In memoriam Daniel Barclay March 18, 1985 - April 19, 2007

Daniel's memorial home page

One of Dan's favorite activities during the last two years was participating on the MIT debate team.  The parliamentary debate format permitted the teams to select their own topics.  While most debaters stuck to "normal" topics such as eliminating the inheritance tax, abortion, legalizing marijuana, and the like, Dan didn't always take himself too seriously.  

• The First Annual Daniel J. Barclay Memorial Debate was held on Tuesday, May 8, 2007, at the MIT campus.  This will continue to be an annual public debate at MIT held with the goal of embodying the kind of debate Dan liked best -- debate that is fun to do and fun to watch.  This year, Adam Chilton and Matthew Wansley from Yale, the top-ranked team in the American Parliamentary Debate Association, came to Cambridge to debate against MIT's Adam Groce and Michelle Zimmermann, the second-ranked team in the league. MIT argued for a proposal originally created by Dan: that the U.N. should make the membership of the Security Council�s five veto-wielding seats determined by an open auction held every two years.  Dan's own notes of this case are here.

• Bus rap (should cities charge for riding the bus, or should it be free?), written and performed in rap
         Complete text,  Audio of first few minutes, Silent video of first 30 seconds

• The Basketball Case - One of Dan's creative debate cases, from an IM exchange between Dan and his father, converted to a PowerPoint presentation (you can save this to your computer and run locally, or select open and press "Page Down" to scroll through the pages)

• Alien invasion case - you are an alien species invading Earth.  Where do you land?

• French intervention during the American Revolutionary War

• Indiana Jones case - you have a bazooka aimed at an intact Ark of the Covenant.  Do you blow it up?

• Italian intervention in World War One

• Narnia case - You are Peter.  Do you try to free Narnia or leave it alone?

• Some of the serious cases he ran, or ran against in competition

• Cereal mascots case - Who wins in a face-off of the Lucky Charms leprechaun, Cap'n Crunch and Count Chocula, etc.

• Blow up the moon case - Dan's most famous case.  Should the U.S. blow up the moon with nuclear weapons?

• Eliminate one continent from the Earth case - too many continents, so get rid of one (you can't pick Antarctica)

• Death Star v. The Enterprise case - Who wins?  Star Wars v. Star Trek?