Frivolous Theory

Intro to Frivolous Theory

Frivolous theory, often subjective, is simply put, theory that is often egregious and unnecessary–theory read for the sake of theory. Many debaters often find theory strategic, so they try to find a violation at all costs. However, frivolous theory can often be strategic because (1) debaters are generally not prepared for it given that the shell is obscure and not what debaters would expect to be called abusive for and (2) frivolous shells are often true in the sense that there is no reason that it is false–there is small abuse story for why the shell is true but not genuine abuse. This means the most common strategy to answering frivolous theory, if done well through an inability to generate offense to, is to go for reasonability and drop the argument. The frivolous theory debater is put in a good spot because these arguments throw their opponents off, their responses are predictable, AND either they overcover a bad argument or undercover it, so you can just win the paradigm issues. An example of a frivolous shell is given here (this was on the september-october intellectual property topic)--

Interpretation: The affirmative must only defend that one member nation of the WTO ought to reduce intellectual property protections for medicines 1–Real World - decisionmakers can only choose from options open to them - an Israeli policymaker can’t control what India does. 2–Clash - each country has different politics that can’t be generalized which requires looking on the in depth particularities of individual actors for more nuanced discussions of them - outweighs breadth since different rounds and out of round research expose us to different topics but clash is unique to the process of debating 3–Shiftiness - you’ll just shift advocacies throughout the round since you’ll just extend any actor I undercovered which also makes the debate irresolvable since we’ll just go for different actors so there’s no clash.

Clearly, this shell is probably false on a truth level and the abuse is not that significant. While not the best example (because it’s relatively easy to generate offense against it), it can still be considered strategic for a theory debater because it’s a somewhat defensible and short shell that a lot of affs would violate.

Frivolous Theory in 1AC Underviews

Often in the 1AC, many affs, particularly nailbomb affs, have long underviews–theoretical spikes used to pre-empt 1NC strategies.

An example of an underview can be found here–notice how there are lots of spikes at the bottom that if conceded, result in the aff immediately winning the round.

These can be strategic because (1) Inefficient debaters would spend 2 minutes on a one minute under view because each blippy argument in the 1AC requires double the time to answer (2) Debaters are often caught off guard, resulting in a few game over spikes inevitably being conceded.

When reading underviews, 1–Make sure to change the underview to be contextual to the potential 1NC–the spikes read against a tricks debater should be different than a K debater 2–6 minutes of spikes aren’t as strategic as it sounds–make sure to have a genuine substantive out as well in case you’re getting pummeled on the tricks layer

When responding to long underviews, 1–Make overview responses! Tricks debaters like to hide spikes which means there’s a chance something will be conceded. Being able to make new responses to conceded spikes can be what changes an L to a W. 2–Read meta theory–must put spikes on top, must disclose spikes, spikes ableist, etc indite the ability of affs to read an underview and can be a strategic way to uplayer in the 2nr 3–Minesweep! Most arguments are ridiculous and affs won’t go for them unless conceded–don’t spend too much time on each spike but make sure to put AN argument on it. During prep, read through the underview very carefully and separate each spike on a new line to prevent hidden spikes. Practice responding to these underviews and being as efficient as possible (aka minesweeping drills).