For this debate, a “religious adherence app” is a hypothetical mobile application designed to help individuals monitor and strengthen their adherence to a chosen religious tradition. With the user’s permission, it monitors aspects of their daily activity using data such as location, app usage, and web browsing activity, while also allowing users to enter thoughts, feelings, and activities that the app cannot capture automatically. It assesses this information against standards drawn from that tradition’s teachings and practices and provides feedback, which may include an adherence score and suggestions for improving adherence.

Vietnam’s “Blazing Furnace” campaign refers to the Communist Party of Vietnam’s sustained, centrally directed anti-corruption and Party disciplinary campaign, initiated under General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng in 2013 and substantially intensified from 2016 onward. Its methods include Party disciplinary proceedings, state inspections and audits, and criminal investigations and prosecutions. It targets officials at all levels, including serving and retired senior leaders, as well as managers of state-owned enterprises and implicated private-sector actors.

“Moral realism” is the view that there are objective moral facts, such as facts about what actions are right and wrong, independent of what anyone believes.

For this debate, “academic accommodations” are individualized changes to academic requirements, policies, procedures, or assessment conditions (e.g., extended testing time, flexibility regarding deadlines and attendance requirements, or permission to take a reduced course load without the usual academic or administrative penalties).

“Private credit” is debt financing provided by non-bank financial institutions to borrowers through privately negotiated loans or other debt instruments that are not issued or traded on public markets.

In many Western liberal democracies, especially since the late twentieth century, center-left parties have come to include significantly fewer politicians who previously held working-class occupations (e.g., manual, service, or clerical roles) and significantly more “career politicians” whose careers began in politics or politics-adjacent professional work (e.g., party, campaign, or legislative staff roles).