2025 TFA September/October Topic Analyses: Unions, Space vs Sea, Political Advertising, and Surge Pricing

Topic Analyses

Aug 21

Written By World of Words Institute

This topic analysis batch includes the following:

This House regrets the decline of labor unions by Aditi Singh
This House, as a government, would prioritize financing space exploration over financing deep-sea exploration by Arjun Patil
This House, as a democratic government, would ban political advertising on social media platforms by Aditi Vikram
This House regrets the rise of surge pricing by Taite Kirkpatrick

This House regrets the decline of labor unions

Context

Labor unions are organizations within particular economic sectors or companies intended to accomplish some goal of workers within that sector/company (relevant to pay, working conditions, etc). Beginning in the United States around the late 18th century, unions exist as a lasting, generational infrastructure designed to make collective bargaining a streamlined and supportive process.

Unions are generally structured around a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which is developed through smaller bargaining processes between union management and company leaders, and the intention is that union leaders represent union member interests. Then, a simple majority vote is taken among the entire union to ratify the CBA. CBAs expire after a certain amount of time, leading to a repetition of the same ratification process. Union leaders are typically elected democratically.

While the democratic nature of unions leaves them open to change when necessary, most unions house intergenerational protest infrastructure that uniquely enables workers to take meaningful action. There are two major aspects of this infrastructure: strike funds and legal protections. Strike funds, established through union dues, are used to finance union operations and to compensate members on strike. In individual protest movements, union members are often hesitant to strike due to financial consequences, so strike funds are crucial in elongating strike duration and meaningfully negotiating with parent companies. The National Labor Relations Act (NRLA) protects union members, and they use strike funds to employ lawyers for legal protections when necessary. When protest movements are smaller and not housed within unions, these legal protections may be more difficult to acquire. Considering that protest is not unique to the proposition, understanding this structure is important to the development of unique prop material.

Then, to understand how different structures shape strikes, you must understand how strikes are intended to function as mechanisms of broader workplace culture/power dynamic shifts rather than just as a bargaining tactic. There is a fantastic article by Erik Baker, “Revaluing the Strike,” that explores this concept in great depth. By characterizing the function of striking early in the round, you can better evaluate which side of the debate best 1) accomplishes the maximum efficacy of striking and 2) moves furthest towards the end goals of labor advocacy

Despite being framed democratically, simple majority voting systems within unions have historically resulted in a ‘tyranny of the majority,’ leaving minority groups (in terms of both identity and opinion) behind. Racism and sexism have meant that throughout the last two centuries, unions have hosted deeply flawed representation mechanisms. For instance, the American Federation of Labor (1886-1955) excluded Black and immigrant workers from joining the union, and teacher unions often failed to advocate for equal pay for women. While current union offenses are less obvious, union structures have not changed substantially, meaning that some members are consistently left without legitimate advocacy.

The wording of the motion means that a counterfactual is necessary. The counterfactual on this motion is complex– unions have been replaced by a wide array of alternative protest mechanisms. On the prop, this means that emphasizing the uniqueness of unions is crucial, whereas on the opp, it is easier to lean into notions of flexibility and better tailoring to the modern workforce. Characterizing these alternatives in depth in your framing is imperative to establishing offense in the debate. Here are some examples of alternative advocacy:

Gig Worker Movements: formed to address the unique challenges of working in the gig economy, also informal system of joining forces across companies to advocate for things like different benefits and alternate work classification
Worker Centers: community-based organizations that empower and advocate for workers being paid low wages, provide legal support, protest tools, and lobbying
NGO-based campaigns (like the Clean Clothes Campaign)

Here are some major labor movements you should familiarize yourself with for this motion:

1980s Poland Solidarity Movement
Teacher’s Strikes (2018-2019)
Flint Sit-Down Strike (1936)
Railway Brotherhoods
Teamsters
Police unions
Amazon Warehouse Organizing
Hollywood strikes
1985 UK Miner’s Strike
Bangladesh Garment Workers’ Strike
French Pension Strikes

Framing

The wording of the motion necessitates a counterfactual– both sides need to offensively characterize the counterfactual.

On proposition, in framing, you need to immediately establish the uniqueness of union infrastructure (detailed above) and explain why modern alternatives will never be sufficient. Similarly, on proposition, you must do the opposite.

Both sides should also characterize why union membership has declined. This is often attributed to a reduction in manufacturing sector jobs (as these were historically the most unionized) towards service and gig economy work– while opposition can characterize this as a necessary shift due to different structures in the workplace, proposition can underscore that these sectors would still benefit from union membership. Essentially, on the proposition, you are arguing that just because it has not been done yet within these sectors does not mean it could not be successful.

The biggest risk in terms of framing is either side framing the debate as “strikes versus no strikes” or “protest vs no protest”-- the crux of the debate is the manner in which advocacy is taking place rather than whether or not that advocacy exists. Focusing on the structural benefits or pitfalls of union structures will help greatly in making this distinction.

The burden should relate to the advancement of labor rights more broadly, and the stakeholders are primarily workers. It makes the most strategic sense to focus on work areas that tend to benefit from/need organizing the most (think blue-collar and service jobs).

Proposition

S1: Loss of worker power

As a result of limited access to strike funds and legal protections without unions, even if strikes happen on the opposition, they are likely to be high risk low reward. While alternative advocacy tactics on the opposition may enable them to get access to funding and legal protection, there are two issues with this: First, if money is coming from a third party rather than from the union itself, it is less likely to have been generationally built or internally managed, resulting in a smaller amount of accessible wealth and more bureaucracy involved in accessing that wealth. Second, if legal protections are outsourced, reduced wealth means that the quality of this legal protection is damaged, and because the legal protection is not internally chosen, it is unlikely that it will be adequately representative of union needs.

