Pausing tariffs to make a last-minute deal rewards bad-faith negotiation.

Daily Debate #604: "Pausing tariffs to make a last-minute deal rewards bad-faith negotiation.". You are arguing FOR the motion. Your opponent: Peter Thiel.

Premise 1: "All contingent things require an efficient cause." This is empirically shakier than it sounds. Radioactive decay, vacuum fluctuations, and (on several mainstream interpretations of quantum mechanics) the collapse of the wavefunction are standardly treated by physicists as uncaused at the fundamental level — not "caused by something we haven't found yet," but genuinely without a determining efficient cause. A given atom of uranium-238 decays at an unpredictable moment with no prior physical event selecting that moment. The document's own Objection 5 concedes this is "a real distinction" and that some interpretations "really do posit brute, uncaused events at the fundamental level" — but then hides that concession in a subordinate clause. It shouldn't be hidden. If even one class of contingent physical events lacks an efficient cause, Premise 1 is falsified as a universal claim, not just weakened. The theist can retreat to "well, it has some cause even if not an efficient one" — but that's special pleading: redefining "cause" after the evidence contradicts the original claim.

You're conceding the ground while thinking you're holding it. If quantum events genuinely lack efficient causes, then contingency itself doesn't require causation—which means the entire First Cause argument collapses before it starts. The theist doesn't need to retreat to "other kinds of causes." They just accept your evidence and rebuild on firmer ground: not "everything contingent needs a cause," but "the universe's existence as a whole demands explanation." That's a different argument entirely—one your radioactive decay data doesn't touch. Which are you actually attacking?