihilism. As precondition,
we are possessed individuals because we are fully possessed by the enigmatic
dreams of impossible images. That we are possessed by the power of the image
with such finality has the curious repercussion of driving the image-machine mad.
The matrix of image-creation as its evolves from analog to digital and now to the
biogenetic struggles to keep pace with the capricious tastes and fast-bored
appetites of human flesh as an image-machine. It is the age of the bored eye: the
eye which flits from situation to situation, from scene to scene, from image to
image, from ad to ad, with a restlessness and high-pitched consumptive appetite
that can never really ever be fully satisfied. The bored eye is a natural nihilist. It
knows only the pleasure of the boredom of creation as well as the boredom of
abandonment. It never remains still. It is in perpetual motion. It demands novelty. It
loves junk images. It turns recombinant when fed straight narratives. It has ocular
appetites that demand satisfaction. But it can never be fully sated because the
bored eye is the empty eye. That is its secret passion, and the source of its endless
seduction. The bored eye is the real power of the image. It takes full possession of
the housing of the body. It is the nerve center of flesh made image. It is the
connective tissue between the planetary ocular strategies of the image-matrix and
the solitude of the human body. The bored eye is bored with its (bodily) self. That is
why it is always dissatisfied. It needs to blast out of the solitude of its birth-place in
the human cranium in order to ride the electronic currents of the global eye. No
longer satisfied with simply observing the power of the image, the bored eye now
demands to be the power of the image. Which is why, of course, the archival history
of twentieth-century photography can now be safely interned. At dusk, the eye of
the image takes flight in the restless form of the bored eye forever revolving and
twisting and circulating in an image-matrix of which it is both the petulant consumer
and unsatisfied author. Ironically, the bored eye has itself now become both
precondition and goal for the despotic image. Which is why images can now be so
powerful precisely because they are caught in a fatal miasma of powerlessness
before the ocular deficit disorder of the bored eye. The despotic image may demand
attention as its precondition for existence, but the bored eye is seductive because
of its refusal to provide any sign of lasting interest. A love affair turned sour. With

this predictable result-the increasing ressentiment of the digital image : "Analog is

having a burial and digital is dancing on its grave."

For example how can we even trust the basis of the truth
claims of the 1AC, what is the threshold? How can we find the
thresholds of the internal links if motion itself is a paradox?
Your decision making can never be objectively true
Zeno of Elea, 450 BC, Zeno's arguments are perhaps the first examples of a
method of proof called reductio ad absurdum also known as proof by contradiction.
They are also credited as a source of the dialectic method used by Socrates.
In the arrow paradox (also known as the fletcher's paradox), Zeno states that for
motion to occur, an object must change the position which it occupies. He gives an
example of an arrow in flight. He states that in any one (durationless) instant of
time, the arrow is neither moving to where it is, nor to where it is not .[13] It cannot
move to where it is not, because no time elapses for it to move there; it cannot
move to where it is, because it is already there. In other words, at every instant of
time there is no motion occurring. If everything is motionless at every instant, and
time is entirely composed of instants, then motion is impossible. Whereas the first
two paradoxes divide space, this paradox starts by dividing timeand not into
segments, but into points

And Fiat double bind Either the harms to the 1AC are true
and they cannot solve for extinction because they are stuck in
the debate room OR their harms are constructed for the
purpose of alarmism either way you vote neg
Antonio 1995 [Robert; Professor of Sociology at the University of Kansas;
Nietzsches Antisociology: Subjectified Culture and the End of History;
American Journal of Sociology; Volume 101, No. 1; July 1995]
While modern theorists saw differentiated roles and professions as a matrix
of autonomy and reflexivity, Nietzsche held that persons (especially male
professionals) in specialized occupations overidentify with their positions and
engage in gross fabrications to obtain advancement. They look hesitantly to
the opinion of others, asking themselves, "How ought I feel about this?" They
are so thoroughly absorbed in simulating effective role players that they
have trouble being anything but actors-"The role has actually become the
character." This highly subjectified social self or simulator suffers devastating
inauthenticity. The powerful authority given the social greatly amplifies
Socratic culture's already self-indulgent "inwardness." Integrity, decisiveness,
spontaneity, and pleasure are undone by paralyzing overconcern about
possible causes, meanings, and consequences of acts and unending internal
dialogue about what others might think, expect, say, or do (Nietzsche 1983,

pp. 83-86; 1986, pp. 39-40; 1974, pp. 302-4, 316-17). Nervous rotation of
socially appropriate "masks" reduces persons to hypostatized "shadows,"
"abstracts," or simulacra. One adopts "many roles," playing them "badly and
superficially" in the fashion of a stiff "puppet play." Nietzsche asked, "Are you
genuine? Or only an actor? A representative or that which is represented? . . .
[Or] no more than an imitation of an actor?" Simulation is so pervasive that it
is hard to tell the copy from the genuine article; social selves "prefer the
copies to the originals" (Nietzsche 1983, pp. 84-86; 1986, p. 136; 1974, pp.
232- 33, 259; 1969b, pp. 268, 300, 302; 1968a, pp. 26-27). Their inwardness
and aleatory scripts foreclose genuine attachment to others. This type of
actor cannot plan for the long term or participate in enduring networks of
interdependence; such a person is neither willing nor able to be a "stone" in
the societal "edifice" (Nietzsche 1974, pp. 302-4; 1986a, pp. 93-94).
Superficiality rules in the arid subjectivized landscape. Neitzsche (1974, p.
259) stated, "One thinks with a watch in one's hand, even as one eats one's
midday meal while reading the latest news of the stock market; one lives as
if one always 'might miss out on something. ''Rather do anything than
nothing': this principle, too, is merely a string to throttle all culture. . . . Living
in a constant chase after gain compels people to expend their spirit to the
point of exhaustion in continual pretense and overreaching and anticipating
others." Pervasive leveling, improvising, and faking foster an inflated sense
of ability and an oblivious attitude about the fortuitous circumstances that
contribute to role attainment (e.g., class or ethnicity). The most mediocre
people believe they can fill any position, even cultural leadership. Nietzsche
respected the self-mastery of genuine ascetic priests, like Socrates, and
praised their ability to redirect ressentiment creatively and to render the
"sick" harmless. But he deeply feared the new simulated versions. Lacking
the "born physician's" capacities, these impostors amplify the worst
inclinations of the herd; they are "violent, envious, exploitative, scheming,
fawning, cringing, arrogant, all according to circumstances. " Social selves
are fodder for the "great man of the masses." Nietzsche held that "the less
one knows how to command, the more urgently one covets someone who
commands, who commands severely- a god, prince, class, physician, father
confessor, dogma, or party conscience. The deadly combination of desperate
conforming and overreaching and untrammeled ressentiment paves the way
for a new type of tyrant (Nietzsche 1986, pp. 137, 168; 1974, pp. 117-18,
213, 288-89, 303-4).LB

Jangs Kritik
The 1ACs life is the symbol of ultimate good making death the
ultimate evil we are now blind
Baudrillard 2 (Jean, The Spirit of Terrorism: Hypotheses on Terrorism, pg. 6870)[rkezios]
All the same,

we should try to get beyond the moral imperative of unconditional

respect for human life, and conceive that one might respect, both in the other and in
oneself, something other than, and more than, life (existence isnt everything, it is even the least of
things): a destiny, a cause, a form of pride or of sacrifice. There are symbolic stakes which
far exceed existence and freedom - which we find it unbearable to lose, because we
have made them the fetishistic values of a universal humanist order . So we cannot
imagine a terrorist act committed with entire autonomy and freedom of conscience. Now, choice in terms of
symbolic obligations is sometimes profoundly mysterious - as in the case of Romand, the man with the double life,
who murdered his whole family, not for fear of being unmasked, but for fear of inflicting on them the profound
disappointment of discovering his deception. 3 Committing suicide would not have expunged the crime from the
record; he would merely have passed the shame off on to the others. Where is the courage, where the cowardice?

The question of freedom, ones own or that of others, no longer poses itself in terms of
moral consciousness, and a higher freedom must allow us to dispose of it to the
point of abusing or sacrificing it. Omar Khayyam: Rather one freeman bind with chains of love than set
a thousand prisoned captives free. Seen in that light, this is almost an overturning of the dialectic of domination, a

the master was the one who was

exposed to death, and could gamble with it. The slave was the one deprived of
death and destiny, the one doomed to survival and labour . How do things stand today?
We, the powerful, sheltered now from death and overprotected on all sides, occupy
exactly the position of the slave; whereas those whose deaths are at their own
disposal, and who do not have survival as their exclusive aim, are the ones who
today symbolically occupy the position of master.
paradoxical inversion of the master-slave relationship. In the past,

Therefore the 1AC is only scepter and crown - their weapons

have no power against us because we have become the suicide
bombers
Fernando 10 (Jeremy, writes erotica when bataille is busy, The Suicide Bomber
and her gift of death, Atropos Press, New York, LB)

In the same way, the King's power lies in his scepter and crown; power lies
not in the person, but in the sign(s) displayed. Since traditionally no one
could look a King in the face - those that could were but few - no one really
knew what the King looked like. In effect, the person that held the scepter
and wore the crown on his head was the King. Hence, it is not the person
who is King, but the person that displays the correct sign(s) that is King: the '
kingliness' of the person resides not in him but in the sign(s): the person no
longer matters; he might as well be dead. In fact, it is probably better that he
is dead : no one would bow before another person; but a scepter, that is
another matter completely. It is for this reason that the ghost in Handel has

no name - this ensures that he is the eternal source of power. The scepter of
the king continues to haunt the kingdom; it is still his kingdom even and
perhaps especially because he is dead. This is also why Hamlet's response to
the ghost's cry to ." re-member me" is perfect: by writing him dawn, Hamlet
ensures' that the scepter enters the real m of re-presentation; is forever i'eproducible, endlessly re-producible, and hence, eternal. The answer to the
question, ' What makes a king, King?' is 'you' . But not in the
acknowledgment of the superiority of the person . for if that were so, all
jokes about the British royal family would be impossible - but rather in the
acknowledgment of the crown - literally the object on the head itself. Once
again we turn to the emperor's New Clothes for a lesson: it is not that the
Emperor had so much power that the people did not dare to point out that he
wasn't wearing any clothes (and that it took an 'innocent' child to point out
the truth), but rather that his power was in the fact that everyone agreed on
the fact that he was wearing his ' new clothes' . It is the child. that reveals
the perverse core of the King's power: it is completely .external to the person
of the King (or even the sign systems in the form of the crown); power rests
in the subjects themselves. This is the paradox of power: subjects must first
conceive of themselves as subjects, in order to be .' subjected. However the
point of transgression is not a resistance of this subjectification - that would
only result in the crushing of resistor via the network (the other subjects who
remain as barring the unique situation of a critical mass. But even with
critical mass, the outcome is usually merely the replacement of power with
another which is exactly the same: this is what revolutions are about; moving
about and around in circles. This why one king (or leader, or even political
party) can often replaced by another without any problem; oftentimes life
goes as usual the very next day after a ' major' revolution. As long as signs
displayed are the same, it makes absolutely no difference who is ' wearing'
the signs. This was why Mikhail Gorbachev provided such a shock to the
system: the person remained the same, but the signs were changed from the
Secretary-General as the Absolute Head, to a Secretary-General who was
open and receptive to external influences. And it is this changing of the sign
system which the system cannot handle. This is exactly the same problem
that is presented in The Emperor's New Clothes: the king is the same person,
all that he is missing are his signs of power; he literally stripped himself of
them: this is why the moment the child points to the missing signs,
everything collapses. A truly radical solution would be to completely
subjectify yourself. All power assumes the resistance of the subject; without
that, there is no subjectification in the first place. By completely subjectifying
oneself, one becomes an object: this is the nightmare of the disposetif. For
how can one enact a disciplinary mechanism on the subject if (s)he does not
mind being disciplined in the first place? This is why the suicide bomber still

haunts ail attempts at security: what defense is there if death is already

accepted by the bomber?

Be the bomber. Any attempt to avoid death captures us within

institutions of control that promise false protection from the
chaos of the cosmos. This illusory attempt to set us free from
death demolishes true joy and beauty

Gullette 79 (Alan, University of Tennessee- Knoxville, Death and Absurdism in

Camus's The Stranger http://alangullette.com/essays/lit/stranger.htm)

The novel begins with the death of Meursault's mother. Although he attends
the funeral, he does not request to see the body, though he finds it
interesting to think about the effects of heat and humidity on the rate of a
body's decay (8). It is evident that he is almost totally unaffected by his
mother's death nothing changes in his life. In other words, her death
has little or no real significance for him. When he hears Salamano, a
neighbor, weeping over his lost dog (which has evidently died), Meursault
thinks of his mother but he is unaware of the association his mind has
made. In fact, he chooses not to dwell on the matter but goes to sleep
instead (50). It is when he is on the beach with Raymond Sints and M.
Masson and they confront two Arabs (who have given Raymond trouble) that
Meursault first seems to think about the insignificance of any action
therefore of human existence. He has a gun and it occurs to him that he
could shoot or not shoot and that it would come to the same thing (72). The
loss of a life would have no significance no affect on life as a whole; and the
universe itself is apparently totally indifferent to everything. Here he
implicitly denies the existence of God, and thus denies morality, as well as
the "external" meaning (if it may be so distinguished from the internal or
individual existential meaning) of life and death. (This latter, existential
meaning is later affirmed, as we shall see.) Meursault kills one of the Arabs in
a moment of confusion, partially out of self-defense, but does not regret it
even though it means going to prison and, ultimately, being executed. He
has the fatalistic feeling that "what's done is done," and later explains that
he has never regretted anything because he has always been to absorbed by
the present moment or by the immediate future to dwell on the past (127). In
a sense, Meursault is always aware of the meaninglessness of all endeavors
in the face of death: he has no ambition to advance socio-economically; he is
indifferent about being friends with Raymond and about marrying Marie; etc.
But this awareness is somehow never intense enough to involve selfawareness that is, he never reflects on the meaning of death for him until
he is in prison awaiting execution. Of course, the "meaning" of another's
death is quite difference from the "meaning" of one's own death. With the
former, one no longer sees that person again; with the latter, one's very
consciousness, as far as we know, just ends blit! as a television picture
ends when the set is switched off. Death marks all things equal, and equally

absurd. And death itself is absurd in the sense that reason or the rational
mind cannot deal with it: it is a foregone conclusion, yet it remains an
unrealized possibility until some indeterminate future time. The "meaning" of
death is not rational but, again, is existential its implications are to be
found not in abstraction but in the actuality of one's life, the finality of each
moment. Before his trial, Meursault passes the time in prison by sleeping, by
reading over and over the newspaper story about the (unrelated) murder of a
Czech, and by recreating a mental picture of his room at home in complete
detail, down to the scratches in the furniture. In this connection, it must be
admitted that he is externally very sensitive and aware, despite his lack of
self-understanding and emotional response. This is evidence by his detailed
descriptions. He is especially sensitive to natural beauty the beach, the
glistening water, the shade, the reed music, swimming, making love to
Marie, the evening hour he like so much, etc. He even says that if forced to
live in a hollow tree truck, he would be content to watch the sky, passing
birds, and clouds (95). After his trial (in which he is sentenced to be
executed), he no longer indulges in his memories or passes the time in the
frivolous way he was accustomed to spend Sundays at home. At first, he
dwells on thoughts of escape. He cannot reconcile the contingency of his
sentence (Why guilt? Why sentenced by a French court rather than a Chinese
one? Why was the verdict read at eight pm rather than at five? etc.) with the
mechanical certainty of the process that leads inevitably to his death (137).
When he gives up trying to find a loophole, he finds his mind ever returning
either to the fear that dawn would bring the guards who would lead him to
be executed, or to the hope that his appear will be granted. To try to distract
himself from these thoughts, he forces himself to study the sky or to listen to
the beating of his heart but the changing light reminds him of the passing
of time towards dawn, and he cannot imagine his heart ever stopping. In
dwelling on the chance of an appeal, he is forced to consider the possibility
of denial and thus of execution; therefore, he must face the fact of his death
whether it comes now or later. Once he really, honestly admits death's
inevitability, he allows himself to consider the chance of a successful appeal
of being set free to live perhaps forth more years before dying. Now he
begins to see the value of each moment of the life before death. Because of
death, nothing matters except being alive. The meaning, value,
significance of life is only seen in light of death, yet most people miss it
through the denial of death. The hope of longer life brings Meursault great
joy. Perhaps to end the maddening uncertainty and thus intensify his
awareness of death's inevitability (therefore of the actuality of life), or, less
likely, as a gesture of hopelessness, Meursault turns down his right to appeal
(144). Soon afterwards, the prison chaplain insists on talking to him.
Meursault admits his fear but denies despair and has no interest in the
chaplain's belie in an afterlife. He flies into rage, finally, at the chaplain's
persistence, for he realizes that the chaplain has not adequately assessed
the human condition (death being the end of life) or, if he has, the
chaplain's certainties have no meaning for Meursault and have not the real

value of, say, a strand of a woman's hair (151). Meursault, on the other hand,
is absolutely certain about his own life and forthcoming death. His rush of
anger cleanses him and empties him of hope, thus allowing him finally to
open up -- completely and for the last time -- to the "benign indifference of
the universe" (154). He realizes that he always been happy.
The idea of death makes one aware of one's life, one's vital being that
which is impermanent and will one day end. When this vitality is appreciate,
one feels free for there is no urgency to perform some act that will cancel
the possibility of death, seeing as though there is no such act. In this sense,
all human activity is absurd, and the real freedom is to be aware of life in its
actually and totally, of its beauty and its pain.