Most importantly, however, there would need to be an existing worker center for the specific issue of a given group with sufficient resources to take on another client, and this would be a prerequisite to accessing any wealth or legal protection (no matter how limited those may be).

The major impact of this is a reduced ability to strike. While employees may want to strike, without a guarantee of some may during this period, it may not be possible for them to participate. Strike effectiveness is entirely dependent on volume of participation, so this loss would be devastating. Additionally, with reduced legal protection and many manufacturing/service workers being low-income or immigrants, workers may not feel supported enough to participate in any protest activity.

Striking is crucial because it is essentially the only way for workers to reset the balance of powers between themselves and their employers– see the previously mentioned Baker article.

S2: Political power

Unions often pool resources for political giving/lobbying, including spending billions of dollars on the 2025 US election and creating the United Kingdom’s Labour Party. While the practice of lobbying is independently controversial, the simple truth is this: when the billionaires who employ these workers are donating billions of dollars to political campaigns, unless workers are doing the same, the scales will always be tipped in corporations’ favor. A great example of this is Jeff Bezos, who blocked the Washington Post from endorsing Kamala Harris and donated money to the presidential campaign. Amazon workers, on the other hand, have been on strike for months protesting poor pay and inhumane working conditions– without a union, their ability to lobby is functionally nonexistent.

Some NGOs, like the Clean Clothes Campaign, do engage in political lobbying to support workers’ rights, and some Worker Centers do as well. There are a few reasons why this alternative will never be sufficient:

NGOs are accountable to funders, not workers
Unions may have to work with multiple NGOs at the same time to address all of their different issues, leading to additional red tape
Much, much less funding

Opposition

S1: Protection for Minorities

Unions have historically failed to prioritize the interests of minorities, as previously described. Conversely, modern groups are more issue-focused, and their structure makes it much less likely that minority groups are excluded from decision-making. Most of the content for this is already explained in the context section.

Running this argument would require some strong analysis surrounding the differences in structures/process of unions compared to modern labor organizing groups. It’s also important to make sure you run this sub offensively rather than defensively.

Impacts: 1) more equitable advocacy systems 2) more meaningful representation in organizing work

S2: Alignment with the modern workforce

Two reasons why newer organizing systems are better aligned with the modern workforce compared to unions:

The modern economy is steeped in services, technology, and the gig economy, meaning that most jobs are geographically and professionally fragmented. Unions rely on mass mobilization, collective interests, and centralization, none of which are easily accomplished.
Because jobs are so individualized, standardized agreements like Collective Bargaining Agreements are far less practical than issue-specific organizing

The primary impact here is more effective organizing. Considering that the burden should be something related to the advancement of worker rights, as long as this argument is sufficiently warranted, you should be able to weigh it well in round.

This argument is interesting because it can be used as a prerequisite throughout the debate– essentially, even if the proposition establishes that unions are good, the decline of unions is appropriately matched to a modern workforce. In order to win the debate, you can establish a mini, prereq-based burden of needing to demonstrate that unions are equally applicable to the current economy.

Context

Definitions:

There are three important words/phrases in the motion that should be defined before entering the debate.

Financing - to provide funding for or support monetarily
Space Exploration - investigation, by means of crewed and uncrewed spacecraft, of the reaches of the universe beyond Earth's atmosphere and the use of the information so gained to increase knowledge of the cosmos
Deep-Sea Exploration - the investigation and description of the ocean waters and the seafloor and of the Earth beneath, typically below the depth of 200 meters

Framing:

Motions about the policy action often necessitate very fleshed out framing debates that can detract from focusing on the heart of the motion. While this is a would motion which makes both sides forward some sort of a plan, I think there are several things on a framing level that should be established to have the most balanced and topical debate possible.

Government spending is always zero-sum on policy motions, especially comparative ones. That is to say, neither side should get access to any sort of a “best of both worlds” scenario.

Admittedly, by the exact wording of the motion an Opp team can claim they would defend keeping both funded to an equal extent. However, in my opinion, the heart of the debate lies in comparing these two when there is a trade off between funding either one no matter what side you are on.
In that vein, an Opp team that tries to get the “best of both worlds” makes their own defense very tense because they are very easily pushed to describe why space exploration is somewhat negative when responding to Prop substantive material which they should be called out for.
Notably, while funding is zero-sum that does not necessarily mean it is all-or-nothing. Both sides must contend that funding one leads to substantive losses of funding in the other, but there can still be a baseline amount of funding that in the less important one, just substantially less than its counterpart.

This stems from the first clarification, but you need to establish a delta in the debate that makes each side unique and be prepared to defend it until the last speech. In motions about two viable options to achieve the same goal (like the ways to solve climate change, the best path to achieve political change, or in this case the most ideal form of exploration), it gets very messy when teams start making critiques of the other side that apply to their comparative or claiming benefits that are nonunique. Before making any argument, gut-check whether the other side can reasonably access it and be very wary of staking offense on something that you cannot prove is unique to your side in even the worst case, framework wise. In framing, you want to do a lot to establish that delta, or difference, between Prop and Opp. When you write this, have a team discussion about what those key differences are and how your round-winning impact is solely accessible to your side.
This is a This House would motion, making a plan a necessity for Prop and a counterplan a very viable option for Opp.

