Internal affairs of universities refers to issues such as the maintainence of facilities, teaching quality and student employability. Mainstream political issues refer to wider socioeconomic concerns such as corruption in governance, human rights and the economy.

Political pessimism refers to an approach to politics with a negative worldview (e.g all hope for change is lost,doesn't matter who I vote for).

A Social Credit System is a national government-facilitated rating system that rewards citizens for good behaviour and sanctions them for bad behaviour.

1. It evaluates a defined set of actions that includes but goes beyond illegal or legally-obligatory acts (e.g., charitable donations, recycling, volunteer work; or jaywalking, and littering).

2. Scores can be given by members of the public, corporations, NGOs, and the government.

3. Based on these scores, the government applies rewards and sanctions (e.g., fast-track through airport security, government-subsidised mortgages, free public transportation; or higher tax, slower document-processing times, and increased barriers to public sector jobs).

Socially conservative viewpoints refer to sociopolitical perspectives that are more traditional (e.g gender roles, opposition to abortion, pro-religiosity, etc).

Cupcake feminism refers to a branch of feminism that focuses on the reclamation of traditionally feminine elements (e.g housework, fashion, beauty, etc) as empowering, rather that being in conflict with feminist values.

For the purposes of the debate, domestication refers to the process of taming an animal and keeping it as a pet or on a farm.

Helena is an art piece featuring 10 working blenders, each filled with water and a live goldfish. Viewers of this art piece would be able to press the button and blend the goldfish, killing them instantly.

In South Korea, the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation has commercialised pet cloning, where dog owners are able to obtain cloned puppies of their pet for up to $100,000 by providing genetic samples from the deceased dog (e.g skin or cheek cells). You are an upper-middle class single adult whose dog has recently passed away after being hit by a truck.

A cashless economy refers to one where economic activities occur without the use of physical cash, but instead use digital payments (e.g ewallets, cryptocurrencies, digital bank currencies)

For the purposes of this debate, sentient AI refers to Artificial Intelligence systems that are capable of experiencing subjective emotions, feelings and perceptions.

“Big Tech” is a term used to describe large technology companies that, because of their size and market share, wield disproportionate economic and social influence. These companies include Amazon, Meta and Alphabet (Google’s parent company).

You are a debater from a locally renowned university. Your dream has always been to break at Worlds. You have won the nationals and had several major breaks though out your 6 year debating career in the past. You are currently in the peak of your career and have been selected to attend UADC and Australs which you have broke until the first outrounds before. However, you begin to feel fatigued with debating and extremely stressful to always try to win every tournament. You begin to feel interested to explore other things like new hobbies that are non-competitive, relationships and career pathways which you previously had to sacrifice because of debate.