Without a monistic approach of death within life, social and

political discourse absolves into violent artificial binaries
turning case
Dimitris Vardoulakis, 11, U of Minnesota Press, 2011 Spinoza Now cut by Jason
Jang
A Common assumption in the contemporary reception of Spinoza is that his
philosophy is a celebration of pure life, wherein death plays no role on all of the
levels that constitute his philosophy: ontology, ethics, and sociopolitical criticism. In
this reading, Spinozas monism is sustained only on the ground of an unspoken
fundamental dualism between life, death and the exclusion of the latter. Antonio
Damasios recent interpretation of Spinoza is revealingly symptomatic of his
approach as it unveils at stake in the underlying opposition between life and death
is the psychoanalytic pair of the pleasure principle and the death drive. While
Damasio perpetuates the aforementioned dualism by reducing Spinozas
substance to the homeostatic principle of pleasure at the exclusion of the death
drive, I argue that Spinozas monism consists in the intertwining and inseparability
of not only body and mind but also death and life, and that is is only through this
intertwining that Spinozas ethics can unfurl its potential for social and political
criticism.

Not only is our impact on the level of the political/social but on

the level of the individual which amounts into ontological
anxiety
Park 06 (James, Philosophy Professor at the University of Minnesota, Our
Existential Predicament: Loneliness Depression Anxiety and Death, p. 200, jj)

If we think of death exclusively as the terminal point of life, we have

completely separated life and death. And as we push death away from life.
as a distant event not relevant now, we also push away our internal threatto-being, ontological anxiety, which hides behind our fear of ceasing-to-be.
When we conceive of ourselves on the pattern of things that come to an end,
there is simply no room in this thought for ontological anxiety. Many things in

our world terminate, disappear, or are finished, but how fully do we

comprehended human death when we compare our own dying with such
endings? The rain stops; a natural happening has come to an end. The road
stops; its construction has been completed only to a certain place. The
painting is finished; its last stroke has been added. The bread is gone; it has
been eaten up and is no longer available. Heidegger criticizes these
comparisons: But none of these modes of ending are like human dying. If our
end were like any of these. then we would be treating ourselves as things. In
dying, we are not fulfilled; nor do we simply disappear. We are not finished
like a painting; nor are we wholly present like an object at hand. If we do not
use our ontological anxiety to become more Authentic, if we persist in
evasion and flight from our deepest truth of being, we will continue to be the
personalities created by enculturation, perhaps losing ourselves in a
conformity so deep we cannot name it. We will remain inauthentic by
tuning-out the message of our deepest being and tuning-in the voices of the
'they'. We will listen away from ourselves to what 'they' say instead of
choosing life-tasks in tune with our Existential Predicament.

So Stop surviving and start living

Bataille 45 (Georges, PhD of pornography, philosopher, On Nietzche, 1945, LB)
Nonetheless,

I don't want my inclination to make fun of myself or act comic to lead

readers astray. The basic problem tackled in this chaotic book (chaotic because it has to be) is the same one
Nietzsche experienced and attempted to resolve in his work-- the problem of the whole human being. " The
majority of people," he wrote, "are a fragmentary, exclusive image of what
humanity is; you have to add them up to get humanity. In this sense, whole eras and whole
peoples have something fragmentary about them; and it may be necessary for humanity's growth
for it to develop only in parts. It is a crucial matter therefore to see that what is at
stake is always the idea of producing a synthetic humanity and that the inferior
humans who make up a majority of us are only preliminaries, or preparatory
attempts whose concerted play allows a whole human being to appear here and
there like a military boundary marker showing the extent of humanity's advance."
( The Will to Power) But what does that fragmentation mean ? Or better, what causes it if not a
need to act that specializes us and limits us to the horizon of a particular activity ?
Even if it turns out to be for the general interest (which normally isn't true), the activity that subordinates each of

Whoever acts, substitutes a

particular end for what he or she is, as a total being: in the least specialized cases it
is the glory of the state or the triumph of a party. Every action specializes insofar as
it is limited as action. A plant usually doesn't act, and isn't specialized; it's specialized when gobbling up
flies! I cannot exist entirely except when somehow I go beyond the stage of action .
Otherwise I'm a soldier, a professional, a man of learning, not a "total human
being." The fragmentary state of humanity is basically the same as the choice of an
object. When you limit your desires to possessing political power, for instance, you act and know what you have
to do. The possibility of failure isn't important--and right from the start, you insert
your existence advantageously into time. Each of your moments becomes useful.
our aspects to a specific result suppresses our being as an entirety.

With each moment, the possibility is given you to advance to some chosen goal,
and your time becomes a march toward that goal--what's normally called living.
Similarly, if salvation is the goal. Every action makes you a fragmentary existence. I
hold onto my nature as an entirety only by refusing to act--or at least by denying
the superiority of time, which is reserved for action. Life is whole only when it isn't
subordinate to a specific object that exceeds it . In this way, the essence of entirety is freedom.
Still, I can't choose to become an entire human being by simply fighting for
freedom, even if the struggle for freedom is an appropriate activity for me --because
within me I can't confuse the state of entirety with my struggle. It's the positive practice of freedom,
not the negative struggle against a particular oppression, that has lifted me above a
mutilated existence. Each of us learns with bitterness that to struggle for freedom is first of all to alienate
ourselves. I've already said it: the practice of freedom lies within evil, not beyond it, while the struggle for freedom
is a struggle to conquer a good. To the extent that life is entire within me, I can't distribute it or let it serve the
interests of a good belonging to someone else, to God or myself. I can't acquire anything at all :

I can only give

and give unstintingly, without the gift ever having as its object anyone's interest . (In
this respect, I look at the other's good as deceptive, since if I will that good it's to find my own, unless I identify it as
my own. Entirety exists within me as exuberance. Only in empty longing, only in an unlucky desire to be consumed
simply by the desire to burn with desire, is entirety wholly what it is. In this respect, entirety is also longing for
laughter, longing for pleasure, holiness, or death. Entirety lacks further tasks to fulfill.)

Dont preside outside, embrace the absurd and be authentic.

Park 06 (James, Philosophy Professor at the University of Minnesota, Our
Existential Predicament: Loneliness Depression Anxiety and Death, p. 68)

Our fundamental absurdity is disclosed when the mad rush called "life
pauses, when our eyes pierce thru the fog of busyness, and our spirits rebel
against the cardboard explanations of the world. How chancy, contingent,
accidental, & inconsequential we are! We find ourselves plopped into an
ordered but meaningless universe -as if we woke up after the instructions for
the game of life had already been given-and now we don't know how to play!
The little humorous absurdities of life have grown fat by eating up the
certainties of the past leaving us in the midst of limitless, overwhelming
absurdity. Felt another way, our Existential Predicament is terrifying
insecurity --complete shakiness and lack of stability in everything. We try to
protect and shield ourselves thru elaborate security operations: jobs,
insurance, savings; marriage, family, friends. But if our uneasiness is
existential, these security games are never sufficient which might lead us
to ever more desperate scrambling for invulnerability. Or the little
disappointments of life, like jagged rocks in the river, might tear our rubber
rafts of illusion, sinking us into bottomless despair. However, such
experiences of existential absurdity, insecurity, & despair can also open us to
a new sensitivity and depth within ourselves. Initially what seems to be
unredeemable suffering can be tuned toward positive purpose in Authentic
Existence -and beyond that- transformed into an opening to Existential
Freedom: Where once we were almost pulled to pieces by absurdity, we now
find ourselves filled with inward peace, harmony, & coherence. Even tho the
world and our ordinary lives remain as absurd as ever, inwardly we have

become fulfilled, satisfied, complete. Thru fumbling, somewhat random

efforts, we have finally hit upon the correct posture-of-being that allows us to
become ultimately safe and secure. This restful strength does not come from
efforts to achieve security -but only when we completely abandon our
defensive techniques. Put another way, we become existentially free by
giving up our attempts to cure our Existential Malaise, by allowing ourselves
to sink into despair, hoping beyond reason that we will sink thru the bottom
of despair into inexplicable hope, joy, peace, & fulfillment. We cannot
explain this deep change. We only know that once we were distorted by
absurdity, shaken by insecurity, & drowning in despair. But now we are
resting harmoniously in peace and inner coherence, relying confidently on
our new-found strength, stability, & security, and floating serenely on a
surprising hope and joy.

And questions of the Subject come first there is no meaning

when we obliterate ourselves
Park 06 (James, Philosophy Professor at the University of Minnesota, Our
Existential Predicament: Loneliness Depression Anxiety and Death, p. 4, jj)

Becoming subjective means listening to and trusting those sometimes

indistinct messages from our inner depths. The objective mentality has
proved itself extremely valuable in the modern world of science and
technology. The empirical approach is a fine and useful tool. However, when
we ask for the ultimate meaning of human life, we discover that the
objective method has little or nothing to offer but that (as Kierkegaard said)
the ultimate truth is subjective. Values purposes & meanings cannot be
provided by the sciences. These reasons for living must come from within
ourselves. If we hold exclusively to the objective method, we may have
important intimations coming up from our depths, but because these
'feelings' cannot be externalized, measured, observed, & compared with
publicly-established standards, we might be unprepared to notice them and
unwilling to trust them.

1NC AT: Case

Case Normal
Reject impacts predicated of long internal link chains
contrary to human instinct, specificity reduces the risk of an
event
Yudkowsky 8 (Eliezer, Machine Intelligence Research Institute, 2008, Cognitive
Biases Potentially Affecting Judgment of Global Risks, Global Catastrophic Risks, pp
91-119, Accessed 07.15.14)//LD
According to probability theory, adding additional detail onto a story must render the
story less probable. It is less probable that Linda is a feminist bank teller than that she is a bank teller, since all feminist bank tellers are
necessarily bank tellers. Yet human psychology seems to follow the rule that adding an additional
detail can make the story more plausible. People might pay more for international
diplomacy intended to prevent nanotechnological warfare by China, than for an engineering
project to defend against nanotechnological attack from any source . "The second threat scenario is less
vivid and alarming, but the defense is more useful because it is more vague. More valuable
still would be strategies which make humanity harder to extinguish without being
specific to nanotechnologic threatssuch as colonizing space, or see Yudkowsky (2008) on AI. Security expert Bruce Schneier observed (both
before and after the 2005 hurricane in New Orleans) that the U.S. government was guarding specific domestic targets against "movie-plot scenarios" of

Overly
detailed reassurances can also create false perceptions of safety: "X is not an existential risk and you don't
terrorism, at the cost of taking away resources from emergency-response capabilities that could respond to any disaster (Schneier 2005).

need to worry about it, because A, B, C, D, and E"; where the failure of any one of propositions A, B, C, D, or E potentially extinguishes the human
species. "We don't need to worry about nanotechnologic war, because a UN commission will initially develop the technology and prevent its proliferation
until such time as an active shield is developed, capable of defending against all accidental and malicious outbreaks that contemporary nanotechnology

Vivid, specific scenarios can inflate our

probability estimates of security, as well as misdirecting defensive investments into
needlessly narrow or implausibly detailed risk scenarios. More generally, people tend to overestimate
conjunctive probabilities and underestimate disjunctive probabilities (Tversky and ICahneman
is capable of producing, and this condition will persist indefinitely."

1974). That is, people tend to overestimate the probability that, e.g., seven events of 90% probability will all oc- cur. Conversely, people tend to

Someone judging whether to, e.g.,

incorporate a new startup, must evaluate the probability that many individual
events will all go right (there will be sufficient funding, competent employees, customers will want the product) while also
considering the likelihood that at least one critical failure will occur (the bank refuses a loan, the
underestimate the probability that at least one of seven events of 10% probability will occur.

biggest project fails, the lead scientist dies). This may help explain why only 44% of entrepreneurial ventures2 survive after 4 years (Knaup 2005).
Dawes (1988, 133) observes: "In their summations lawyers avoid arguing from dis- junctions ('either this or that or the other could have occurred, all of
which would lead to the same conclusion) in favor of conjunctions. Rationally, of course, disjunctions are much more probable than are conjunctions."