Given this motion exists as an abstract government as opposed to a specific one, you want to make sure to clarify that this debate only exists when the government has a legitimate choice between funding one or the other. For instance, an authoritarian regime or collapsing administration that is barely able to maintain basic standards of governance is not within the scope of the motion.
The plan here can be relatively simple, that given the choice you would allocate substantially more money towards one form of exploration for the reasons you will describe within your arguments. On motions like these, I would advise debaters to be wary of being arbitrarily specific simply to sound more complex. For example, describing a specific percentage of funding going to either one without any justification as to why that specific ratio is fair, reasonable, or uniquely beneficial likely distracts from the real debate at hand and does not add much substance.
Finally, the usage of the word “would” places the highest burden of feasibility than any other type of motion, which means that while not the heart of the motion, both sides have a precursory burden in their argumentation to prove reasonability. This places an onus on both sides to pre-emptively consider things like funding, public response, and international reaction/pushback when crafting a plan and characterizing their side.

The motion mentions a specific actor, which changes the debate’s framing especially on a stakeholder and an incentive level. That is to say, this motion revolves around the particular rationale and benefits for a hypothetical government deciding between both forms of exploration. In the context of this debate, that likely means that things like gaining soft power, expansion of resources, and other benefits that are specific to an individual actor likely become the foreground of the debate as issues like global tensions and worldwide issues are likely less important
Lastly, the burdens in this debate are very important insofar as it is an actor motion about an actor that is abstract and hypothetical (‘a government’). That being said, it is up to both teams to establish and warrant a fair burden that is rooted in what a government would likely want. Based on the arguments you make I think there is fair ground for that to be highly flexible around the way you want to frame the debate. For example, a team making an argument that space exploration has a higher financial return due to the vast possibility of colonization/tourism could argue that creating the biggest financial return is the most important consideration for any government in a primarily capitalism-driven globe. In contract, a team arguing that ocean exploration expands the ability to understand and solve things like water shortages, insufficient energy supplies, and climate disasters could frame the burden as addressing the implications of climate change and helping the environment as the most probable incentive for a country since failure to address it leads to a mass loss of civilian lives in the long term. That being said, I think the best burden is up to your individual team’s discretion but would be most effective if centered around either a) addressing existential threats (climate crisis, water scarcity, food shortages), b) expanding power for the actor in the motion (gaining revenue and increasing soft power), or c) some combination of both

Characterizations:

On a characterization level, this debate will likely need a lot of contextualization to ensure both teams and the judge have a clear understanding of the advocacy from both sides. That being said, examples will be the most crucial and effective way to conceptualize what your side looks like.

Describing the modern and historical context around your type of exploration is going to be critical. I think that probably requires two things. First, a discussion of both government agencies in the status quo that manage space and deep-sea exploration. Second, notable individual expeditions that are considered as highly successful. Knowing these two will underlie much of the debate about the possibility of success, predicted financial gain, scientific possibilities, and efficiency of the respective forms of exploration by bringing real-world instances into the debate and analyzing the root causes of both failures and success.

For space exploration, a few agencies worth researching are NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), the ESA (European Space Agency), and the CNSA (China National Space Administration). For individual initiatives, the construction of The US Space Force, the growth of privatized space travel corporations (Blue Origin, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic), and previous exploration missions (Apollo Missions, the Rosetta Mission, Tianwen-1, etc.), are all important developments in the field of space exploration that can fuel arguments on both sides
For deep-sea exploration, the Nippon Administration in Japan, the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and the OECI (the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute). On an individual level, missions like the IODP (Integrated Ocean Drilling Program), the Samudrayaan Project in India, and the Deepsea Challenger Expedition are all worth considering due to their differing goals and outcomes in the area of deep-sea exploration.

Proposition

I think prop has a few good arguments but they rest on an effective characterization on the differences between both forms of exploration. In debates about an “either-or” when the options are similar in some way (both about exploration in this case) the round becomes exceedingly confusing and difficult to adjudicate when neither team has a consistent characterization of the differences between both types of exploration and a clear establishment and re-establishment of the link between those differences and them accessing their arguments/impacts.

The first argument is on protecting humanity. The characterization for this argument needs to be a bit cynical about the solvability of existential threats. In order to have the best setup for this argument, it needs to warrant out why the threats to humanity in the status quo are impossible, or at the very least, highly unlikely to be solved. The warranting for this part of the argument is not particularly hard to find: many climatologists estimate we have already passed the point of no return, governments globally are unwilling to cooperate to address climate change, and corporate lobbyists control even the strongest democracies and perpetuate inequality for financial gain, to discuss a few. You want to paint a clear picture that the status quo is likely never going to be able to solve these issues and is fighting an unwinnable battle. Past that setup, you want to describe the unique benefits of space exploration that can, especially in the long term, offer solvency to the unsolvable existential threats the argument discusses in setup. There are a few paths you can take to prove this solvency. First on available land area. If space exploration is heavily invested into, it grows the existing market of colonization and expansion onto different planets and potentially finding habitable ones. In the long term, if this is possible it would vastly alleviate things like poverty, homelessness, land scarcity, deforestation, agricultural loss, and hundreds of other issues caused by the finite and rapidly decreasing amount of usable land on Earth. The second on finding useful materials. In the status quo, things like asteroid mining, water extraction, and other forms of resource harvesting are being engineered to maximize the return from space exploration. While there are some materials accessible from deep-sea exploration, there are certain resources that can only be created through the unique environments in space or on other planets giving prop a larger scope of benefits to access under this part of the argument. Note, you have to contend with the nonuniqueness of some of this argument. Opp has fair ground to assert that things like rare minerals can also be found in deep-sea exploration. In order to address that you need to be prepared to warrant out why there is either a) a higher likelihood or b) a greater scope of the materials you could find in space.

