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No reasonable argument against it being legal.

Age limitto drink...

Its interesting I can see why we (uk) have an 18 drinking age and smoking its mostly for health reasons and making sure people are mature enough to know the pros and cons. Unfortunately I actually think its a bad idea and 16 might actually be a better age for drinking.

Reason why? Well we have a problem with underage drinking in streets and parks by under 18s mostly 16+ but a fair number younger. Personally I think a two tier system could benefit people. 18+ for off license purchase but 16+ for drinking in bars. This would allow younger people to drink but in a more controlled environment where they will be refused service and have proper supervision.

We also have the fact that people can get married and have sex at 16 but not drink...you can't explain to me why a person is considered mature enough to have children or commit to someone for life but isn't considered mature enough to have a beer.

Still the main problem is 18 is just a number some people are mature at 14 some still aren't at 20 :-)

Hopefully some of that might help to get you started/thinking

After talking with my teacher the monologue is about: It's reasonable that athletes, CEO's, actors etc get payed as much as they do.

I am all for. So I have to come up with 3 arguments why I am for, and 2 against and I have to say why those two are invalid The counter arguments may be 2 of the 3 arguments.

I kinda disagree.

that's cool - i disagree with you

something like abortion which is more based on principles that are considered self evident by those who hold them (right to life/right to choice).

That basically screams "for or against" to me. Put it this way - who (especially women) has a neutral opinion about abortion? I'd say that young males (and even with them the neutrality is from not spending time thinking on it rather than true neutrality) are about the only demographic that would have a significant number of people in such a group.

regardless, snappie's decided topic is pretty good. Hopefully he posts his arguments so we can debate with him.

How old are you btw Snappie? Honestly everything here is probably an appropriate topic for you as long as you know how to form a basic and coherent argument.

How old are you btw Snappie? Honestly everything here is probably an appropriate topic for you as long as you know how to form a basic and coherent argument.

I am 29 And yes, that's true! Thats why I choose this topic. In the end, I can not really talk about some of the topics because I simply miss the knowledge to talk about it. Its a lot different when I can write it and just read it out loud. Then I would be able to find arguments and write them down on paper. The task here is more about public speaking. Showing how you have some Barack obama in you

regardless, snappie's decided topic is pretty good. Hopefully he posts his arguments so we can debate with him.

haha Yes. So, the arguments that I feel why its fair are:

- People that earn so much (like athletes do) is mostly because they have a specialism that most citizens just dont have.

- Life ain't fair (capatalism)

- Marketing: It's not just what they can, but also the image they represent.

This are just pointers. Because it's more about the speech then the arguments

After talking with my teacher the monologue is about: It's reasonable that athletes, CEO's, actors etc get payed as much as they do.

I am all for. So I have to come up with 3 arguments why I am for, and 2 against and I have to say why those two are invalid The counter arguments may be 2 of the 3 arguments.

Interesting topic. I think it is even more interesting, because you included actors and athletes in the question. I agree that they should all make as much as they are capable of making -- free market.
I am totally FOR (free markets):
1. Each individual usually has a given number of years to make whatever they can. Let them.
2. Success should always be rewarded, rather than punished. (no higher taxes).
3. Normally, each has invested/forfeited an incredible amount of time (10k hours) and/or money to get where they are. (maybe same as #2)
4. If someone decides that an individual should make less money -- who would make that decision? Who picks winners and losers?
5. If an actor or athlete makes $20million, how is that different than a CEO? No difference imo.
Movie flops = no more gigs Movie breaks boxoffice = rate/fame goes up.
Bad sports performance = contracts usually give some kind of exit strategies.
Investors do their homework. Nothing is just given away. Profit is the motive.

OKAY, I do have one AGAINST for athletes:
In some sports, rich team owners can afford to buy all of the best players/coaches, and the argument is that they may have an unfair advantage in leagues. I think Manchester (futbal/soccer) might be like that. Don't they get the best and pay the most? Yankees (baseball) is definitely like that. Big big money.
......Honestly, I have only skimmed over that topic in the past. I believe the keywords are sports salary caps. NFL Football has salary caps.