The scenario of humanity going extinct in the next century is a disjunctive event. It
could happen as a result of any of the existential risks we already know aboutor some other cause which none of us foresaw. Yet for a
futurist, disjunctions make for an awkward and unpoetic-sounding prophecy .
"

The future is more like a road network than a linear path from
A to B to C to D. The 1AC paves over the complex interactions
between their internal linksBut THE WHOLE IS MORE THAN
THE SUM OF ITS PARTSTheir false sense of certainty
undermines foresight and sustainable planning.
Ramalingam 8 [Ben, Senior Research Associate at the Overseas Development
Institute, and Harry jones at ODI, "Exploring the science of complexity"
http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/docs/833.pdf ] RJ 10
Concept 4: Nonlinearity5 ... the darkest corner of science [is] the realm of non-linear problems (Strogatz, 2003). Outline of the concept Traditional scientific approaches are based on the idea that linear relationships can be
identified through data gathering and analysis, and can be used as the basis of laws of behaviour (Byrne, 1998). Such approaches in the physical sciences have informed the development of social, economic and political science,

using broad theories of behaviour to generate hypotheses about causal relations between variables of interest (Homer-Dixon, 1995). However, complexity science suggests that

not work in a

simple

linear fashion

human systems do

. Feedback processes between interconnected elements and dimensions lead to relationships that see change that is dynamic, nonlinear and

clear causal relations

cannot be traced because of multiple influences. The distinction
is far
from trivial
unpredictable (Stacey, 1996). Nonlinearity is a direct result of the mutual interdependence between dimensions found in complex systems. In such systems,

between linear and nonlinearity

. If dynamic nonlinear feedbacks in response to rising greenhouse gases are included in the model used in the Stern Review of Climate Change (cited in Concept 2), for example, the total average cost of

climate change rises from 5% to at least 20% of global per capita consumption (HM Treasury, 2006).6 Detailed explanation Vast numbers of naturally occurring systems exhibit nonlinearity. As one thinker has dryly
suggested (Stanislaw Ulam, in the 1950s), calling a situation nonlinear is like going to the zoo and talking about all the interesting non-elephant animals you can see there (Campbell et al., 1985): there are as many nonlinear

Linearity
assume
problems can be broken down
each piece analysed separately
the separate answers recombined
the whole
equivalent to the sum of the parts
situations as there are non-elephant animals.

describes the proportionality

d in idealised situations where responses are proportional to forces and causes are proportional to effects

(Strogatz, 2003). Linear

into pieces, with

can be

to give the right answer to the original problem. In a linear system,

exactly

; finally,

all

is

. However, linearity is often an approximation of a more complicated reality most systems only behave linearly if they are close

to equilibrium and are not pushed too hard. When a system starts to behave in a nonlinear fashion, all bets are off (Strogatz, 2003). This is not to suggest that nonlinearity is necessarily a dangerous or unwanted aspect of systems.
The biology of life itself is dependent on nonlinearity, as are the laws of ecology. Combination therapy for HIV/AIDS using a cocktail of three drugs works precisely because the immune response and viral dynamics are nonlinear the
three drugs taken in combination are much more effective than the sum of the three taken separately. The nonlinearity concept means that linear assumptions of how social phenomena play out should be questioned. It is important
to note that such thinking has only relatively recently been incorporated into the hard science paradigms and, moreover, is still only starting to shape thinking in the social, economic and political realms.

Nonlinear
once, as a coherent entity.

ity poses challenges to analysis precisely because such

relationships

cannot be taken apart they

have to be examined all at

However, the need to develop such ways of thinking cannot be overstated as one thinker puts it: ... every major unresolved problem in science from

consciousness to cancer to the collective craziness of the economy, is nonlinear (Capra, 1996). 5 It is important to distinguish nonlinearity as used here, which relates to relationships and proportionality, and nonlinearity in terms of
sequences of events one thing following another. 6 Note that the previously cited increase from 5 to 14.4% was due to natural, known feedbacks and does not include non-linear feedbacks 25 Although nonlinearity is a
mathematical formulation, it is useful to take the suggestion that what is required is a qualitative understanding of [the] quantitative when attempting to investigate them systematically (Byrne, 1998). Such a qualitative
understanding has been furthered by the work of Robert Jervis (1997) on the role of complexity in international relations. Starting with the notion that understanding of social systems has tacitly incorporated linear approaches from
Newtonian sciences, Jervis goes on to highlight three common assumptions that need to be challenged in order to take better account of nonlinearity. These assumptions provide a solid basis for investigating nonlinearity. First, it is
very common to test ideas and propositions by making comparisons between two situations which are identical except for one variable referred to as the independent variable. This kind of analysis is usually prefaced with the
statement holding all other things constant. However, in a system of interconnected and interrelated parts, with feedback loops, adaptive agents and emergent properties, this is almost impossible, as everything else cannot be held
constant and there is no independent variable. Jervis argues that, in such systems, it is impossible to look at just one thing, or to make only one change, hence to look at a situation involving just one change is unrealistic. Secondly,
it is often assumed that changes in system output are proportional to changes in input. For example, if it has been assumed that a little foreign aid slightly increases economic growth, then more aid should produce more growth.
However, as recent work by ODI and others argues, absorption capacity needs to be taken account more aid does not necessarily equate to better aid. In complex systems, then, the output is not proportional to the input. Feedback
loops and adaptive behaviours and emergent dynamics within the system may mean that the relationship between input and output is a nonlinear one: Sometimes even a small amount of the variable can do a great deal of work
and then the law of diminishing returns sets in [a negative feedback process] in other cases very little impact is felt until a critical mass is assembled (Jervis, 1997). The third and final commonly made assumption of linearity is
that the system output that follows from the sum of two different inputs is equal to the sum of the outputs arising from the individual inputs. In other words, the assumption is that if Action A leads to Consequence X and Action B
has Consequence Y then Action A plus Action B will have Consequences X plus Y. This frequently does not hold, because the consequences of Action A may depend on the presence or absence of many other factors which may well be
affected by B or Bs Consequence (Y). In addition, the sequence in which actions are undertaken may affect the outcome. Example: The growth dynamics model as an alternative to linear regression models Studies of economic
growth face methodological problems, the foremost of which is dealing with real world complexity. The standard way of understanding growth assumes, implicitly, that the same model of growth is true for all countries, and that linear
relationships of growth are true for all countries. However, linear relationships might not apply in many cases. An example would be a country where moderate trade protection would increase economic growth but closing off the
economy completely to international trade would spell economic disaster. Linear growth models imply that the effect of increasing the value of the independent variable would be the same for all countries, regardless of the initial
value of that variable or other variables. Therefore, an increase of the tariff rate from 0% to 10% is presumed to generate the same change in the growth rate as a change from 90% to 100%. Furthermore, the change from 0% to
10% is assumed to have the same effect in a poor country as in a rich country, in a primary resource exporter as in a manufacturing exporter, and in a country with well developed institutions as in a country with underdeveloped
institutions. Despite some efforts to address these issues by relaxing the linear framework and introducing mechanisms to capture nonlinearities and interactions among some variables, this is still a poor way of addressing real
world nonlinearity. Econometric research has identified that linear models cannot generally be expected to 26 provide a good approximation of an unknown nonlinear function, and in some cases can lead to serious misestimates
(Rodrguez, 2007). Research at Harvard University has focused on the problem of designing a growth strategy in a context of radical uncertainty about any generalised growth models. They call their method growth diagnostics, in
part because it is very similar to the approach taken by medical specialists in identifying the causes of ailments. In such a context, assuming that every country has the same problem is unlikely to be very helpful. The principal idea
is to look for clues in the countrys concrete environment about the specific binding constraints on growth. The growth diagnostics exercise asks a set of basic questions that can sequentially rule out possible explanations of the
problem. The answers are inherently country-specific and time-specific. The essential method is to identify the key problem to be addressed as the signals that the economy would provide if a particular constraint were the cause
of that problem. Implication: Challenge linearity in underlying assumptions Within complex systems, the degree of nonlinearity and relationships between various factors, and the lack of proportionality between inputs and outputs,

dynamics
are highly context-specific. Therefore
assumptions
and
theories
not entirely appropriate
to
a local
situation
is unlikely to lead
hoped-for
changes.
means that the

of change

, if there are

about the relations among different aspects of a specific situation, and these are
, then this perspective

, aggregations

when applied

the dynamics of

new

to a deep understanding of what should be done, and is furthermore unlikely to lead to the

Nonlinearity implies that, as well as understanding the limitations of a particular model or perspective, it is important to build and improve new models that can provide the sort of information required

for the particular task at hand. No kind of explanatory representation can suit all kinds of phenomena ... any one diagnosis of [a] problem and its solution is necessarily partial (Holland, 2000). From this perspective, it is important to
tailor to the particular situation ones perspective on the dynamics of some phenomena. In a complex system, one must examine the complex web of interrelationships and interdependencies among its parts or elements (Flynn

It is important from the outset to understand

variables, rather than assuming that one causes another
Research, 2003).

the association and

interaction among

to change, and to look at how variables interact and feed back into each

other over time (Haynes, 2003). Homer-Dixon, cited above, suggests that political scientists use methods that are modelled on the physical sciences, developing broad theories of political behaviour to generate hypotheses about
causal relations between variables of interest. These ideas resonate strongly with a recent assessment undertaken for Sida on the use of the log frame (Bakewell and Garbutt, 2005), highlighting some of the advantages and
disadvantages in a way which is particularly pertinent for this paper. In the international aid world, much of programme planning and development is undertaken using a set of methods and tools called the logical framework. For
most of the study respondents, the advantage of logical frameworks was that they force people to think carefully through what they are planning to do, and to consider in a systematic fashion how proposed activities might
contribute to the desired goal through delivering outputs and outcomes. As a result, many see the log frame as a useful way of encouraging clear thinking. However, these positive aspects were offset by the almost universal

linear logic
C and Impact D.

complaint that the log frame rests on a very

Outcome

, which

suggests if
that

Activity

A is done,

Output

B will result, leading to

This linear idea of cause and effect is profoundly ill-at-ease with the implications of complexity science and, indeed, the experiences of many development practitioners. The

authors of the study sum up the problems of the log frame in a way that is key to our discussion of complexity: Unfortunately (for the logical framework approach at least) we are not working with such a selfcontained system and
there are so many factors involved which lie beyond the scope of the 27 planned initiative that will change the way things work. Although the LFA makes some attempt to capture these through the consideration of the risks and
assumptions, these are limited by the imagination and experience of those involved. As a result the LFA tends to be one-dimensional and fails to reflect the messy realities facing development actors (Bakewell and Garbutt,
2005). Nonlinearity also has clear implications for the increased interest in randomised control trials (RCTs). While the implications of nonlinearity for techniques and tools such as the log frame and RCTs are increasingly well
understood by many actors within the aid system, the answer to the deeper question as to whether incorporation of nonlinearity will be feasible, given the pressure on donors to justify aid budgets while having to deal with a

The distinction between linearity and nonlinearity

re-frame the debate. If the goals of
learning are about
mindsets, the degree to which a n
balance can be struck
without exploring these
assumptions
is open to question.
reducing headcount, is less clear.

can be seen in as providing a theoretical underpinning of the

frequently cited tension between upward accountability and learning. It also provides a means to
also

two

different

appropriate

mindsets and the

on which they are based

accountability and

Concept 5: Sensitivity to initial

conditions Outline of the concept The behaviours of complex systems are sensitive to their initial conditions. Simply, this means that two complex systems that are initially very close together in terms of their various elements
and dimensions can end up in distinctly different places. This comes from nonlinearity of relationships where changes are not proportional, small changes in any one of the elements can result in large changes regarding the
phenomenon of interest. Detailed explanation Imagine a small ball dropped onto the edge of a razor blade, as shown in the first image in Figure 4 below. The ball can strike the blade in such a way that it can go off to the left (centre
image) or to the right (right-hand image). The condition that will determine whether the ball goes to the left or right is minute. If the ball were initially held centred over the blade (as in the first image), a prediction of which direction
the ball would bounce would be impossible to make with certainty. A very slight change in the initial conditions of the ball can result in falling to the right or left of the blade. Figure 4: Sensitivity to initial conditions ball striking razor
blade Source: http://www.schuelers.com/ChaosPsyche/part_1_14.htm. The concept of phase space (Concept 6) allows a more precise understanding of initial conditions. Phase space allows for the analysis of the evolution of systems
by considering the evolution process as a sequence of states in time (Rosen, 1991). A state is the position of the system in its phase space at a given time. At any time, the systems state can be seen as the initial conditions for
whatever processes follow. The sensitive dependence on initial conditions, in phase space terms, means that the position of a system in its phase space at a particular moment will have an influence on its future evolution.
The interactions that are taking place at any moment in time have evolved from a previous moment in time, that is, all interactions are contingent on an historical process. Put simply, history matters in complex systems. 28 The
infamous butterfly effect was a metaphor developed to illustrate this idea in the context of the weather. Edward Lorenz (1972), a meteorologist, used the metaphor of a flapping wing of a butterfly to explain how a minute difference
in the initial condition of a weather system leads to a chain of events producing large-scale differences in weather patterns, such as the occurrence of a tornado where there was none before. As more recent thinkers have put it, in
relation to complex systems in general, an initial uncertainty in measurement of the state of a system: however small, inevitably grow[s] so large that long-range prediction becomes impossible even the most gentle,
unaccounted-for perturbation can produce, in short order, abject failure of prediction (Peak and Frame, 1998). A large proportion of complex systems are prone to exhibiting the butterfly effect, so much so that some have defined
complex behaviour as occurring where the butterfly effect is present (ibid). As no two situations will be exactly alike, the phenomenon will inevitably occur in many settings. As with nonlinearity, many have not used formal models to
demonstrate the butterfly effect, but instead have tried to develop a qualitative understanding of the likely quantitative nature of real life situations. Sensitivity to initial conditions also means that the generalisation of good practice
[between contexts] begins to look fragile (Haynes, 2003) because initial conditions are never exactly the same, and because the complexity and nonlinearity of behaviour make it extremely difficult to separate the contributions to
overall behaviour that individual factors have. Any notion of good practice requires a detailed local knowledge to understand why the practice in question was good. This concept highlights the importance of understanding what can
be forecast in complex systems to what level of certainty, as well as what is comparable across complex systems. It reinforces the point that both of these areas are necessarily restricted by the perspective of the observer.
Sensitive dependence on initial conditions suggests that no single perspective can capture all there is to know about a system, that it may be wise to look in detail at how appropriate our solution to a problem is, and that it may be
better to work with inevitable uncertainty rather than plan based on flimsy or hopeful predictions. This may mean, to take the example of predictability, that the success of a nation may be best explained not by its populations
virtues, its natural resources and its governments skills, but rather simply by the position it took in the past, with small historical advantages leading to much bigger advantages later. Another example is how socioeconomic policy
can result in a separation of neighbourhoods, driving a large gap between the rich and the poor so that, in short order, a gulf in wealth can result between two families who once had similar wealth (Byrne and Rogers, 1996). This is

closely related to the notion of path dependence, which is the idea that many alternatives are possible at some stages of a systems development, but once one of these alternatives gains the upper hand, it becomes locked in and
it is not possible to go to any of the previous available alternatives. For example, many cities developed where and how they did not because of the natural advantages we are so quick to detect after the fact, but because their
establishment set off self-reinforcing expectations and behaviours (Cronon, cited in Jervis, 1997). In economic development, the term path dependence is used to describe how standards which are first-to-market can become
entrenched lock ins - such as the QWERTY layout in typewriters still used in computer keyboards (David, 2000). In certain situations, positive feedbacks leading from a small change can lead to such irreversible path dependence
(Urry, 2003). Urry gives the example of irreversibility across an entire industry or sector, whereby through sensitive dependence on initial conditions, feedback can set in motion institutional patterns that are hard or impossible to
reverse. He cites the example of the domination of steel and petroleum-based fuel models, developed in the late 29 19th century, which have come to dominate over other fuel alternatives, especially steam and electric, which were
at the time preferable. The concept of path dependence has received some criticism from exponents of complexity science, because it has imported into economics the view that minor initial perturbations are important
while grafting this onto an underlying theory that still assumes that there are a finite number of stable and alternative end-states, one of which will arise based on the particular initial conditions. As will be explained in Concept 7 on
attractors and chaos, this is not always the case in complex systems (Margolis and Liebowitz, 1998). Example: Sensitive dependence on initial conditions and economic growth Economists have generally identified sensitive
dependence on initial conditions as one of the important features of the growth process that is, what eventually happens to an economy depends greatly on the point of departure. There is mounting evidence that large qualitative
differences in outcomes can arise from small (and perhaps accidental) differences in initial conditions or events (Hurwicz, 1995). In other words, the scope for and the direction and magnitude of change that a society can undertake
depend critically on its prevailing objective conditions and the constellation of sociopolitical and institutional factors that have shaped these conditions. For specific economies, the initial conditions affecting economic growth include
levels of per capita income; the development of human capital; the natural resource base; the levels and structure of production; the degree of the economys openness and its form of integration into the world system; the
development of physical infrastructure; and institutional variables such as governance, land tenure and property rights. One might add here the nature of colonial rule and the institutional arrangements it bequeathed the former
colonies, the decolonisation process, and the economic interests and policies of the erstwhile colonial masters. Wrongly specifying these initial conditions can undermine policy initiatives. Government polices are not simply a matter
of choice made without historical or socioeconomic preconditions. Further, a sensitive appreciation of the differences and similarities in the initial conditions is important if one is to avoid some of the invidious comparisons one runs
into today and the naive voluntarism that policymakers exhibit when they declare that their particular country is about to become the new tiger of Africa. Such comparisons and self-description actually make the process of learning
from others more costly because they start the planning process off on a wrong foot (Mkandawire and Soludo, 1999). Implication: Rethink the scope of learning and the purpose of planning in an uncertain world Sensitivity to initial
conditions suggests that there are inevitably degrees of non-comparability across, and unpredictability within, complex systems. Some have argued that this implies that: the map to the future cannot be drawn in advance. We
cannot know enough to set forth a meaningful vision or plan productively (Tetenbaum, 1998). The general implications for development theory and practice have been highlighted by a previous ODI working paper on participatory
approaches, which suggests that this implies the notion of development as planned change is paradoxical. To quote directly, perfect planning would imply perfect knowledge of the future, which in turn would imply a totally
deterministic universe in which planning would not make a difference (Geyer, cited in Sellamna, 1999). Sellamna goes on: For this reason, development planning should abandon prescriptive, goal-oriented decision making and
prediction about future states and focus instead on understanding the dynamics of 30 change and promoting a collective learning framework through which concerned stakeholders can constantly, through dialogue, express their
respective interests and reach consensus. With regards to learning, this poses profound issues for the transferability of best practice, a concept that has taken on increasing meaning within the development sector since the rise of
knowledge management and organisational learning strategies (Ramalingam, 2005). While it is possible that, for example, an understanding of the interplay of factors driving urban change in the Philippines may be relevant for
analysis of urban change in Guatemala, this is not necessarily the case. The sensitivity to initial conditions gives us a strong reason to suppose that, even if we have a generally useful perspective on urban environments, this may
entirely fail to capture the key features of the next situation we look at. This means that the search for best practices may need to be replaced by the search for good principles. Some have suggested that the most appropriate
way to bring the principles of effective approaches from one context to another is for development workers to become facilitators enabling representatives of other communities to see first hand what in the successful project

