Editing Disadvantage (section)

===Impact===
The impact is the result of the policy action that make it undesirable. These results are at the end of the chain of reasoning of your DA (starts with your link with internal links spanning over the Brink with Uniqueness and lead to the Impact),<ref name=":1" /> then continuing along with the example, an impact would be that economic collapse may cause [[nuclear warfare|nuclear war]]. The Impact is the edge of the sword of your DA and is usually a significantly bad event caused by inertia evident through the internal links inside the link off over the brink and uniquely so.

Internal links are often undesirable things by themselves, and could be considered impacts. The worst of the consequences, or the final one in the chain of events, is usually given the label of "impact".  For example, nuclear war is probably worse than economic collapse, so nuclear war is given the "impact" label, even though economic collapse (the internal link) could itself be viewed as an impact.

The nuclear war impact is the terminal (i.e. final) impact in virtually every disadvantage today. While it appears outlandish to outsiders and even to some debaters now, it originated in the 1980s during the height of the [[nuclear freeze]] movement, specifically after the publication of ''[[The Fate of the Earth]]'' by [[Jonathan Schell]]. Barring nuclear war, the terminal impact usually ends up as [[extinction]] anyway, either [[human extinction]] or the extinction of all life on Earth; the most common mechanisms for these are cataclysmic climatic change (in the style of ''[[The Day After Tomorrow]]''), or uncontrolled undiscovered uncurable disease. Most debate coaches use the nuclear war argument as  a way of training young policy debaters.{{Who|date=March 2024}}

Other terminal impacts might include severe human rights abuses, such as near universal slavery or loss of individuality.  These types of impacts are usually argued under a [[deontological]] framework or as a turn to a human rights advantage.