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BTW, I think that it is interesting that 16 is the age limit for drinking in the Netherlands. Most often, I see the debate be about ages 18 vs 21. I have never really considered age 16 before. But I guess I would be against it, because normally kids start driving at 16.
Happy Birthday = drinking and driving (with a bunch of friends in the car).
......but then again, it is the Netherlands. Famous around the world for extracurricular freedoms. But, I do wonder if 16 would be a problem. In Mexico, age is 18. Doesn't seem to be a problem. Interesting for me, since I am from California (age is a strict 21).

The interesting thing is, that the Netherlands have a policy that you can learn to drive from the age of 18. Now they lowered it to 16.5 (with somebody that acts like a guide when you drive). That's so weird.
The new law is refused by the way. Kids can still drink legally at the age of 16. No heavy liquers by the way, so you can't buy whiskey when your 16.

Nowadays, the netherlands have lots of children that drink themselves in a coma. Some of them are even 10... So, a rule to hgher the bar would not really matter.

In some sports, rich team owners can afford to buy all of the best players/coaches, and the argument is that they may have an unfair advantage in leagues. I think Manchester (futbal/soccer) might be like that.

This is a very strong argument. How would you respond to that?

This is a very strong argument. How would you respond to that?

Personally. I would say that this is true, but that we then go away from the subject at hand. Which is: Is it fair that some of those people get payed as they do.
That does not tell anything about teams being fair

Eugenics - should we use genetics to advance human evolution?

gay marriage and abortion seem like pretty easy choices with a wealth of arguments for/against.

eta: all arguments against gay marriage are terrible, but plenty exist.

This no longer is rewally an issue in the netherlands where it's legalized and unless you live in the bible belt area is not really an issue I think..

After talking with my teacher the monologue is about: It's reasonable that athletes, CEO's, actors etc get payed as much as they do.

I am all for. So I have to come up with 3 arguments why I am for, and 2 against and I have to say why those two are invalid The counter arguments may be 2 of the 3 arguments.

Why athletes earn so much:
Merchandise - we all want to wear their clothes and see them as role models, they earn so much because they want a share of that merchandise, everybody who complains about them earning too much should stop watching their games, don't go to a stadium and pay for a ticket, don't buy merchandise etc. If enough people do that their salary will go down but with increasing merchandising markets in the east where soccer for example is becoming a more and more popular sports it's likely that salaries would increase. (uniqueness in skill)

CEO: They have a huge responsability and should earn accordingly, they run something that few others can (uniqueness in skill) However I think as it is of now they don't run any risk if they fck things up whereas for example if an athlete doesn't perform he will be hurt instantly in reputation and performance. I don't mind that CEO's and for example stocktraders earn ridiculous amounts of money as long as they would be punished by bad performance (have some form of entrepreneurshiprisk ).

athletes and actors are a bit in the same category where we want to see their movies so we pay them and thus they earn a lot because they show a unique skill. The reward is also very high for the top but for each of them a lot of people don't make it to the top and have like the poorest paid jobs around. (even more for athletes who don't finish schools and go entirely for their career and then find out they just don't manage to perform at the absolute top).

- Life ain't fair (capatalism)

not really an arguement. The Idea of Capatalism rewards those who take risks and most people are risk averse and don't dare to have their own start up and choose for safety. Taking risks is being rewareded.

Interesting topic. I think it is even more interesting, because you included actors and athletes in the question. I agree that they should all make as much as they are capable of making -- free market.
I am totally FOR (free markets):

2. Success should always be rewarded, rather than punished. (no higher taxes).

I disagree with point 2. There are a lot of people who don't have a chance on success and to have success you need to be lucky to be in the right conditions. you can help to improve these conditioins but some people (the already wealthy few for example have much more chance on success..

I think taxes should be skewed towards the top and be redistributed amongst the people that have less chance to improve their situation for success. Also I believe there should be some ethical arguements that if you're lucky enough to get succesful you have the moral resonsability to those who don't have a chance for example handicapped people, elderly etc.

5. If an actor or athlete makes $20million, how is that different than a CEO? No difference imo.
Movie flops = no more gigs Movie breaks boxoffice = rate/fame goes up.
Bad sports performance = contracts usually give some kind of exit strategies.
Investors do their homework. Nothing is just given away. Profit is the motive.

In reality CEO's don't get punished for misbehaviour, they get selled off and start at another organisation again due to the network of people they created. As a top athlete you can't start somewhere else anymore if you simply don't belong to the top anymore so they are exposed to way less risk compared to athletes.