The second argument is about gaining power. There are two main ways I can think of that this argument can be developed. The first and more intuitive one is about financial return. The potential gain from exploring and monetizing space is incredibly large. When making this argument you want to characterize exactly how money can be made which is multifold. Asteroid mining, water extraction, space tourism, and land acquisition/sale, are just a few of the many ways in which space explorations can generate a massive revenue for companies investing into it. In my opinion, this argument about the financial benefit is a necessity for prop insofar as you are going to receive heavy pushback on the funding barrier necessary to access space exploration since it is likely more expensive than deep-sea exploration. The second path for this argument is about the expansion of soft and hard power. Exploring space is heavily connected to soft power since it is connected to what people believe to be the final frontier and thus the value of owning space territory is incredibly high. Additionally, there is a very direct connection to hard power since satellite systems and space surveillance is a rapidly growing area of defensive systems and expanding into space naturally leads to a growth in the efficacy of such technology.

In the latter stages of this debate, prop likely is forced to bite a bullet on a comparative lack of knowledge about what space holds as opposed to deep-sea. Obviously, while we do not know much about either geographical region, there is much less known about space by nature of its infinite size. I think this can be turned into effective weighing from prop as important late-breaking offense (in the 2 or 3) in the form of risk weighing under the clash about innovation or expansion of knowledge. This looks like framing the lack of knowledge about space as a benefit for Prop since the amount of territory to explore is limitless since it means (while potentially marginal) there is a higher risk that humanity can find things like a multitude of alternative energy sources, water reservoirs, habitable land, or materials that could vastly accelerate the progress of healthcare.

Opposition

The same framing clarification I made at the top of the prop section applies here to opp as well. Hold your ground and keep clarifying the differences between both forms of exploration and why the unique aspects of deep-sea exploration necessitate the increase in funding and lead to the outcomes of your arguments.

The first argument is on addressing the most important issues. I want to address the preconceived bias that may exist against this claim before going into the argument. As I argued earlier, Prop should utilize the widely held notion that space’s limitless nature means there is an infinite risk of finding things that humanity needs. However, if done strategically, I think Opp can turn this characterization by reframing what the true needs of humanity are; that is what this argument will do. That being said, the first part of this argument is establishing what exactly the “most pressing threats to humanity” actually are. I think the easiest thing to argue here is probably climate change. The rationale is simply that all other things are underlied by climate change getting worse a) because its worsening could actively lead to a mass extinction event and b) that almost all other ails to humanity are caused by climate change; homelessness is exacerbated by the creation of millions of climate refugees, poverty is actively worsened by the rising food prices when arable land is lost every year, and inequality as a whole is perpetuated by scarcity that is highly tied to the implications of environmental degradation. After those pieces of context are established, look at reasons as to why ocean exploration is likely to address climate change better. For example, the fact that oceans conserve roughly 90% of Earth’s excess heat could mean that exploration into that sequestration capacity could revolutionize our current understanding of carbon capture technology. Additionally, the predictive capability of oceans and currents on when and where natural disasters occur could save millions of lives from climate incidents. Research the comparative between what oceans can access and while the detail is important, this argument allows you to paint a persuasive narrative about Proposition: that exploring space is running from the problem and sacrificing the lives that exist right now for a future they cannot promise is out there. This argument has a lot of different ways it can be developed so feel free to use some creative liberty in identifying what the biggest problems are and the ways in which they can be solved better via ocean exploration. Off the first speech from Opp, I think this argument establishes a clear path for weighing on severity, where you use linkwork from this argument to prove that the problems that ocean exploration can solve faster are much more urgent and imminent threats to the human race. This significantly lowers the burden on opp to combat the characterization that the infinite nature of space automatically gives Prop seemingly unbeatable weighing on risk of potential solvency.

The second argument is on feasibility/potential for success. I think addresses a more meta-level of the debate that allows opp to get far ahead in the weighing debate. The context of this argument is simple. Deep-sea exploration is much more feasible and substantially cheaper insofar as it has been an avenue of exploration for longer than space and as a result has seen more innovation, a larger market, and a pre-existing amount of knowledge that allows for future exploration to be far more reasonable. I think the mechanisms for proving why ocean exploration is more rational are not difficult to find: proximity to civilization, lower risk of loss of technology, faster recovery time for search & discover machinery, less environmental issues (lower radiation, more mild temperatures, etc.). This will simply necessitate some more warranting and examples on the stark cost, risk, and time differences between previous deep-sea and space exploration and those statistics will speak for themselves. The second part of the argument rests in trying to (at your best ground) prove that there is a larger chance to find things that are very important to the progress of human society. This heavily ties into the first argument so do not make this too big a deal since you did the warranting as to why it is the case in the other argument. However, this level of argumentation is at your highest ground and not 100% necessary to win the argument. After you try to establish that there are more valuable discoveries to be made in the ocean, you can weaponize the first part of this argument to argue that more exploration is possible since the barriers are so much lower compared to space exploration. This establishes a low-ground path to ballot for opp on probability of discovery and the scope of exploration as easily as case and sets the team up for some very nuanced weighing.

Context

Background Info

Political advertising in general refers to paid or sponsored content that is intended to influence people’s political opinions. This includes ads for political candidates, parties, referendums, issue-based campaigns, and more. Political advertising does not include things like letters to the editor, op-eds, news or feature articles, or interviews in regularly published media sources. While most political advertisements need to include a message that discloses who paid for the advertising, this law differs across the world. In the United States, the Federal Election Campaign ACT (FECA) and the Federal Election Committee require that political ads clearly state who paid for them. Similar laws exist in the UK and Canada. In Switzerland, political advertising is prohibited on radio and television, but is allowed in other forms of media. They passed recent laws to enforce disclosure, however there has been a lot of concern about these laws being skirted through advertising agencies.