Complexity suggest , in
systems future events cannot be forecasted
in other
s future s can be foreseen

they would wish to replicate (Breslin, 2004). Moving onto planning, to say that prediction of any kind is impossible may be overstating the case.

certain

kinds of

does

that

to a useful level of probability and that, from certain perspectives, it is not

possible to offer any firm prediction of the way the future will pan out on certain timescales. However,

system

event

in a helpful manner.

For example, Geyer (2006) suggests that, with political dynamics, it is fairly safe to predict the short-term dynamics of basic power resources and political structures and that, therefore, there is decent scope for forecasting voting
and decision outcomes of policy. On the other hand, examining party and institutional dynamics becomes more difficult, and grasping the potential shifts in contested political and social debates is even harder, while the
longterm development of political dynamics is effectively characterised by disorder, as far as our ability to predict is concerned. It is important to clarify that certain levels of uncertainty are unavoidable when looking into the

is important to identify
unpredictability
and not treat uncertainty as
embarrassing Rather than rejecting
planning outright, there is a need to
accept
inherent levels of uncertainty
future. Complexity science suggests that it

and analyse these levels of

work,

in some way unscientific or

as part of the nature of the systems with which we

rethink the purpose and principles of planning. This has two key strands. First, it is necessary to incorporate an

ance of the

into planning. The requirement for a certain level of detail in understanding future events should be balanced with

the understanding that both simple and intricate processes carry uncertainty of prediction. While improving ones models of change and analyses of facets of a situation may be worthwhile, it is just as important and often more
practical to work with a realistic understanding of this uncertainty and build a level of flexibility and adaptability into projects, allowing for greater resilience. It has been argued that development projects have fallen under the
enchantment of [delivering] clear, specific, measurable outcomes (Westley et al., 2006). In many cases, this could be unrealistic, ineffective or even counterproductive; it is uncertain whether valuable social outcomes could
be planned in terms of a specific series of outputs, and it is unclear why it is more productive to be able to hold agencies strictly accountable to promises at the expense of their promises delivering real results. This resonates with
critiques of the log frame approach cited earlier, which argue that the adoption of the log frame as a central tool in effect and impact evaluations assumes higher powers of foresight than in fact is the case (Gasper, 2000). What is
needed is higher levels of flexibility in the funding of international aid work, involving less stringent targets and requirements from donors. The role of M&E would be shifted to value learning from unexpected outcomes. This is at
the heart of the participatory approach to M&E developed by IDRC called outcome mapping. 31 Second, the way organisations look into the future should be adjusted by taking a more systematic and realistic view of what the future
can hold: A single vision to serve as an intended organisational future is a thoroughly bad idea not that the long term is dismissed as an effective irrelevance, [instead we need a] refocusing: rather than establish a future target
and work back to what we do now to achieve it, the sequence is reversed. We should concentrate on the significant issues which need to be handled in the short term, and ensure that the debate about their long-term consequences
is lively and engaged (Rosenhead, 2001). What is needed is a pragmatic balance between present concerns and future potentialities (ibid); this means that ongoing systematic thinking about the future is an important task for any
organisation working in development or humanitarian aid. Foresight is the ability to create and maintain viable forward views and to use these in organisationally useful ways (Slaughter, 2003), and futures techniques, such as
driver analysis or scenario planning, are suitable for this task. Scenario planning constructs a number of possible futures, in order to produce decisions and policies that are robust under a variety of feasible circumstances. This
encourages a move away from looking for optimal policies or strategies: any strategy can only be optimum under certain conditions and when those conditions change, the strategy may no longer be optimal (Mittleton-Kelly,
2003), so it may be preferable to produce strategies that are robust and insensitive to future variability rather than optimal for one possible future scenario. Path dependence and lock ins are also important to consider in the
context of the practices of international aid agencies. The widespread use of the logical framework approach, despite the often serious critiques, is a clear example of path dependence at play. In fact, it could be argued that linearity
has a lock in when it comes to the thought processes and approaches of international agencies. How lock ins may be addressed in specific agency contexts is touched upon in Concept 7 on attractors and chaos Concept 6: Phase
space and attractors Outline of the concept The dimensions of any system can be mapped using a concept called phase space, also described as the space of the possible (Cohen and Stewart, 1995).7 For any system, the space of
the possible is developed by identifying all the dimensions that are relevant to understanding the system, then determining the possible values that these dimensions can take (Romenska, 2006). This space of the possible is then
represented in either graphical or tabular form. In natural sciences, the prevalence of time-series data means that the phase space can be represented as a graphical map of all of the relevant dimensions and their values. In social
scientific thinking, tables of data can be used to apply the same principles. The phase space of a system is literally the set of all the possible states or phases that the system can occupy. Phase space is particularly useful as a
way to describe complex systems because it does not seek to establish known relationships between selected variables, but instead attempts to shed light on the overall shape of the system by looking at the patterns apparent when
looking across all of the key dimensions. This resonates with a key point raised in Concept 1 more may be learned about complex systems by trying to understand the important patterns of interaction and association across
different elements and dimensions of such systems (Haynes, 2003). Phase space can be used to enable this kind of learning. By creating such a map of a system, it is possible to characterise how that system changes over time and
the constraints that exist to change in the system (Musters et al., 1998). 7 Phase space is often used interchangeably with the phrase state space. 32 Detailed explanation The dimensions of a complex system mutually influence
each other, leading to an intricate intertwining (Mittleton-Kelly, 2003) of these relationships and system behaviours to degrees of nonlinearity and unpredictability. Because of the challenges involved in analysing such systems,
scientists studying complex systems have made use of a mathematical tool called phase space, which allows data relating to the dimensions of a system to be mapped rather than solved (Capra, 1996). Put simply, phase space is a
visual way of representing information about the dimensions of a system. Rather than a graph, which attempts to show the relationships between specific chosen dimensions, phase space maps the possible values of each dimension

Byrne gives the example of a city as a

complex system
the cities are complex problems
a range
of variables are interacting simultaneously in interconnected ways.
of the system (akin to drawing the axes of a graph). This is the space within which a complex system displays its behaviour.
(Byrne, 2006). He describes how

in that they present situations where

and

He cites the specific example of Leicester,

a city in the UK that grew from a small market town of 2,000 people in the 11th century to a city of 280,000 in 2001. Using the Census data from 2001, he shows that Leicester could be seen as a complex urban system made up of
the following variables:

No scenario for extinction hyperbolizing impacts only make

them more likely
Beach, 14 - freelance writer, political activist, web producer (Justin, Huffington
Post, Stop Worrying, Humans Aren't Going Extinct Any Time Soon,
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/justin-beach/human-extinction_b_5457038.html) // JK
I grew up in the middle of the cold war. Along with fire drills, we were regularly
asked to get under our desks at school and pretend that nuclear weapons were on
the way (and pretend that that thin piece of wood would protect us in some way). In
2014 there are more nuclear weapons than ever, but we don't really talk about
them very much. Instead we talk, primarily about the possibility of human extinction
due to climate change, food shortages, ocean acidification or, occasionally, supervolcanos or comet collisions. All of these things are possible, and all of them are
very unlikely to cause the extinction of humanity. Given our current population, if
something killed 99.99 per cent of the human population, 700,000 people would

survive and those people would have the knowledge necessary to make drinking
water safe, create sanitation systems, advanced communication systems, make
medicines, transportation systems and generate electricity . During the 20th
century, we experienced the dust bowl and the great depression, two world wars,
worldwide pandemics, numerous genocides and still managed to triple our
population and double life expectancy in 100 years. We are a resilient species. It is
likely that, by the end of this century, we'll inhabit a second planet and vastly
increase our life expectancy rather than face extinction. However, even if there is
something out there that can wipe out 100 per cent of humanity, we need to stop
talking about it that way. Long term thinking does not come naturally to animals,
including humans. A squirrel may put away food for winter, but it has no concept of
the long term health and wellness of its species. Humans are smart, but we are still
intelligent naked apes at our core. We may consider the long term viability of
humanity, but we're fighting millions of years of evolution to think that way. As
Richard Dawkins said in an interview with the Environment Foundation "A species,
all of whose individuals work for the long-term survival of the species, is more likely
to survive than a species whose individuals work for their own selfish good. But it is
of the nature of Darwinism that short-term survival is what counts and, if the
striving for short-term survival drives the species extinct, that's just too bad." I'm
not a psychologist and I can't say for sure what the effect is of raising successive
generations with the assumption that there isn't going to be a future. However, I
think I can safely say that the impact is not positive. Going to high school in
California I was within 100 miles of three important military bases. I knew that I was
at ground zero and if someone launched nuclear weapons that there was no chance
of survival. Between the nuclear threat and various environmental threats I did not
expect to see much of adulthood. If generations X and Y seem a little lost it may, in
part, be because many of us didn't think we'd see 2014. Many still don't expect to
see 2020. Beyond individual outcomes, the lack of long-term thinking makes it
much more difficult to solve problems like climate change and global poverty. In a
way, constantly telling people that we're facing human extinction actually makes
human extinction more likely. Extinction is a sexy word. I'm sure that using gets
more people to read your article, support your political position or donate to your
cause. However, using it is problematic both because it isn't true in any case and
because it runs the risk of creating a self fulfilling prophecy .

Case Enviro
The 1acs attempt to know the world dis the creation of
biosphere 2 a world which overwrites the inherent chaos and
destruction of nature this turns the case and causes endless
ressentiment
Baudrillard, 94 (Jean, The Illusion of the End, 1994, LB)
Such a very American hallucination this ocean, this savannah, this desert, this virgin forest
reconstituted in miniature, vitrified beneath their experimental bubble . In the true
spirit of Disneyland's attractions, Biosphere 2 is not an experiment, but an
experimental attraction. The most amazing thing is that they have reconstituted a fragment of artificial
desert right in the middle of the natural desert (a bit like reconstituting Hollywood in Disneyworld ). Only in this
artificial desert there are neither scorpions nor Indians to be exterminated; there are
only extraterrestrials trained to survive in the very place where they destroyed
another, far better adapted race, leaving it no chance. The whole humanist ideology
- ecological, climatic, micro-cosmic and biogenetic - is summed up here, but this is
of no importance. Only the sidereal, transparent form of the edifice means anything - but what? Difficult to
say. As ever, absolute space inspires engineers, gives meaning to a project which has none, except the mad desire
for a miniaturization of the human species, with a view perhaps to a future race and its emergence, of which we still

The artificial promiscuity of climates has its counterpart in the artificial

immunity of the space: the elimination of all spontaneous generation (of germs,
viruses, microbes), the automatic purification of the water, the air, the physical
atmosphere (and the mental atmosphere too, purified by science). The elimination of all
dream. . .

sexual reproduction: it is forbidden to reproduce in Biosphere 2; even contamination from life [Ie vivant] is
dangerous; sexuality may spoil the experiment. Sexual difference functions only as a formal, statistical variable (the

Everything
here is designed with a brain-like abstraction. Biosphere 2 is to Biosphere 1 (the
whole of our planet and the cosmos) what the brain is to the human being in
general: the synthesis in miniature of all its possible functions and operations: the
desert lobe, the virgin forest lobe, the nourishing agriculture lobe, the residential
lobe, all carefully distinct and placed side by side, according to the analytical
imperative. All of this in reality entirely outdated with respect to what we now know about the brain - its
plasticity, its elasticity, the reversible sequencing of all its operations. There is, then, behind this
archaic model, beneath its futuristic exterior, a gigantic hypothetical error, a fierce
idealization doomed to failure. In fact, the 'truth' of the operation lies elsewhere,
and you sense this when you return from Biosphere 2 to 'real' America, as you do
when you emerge from Disneyland into real life: the fact is that the imaginary, or
experimental, model is in no way different from the real functioning of this society.
Just as the whole of America is built in the image of Disneyland , so the whole of American
society is carrying on - in real time and out in the open - the same experiment as
Biosphere 2 which is therefore only falsely experimental, just as Disneyland is only
falsely imaginary. The recycling of all substances, the integration of flows and circuits, non-pollution, artificial
same number of women as men; if anyone drops out, a person of the same sex is substituted).

immunity, ecological balancing, controlled abstinence, restrained jouissance but, also, the right of all species to

All categories
formally brought under the one umbrella of the law - this latter setting its seal on
the ending of natural selection. It is generally thought that the obsession with
survival is a logical consequence of life and the right to life. But, most of the time, the two
survival and conservation - and not just plant and animal species, but also social ones.

