Episode 14: Expected Utility & Animal Welfare with Tejas Subramaniam

In the penultimate episode of the Road to the TOC, Tejas Subramaniam discusses technical debate judging, animal welfare, and nuclear energy. Among countless accomplishments, Tejas was the champion and best speaker at the World Schools Debating Championship in 2019, finalist and best speaker at the World University Debating Championship in 2024, and holds the current titles as both national champion and North American champion in BP debate. A recent algorithm created for the purposes of evaluating total competitive success as objectively as possible has ranked Tejas as the 3rd best BP debater in history. We start our conversation with an in-depth critical investigation of the different judging standards in World Schools and BP as compared to PF, Policy, and LD, discussing concepts like warrant sufficiency and weighing calculus. Afterwards, we talk about the philosophical underpinnings of animal welfare arguments both in and outside of debate. As always, we end the interview with a discussion of the nuclear energy topic, including an evaluation of various extinction scenarios. The suffering of animals is almost certainly one of the world's most pressing problems. Please consider donating to alleviate it. Check out the Humane League here: https://thehumaneleague.org/ Here's the FarmKind website Tejas mentioned: https://www.farmkind.giving/ 0:00 Introduction 4:30 Lessons from World Schools 6:30 Sufficiency Theory 18:40 Norm Standardization 22:00 Space for Creativity 24:40 Infinitism 32:20 Judging Expected Value 47:00 Comparing Technical Judging Paradigms 1:11:30 Animal Rights and Philosophy 1:29:05 Wipeout 1:30:30 Defense of Utilitarianism 1:34:30 Selling Animal Arguments in Debate 1:39:30 Nuclear Energy 1:59:30 Climate Change is Not Existential: Analysis of Tipping Points