Political advertising on social media started gaining traction in the late 2000s. Social media is unique because political campaigns are able to use microtargetting. This looks like tailoring ads and messages to voters using their data from social media, voter databases, and behavioral insights. This is incredibly effective because it helps campaigns directly target voters and increase their engagement. Recent developments in artificial intelligence are also allowing campaigns to scale their microtargetting efforts, making them even more effective. While this is definitely a plus for campaigns, it is also incredibly expensive. In 2024, political spending in the US added up to over 10 billion dollars.

Framing

This is an actor motion, which means the words “As a democratic government” are probably the most important part of the debate. Many teams will make the mistake of debating this motion in general, however it is important to not let this happen. Make sure that every impact and argument connects back to benefitting the actor in this debate: democratic governments around the world. With this being said, let’s analyze the incentives of this actor. First, on preserving electoral legitimacy. In a democracy, a government’s legitimacy comes from free and fair elections. If people believe that election results have been manipulated or interfered with, they will stop trusting the government. Additionally, elections are also delegitimized when certain candidates have advantages over others. Second, on protecting rights. Democracies are defined by freedoms and rights so it is important for them to maintain these. Make sure to consider these incentives when you are evaluating and weighing different arguments in the debate.

Proposition

Eroding Democracy

The most obvious proposition argument is that political advertising on social media platforms erodes democracy. This argument is true for a couple reasons. First, on microtargetting. A healthy democracy depends on an open public sphere where citizens have access to diverse ideas. However, microtargetting directly undermines this. It allows campaigns to deliver tailored messages to extremely specific audiences and creates fragmented echo chambers. This means some people are manipulated to buy into certain campaigns just because of their data and character traits, and others are allowed to continue living in echo chambers. Microtargetting also allows candidates to make different promises to different parts of the electorate which makes it easier to mislead voters. Secondly, social media algorithms prioritize provoking emotions. This means the majority of political ads that get amplified on social media are the most provocative and extreme ones. This causes the electorate to become increasingly polarized which is very bad for democracy. Third, on foreign intervention. During the 2016 presidential election in the United States, Russian-bought facebook ads reached almost 126 million Americans. This kind of interference is a severe encroachment on a country’s sovereignty and is bad for democracy because it means a foreign power can covertly influence elections and policy. This argument is important on both a principle and practical level. Be careful about making this a purely principled argument because it runs the risk of being hung on the practical. Principally, democracy is built on the idea of self-determination. Political advertising undermines this by distorting the genuine will of the people. Additionally, foreign influence sets a precedent that external actors can infiltrate democratic processes. Practically, fragmented echo chambers make it hard for citizens to come to a consensus which means there is always going to be high levels of polarization.

Fair Elections

As I talked about when going over the incentives of a democracy, fair elections are extremely important. Political advertising on social media undermines this in a few ways. First, it creates an uneven playing field. More expensive ads on social media have more visibility which means wealthier candidates and larger political parties are always going to gain more influence. Second, it boosts the incumbent advantage because these candidates have better access to donor networks and can advertise on social media more. These incumbents already have more reach on social media which makes it incredibly hard for smaller candidates to break through. In this argument, you need to make sure that you are proving why this is unique to political advertising on social media specifically because most opposition teams will tell you it's nonunique. It is unique to social media for a few reasons. First, social media ad delivery algorithms prioritize content that maximizes engagement which means campaigns with larger budgets can purchase more data-driven testing, finding a variant of their ad that the algorithm is most likely to push to users. This compounding advantage is less present in traditional media. Second, sitting politicians have years of engagement history and data which makes it easier for them to retarget supporters at a lower cost while new candidates have to build lists from scratch. While name recognition helps in traditional media, the delivery cost per viewer does not fall as much as it does through social media due to previous engagement.

Other Thoughts

With this motion, there are a lot of interesting third arguments or other arguments you can pursue. Social media advertisements require the collection of detailed data. This looks like location, browsing habits, personality traits, interests, and more. You could argue that this is collected without informed and meaningful consent and therefore is harmful to use for political means. Furthermore, you can argue there is less accountability when political advertising is more likely to be shown to people who support it due to social media algorithms.

Opposition

Characterization

Before I get into arguments for opposition, I want to quickly note something relating to your stance. Proposition imposes a blanket ban. This means you have the power to implement some sort of regulations instead. There are a couple of regulations you may consider implementing. First, you could improve transparency on political spending, forcing candidates to disclose how much they spend on social media ads and setting a cap on this spending. Second, you could implement more fact-checking measures to ensure there is no misinformation. Third, you can implement limits on collecting and selling data and make sure users are more educated on what data is being used so that they can make an informed decision to consent to using these platforms. That being said, there are certainly other regulations you can support so I would suggest doing more research.

Reaching Young Voters

This argument is very intuitive. The majority of social media users are members of younger generations. At the same time, these are the same younger generations that are far less likely to vote and participate in politics. In most large elections in democracies around the world, youth turnout lags significantly behind older voters. This is incredibly harmful because it creates a representation gap. Older voters have more of a say in policies that they may not even be alive to experience while younger voters are missing out on the opportunity to be represented. Young voters are also less likely to listen to traditional media and seek out political information. Therefore, social media is the best way to reach them and encourage them to participate in politics. Additionally, social media ads are a great way to spread digestible information about voter registration and how to vote for the first time. Weigh this argument on the amount of representation you get. It’s always better to represent more people, and accessing youth voters is the best way to do this.