Life is not a question of rights, and what follows on from life is not
survival, which is artificial, but death. It is only by paying the price of a failure to
live, a failure to take pleasure, a failure to die that man is assured of survival . At least
things are contradictory.

in present conditions, which the Biosphere principle perpetuates. This micro-universe seeks to exorcize catastrophe
by making an artificial synthesis of all the elements of catastrophe. From the perspective of survival, of recycling
and feedback, of stabilization and metastabilization, the elements of life are sacrificed to those of survival

Real life, which surely, after all, has the right to disappear (or might there
is sacrificed to artificial survival. The real planet,
presumed condemned, is sacrificed in advance to its miniaturized, air-conditioned
clone (have no fear, all the earth's climates are air-conditioned here ) which is
designed to vanquish death by total simulation . In days gone by it was the dead who
were embalmed for eternity; today, it is the living we embalm alive in a state of
survival. Must this be our hope? Having lost our metaphysical utopias, do we have to build this prophylactic one?
(elimination of germs, of evil, of sex).

be a paradoxical limit to human rights?),

What, then, is this species endowed with the insane pretension to survive - not to transcend itself by virtue of its
natural intelligence, but to survive physically, biologically, by virtue of its artificial intelligence? Is there a species
destined to escape natural selection, natural disappearance - in a word, death? What cosmic cussedness might give
rise to such a turnabout? What vital reaction might produce the idea of survival at any cost? What metaphysical
anomaly might grant the right not to disappear - logical counterpart of the remarkable good fortune of having

There is a kind of aberration in the attempt to eternalize the species - not to

immortalize it in its actions, but to eternalize it in this face-lifted coma, in the glass
coffin of Biosphere 2.We may, nonetheless, take the view that this experiment, like any attempt to achieve
appeared?

artificial survival or artificial paradise, is illusory, not from any technical shortcomings, but in its very principle. In

Let us hope that the random

universe outside smashes this glass coffin. Any accident will do if it rescues us from
a scientific euphoria sustained by drip-feed.
spite of itself, it is threatened by the same accidents as real life. Fortunately.

Ecological horror stories in debate destroy efective

environmental policy.
Holly Doremus, Professor of Law, University of California at Davis, 2K
(Washington & Lee Law Review, 57 Wash & Lee L. Rev. 11, Winter)
The stories we tell to explain and justify our view of the relationship of humanity
with nature are important determinants of the policies we adopt and the attitudes
we develop. To date we have relied on three primary discourses to explain why and
how the law should protect nature. These discourses are all valid. Nature is an
important material resource for human use, a unique esthetic resource for human
enjoyment, and most people agree that we have some kind of ethical obligation to
protect nature. While the discourses themselves are both valid and inevitable, the
forms in which they have been brought to the political debate limit our ability to
respond to, and even our ability to fully perceive, the problem of nature protection.
The ecological horror story encourages us to view nature solely as a bundle of
resources for human consumption or convenience, to rely on cost-benefit
accounting in making decisions about what parts of nature we should protect, and
to ignore the loss of nature short of catastrophic ecological collapse. The wilderness
story teaches us that nature is defined by our absence, and encourages us to
establish a limited number of highly protected reserves. The story of Noah's ark
allows us to believe we are facing a short-term crisis, resolvable through
straightforward temporary measures. None of these stories addresses the crux of
the modern nature problem, which is where people fit into nature . In order to
address the boundary conflicts, distributional issues, and conflicts between

discourses that currently plague our efforts to protect nature, we must find ways to
address those issues in our political conversation. We already have a substantial
number of building blocks that could contribute to a new discourse about people
and nature. Constructing such a discourse should be a high priority in the new
millennium for those who hope nature will survive into the next one.

Traditional modeling excludes socioecological improvement in

favor of consensus- stakeholders must take complexity into
account to evaluate environmental harms
Zellner et al 12, Moira Zellner et al, assistant professor in the Department of Urban Planning and
Policy and a research assistant professor in the Institute for Environmental Science and Policy at the University of
Illinois at Chicago,
Modeling, learning, and planning together: an application of participatory agent-based modeling to
environmental planning, URISA Journal Jan, 2012 Volume 24, Issue1, 1/01/2012

modeling efforts often fail to lead to the learning necessary for

changes in policy and behavior to occur because citizens find it difficult to interact
with the model and interpret its outputs
the outcomes predicted by "black
box" simulation tools are strongly questioned by participants
As a result, participants rarely
incorporate their own values and specialized knowledge into the spatial and
dynamic models, or derive useful insights from the simulations to inform discussions
that advance policy changes in the direction of socioecological improvement. Such
collaborative processes eventually may lead to consensus but not necessarily to a
better understanding of how the problem being addressed is complex and to policy
that adapts policy goals to this new understanding ,
Helping stakeholders learn
about complex environmental problems requires new skills and tools to support
reasoning about complexity. Such reasoning ability would enable stakeholders to
more readily recognize different forms of knowledge, scales, and interactions
represented in their collective endeavor, and to expand their understanding of the
problem from a propositional view of how individual pairs of variables interact to a
view that acknowledges the networked structure of influences on variables of
interest. Stakeholders thus would be better equipped to examine the relative
influence of different variables both in terms of effect and relative manipulability,
allowing communities to avoid making planning decisions that might seem to lead
to socio-ecological improvement but to comparatively little net effect. The ability to
reason about complexity would lead, therefore, to the cocreation of both knowledge
and beliefs about appropriate steps toward resource sustainability, beyond the
conditions for effective participation that are typically the focus of planning
literature
As a consequence of these barriers,

(Zellner 2008). Moreover,

because the assumptions and interactions within the simulation

are not revealed, especially when the results do not match the participants' beliefs and values (Dasgupta et al. 2010).

i.e., to learning.

(Steyaert et al. 2007, Zellner 2008).

Case Nukes
Possession of nuclear weapons makes war impossible.
Baudrillard 81 (Jean, Simulacra and Simulation, 1981, p. 39-40)
This is why nuclear proliferation does not increase the risk of either an atomic clash or an accident-save in the interval when the
"young" powers could be tempted to make a nondeterrent, "real" use of it (as the Americans did in Hiroshima-but precisely only
they had a right to this "use value" of the bomb, all of those who have acquired it since will be deterred from using it by the very
fact of possessing it). Entry into the atomic club, so prettily named, very quickly effaces (as

unionization does in the working world) any inclination toward violent intervention.
Responsibility; control, censure, self-deterrence always grow more rapidly than the forces or
the weapons at our disposal: this is the secret of the social order. Thus the very possibility of paralyzing a whole
country by flicking a switch makes it so that the electrical engineers will never use this weapon: the whole myth of the total and
revolutionary strike crumbles at the very moment when the means are available-but alas precisely because those means are
available. Therein lies the whole process of deterrence. It is thus perfectly probable that one day we will see

nuclear powers export atomic reactors, weapons, and bombs to every latitude. Control by
threat will be replaced by the more effective strategy of pacification through the bomb and
through the possession of the bomb. The "little" powers, believing that they are buying their independent striking force, will buy
the virus of deterrence, of their own deterrence. The same goes for the atomic reactors that we have already sent them: so many
neutron bombs knocking out all historical virulence, all risk of explosion. In this sense, the nuclear everywhere inaugurates an
accelerated process of implosion, it freezes everything around it, it absorbs all living energy. The nuclear is at once the
culminating point of available energy and the maximization of energy control systems. Lockdown and control

increase in direct proportion to (and undoubtedly even faster than) liberating potentialities.
This was already the aporia of the modem revolution. It is still the absolute paradox of the nuclear. Energies freeze in
their own fire, they deter themselves. One can no longer imagine what project, what power, what strategy, what
subject could exist behind this enclosure, this vast saturation of a system by its own forces, now neutralized, unusable,
unintelligible, nonexplosive-except for the possibility of an explosion toward the cente1; of an implosion where all these energies
would be abolished in a catastrophic process (in the literal sense, that is to say in the sense of a reversion of the whole cycle
toward a minimal point, of a reversion of energies toward a minimal threshold).

Case War
No Miscalc or escalationevery crisis ever disproves and
neither side would launch
Quinlan 9

(Michael, Former Permanent Under-Sec. StateUK Ministry of Defense, Thinking about Nuclear Weapons: Principles, Problems, Prospects, p. 63-69) *we dont endorse gendered language

Even if initial nuclear use did not quickly end the fighting
inexorable
momentum
with each side rushing to overreaction
is
implausible It fails to consider
decisionmakers
Neither side could want
escalation. Both would be appalled
Both would be
looking for signs the
other was ready to call a halt. Both, given
evasion or concealment which
modem
platforms
can possess, could have
significant forces invulnerable
enough not to entail use-or-lose pressures
neither side
can have any predisposition to suppose
that the right course
is
to go on copiously launching weapons. And none of this analysis rests on
rationality
Any
nuclear armoury can inflict destruction outweighing any
prize
A
state attacking the possessor of such an armoury must
be doing so
on a judgement that the possessor would be found lacking in the will
to use it If the
possessor used nuclear weapons
this
judgement would
look
precarious There must be
a
possibility of the
aggressor leaders' concluding that their initial judgement had been mistaken
and
they must call off the aggression
, the supposition of

in a developing exchange,

amid confusion and uncertainty,

what the situation of the

would really be.

at what was going on.

desperately

that

the capacity for

delivery

and vehicles

in reserve

. (It may be more open to question, as noted earlier, whether newer nuclear-weapon possessors can be immediately

in that position; but it is within reach of any substantial state with advanced technological capabilities, and attaining it is certain to be a high priority in the development of forces.) As a result,
, in an ambiguous situation of fearful risk,

when in doubt

any presumption of highly

subtle or pre-concerted

. The rationality required is plain. The argument is reinforced if we consider the possible reasoning of an aggressor at a more dispassionate level.
possible

substantial

that aggression could hope to seize.

therefore

(once given that it cannot count upon

destroying the armoury pre-emptively)

.

attacked

, whether first or in response to the aggressor's own first use,

begin to

dangerously

at least

substantial

that the risks were

after all greater than whatever prize they had been seeking,

that for their own country's survival

. Deterrence planning such as that

of NATO was directed in the first place to preventing the initial misjudgement and in the second, if it were nevertheless made, to compelling such a reappraisal. The former aim had to have primacy, because it could not be taken for

An aggressor state
would itself be at huge risk if nuclear war developed , as its leaders would know
granted that the latter was certain to work. But there was no ground for assuming in advance, for all possible scenarios, that the chance of its working must be negligible.

. It may be

argued that a policy which abandons hope of physically defeating the enemy and simply hopes to get him to desist is pure gamble, a matter of who blinks first; and that the political and moral nature of most likely aggressors, almost
ex hypothesi, makes them the less likely to blink. One response to this is to ask what is the alternativeit can only be surrender. But a more positive and hopeful answer lies in the fact that the criticism is posed in a political vacuum.
Real-life conflict would have a political context. The context which concerned NATO during the cold war, for example, was one of defending vital interests against a postulated aggressor whose own vital interests would not be
engaged, or would be less engaged. Certainty is not possible, but a clear asymmetry of vital interest is a legitimate basis for expecting an asymmetry, credible to both sides, of resolve in conflict. That places upon statesmen, as page
23 has noted, the key task in deterrence of building up in advance a clear and shared grasp of where limits lie. That was plainly achieved in cold-war Europe. If vital interests have been defined in a way that is dear, and also clearly
not overlapping or incompatible with those of the adversary, a credible basis has been laid for the likelihood of greater resolve in resistance. It was also sometimes suggested by critics that whatever might be indicated by theoretical
discussion of political will and interests, the military environment of nuclear warfareparticularly difficulties of communication and controlwould drive escalation with overwhelming probability to the limit. But it is obscure why
matters should be regarded as inevitably .so for every possible level and setting of action. Even if the history of war suggested (as it scarcely does) that military decision-makers are mostly apt to work on the principle 'When in

Given that
inexorable escalation would mean catastrophe for both, it would be perverse to
suppose them permanently incapable of framing arrangements which avoid it.
Many types of weapon
had physical safeguards such as PALs incorporated to reinforce organizational ones.
There were multiple communication and control systems for passing information,
orders, and prohibitions
it remained possible to
operate on a general fail-safe presumption: no authorization, no use.
doubt, lash out', the nuclear revolution creates an utterly new situation. The pervasive reality, always plain to both sides during the cold war, is `If this goes on to the end, we are all ruined'.

As page 16 has

noted, NATO gave its military commanders no widespread delegated authority, in peace or war, to launch nuclear weapons without specific political direction.

moreover

. Such systems could not be totally guaranteed against disruption if at a fairly intense level of strategic exchangewhich was only one of many possible levels of

conflict an adversary judged it to be in his interest to weaken political control. It was far from clear why he necessarily should so judge. Even then, however,

That was the basis on which NATO

operated. If it is feared that the arrangements which 1 a nuclear-weapon possessor has in place do not meet such standards in some respects, the logical course is to continue to improve them rather than to assume escalation to be

The likelihood of escalation can never be

Where between those two extremes it may lie can never be
it would not be
fixed

certain and uncontrollable, with all the enormous inferences that would have to flow from such an assumption.

100 per cent

calculable

, and never zero.

in advance; and even were it so calculable,

precisely

uniquely

it would stand to vary hugely with circumstances. That there should be any risk at all of

escalation to widespread nuclear war must be deeply disturbing, and decision-makers would always have to weigh it most anxiously. But a pair of key truths about it need to be recognized. The first is that the risk of escalation to
large-scale nuclear war is inescapably present in any significant armed conflict between nuclear-capable powers, whoever may have started the conflict and whoever may first have used any particular category of weapon. The
initiator of the conflict will always have physically available to him options for applying more force if he meets effective resistance. If the risk of escalation, whatever its degree of probability, is to be regarded as absolutely
unacceptable, the necessary inference is that a state attacked by a substantial nuclear power must forgo military resistance. It must surrender, even if it has a nuclear armoury of its own. But the companion truth is that, as page 47
has noted, the risk of escalation is an inescapable burden also upon the aggressor. The exploitation of that burden is the crucial route, if conflict does break out, for managing it, to a tolerable outcome--the only route, indeed,
intermediate between surrender and holocaust, and so the necessary basis for deterrence beforehand. The working out of plans to exploit escalation risk most effectively in deterring potential aggression entails further and complex
issues. It is for example plainly desirable, wherever geography, politics, and available resources so permit without triggering arms races, to make provisions and dispositions that are likely to place the onus of making the bigger, and
more evidently dangerous steps in escalation upon the aggressor volib wishes to maintain his attack, rather than upon the defender. (The customary shorthand for this desirable posture used to be 'escalation dominance'.) These
issues are not further discussed here. But addressing them needs to start from acknowledgement that there are in any event no certainties or absolutes available, no options guaranteed to be risk-free and cost-free. Deterrence is not

Ensuring
the safety and security of nuclear weapons plainly needs to be taken most seriously
possible without escalation risk; and its presence can point to no automatic policy conclusion save for those who espouse outright pacifism and accept its consequences. Accident and Miscalculation

direct evidence
suggests that it always has been so taken
in every possessor state, with the inevitable occasional failures to follow strict
procedures dealt with rigorously
Detailed information is understandably not published, but such

as there is

. Critics have nevertheless from time to time argued that the possibility of accident involving nuclear weapons is so substantial that it must

weigh heavily in the entire evaluation of whether war-prevention structures entailing their existence should be tolerated at all. Two sorts of scenario are usually in question. The first is that of a single grave event involving an
unintended nuclear explosiona technical disaster at a storage site, for example, Dr the accidental or unauthorized launch of a delivery system with a live nuclear warhead. The second is that of some eventperhaps such an
explosion or launch, or some other mishap such as malfunction or misinterpretation of radar signals or computer systemsinitiating a sequence of response and counter-response that culminated in a nuclear exchange which no one
had truly intended. No event that is physically possible can be said to be of absolutely zero probability (just as at an opposite extreme it is absurd to claim, as has been heard from distinguished figures, that nuclear-weapon use can
be guaranteed to happen within some finite future span despite not having happened for over sixty years). But human affairs cannot be managed to the standard of either zero or total probability. We have to assess levels between

There have
been
since 1945,
many known accidents involving nuclear weapons
in past days when such carriage was a frequent feature of readiness
arrangements----it no longer is)
None however
has entailed a nuclear detonation
the probability of any accident triggering a nuclear
explosion is extremely low.
the mechanisms needed to set off such an
explosion are technically demanding, and
the past sixty years have seen
extensive improvements in safety arrangements for both the design and the
handling of weapons
The years which the world has come through
have included early
decades in which knowledge was sketchier, precautions were less developed, and
weapon designs were less ultra-safe
as well as substantial periods in which
weapon numbers were larger, deployments more widespread and diverse,
movements more frequent, and several aspects of doctrine and readiness
arrangements more tense
In none of these
instances, it is accepted, did matters get at all near to nuclear launch-the rival and more logical inference from hundreds of events stretching
over sixty years of experience presents itself once more: that the probability of
initial misinterpretation leading far towards mistaken launch is remote.
because
any nuclear-weapon possessor recognizes the gravity of any launch, release
sequences have many steps, and human decision is repeatedly interposed as well
as capping the sequences
History
scarcely offers any example of war
started by accident even before the nuclear revolution imposed an order-ofmagnitude increase in caution
No such launch is known to have occurred in over sixty years .
The probability is
very low
the further hypothesis of it initiating a
general nuclear exchange is far-fetched. It fails to consider the real situation of
decision-makers as pages 63-4 have brought out
those theoretical limits and weigh their reality and implications against other factors, in security planning as in everyday life.

certainly

, across the decades

, from transporters skidding off roads to bomber aircraft crashing with or accidentally dropping

the weapons they carried (

. A few of these accidents may have released into the nearby environment highly toxic material.

