This article contains fictional content. Happy April Fools’ Day!
The Public Policy Organization plans to hold a debate on the morality of using the “reply all” function of University emails.
According to Ryan Parimi, a senior anguish major and the PPO’s debate team coordinator, the upcoming debate is titled “Resolved: the use of the ‘reply all’ feature for school email is morally justified.” Parimi said the debate topic was chosen because of recent events involving the red and blue teams for the Bruin Daze activities.
Parimi hopes the topic will spark discussion among students on or off the debate team. “The resolution is asking you to decide a question of morality, and I think we all need to decide that for ourselves,” Parimi said. “I think we have a duty to decide what’s moral or not, especially when it’s something that affects our everyday lives as students, because we all send and receive emails every day—whether we want to or not,” Parimi added that he was on the Blue team at the time of the email incident.
Inoah Guy, a junior referral major and Blue team member who participated in the email chain by sharing memes about the email chain, said the Blue team has the morally correct stance in this debate. “I’m on the affirmative side of the resolution,” Guy said. “I’ve used the feature to good effect in the past, and I always try to follow the handbook’s guidelines on replying to university emails within 24 hours.” Guy did not say whether he believed using email to share memes was the response intended by the University’s policy.
Guy said the debate will be friendly, but that he sees no competition for those on the affirmative side. “It’s over, Red team,” Guy said. “We have the [moral] high ground.”
Idon Noahguy, a freshman isolation major and Blue team member, said he favored the affirmative position for the benefits of using the “reply all” feature. “Of course I used the ‘reply all’ button,” Noahguy said. “They started taking Cookout orders, I wasn’t going to pass up on that.”
Shawty Suprise, a senior French major and Red team member, said the morally superior side seemed obvious because the “reply all” feature has a bad reputation, but that she was glad to see the opportunity for debate.
“I think everyone on the Red team made a good decision not to use the ‘reply all’ feature for emails,” Suprise said. “The email fiasco never happened for the Red team because we would never reply all on a school email—we’re just not like that.”
According to Suprise, the moral high ground is not dominated by the Blue team. “I’m not saying it’s a matter of life and death, but all questions of morality are, so it kind of is,” Surprise said. “What if I was trying to mute my email notifications while in the shower, and I fell and died? The Blue team has no respect for my life.”
Parimi said he anticipates students other than those on the debate team discussing the resolution, with mixed results. “It could get a little heated,” Parimi said. “But I think it’s one of those topics where once you start to really research the other side and research the history of the ‘reply all’ feature and why it was implemented in the first place… it might grow on you.”
But Parimi said since he’s on the Blue team, he favors the affirmative side, which is the exact wording of the resolution he drafted and approved. “It’s always good to give yourself the advantage in times of uncertainty.”
Parimi said the goal of the debate is not to come to a conclusion, but to learn how to deal with those who have opposite opinions. “At the end of the day, we have to show each other some brotherly Christian love, and understanding both sides of this very intense topic is something that can really help us achieve that goal,” Parimi said.
Sophomore music major and Red team member Medley Tune said the debate is about crushing the competition, once and for all. “If I see any Blue team members out here replying all…they’d better watch themselves.”