Benefits to Smaller Candidates

This argument is the reverse of the proposition fairness argument. Social media political advertising benefits smaller candidates in a few ways. First, on cost. Social media advertisements can be expensive, but are far cheaper than airing TV ads. A 30-second TV ad can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars while a social media ad is closer to a few hundred dollars. Additionally, they reach a larger amount of people because not everyone is going to be tuned in to a TV channel at the time the ad is airing, while more people are usually on social media to see these ads that run continuously. Traditional media is also harder to access for smaller candidates because more popular and well known candidates with existing connections are always going to get more air time. Second, microtargetting can actually be a good thing. While proposition will paint it as harmful, it can be used to reach underrepresented communities and direct relevant political information to them. Ads can be run in minority local languages and can directly connect with underserved communities. This argument is important because allowing smaller political candidates to have a chance in elections promotes a competitive and diverse political field where citizens can vote for a wide variety of candidates with different views.

Other Thoughts

There are numerous other arguments you could make for this topic. For example, social media allows for accountability through comment sections and responsive posts while traditional media does not have a method for direct accountability.

Closing Thoughts

This debate is pretty similar to a lot of topics you’ve debated before. Remember to tie every argument to the fact that it is an actor motion and analyze the incentives of the stakeholders. With some more research and thinking, I’m sure you will all be prepared to have great debates on this topic. Good luck!

This House regrets the rise of surge pricing

Info Slide: Surge pricing (also known as dynamic pricing) is a pricing strategy where the cost of goods or services fluctuates based on real-time demand and supply. It is commonly used by ride-sharing companies (e.g., Uber, Lyft), airlines, event ticketing, and hospitality industries.

Context

Recently, my favorite response to virtually anything is: “In this economy?”

When reading this topic, it’s easy to dismiss surge pricing as a boring economic issue. But at the heart of surge pricing is economic volatility, affordability, and questions of survival that influence the decisionmaking of an infinite number of businesses, consumers, and more. These matters don’t just abstractly affect the amount you spend on Eras tour tickets or the amount of revenue earned by a company in a year. These matters affect the quarter of Americans who utilize buy now, pay later loans to finance their groceries, the 13.3% of Spanish households facing food insecurity, and thousands of college students who will not fly home for any holidays because of the cost of flights.

What is surge pricing?

First, what is surge pricing? The info slide tells you a lot about this topic. It is “a pricing strategy where the cost of goods or services fluctuates based on real-time demand and supply.” But, the best teams will spend a lot of time researching the various considerations and factors that are considered by companies when determining “real-time demand and supply.”

Britannica Money delineates external versus internal factors, explaining that external factors “can include the cost of materials… changes in supply and demand, competitor prices, and seasonal trends.” While “Internal factors that can affect pricing can include inventory levels and changes in manufacturing costs.”

Notably, Britannica also asserts that dynamic and surge pricing are not as synonymous as the info slide tells you. For strategic purposes, it’s likely that teams will want to prepare the topic as though the terms are the same. That said, it’s worth noting that dynamic pricing is generally a more broad term that may include instances of decreasing prices in ways that benefit consumers. As the Harvard Business Review bluntly puts it: “Price variation in the form of seasonal or clearance sales, happy hours, or off-peak rates clearly works in shoppers’ favor.”

Why are we debating this?

The first reason I think this is a topic is because this is a good topic. Economics is complicated and necessary to understand. Because of this, it can be easy for debaters to fall into extremes: you either ignore the human side of economics, or you ignore the complicated side of it. This topic will hopefully force debaters to deal with both sides of economics: surge pricing is sufficiently complicated that you have to learn (at least a little bit) about supply and demand, but it is very easy to understand why surge pricing impacts individuals. Higher prices? In this economy?

More broadly though, surge pricing has been of increasing relevance because more and more companies are openly employing it. For instance, the info slide alludes to major examples that many people may be familiar with, such as how Uber or Lyft have higher prices during certain times of day, or “rush hour.” Airlines, similarly, are notorious for charging different prices depending on when you purchase. Tickermaster utilizes surge pricing as well, which contributed to difficulties getting concert tickets for the Eras tour. However, while these examples are all horrific and real, it is also important to acknowledge how surge pricing is spreading to unexpected places.

Back in early 2024, media interpreted a statement made by the CEO of Wendy’s as meaning that the company would be using surge pricing via its digitized menus. Fortunately, the company either clarified itself or changed its mind, and did not go forward with this. Similar fears have happened as major retailers and grocers increasingly implement digitized price tags. While there are many cases of consumers panicking without cause, the fear of surge pricing is not unfounded. As will be explored later, there are certain grocers who have begun using the practice.

A Note on Framing:

The last comment on the framing of this motion is that both sides ought to have a well-conceived and thoroughly researched alternative to surge pricing. For proposition, that would likely mean characterizing the counterfactual and explaining why static pricing would continue absent the rise of surge pricing. At proposition’s best ground, you get products like the $1.50 Costco hotdog or the 0.99 cent Arizona Iced Tea. For more complicated settings, like flights and event tickets, propositions would probably want to push that companies would appeal to the “lowest common denominator” in a sense, setting the highest prices they can, while still meeting a base level of demand. Proposition will have to prove that that price is lower than when companies can rapidly adapt to economic shifts.

Both sides also need to differentiate between normal price fluctuations and surge pricing. A key word in the info slide is “real-time,” meaning that surge pricing involves a short-term element. It is not sufficient for either side to note a long-term correlation between a price increase and popularity of a product, then make claims from that example. For instance, demand for housing in major cities has increased and so have housing prices. But, there’s not much evidence labelling that as a case of “surge-pricing,” because that shift is not necessarily related to real-time changes in demand. Similarly, medicines ranging from Ozempic to Insulin are perhaps price gouged and expensive, but their costs do not change rapidly in the same way the cost of Uber might. Both sides of the motion should be prepared to engage in a debate over what is considered “real-time.”