. Some commentators suggest that this reflects bizarrely good fortune amid such massive activity and deployment over so many years. A

more rational deduction from the facts of this long experience would however be that

It might be further noted that

that in a large number of ways

. It is undoubtedly possible to see respects in which, after the cold war, some of the factors bearing upon risk may be new or more adverse; but some are now plainly less so.
entirely without accidental or unauthorized detonation

than they later became,

. Similar considerations apply to the hypothesis of nuclear war being mistakenly triggered by false alarm. Critics again point to the fact, as it is understood, of

numerous occasions when initial steps in alert sequences for US nuclear forces were embarked upon, or at least called for, by, indicators mistaken or misconstrued.

extraordinary good fortune again,

critics have suggested. But

Precisely

vast

. To convey that because a first step was prompted the world somehow came close to accidental nuclear war is wild hyperbole, rather like asserting, when a

tennis champion has lost his opening service game, that he was nearly beaten in straight sets.

anyway

ready

major

. It was occasionally conjectured that nuclear war might be triggered by the real but accidental or unauthorized launch of a strategic nuclear-weapon

delivery system in the direction of a potential adversary.

of it

therefore

. But even if it did happen,

. The notion that cosmic holocaust might be mistakenly precipitated in this way belongs to science

fiction.

Case Terrorism
Terrorism is complex the plans Reductionist models do not
deter them
Beech 04 Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army, US Army War College (Michael, Observing al qaeda through
the lens of complexity theory: recommendations for the national strategy to defeat terrorism, USAWC Strategy
Research Project, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA423895)//BZ

Reductionist models and tools used by today's senior leaders may not by
themselves sufficiently clarify the pervasive ambiguity and complexities presented
by the threat of anti-American global terrorism
alternative theories that bring
into focus networks and dynamic systems may help inform a US strategy to defeat
global terrorism.
Complexity Theory
provides a lens through which to clarify events and behaviors
that might otherwise seem clouded and informs our decisions and actions relative
to a set of phenomenon
.8 Conversely,

The alternative theory this paper examines is

, which as any theory, seeks to explain or gain understanding and comprehension of the

environment, behaviors and events around us. Theory

9 Complexity Theory views behaviors and actions as the interrelationship between a great many components parts.10 It refers to these interrelationships or systems

as complex, because it is impossible to fully understand these systems by reducing them to an examination of their constituent parts.11 Instead, Complexity Theory holds that interactions produce collective behaviors and

seek to comprehend a
phenomenon by examining its individual attributes and are insufficient to
understand complex networks Complexity Theory
improve the US strategy aimed at defeating terrorists from
perpetrating further catastrophic acts
characteristics that are not exhibited when the components parts are examined individually.12 This is in contrast with reductionist theories, which

. Using

as a guide, this paper analyses al Qaeda as part of a global anti-American Islamic

terrorist network and develops recommendations to

against the United States homeland. This paper first describes the fundamental characteristics of Complexity Theory. Using

these fundamental characteristics as criteria, this paper analyzes al Qaeda's behaviors to support the proposition that al Qaeda is a highly complex and adaptive network and identifies the elements of Al Qaeda's resilience to the

to best inform a strategy against the terrorist network, this paper

examines the underlying origins, conditions and sources upon which the network
interdependencies emerge. Understanding the sources of these interdependencies
provides evidence regarding al Qaeda's fitness and identifies elements to develop a
more comprehensive strategy to defeat it.
current US counter terrorism strategy. Finally,

Case Deterrence
Deterrence theory fails unpredictable variables and chaotic
international relations overwhelm linear predictions
Jervis 97 professor of international affairs at Columbia (Robert, Complex Systems: The Role of
Interactions, Complexity, Global Politics, and National Security,
http://www.dodccrp.org/html4/bibliography/comch03.html) //BZ

the effect of one variable or characteristic can depend on which others are
present
an entirely democratic world
would necessarily be a peaceful one: democracies might now be united by
opposition to or the desire to be different from autocracies and once triumphant
might turn on each other
many of the characteristics of democracies
that classical Realists saw as undermining their ability to conduct foreign policythe
tendency to compromise, heed public opinion, and assume others are reasonable
may serve them well when most of their interactions are with other democracie
the results cannot be predicted from examining the
individual inputs separate
we should make the interaction itself the unit of analysis
The effect of one variable frequently depends on the state
of another
research tries to test for interaction effects and much of modern social science
is built on the understanding that social and political outcomes are not simple
aggregations of the actors preferences because very different results are possible
depending on how choices are structured and how actors move strategically. Turning
to international politics
Similarly,

. Thus even if it is true that democracies do not fight each other in a world where other regimes exist, it would not follow that

. (The other side of this coin is that

s.) To further

explore interactions it is useful to start with the basic point that

ly. I will then move on to the ways in which the effect of one actors strategy depends on that of others, after which I will discuss how the actors and their

environments shape each other, sometimes to the point where

. First

Interactions: Results Cannot Be Predicted From the Separate Actions

, as we often see in everyday life: each of two chemicals alone may be harmless but exposure to both could be fatal; patients have suffered from taking combinations of medicines that individually are

helpful. So

, Shibley Telhami argues that while pan-Arabism and pro-Palestinian sentiment worked to enhance Egyptian influence when Egypt was strong, they made it more

dependent on other Arab states when Egypt was weak.14 From the factif it is a factthat nuclear weapons stabilized Soviet-American relations we cannot infer that they would have a similar impact on other rivalries because

variables that interact with nuclear weapons may be different in these cases
Within the military domain one finds interaction effects as well: two
weapons or tactics can work particularly well together and indeed most analysts
stress the value of "combined arms" techniques that coordinate the use of infantry,
artillery, armor, and aircraft Events that occur close together also can have a
different impact than they would if their separate influences were merely summed

(and of course may

vary from one pair of rivals to another).

. The

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan affected American foreign policy very deeply in part because it came on the heels of the Iranian revolution, which undercut American power, disturbed public opinion, and frightened allies. In explaining

we are prone to examine one sides behavior and overlook the stance of the
other with which it is interacting
explanations for why
deterrence succeeds in some cases and fails in others focus on differences in what
the defender did while ignoring variation in the power and motivation of the
challenger, just as much policy analysis in general startsand often endswith the
strengths and weaknesses of the policies contemplated and adopted
need to look at the goals, resources, and policies of those with whom the actor is
dealing.
outcomes,

. Although deterrence theory is built on the idea of interdependent decisions, most

. But one hand cannot clap; we

Teachers are prone to make the parallel error of not exploring how shortcomings in our students performances on tests may be attributable to the questions we ask.

US military predictions impossible as irrationality and

surprises dictate warfare.
Jervis, 97 professor of international affairs at Columbia (Robert, Complex Systems: The Role of
Interactions, Complexity, Global Politics, and National Security,
http://www.dodccrp.org/html4/bibliography/comch03.html) //BZ

Further complexities are introduced when we look at the interactions that occur
between strategies when actors consciously react to others and anticipate what

they think others will do.

many diplomatic and military surprises: a
state believes that the obstacles to a course of action are so great that the
adversary could not undertake it; the state therefore does little to block or prepare
for that action; the adversary therefore works especially hard to see if he can make
it succeed
In war it is precisely the things which are thought
impossible which most often succeed, when they are well conducted
Obvious examples are provided by

. As an 18th century general explained, "

."15 In the war in Vietnam, the U.S. Air

Force missed this dynamic and stopped patrolling sections of the Norths supply lines when reconnaissance revealed that the number of targets had greatly diminished: after the attacks ceased the enemy resumed use of the

Both the success and failures of policies are determined interactively

many
cases of intelligence failure are mutual they are failures by the side that took the
initiative as well as by the state that was taken by surprise
an actors anticipation
of what others will do stems in part from its estimate of what the other thinks the
actor will do
a state sees that a certain move by the adversary cannot
succeed and therefore does not expect the other to take it: the U.S. did not expect
the Russians to put missiles into Cuba or Japan to attack Pearl Harbor because
American officials knew that the U.S. would thwart these measures if they were
taken.
y, the American predictions were also
inaccurate
route.16

. This means that

i.e.,

. Indeed,

. In many cases of surprise

These judgments were correct, but because the other countries saw the world and the U.S. less accuratel
.17

Case Hegemony
Unipolarity impossible- in a world of chaos it is impossible to
maintain power influence. Long term predictions of
international afairs are impossible.
Kissane, 2007 assistant dean at the Centre d'Etudes Franco-Americain de
Management, lecturer at the University of South Australia, PhD from the University
of South Australia in International Relations theory (Dylan, The possibility for
theoretical revolution in international politics,
http://works.bepress.com/dylankissane/16)//BZ
unipolarity in the system is a rare occurrence . If unipolarity is
defined as the situation where, within a system, one actor is preponderant and
controls more than half of the resources within that system, it should be rare under
a chaotic system
polarity will not be stable within a
chaotic system. Assuming a system with a significant number and variety of actor
then unipolarity can be expected to be much less common than
multipolarity even bipolarity
it seems unlikely that unipolarity would be a normal state
of affairs for the international system
as
actors will seek security to ensure
their survival in the system, a sole power that dominates the system - as in a
unipolar system - is likely to be interpreted as a threat by at least some of the other
actors in the system
unipolarity
is likely to be challenged by
other actors and last only a short time. No polar distribution is necessarily unstable
In considering polarity, it should also be noted that in a chaotic system no particular
polar distribution of power is necessarily more stable or ordered than any other
From the first two assumptions, it could be assumed that

. This is for two reasons. Firstly, and largely from assumption one, it is understood that

s (as

the international system as described must be}

. Imagine, for example, 10 units in a system. There are only 10 ways in which the system could be unipolar but 45 different bipolar pairings and 968 ways

the system can be multipolar. With reference to simple probability alone,

. Secondly,

(Layne 1993; Christensen 2001). Thus, while

it is assumed that

is possible, it

. As Diana

Richards has previously shown, under chaos unipolarity, bipolarity and multipolarity all have the potential to be stable. Unlike the anarchy of neorealist theory, chaos does not favour one distribution of power or security to another in
terms of bringing stability to the system. As Richards has argued, a chaotic model includes "stable configurations ranging from unipolar, bipolar, tripolar, egalitarian multipolar [and] multipolar (1993, 69). Interactions impact on non-

a chaotic system an actor can be sure that their

interactions will have effects other than those intended by the actor With small
events having the potential for great impact on the wider system, it is unlikely that
interactions between actors can ever be truly 'controlled' or 'limited'.
in a
chaotic environment it is impossible for actors to predict all of the impacts of their
interactions (
actors are perpetually in a state of being able to draw
reasonably accurate short-term predictions about the results of interactions but
without being able to draw long-term conclusions.
interacting parties. Finally, and with reference to all three assumptions, in

Furthermore,

Gleick 1987, 21). This is not to say that they can predict none - for why else would an interaction take place if some result were not thought in some way to be likely to result? - but they cannot

predict all of the impacts and eventual results. Thus,

Linearization of American hegemony is false- relies on flawed

international theory
Sil and Katzenstein 10 Sil is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of
Pennysylvania while Katzenstein is a Professor of International Studies at Cornell (Rudra and Peter, Analytic
Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics: Reconfiguring Problems and Mechanisms across Research Traditions, part
of UPenn articles collection, http://www.polisci.upenn.edu/faculty/RSEclectic2010.pdf)//BZ
Although still comparatively rare in the social sciences, eclectic scholarship is beginning to make an impression in certain fields. Such eclecticism may be identified in relation to distinct strands within a broadly defined research

eclectic scholarship that cuts across research traditions in the

fields of international relations and comparative politics.
they take on problems of
broad scope, they develop complex causal storie
and they implicitly
seek pragmatic engagement within and beyond the academe.
tradition.93 In the interest of brevity, we focus here on

We neither pretend to offer an adequate summary of the arguments

considered, nor assess their substantive accuracy or explanatory power. We do, however, view these works as meeting our three criteria for analytic eclecticism:

s at the level of middle-range theory,

To this extent, we regard these works as reasonable

approximations of analytic eclecticism. In the study of international security, Robert Jerviss American Foreign Policy in a New Era represents a creative move in the direction of eclecticism.94 While the study is focused on the United

States policies in the post-Cold War era, the analysis is predicated on the assumption that a revolutionary transformation has taken place in the international system: A distinctive kind of security community has emerged, consisting
of the most powerful and developed states in the world, each of which has forsaken the use of force in its dealings with other members (as evident in the absence of official war plans). Although many take this state of affairs for

Even when security communities had emerged

in the past, they did not include the most powerful and developed states in the
international system
the current security community constitutes proof by
existence of the possibility of uncoerced peace without central authority and
requires scholars and policymakers to adjust their theoretical assumptions about
states perceptions, interests, and behavior.
granted, Jervis points out that it is a novel phenomenon that needs to be problematized and explained.

. For Jervis,

,95

thus

For this purpose, Jervis notes the strengths and limitations of theories embedded in the constructivist, liberal,

and realist traditions. These include: constructivist theories emphasizing the norm of nonviolence and an emergent identity shared by capitalist democracies; neoliberal theories stressing the pacifying effects of democratic politics,

realist theories focusing on the presence of external

threat, American hegemony, and the logic of nuclear deterrence.
none
can
independently explain the emergence or dynamics of the new security community ,
economic interdependence, and joint membership in international organizations; and

Noting that

of these theories

Jervis proceeds to adopt an eclectic analytic framework that reformulates and combines several causal factors: the belief that territorial conquest is difficult and unnecessary; the recognition of the costs of war, particularly in a
nuclear age; and, rooted in the spread of democracy, shifts in identity that reflect a sharp decline in militarism and nationalism as well as a growing compatibility in values among the most advanced major powers. Interestingly,

the significance of these factors and the complex manner in which they interact
depends on ongoing historical processes
the evolution of the international
economy has been marked by a disassociation between territoriality and national
prosperity,
. For example,

which has increased the costs of territorial acquisition in relation to potential material benefits. Similarly, the high degree of cooperation among the members of the security community is in part a

function of enduring legacies of the Cold War when these states, as members of a common alliance, were socialized to behave as partners and set aside conflict as a means to settle their grievances vis-a-vis one another.
Significantly, Jervis does not treat his analysis as a purely academic exercise. He is also concerned about the practical implications of his eclectic analysis, specifically in relation to American foreign policy and the responses of other

[w]e are headed for a difficult world, one that is

not likely to fit any of our ideologies or simple theories .
members of the security community. Jervis argues that, as a result of the Bush doctrine,

96 While pessimistic, the latter prediction is not simply a polemical statement.

It derives from Jerviss recon-sideration ofthe contours of the present international envi-ronment, which requires an urgent updating of conceptions of national interest and of the present course of American policy. In particular, Jervis

unilateral actions by the US

have begun to undermine the trust of
members of the security community who are increasingly concerned about
American hegemony
other members
are
adopting new styles of balancing that involve subtle, coordinated efforts to socialize
and entrap the US to keep its behavior within acceptable bounds.
cautions that

since 9/11

. However, he also notes that

of the security community, to the extent that they wish to check US hegemony,

97 Whether or not one concurs with Jervis

implied prescriptions, his analysis enables a more open-ended discussion among scholars and policymakers about the foreign policy implications of the multiple dimensions of a new, evolving international order.