OKAY, I do have one AGAINST for athletes:
In some sports, rich team owners can afford to buy all of the best players/coaches, and the argument is that they may have an unfair advantage in leagues. I think Manchester (futbal/soccer) might be like that. Don't they get the best and pay the most? Yankees (baseball) is definitely like that. Big big money.
......Honestly, I have only skimmed over that topic in the past. I believe the keywords are sports salary caps. NFL Football has salary caps.

Free market?

good reading material on the economics of sports is the book Sports Economics by Rodney D Fort. it explains all the arguements why our market system boosts athletes salaries

Personally. I would say that this is true, but that we then go away from the subject at hand. Which is: Is it fair that some of those people get payed as they do.
That does not tell anything about teams being fair

I kind of agree. But still, with the salary caps, individual player salaries are capped (and this affects their retirement $$ potential). Team sports is the only form of caps that I can think of for individual players. Are there any other examples? I have only skimmed this subject, as the NFL has been presented as a form of socialism (spread the wealth model). There are some discussions out there on the NFL model.

Other than that, I do not think any sports player (or actor or CEO) should ever be punished (higher taxes or salary caps). Why? Free markets. Let them earn what they can -- just like in poker. Otherwise, we begin rewarding and propping up failure instead

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One sports figure I would like to see salary capped (1/2 joking):
Floyd "Money" Mayweather. Big mouth that doesn't fight anyone -- and he makes a huge paycheck every fight.. But I still have to stand by "Let him earn what he can". Last fight, he made a guaranteed $32million vs Cotto's guaranteed $8million.

The solution I believe for him (and the sport) is different. Rules. Force him to fight everyone, and not cherry pick fights (duck and run from real competition). Fight the best or don't get paid at all.
End rant on "Money" Mayweather (who is in jail right now -- wife beater)

Why dietary fat is "healthy" and why a low-fat diet as advocated by conventional wisdom is "not as healthy". Here is the monster DC link with tons and tons of scientific references:

http://deucescracked.com/topics/482841-Low-Carb-High-Fat-eating?forum_id=4-General-Poker-Discussion

Is it fair that some of those people get payed as they do.

1 - fairness has nothing to do with how much someone is paid.
2 - fair compared to what?

These are the biggest problems with your subject IMO. How are you evaluating fairness? An athlete entertains millions. A firefighter may save 10 lives. Is saving 10 lives more important than the happiness of millions of people? Why or why not? Is importance the right metric to judge fairness? And should you be paid an amount commensurate with what someone (who?) deems important? What about impact in society - is that a better metric than importance? How do you measure that?

Do the athletes and CEOs get paid more than is justified for the work they do might be a better phrasing. It would also be easier to make the counter argument. Since everyone but CEOs in your list are involved in entertainment, it seems like your counter argument would largely be based on the opinion that entertainment really isn't as valuable to people as what they are currently paying. The counter argument for CEOs would be that they are figureheads like the queen of england rather than driving the company, and that the lack of risk hansgeertsma pointed out about their being fired makes CEOs complacent, with less of a killer instinct. Therefore neither athletes/actors nor CEOs earn what they get paid. It's not an easy argument to make.

It is not, Steppin'.

The funny thing was.. my first subject was: Can you blame a coach for the failures of his team?
Obviously, this was all after the biggest failure of the dutch team ever in the european championship. Newspapers where full of it.
One of the guidelines was: It needs to be something that is important to our society.

The teacher didn't think my subject was important enough haha
How biased is that.
She didn't care for the loss of the netherlands, so it didnt have any value.

lol.
If your subject has to be important to society, is that also how you're supposed to evaluate your question?

If so, I would ask her what's important to her and use what she says.

lol.
If your subject has to be important to society, is that also how you're supposed to evaluate your question?

If so, I would ask her what's important to her and use what she says.

haha that's what I did and so I now have an monologue about the earnings of the top haha
Thankfully it's not all about strong arguments. It's more about showing you can speak well, something I have no troubles with. I have way more trouble giving good arguments. I am really not up to date with the media and actuality. I don't follow news, there is probably some war going on and politics are debating things. I see no reason to follow it but in this situation it's kind of a problem

I don't really have a very strong opinion on things going on in the world.

I passed with a 9.

Congrats

Congrats

thanks bro! Hoe is poker going mate?

Why not 10?