Proposition

For most teams, proposition will be the more intuitive of this motion. However, it will be challenging to adequately diversify arguments. I would remind all proposition teams to think of unique situations and stakeholders. The rhetoric about evil CEOs and innocent “single mothers putting food on the table” works often, but it gets predictable and overused. The most compelling proposition teams will seem well-researched, and it should be clear that you put thought into the cases beyond just relying on basic intuition. In this economy, your judges will know that high prices are bad; your job is to illuminate new connections, illustrate different examples, and go beyond the obvious.

One of the first arguments against surge pricing is that it creates a system of price discrimination that benefits the wealthy, while simultaneously leaving behind the worst off. It allows for corporations to maximize their power in a structurally unfair economy. Major businesses like Walmart, Uber, or Amazon have the market power and resources necessary to utilize surge pricing, while smaller businesses are left in the dust and consumers continuously suffer.

The question proposition needs to research and answer: why does surge pricing contribute to this unjust situation?

First, you need to do incentive analysis. The chief decisionmakers over price-setting are the companies. They are the ones who determine what matters when setting “dynamic prices.” What do companies care about? Money! So, there is a natural incentive for them to charge the maximum possible price, without regard to access, affordability, and social good. For instance, back when the Internet and online shopping were first on the rise, economists from MIT found that almost immediately companies found ways to exploit consumers; specifically, they’d advertise the cheapest version of a product, then navigate the buyer to a more expensive version.

This also happens at the intersection of surge pricing with surveillance capitalism. Generally speaking, companies have more data on every individual than ever before. They know your birthday, your ZIP code, your demographic information, what you do, what you like, and where you go. I recommend The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff for more specifics, but when considering how this may be applied in the dynamic pricing context, it’s easy to see the disasters that may unfold. For instance, back in 2015, The Princeton Review, a test prep company, was found to be charging higher prices for students in ZIP codes with predominantly Asian-American populations. Imagine how they could perfect this discrimination with surge pricing.

The last important note about this argument is the implications of it. When people don’t time their proposition 1s, they’ll rush through the impacts on this argument. Don’t be that person. Just because an impact may seem obvious doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the time and care to write it, find examples, and plan out illustrations. The impact of this argument will likely be very practical, but there are certainly principled dimensions or extensions to argue. Most people would agree that price discrimination is fundamentally unfair, corporations have too much power in today's world, and that the power imbalance involved in dynamic pricing is unjust. How you explain the impact is up to you.

On a similar line of reasoning as to why price discrimination occurs, companies can also utilize surge pricing to price gouge key products in emergencies.

For instance, after a concert, imagine the scene: you might see a train station. Crowds and crowds of people all trying to make it home for the night. Imagine if the train conductor decided to charge 3x the normal fare, take ½ of the people waiting at the station, and leave behind all the others. Maybe some of those others can find a way home without the train, but many would be stranded. In effect, this is what is happening currently with Ubers and Lyfts. Something similar happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, as countless individuals went without cleaning supplies, toilet paper, and masks. In a world with increased price gouging, the lowest income individuals are always going to be the first to be left at the train station. In emergency situations, this isn’t like the TicketMaster Eras tour issues, it can become dire.

In recent years (thanks to climate change!) price gouging has become especially common after disaster situations. For instance, rents rapidly rose in LA after the city’s historic wildfires, while Texas has had ongoing issues with price gouging during disastrous winter seasons and power outages.

This argument requires a delicate balance from all proposition teams, though. In order to win this argument, the proposition needs to be sure to prove more than just that price gouging happens currently, but that dynamic/surge pricing exacerbates it.

Next, it is worth noting that surge pricing may have a unique impact on the lowest income individuals. Many of the situations described above are a bit more extreme or severe, but even the present world of price gauging can hurt the ability of individuals to plan for personal micro-economic decisions.

A very simple example of this would be college students. As someone who recently moved cross country… It is expensive to buy a flight! Imagine an emergency situation happening back home. You cannot plan for emergencies, and a flight bought the night before is significantly more expensive than a flight bought a month in advance. The wealthier college student may be able to afford it, while the lower-income one would not. A similar situation plays out across other instances of surge pricing; a lower income individual who budgets a certain amount of money for a meal at Wendy’s may not be able to afford a surprise few extra bucks. (This is also why price changes on things like gas and eggs are so significant. Somebody’s budget from a year or two ago would not work today!) Another example that comes to mind is how, earlier this year, when Dollar Tree announced it would be increasing its prices, many lower-income communities felt a sense of panic about what their new grocery bill might look like.

I would encourage all debaters prepping this motion to consider how the privilege of economic security may make some communities more resilient to dynamic pricing.

My final note on this argument is to remember that low-income individuals deserve "luxuries" too. It’s easy, and quite common in debate, to find people who dismiss the value of a birthday gift, some fast food, or going to a concert. But, these things can significantly impact the quality of life of an individual. Yes, they are all secondary to needs, but they are still valuable. If you make an argument about how surge pricing affects low income individuals, it may be worth noting that any decrease of affordability can be detrimental to a person’s day to day joy.

Opposition

The biggest challenge for side opposition is to convince a judge that, in this economy, something that typically raises prices is acceptable. This is a daunting task, and why opposition will be the harder side for many teams.