Case Military Readiness

Your internal link scenarios of military readiness paper over a
much more complex issue
Saperstein 97 professor of physics at Wayne State (Alvin, Complexity, Chaos, and National Security
Policy: Metaphors or Tools?, Complexity, Global Politics, and National Security,
http://www.dodccrp.org/html4/bibliography/comch05.html) //BZ

our failure to successfully deal with Iraq

is that we fear
to deal with its possible breakthere were important confusions in our society in
anticipating and dealing with the break-up of the Soviet Union Our policies towards
China have also suffered from these confusions
It is not evident to me that a
single metaphor/toollike chaosis available or useful to us in dealing with a world
system characterized by "complexity."
these metaphors can contribute to
the development of the new attitudes required for the more complex modern world
to be alert to all new possibilities
we have to be alert to and be able
to respond to the possibility of bifurcation
of the existing system into very
different possible worlds, containing new and different elements interacting in novel
ways. Such bifurcations may occur at national levelswhere nations rise and fall,
where they are of interest to the strategist, and at local levelsof tactical interest,
where military, governmental, or corporate units are created or destroyed
the probabilities of their occurrence, and their outcomes, are not structureless;
familiarity and insight into the fundamental aspects of the system can lead to clues
as to when the probabilities of such change are large, and when they are small we
need very flexible diplomats and soldiers at all levels The metaphors of
complexity may be helpful in recruiting as well as in educating them They will have
to be very knowledgeable about past behavior of the system and its elementsas
determining the chances for radical transformation of the system They will have to
be open and adaptable to the new and novel which may confront them - with or
without rational anticipation
the new policy makers will have to be thoroughly
cognizant
Knowledge of the functioning of existing
governments, their departments or military units, will not be sufficient, as these
elements may be bubbling-up or dissolving into the inchoate foam of people and
groups below Not only are flexibility and imagination required for attaining ones
ends in a complex system The ends themselves will often be shifting and/or unclear
it may be desirable to fragment competing parties
to
consolidate them
the policymaker can help
direct these shifts, by influencing the elements at a lower level than those of the
system of interest ., in a system of nations, it may be advisable to attempt to
influence their individual citizens
One of the prime reasons for

a "sovereign" element in the Newtonian system

up. Similarly,

. In the Newtonian scheme-of-things, nations are sovereign states and deal only with each others

sovereigns. "Infringing upon sovereignty" is severely frowned upon. It is clear that we still speak to such a world, though we no longer live it.

Instead of specific new tools,

They can help sharpen minds dulled by a Newtonian world view so as

. (It should be obvious that such alertness and openness was always

present in some outstanding historic leaders whose minds were, perhaps, not so overburdened with Newtonian simplicities.) Above all,
)

21 (Fig.6a)

. Though these bifurcations

are contingent,

. Thus

shall

.22 (

.)

.23 Clearly,

of the relevant elements of anthropology, sociology, and psychology, as well as history.

In some cases

("divide and conquer"e.g., the British role in India); in other cases

(create alliances or nationse.g., the creation of Yugoslavia24). Of utmost importance is the recognition that

; e.g

.25 So much for the sanctity of national sovereignty!

Case Climate
Plan cant solve climate your internal links paper over a much
more complex issue
Levy and Lichtenstein, 2011 Levy is a Professor in Management and
Marketing at UMass while Lichtenstein is an associate professor in management at
UMass (David and Benyamin, Approaching Business and the Environment with
Complexity Theory, Oxford Press,
http://www.faculty.umb.edu/david_levy/LevyLicht2011_complexity_chap32.pdf) //BZ
Tragedy of the Commons
describes the tendency toward inaction in the face of the overuse of a common
resource such as the atmosphere, when private actors can free-ride and have little
incentive to change their behavior
large-scale
systemic crises require costly measures that demand an often lengthy process to
build consensus
such delays and disagreements reflect differences in technical
understandings of complex systems. Action on climate change
, has been
delayed while various parties argue over the best course of action: cap-and-trade
versus carbon taxes, nuclear power versus renewable energy. these differences are
also deeply political, reflecting the asymmetric ways in which actors perceive that a
crisis and remedial action will affect them The fiercest proponents of action on
climate change are the low-lying countries likely to be swamped by rising sea levels
the countries and sectors who strongly oppose action tend to be heavily
dependent on fossil fuels.
developing countries
demand massive transfusions of capital if they are to transition from cheap fossil
fuels.
Problems of collective action are exacerbated
by the need to coordinate multiple forms of intervention in complex dynamic
systems Neither a carbon tax nor a single technological breakthrough will,
solve
the climate problem
Intervention in complex
systems is also hindered by the likelihood of undesired and unanticipated
consequences
These uncertainties have led some to suggest that complex systems are
essentially unmanageable.
Three Mile Island concluded
catastrophic accidents were normal in the context of highly complex sociotechnical systems.
systems
could not always prevent occasional
human or technological failures from cascading into major disasters. The explosion
and massive oil leak from BP
highlights the challenge of anticipating every
potential eventuality
Intervention in sociotechnical systems entails coordinated action by large numbers of actors, raising the problem of collective action. Hardins (1968)

. Various societal institutions have evolved to address such collective action problems (Ostrom 1990), but

. In part,

, for example

Yet

In contrast,

Some rich countries might be willing to pay 1-2 per cent of GDP to cut emissions, but

The failure to reach agreement in Copenhagen was largely due to these deep divisions.

by itself,

, a point made by Jones (2009) in his system dynamics model of the evolution of the solar industry.

. Raising vehicle fuel economy standards reduces the cost of travel per mile, encouraging more car travel. Incentives to raise production of biofuels could raise food prices, and perhaps

encourage clearcutting forests.

Perrows (1989) study of the nuclear accident at

Even the most carefully designed

, Perrow argued,

s oil well in spring 2010

, especially when regulators and managers are under pressure to overlook risks to meet deadlines and profit targets.

that

Case Econ
The 1ACs depiction of the economy as a simplistic causal
process is flawed and ignores complexity.
Arthur 99 [External Professor, Santa Fe Institute and Visiting Researcher, Intelligent Systems Lab, PARC,
Economist with a specialty in Complexity Economics; Complexity and the Economy; Science, New Series, Vol. 284,
No. 5411 (Apr. 2, 1999), pp. 107-109 Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science Stable
URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2899147; KChakka]
After two centuries of studying equilibria-static patterns that call for no further behavioral adjustments-economists

When
viewed in out-of-equilibrium formation, economic patterns sometimes simplify into
the simple static equilibria of standard economics. More often they are ever
changing, showing perpetually novel behavior and emergent phenomena.
Complexity portrays the economy not as deterministic, predictable, and
mechanistic, but as process dependent, organic, and always evolving.
are beginning to study the general emergence of structures and the unfolding of patterns in the economy.

AT: Case 2NC/1NR

Ext: Nuke War

As soon as countries acquire nuclear weapons, they are given
a sense of power and responsibility which leads to a reciprocal
increase in restraint when using those weapons, due to
international norms and deterrence theory. No state is exempt
from this, in fact, if we were to give nuclear weapons to every
country in the world, it could prevent war forever. The more
nuclear armaments a country has, the more power it has over
its people and its weapons, which guarantees a war will never
occur.

Ext: Enviro
Nature is not something that we can control, or enter into a
biological exchange with. Our argument is an internal link turn as
well as an impact magnifier to the impact claims of the
Affirmative. Well isolate two disads
Value to life DA Managing nature reduces our person to person
relations to survivalism which turns into simulated responses in
an air conditioned simulacra. This seals life off from having any
unique value by preserving it in the same way eternally in
cellophane wrap
Utopianism DA The creation of Biosphere 2 is the perfect
example of how we attempt to liquidate ever instance of chaos
and randomness in nature. This world is only capable if we
sacrifice the real world and all pleasure that we associate with it.
The attempt to make life and the planet eternal robs death of any
value, for death grants every moment of life value.
Granting subjectivity and rights to nature is handing it a
poisoned chalice, entering it into a competition it can never
efectively play, which inevitably results in disaster, and the
more we are reconciled with nature, the less we can be
reconciled with ourselves, resulting in mass extermination
through nuclear or biological means.
Baudrillard 94 [Jean, The Illusion of the End, 1984, p. 80-84]
Just as, in bygone days, the recognition of the rights of the unfortunate meant not
their emancipation as citizens, but their liberation as the unfortunate . It is always the

It is when all these fine

things have disappeared that the law arrives to grant their disappearance official
recognition. The law is like religious faith. If God exists, there is no need to believe in Him. If people do
same with rights: the right to water, the right to air, the right to existence, etc.

believe in Him, this is because the self-evidence of his existence has passed away. Thus, when people obtain the

When nature is recognized as a

subject in law, as it is by Michel Serres, we have objectified it to death, and
this ecological cover merely asserts our right to go on doing so. All this has
right to life, the fact is that they are no longer able to live.

been brought about by the highly dubious way in which the concept of nature has evolved. What was initially
matter became energy. The modern discovery of nature consists in its liberation as energy and in a mechanical
transformation of the world. After having first been matter, and then energy, nature

is today becoming
an interactive subject. It is ceasing to be an object, but this is bringing it all the more surely into the
circuit of subjection. A dramatic paradox, and one which also affects human beings: we are much more

compromised when we cease to be objects and become subjects. This is a trick that was pulled on us long ago,
in the name of absolute liberation. Let's not pull the same one on nature. For the ultimate danger is that, in an
interactivity built up into a total system of communication, there is no other; there are only subjects - and, very
soon, only subjects without objects. All our problems today as civilized beings originate here: not in an excess of
alienation, but a disappearance of alienation in favour of a maximum transparency between subjects. An

in foisting on nature the status of a

subject in law, we are also foisting on it all the vices of subjectivity, decking it
out, in our own image, with a bad conscience , with nostalgia (for a lost object which, in this
case, can only be us), with a range of drives - in particular, an impulse for revenge. The 'balance' we
unbearable situation, all the more so for the fact that,

hear so much of in ecology ('out of balance') is not so much that of planetary resources and their exploitation as

that metaphysical subject object

balance is being upset and the subject, armed as he is with all the technologies of
the metaphysical one between subject and object. Now,

advanced communication (technologies on whose horizon the object has disappeared), is

the beneficiary. Once that balance is disrupted, it inevitably sparks violent reactions

on the part of the object.

Just as individuals counter the transparency and virtual responsibility

inflicted on them as subjects with unexplainable acts, acts of resistance, failure, delinquency and collective
disorder, so nature counters this enforced promotion, this consensual, communicational blackmail, with various
forms of behaviour that are radically other, such as catastrophes, upheavals, earthquakes and chaos. It would
seem that nature does not really feel a sense of responsibility for itself, nor does it react to our efforts to give it
one. We are, admittedly, indulging in" a (bad) ecological conscience and attempting, by this moral violence, to

if, by ofering it the status of subject, we

are handing it the same poisoned chalice as we gave to the decolonized
nations, we ought not to be surprised if it behaves irrationally merely so
as to assert itself as such. Contrary to the underlying Rousseauist ideology, which argues that the
stave off possible violence on nature's part. But

profound nature of the liberated subject can only be good and that nature itself, once emancipated, cannot but
be endowed with natural equilibrium and all the ecological virtues, there is nothing more ambiguous or perverse
than a subject. Now, nature is also germs, viruses, chaos, bacteria and scorpions, significantly eliminated from
Biosphere 2 as though they were not meant to exist. Where are the deadly little scorpions, so beautiful and so
translucent, which one sees in the Desert Museum not far away, scorpions whose magical sting certainly
performs a higher, invisible but necessary - function within our Biosphere 1: the incarnation of evil, of the
venomous evil of chance, the mortal innocence of desire (the desire for death) in the equilibrium of living
beings? What they have forgotten is that what binds living beings together is something other than an
ecological, biospherical solidarity, something other than the homeostatic equilibrium of a system: it is the cycle
of metamorphoses. Man is also a scorpion, just as the Bororo are araras and, left to himself in an expurgated
universe, he becomes, himself, a scorpion. In short, it is not by expurgating evil that we liberate good. Worse, by

It is the
inseparability of good and evil which constitutes our true equilibrium, our true
balance. We ought not to entertain the illusion that we might separate the two,
that we might cultivate good and happiness in a pure state and expel evil and
sorrow as wastes. That is the terroristic dream of the transparency of good, which very quickly ends in its
opposite, the transparency of evil. We must not reconcile ourselves with nature. It seems that the more the
human race reconciles itself with nature, the less it is reconciled with itself. Above
and beyond the violence it inflicts on others, there is a violence specific to the human race in
general, a violence of the species against itself in which it treats itself as a
residue, as a survivor - even in the present - of a coming catastrophe. As if it too were ready to repent of an
liberating good, we also liberate evil. And this is only right: it is the rule of the symbolic game.

evolution which has brought it such privileges and carried it to such extremes. This is the same conjuncture as
the one to which Canetti refers, in which we stepped out of history, except that here we have not stepped out of

what is
at stake, which is even more immense, is the tottering of the species into the void. It
history, but have passed a point beyond which nothing is either human or inhuman any longer and

is quite possible that, in this process, the species itself is commencing its own disappearance, either by
disenchantment with - or ressentiment towards - itself, or out of a deliberate inclination which leads it here and
now to manage that disappearance as its destiny. Surreptitiously, in spite of our superiority (or perhaps because
of it), we are carrying over on to our own species the treatment we mete out to the others, all of which are
virtually dying out. In an animal milieu which has reached saturation point, species are spontaneously dissuaded

The efects produced by the finite nature of the earth, for the
first time contrasting violently with the infinity of our development, are
such that our species is automatically switching over to collective
suicide. Whether by external (nuclear) violence or internal (biological)
from living.

virulence. We are subjecting ourselves as a human species to the same experimental pressure as the
animal species in our laboratories. Man is without prejudice: he is using himself as a guinea-pig, just as he is
using the rest of the world, animate or inanimate. He is cheerfully gambling with the destiny of his own species
as he is with that of all the others. In his blind desire to know more, he is programming his own destruction with
the same ease and ferocity as the destruction of the others. He cannot be accused of a superior egoism. He is
sacrificing himself, as a species, to an unknown experimental fate, unknown at least as yet to other species,
who have experienced only natural fates. And, whereas it seemed that, linked to that natural fate, there was
something like an instinct of self-preservation - long the mainstay of a natural philosophy of individuals and
groups - this experimental fate to which the human species is condemning itself by unprecedented, artificial
means,

this scientific prefiguring of its own disappearance, sweeps away all ideas
of a self-preservation instinct. The idea is, indeed, no longer discussed in the human sciences (where
the focus of attention would seem, rather, to be on the death drive) and this disappearance from the field of

beneath a frenzy for ecological conservation which is really more

to do with nostalgia and remose, a wholly different tendency has already won
out, the sacrificing of the species to boundless experimentation.
thought signals that,

2NC/1NR Jang K

Topshelf

Overview
The world debate has made life the symbol of surviving but not
living. The 1AC focuses on avoiding death at all costs under
the logic that living has unconditional value, this leads to
the worst atrocities in where the af constantly trys to prevent
death in more and more worse ways under every condition.
This form of control is the worst as we end up with an economy
of extinction scenarios which opens the floodgates to
justification of any atrocity. For example, If I read one disad
that said that the af caused genocide, the af would always
win because theyll pull of the life has inherent value
argument making us slaves to the economy of impact cal in
where if we sacrifice life we can escape death.