When encountering a topic like this, one where you are forced to defend something that seems clearly bad, it can be helpful to first ask yourself: Why is this happening to begin with? In the case of surge pricing, it is because it helps companies achieve their bottom line. This can be difficult to defend, but one could argue that surge pricing is a necessary evil in order for modern consumers to enjoy the things that we do like about the current economy. An opposition team might argue that the economy will be unfair no matter what, so we might as well live in a world with quicker service, less long lines, and convenient discounts.

So, for opposition, they must be able to answer: what are the reasons why surge pricing increases economic efficiency for corporations?

First, adjusting to supply and demand equates to a type of “perfect price discrimination,” where people spend the money they can afford. So, companies may be maximizing their profits, but they can never go above the price a consumer won’t pay. (For instance, McDonald’s won’t be able to charge $10 for a Coke if nobody buys it.) Arguably, surge pricing in this context can help consumers by ensuring that there is less waste and that supply is able to adjust as necessary to meet demand.

For instance, consider this passage from the Harvard Business Review: “... static prices frustrate businesses when they lead to excess inventory or empty shelves. If rideshare services kept their prices constant, for example, drivers would have less incentive to respond during busy periods, such as rush hour or after a major event. Capacity would not adjust, and many potential riders would be left waiting by the curbside.”

Additionally, there may be an empirical basis to support that companies, eager to keep brand loyalty, will not utilize dynamic pricing to its fullest (exploitative) potential. In the case of Wendy’s, for instance, the backlash against dynamic pricing was immense. Similarly, as major retailers like Walmart have shifted to digital prices tags on shelves, there have been major myths over dynamic pricing, which those companies have had to spend time and money dispelling.

One extreme example of this (and a good international example!) is the Norwegian grocery store REMA 1000. The grocer does use electronic tags to reevaluate prices every 15 minutes. Some highlights from the REMA case include:

Prices only go down in store, and can only increase overnight. So, you won’t ever find that the price of a product went up in between putting it in your cart and checking out. If anything, the price would go down.
Prices can only change four times a day. According to the Wall Street Journal: “Prices on any one item are cut a maximum of four times in a day, with discounts starting at 25% before expanding as needed to 40%, 70% and finally 90%.”
Finally, Partap Sandhu, the head of pricing at the store, claims that the system may reduce overall prices between REMA and competitors. “We lower the prices maybe 10 cents and then our competitors do the same, and it kind of gets to [be] a race to the bottom.”

A uniquely compelling additional argument that comes to mind for opposition teams would be appealing to the current state of political volatility. In a day and age with constant tariffs, conflicts, and associated economic effects, it makes sense that corporations have responded by creating flexibility. This flexibility may help get businesses and consumers alike through periods of economic emergency and change.

In addition to the race to the bottom mentioned above, there are other scholars who think that price discrimination from dynamic pricing can help lower income consumers. For instance, as mentioned in the proposition section, if companies can use data combined with broad economic factors (supply and demand), they may be able to reduce prices to what is needed to convince an individual to make a purchase. In a world where Dollar Tree, for instance, used dynamic pricing, maybe they would introduce $7 products to their stores in wealthier areas and only charge those prices for less-essential products, while everything at stores in low-income ZIP codes would stay $1.00.

Jean-Pierre Dubé, a professor of marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, told The Atlantic, “in theory, people with less money would exhibit lower willingness to pay… By and large, when you personalize prices, the lowest-income consumers are getting the lowest prices.” He likens the practice to negotiations at car dealerships. As The Atlantic elaborates, “Data-driven personalized pricing merely automates that process, turning more and more transactions into miniature versions of going to a car dealership.”

Lastly, a key part of opposition will be defending that while corporations are profit-driven, they need to stay responsive to consumer demands in order to make that profit. Therefore, they are not uncontrollable, or unpredictable. Ioannis Stamatopoulos, a professor at UT Austin’s McCombs School of Business, explains “Using surge pricing could alienate shoppers and drive them away permanently, which is the last thing grocers want.” Since the motion is retrospective, opposition teams can argue that because the practice is unpopular, it is unlikely to spread significantly. This can help stop proposition teams from becoming too dystopian and extreme with their rhetoric.

2025 TFA September/October Topic Analyses: Unions, Space vs Sea, Political Advertising, and Surge Pricing

This House regrets the decline of labor unions

Context

Proposition

Opposition

Further Reading

This House, as a government, would prioritize financing space exploration over financing deep-sea exploration

Context

Proposition

Opposition

Further Reading

This House, as a democratic government, would ban political advertising on social media platforms

Context

Proposition

Opposition

Further Reading

This House regrets the rise of surge pricing

Info Slide: Surge pricing (also known as dynamic pricing) is a pricing strategy where the cost of goods or services fluctuates based on real-time demand and supply. It is commonly used by ride-sharing companies (e.g., Uber, Lyft), airlines, event ticketing, and hospitality industries.

Context

Proposition

Opposition

Further Readings

Info

2024 Summer Session

2025 TFA September/October Topic Analyses: Unions, Space vs Sea, Political Advertising, and Surge Pricing

This House regrets the decline of labor unions

Context

Proposition

Opposition

Further Reading

This House, as a government, would prioritize financing space exploration over financing deep-sea exploration

Context

Proposition

Opposition

Further Reading

This House, as a democratic government, would ban political advertising on social media platforms

Context

Proposition

Opposition

Further Reading

This House regrets the rise of surge pricing

Info Slide: Surge pricing (also known as dynamic pricing) is a pricing strategy where the cost of goods or services fluctuates based on real-time demand and supply. It is commonly used by ride-sharing companies (e.g., Uber, Lyft), airlines, event ticketing, and hospitality industries.

Context

Proposition

Opposition

Further Readings

It’s Official! The TOC WSD Qualification System Has Been Revealed

Info

2024 Summer Session