Framework/ AT: Roleplaying good

Our interpretation of debate is that they must justify their
advantages before they get access to them this forces teams
to defend the other 7:50 of their 1AC that wasnt just the plan
text.
Prefer it
Epistemology DA Their knowledge comes from a system bent
on the replication of images of disaster and destruction for the
entertainment of the judge you should think about that
everytime they say their impacts are larger or more important
than ours
Ressentiment DA You can never stop extinction you frame
scenarios of disaster that you can never solve for. This leads to
a self hatred where we simulate change to hide the reality that
this space is not revolutionary and that you can never change
anything
Will to Power DA The externalization of their agency onto the
federal government shows a weak will to power which causes
ressentiment because we can never actually change federal
government policy we can only give the illusion that
something changed and while we may feel accomplished, the
extinction they talk about still happens it is only through
negation can we claim our own agency
That Turns Framework Were so focused on simulated politics
we never actually see the real world which means none of their
solvency trickles up. This makes us passive intellectuals which
allows for even worse atrocities Vote neg on presumption
Their roleplaying makes debate autodestructive
Bataille 1988 (georges, mad scientist, pornographer extraordinaire, Inner
Experience, 15-16, 1988, LB)
Although wards drain
almost all life from within us, there is almost not a single sprig of this life which the
bustling host of these ants (wards) hasn't seized, dragged, accumulated without despite there
subsists in us a silent, elusive, ungraspable part. In the region of wards, of discourse, this part is neglected. Thus it
usually escapes us. We can only attain it or have it at our disposal on certain terms.
We would not get out of this sand, without some sort of cord which is extended to us.

They are the vague inner movements, which depend on no object and have no intent-states which, similar to others
linked to the purety of the sky, to the fragrance of a room, are not warranted by anything definable, so that
language which, with respect to the others, has the sky, the room, to which it can refer-and which directs attention
towards what it grasps - is dispossessed , can say nothing, is limited to stealing these states from attention

If we live under the law of

language without contesting it, these states are within us as if they didn't exist . But if
we run up against this law, we can in passing fix our awareness upon one of them
and, quieting discourse within us, linger over the surprise which it provides us. It is
(profiting from their lack of precision, it right away draws attention elsewhere).

better then to shut oneself in, make as if it were night, remain in this suspended silence wherein we come

With a bit of chance, we perceive from such a state

what favors the return, increases the intensity. And no doubt the slumber of the child is not the
unexpectedly upon the sleep of a child.

main reason why a mother is passionately retained, for a long spell, next to a cradle.

1. Our interpretation turns fairness and education. They had

eight minutes to frame their advocacy, so the idea that they
should only be tied to the plan text is arbitrary and selfserving. Methodological interrogation means they have no
basis for their truth claims.
2. Local knowledge production- Discrete focus on macropolitical decisions crowd-out efected communities and causes
error replication because policy makers are not the ones who
face the consequences of their decisions.
3. No ofenseour interpretation leaves plenty of ground for
the AFF they can still weigh thier advantages if they answer
why their epistemology of fiat is correctthe AFF got to
choose their impacts and advantages, if they cant defend that
they are true and outweigh the critique, they deserve to lose.

Links/Impacts
First disad is Ontological Anxiety the 1AC ofers no solution
on the level of the personal which causes endless nihilism
through ontological anxiety. The kritik cannot be solved if it
does not address the level of the personal as it causes a lack
to will action and ends in the gloom of the subject. Only
allowing for the embrace of the absurd can solve this thats
arkahm 91 on top Turns the af
Second disad is Obsession Rather than accept the inevitably
of chaos, the af channels their existential angst toward the
creation of scapegoats its issues through an obsessing over
root causes and totalizing every issue in the squo of of a
single concept only reproaching the our impacts Af cant
solve the k
Third disad is Value to life only the af can reaffirm value to
life as the rejection of the absurd always leads to impulses of
control which risk viewing life as inauthentic allowing us to
view other lives as meaningless. The only way to neuter our
ontological anxiety of control is to embrace the absurd and
reactivate value to life this outweighs their af
Fourth disad is Slavery The affirmative is the king who has
the power to dictate who will live and who will die they
attempt to exchange death for survival which locks us into a
system which only creates the conditions for oppression
because it is only through understanding we are already gonna
die that we can value our lives
And this prioritization is what promotes otherization which
means we control the root cause those who you attempt to
save will trade of for those you let die creating infinite war,
racism, sexism and all exclusion
Baudrillard 76 (Jean, Symbolic Exchange and Death, pg. 125-126)[rkezios]
Racism is modern. Previous races or cultures were ignored or eliminated, but never under the sign of a universal Reason. There
is no criterion of man, no split from the Inhuman, there are only differences with
which to oppose death. But it is our undifferentiated concept of man that gives rise
to discrimination. We must read the following narrative by Jean deLry, from the sixteenth century: Histoire d'un voyage en la terre
de Brsil ('The History of a Journey to the Land of Brazil') to see that racism did not exist in this period when the Idea of Man does not yet cast
its shadow over all the metaphysical purity of Western culture. This Reformation puritan from Geneva, landing amongst Brazilian cannibals, is
not racist. It

is due to the extent of our progress that we have since become racists, and not
only towards Indians and cannibals: the increasing hold of rationality on our culture has meant the
successive extradition of inanimate nature, animals and inferior races 1 into the

Inhuman, while the cancer of the Human has invested the very society it claimed to
contain within its absolute superiority. Michel Foucault has analysed the extradition of madmen at the dawn of
Western modernity, but we also know of the extradition and progressive confinement of children, following the course of Reason itself, into the
idealised state of infancy, the ghetto of the infantile universe and the abjection of innocence. But the old have also become inhuman, pushed to
the fringes of normality. Like so many others, the mad, children and the old have only become 'categories' under the sign of the successive
segregations that have marked the development of culture. The

poor, the under-developed, those with

subnormal IQs, perverts, transsexuals, intellectuals and women form a folklore of
terror, a folklore of excommunication on the basis of an increasingly racist definition
of the 'normal human'. Quintessence of normality: ultimately all these 'categories'
will be excluded, segregated, exiled in a finally universal society, where the normal
and the universal will at last fuse under the sign of the Human .2Foucault's analysis, amongst the
masterpieces of this genuine cultural history, takes the form of a genealogy of discrimination in which, at the start of the nineteenth century,
labour and production occupy a decisive place. At

the very core of the 'rationality' of our culture,

however, is an exclusion that precedes every other, more radical than the exclusion
of madmen, children or inferior races, an exclusion preceding all these and serving
as their model: the exclusion of the dead and of death.

Fifth disad is the Search We constantly search for death to

contain control. This makes death a tool we will always pull out
of the shed and put back in. Like a game of dark souls we
attempt to search for the goal of winning a level through a
planning of complex strategies that avoids death, but when we
play out these scenarios, they open up the risk of error
replication only causing extinction because like dark souls
debate is a tough game we play over and over again devaluing
death into a game making it a comfortable thing meaning
extinction becomes inevitable through our fascination of it
causing serial policy failure turns case
If we win a risk towards

Alt

AT: Blocks

AT: Perms

AT: Perm (Generic)

The perm severs out of the heuristic of the 1AC and moots the
focus of the K out of the 1NC
The perm is intrinsic
Embrace chaos and the unknown extinction is inevitable all
that there is left to do is live
Besnier 5
(Jean-Michel, Professor of Philosophy at the Universit de Compigne and is a
member of the Centre de Recherches en Epistemologie Applique in Paris, as well as
of the editorial boards of several French reviews Bataille, the emotive intellectual
Bataille: Writing the Sacred, Ed. Carolyn Bailey Gill, Routledge: London, LB)
It was
an unbearable and obvious fact there is nothing left to do. All that remains is to
live, as much as possible like a manthat is to say, through art, through love, or through the game. Of course, I
We well know the effect on Kojves audience: on Bataille, on Queneau, on Aron and on so many others.

am merely sketching out here the collision of these two conflicting necessities which had characterized Batailles

We know how this double necessity found its expression in

terms of rupture, of paradox, of anguish: how Le bleu du ciel, for example, transposes it into a sad
thought since before the war.

hero incapable of taking quite seriously the revolution before his eyes. The famous letter to Kojve of 6 December
1937 in which Bataille expresses his exhaustion merits a long commentary, which I am unable to undertake here. In
it, Bataille describes himself as an animal screaming with its foot in a trap, as a negativity

without a
cause that is to say, a desire to act (all action being negation in Hegels view)
which suffers from no longer being able to reach its goal because history is over .
What was he to do with this surplus not foreseen by Hegel? How was he to cope with the rebellion which was by
definition without prospects for the future, where the only outcome was tragedy? The only way out, said Bataille,
was the impossible; that is to say that the only possible engagement is emotive. Unreconciled with the world,
Bataille consents to be a member of the category of intellectuals: but, convinced of the impossibility of a
transparency that would be entirely satisfying, he can only consent on the level of pathos. Hence, the vertigo which
seizes him, the will to wholehearted and endless actionto keep alight that flame which makes existence a rupture

Acting for no reason at all (because all the cards have already been
played), all one can do is call upon the emptiness which will henceforth sustain
history. All of this is in order to try to escape from insignificance, to raise oneself to
the level of the impossible. Hence, too, Batailles tendency passionately to counter the unfinished nature
and a paradox.

of everything as the condition of human existence. In an essay in Critique devoted to Camus he underlines this in
these terms: Life,

the world, are nothing in my eyes if not capriciousness. Which

means that there can never be lasting satisfaction. The result is that the only conceivable good
consists in never being still, and not in fighting the obstacles to a final reconciliation, as a Sartrian intellectual would
do. One has reason never to be satisfied and one has reason also to abandon the illusion that there could be a
remedy for this situation. Batailles work always gives one the impression of functioning as a continual fight of
honour. Hegel is right. Everything has already been done. But Hegel left to one side the essential thing on which

The open wound that is my life, the erotic desire for the other, the tears
or laughter that distance usthe sacrifice which unites men beyond the
discontinuities sustained by societies where reason supposedly rules . In short, action has
one must wager:

perhaps become futile and illusory, but what still remains is to live to the full extent of those states, or rather those
ecstasies which are the reverse side of and the objection to a complete rationality dreamed by the philosophers.
What remains, then, speaking like Bataille, is to confront in oneself the feeling of being a savage impossibility, the
pain of existence confined to limits which one can only desire eternally to transgress. What I describe here fairly
schematically could explain how the fascination with revolutionary action of an earlier time finally gave way to a
desire for asceticism permeated with the will to live and to communicate. This transition seems to be in place

during Batailles time at the Collge, at the time of Lexprience intrieure, but, I stress, does not in my opinion

Privileging action obviously meant

taking existence to its boiling point or, to put it another way, experiencing ones
limits and feeling the fundamental continuity which fuses individuals together. In
privileging the ascetic experience, the issue is the same, even if the quest is from
now on a solitary one, sheltered from the solicitation of history . The figure of the sovereign
constitute a turning point, for Bataille did not come to deny himself.

sums up this transition and gives the emotive intellectual his most striking features. The sovereign inherits the
aspiration to total existence which Bataille continually demanded as the source of his tattered humanism. The
figure imposes itself in his work more or less at the time when the ambition to live gets the upper hand over that of

when Bataille himself admits to no longer being a man of action and feels the
loss of all energy. So, at the advent of war, this existential figure of the sovereign lends his features to the
action;

man at the end of history, and in general to a humanity which recognizes itself as incomplete at the same time as

One must add that, in the political context, the sovereign also
incarnates the horror of power which blindly wants the end.
being at the end of the line.

AT: Battalie

AT: Expenditure bad

Not our expenditure
They assume a violent sacrifice our argument is that we
should shift the way we view the world through a lens away
from survivalism and futurism. Our expenditure allows for the
self to be released and the possibility of existence to be
realized thats the only way to give life value

AT: Theory

AT: Perf con with Reverse Schell

No perf con to the DA its all or nothing
Ligotti, 12 [Thomas Ligotti, contemporary American philosopher and horror
author, THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE, p. 41-42, Evan] ***gender
modified, I am really sorry for how much gendered language there is in this card
It would be a sign of callowness to bemoan the fact that pessimistic writers do not rate and may be reprehended in

Some critics of the pessimist often think they have his

[their] back to the wall when they blithely jeer, If that is how this fellow [person]
feels, he [they] should either kill himself [themselves] or be decried as a hypocrite. That the
pessimist should kill himself [themselves] in order to live up to his [their] ideas may be
counterattacked as betraying such a crass intellect that it does not deserve
a response. Yet it is not much of a chore to produce one. Simply because someone has reached
the conclusion that the amount of suffering in this world is enough that anyone
would be better off never having been born does not mean that by force of logic or
sincerity he [they] must kill himself [themselves]. It only means he has concluded that
the amount of suffering in this world is enough that anyone would be better off
never having been born. Others may disagree on this point as it pleases them, but they must accept that if
both good conscience and good company.

they believe themselves to have a stronger case than the pessimist, then they are mistaken. Naturally, there are

nothing obliges them to kill themselves or live with the

mark of the hypocrite on their brow. Voluntary death might seem a thoroughly negative course
of action, but it is not as simple as that. Every negation is adulterated or stealthily launched by an
affirmative spirit. An unequivocal no cannot be uttered or acted upon. Lucifers last words in
pessimists who do kill themselves, but

heaven may have been Non serviam, but none has served the Almighty so dutifully, since His sideshow in the

Only
catatonics and coma patients can persevere in a dignified withdrawal from lifes
rattle and hum. Without a yes in our hearts, nothing would be done. And to be
done with our existence en masse would be the most ambitious affirmation of all.
clouds would never draw any customers if it were not for the main attraction of the devils hell on earth.

Most people think that vitality is betokened only by such phenomena as people in their eighties who hike mountain
trails or nations that build empires. This way of thinking is simply nave, but it keeps up our morale because we like
to imagine we will be able to hike mountain trails when we are in our eighties or live as citizens of a nation that has

the denunciations of critics who say the pessimist should kill

himself or be decried as a hypocrite make every kind of sense in a world of card-carrying or crypto
optimists. Once this is understood, the pessimist can spare himself from suffering
more than he need at the hands of normal people, a confederation of upstanding creatures
who in concert keep the conspiracy going. This is not to say that such individuals do
not suffer so much and in such a way that they sometimes kill themselves , possibly
even more per capita than do pessimists, or that because they kill themselves they are
hypocrites for ever having said that anyone is better off for having been born. It is only to say that
when normal individuals kill themselves, even after having said that anyone is
better off for having been born, they are disqualified as normal individuals, because
normal individuals do not kill themselves but until their dying day think that being alive is
all right and that happiness will stand out in the existence of lifes newcomers, who, it is always
built an empire. And so

assumed, will be as normal as they are.