Freedom of speech and living among diverse sets of people

[JustHanging]

It takes far more time and effort to fact-check his nonsense and in that time he can create 5 more lies and half-truths and then claim that he won the debate when he does by staying 2 steps ahead of the fact-checkers. It's an old tactic. Philosophically it called sophism.

Today it is commonly known as the Gish Gallop.

During a Gish gallop, a debater confronts an opponent with a rapid series of many specious arguments, half-truths, and misrepresentations in a short space of time, which makes it impossible for the opponent to refute all of them within the format of a formal debate.[3][4] In practice, each point raised by the "Gish galloper" takes considerably more time to refute or fact-check than it did to state in the first place.[5] The technique wastes an opponent's time and may cast doubt on the opponent's debating ability for an audience unfamiliar with the technique, especially if no independent fact-checking is involved[6] or if the audience has limited knowledge of the topics.

 

[TheEconomist]

It takes far more time and effort to fact-check his nonsense and in that time he can create 5 more lies and half-truths and then claim that he won the debate when he does by staying 2 steps ahead of the fact-checkers. It's an old tactic. Philosophically it called sophism.

Ben Shapiro has a very finite and limited number of points to make regarding any issue and he's usually not an expert in the issues he debates. My point here is that you can learn very fast, very quickly everything you need to know about what Shapiro has to say on a question X. You even have hours and hours of video online of him debating other people, so you can tell pretty quickly how he could counter your argument. You have an advantage he doesn't have because he has to react live to your objections.

Besides, Shapiro films his interviews, podcasts, and talks. How the hell do you want him to manage to create enough lies without getting cornered? Again, if he lied this much, you'd have an easy time catching him.


And I'm getting tired of you. You're throwing around accusations like saying he lies all the time, fuels hatred and so on. Can you substantiate your accusations? Did you even bother listening to what he has to say or you just heard him on TV for five minutes twice taking political positions you don't like?

 

[Nap]

He knew exactly what he was doing when he throws bombs, just as the Klan and the Neo-Nazis do. If the cops weren't there to protect him those people would have taken care of him and his followers if it were on equal terms, just as they would to the handful of Klan or Neo-nazis who show up and use racist rants on the courthouse steps. These twits know that the cops will prevent that from happening all the while allowing them to continue their partisan schtick.

Our free speech rights only cover the right not to be arrested or fined by the government for our speech. They don't protect us from others who disagree with them, but the cities have the cops there to prevent the riots from happening that trolls like Milo, Ben, and Ann Coulter seek to start. Maybe if the cops turn their backs while these trolls get what they have coming they would stop trying to claim that they are interested in debate and rational discussion and are outed as the troll that they really are when they insulted and attack people but claim that others can't reply in kind.

At least you don't try and hide that you advocate for violence.

 

[Nap]

LOL, it only took 1 reply in this thread to liken an Orthodox Jew to a Nazi or Klan member by a virtue-bleeding Progressive. New record!

And then openly advocate (or at least wish for) violence against said Jew, just as the Klan or Neo-Nazis would.......

 

[Crusader13]

He is creating a strawman from their questions and they aren't fast enough to catch it.

Stop throwing words around. You've not given a single specific example of something wrong, hateful, or deceitful he has said. All you've done is repost ad-hominem character attacks, and you can't even back that up with any shred of evidence or logic. At this point you're basically just saying "yeah, but Ben is poo-poo head so he should be silenced/attacked/bashed".

Your mind is callous and dangerous.

 

[TheEconomist]

Stop throwing words around. You've not given a single specific example of something wrong, hateful, or deceitful he has said. All you've done is repost ad-hominem character attacks, and you can't even back that up with any shred of evidence or logic. At this point you're basically just saying "yeah, but Ben is poo-poo head so he should be silenced/attacked/bashed".

Your mind is callous and dangerous.

I can find examples where I think he has been wrong, but not examples where I think he was being deceitful. Those are very different things. The examples I would give would be when he talks about the minimum wage and the reason I think he is wrong is subtle. I'll talk about it to illustrate what I mean.


If you look at a now classical study on the issue such as Card and Krueger's famous paper, you just do not see statistical evidence of the reduction in employment that is being claimed -- and they're using a pretty intuitive method and focus on presumably low skill workers (they looked into the fast-food industry). To my best knowledge, that's pretty much a good summary of what you'll find in other papers as well and I suspect the issue with the prediction has something to do with the simplicity of the supply-and-demand model of the labor market. Specifically, I suspect that the effect a more realistic model would predict might be so small and diffused across various forms of compensations that you just won't see it in the data; or, maybe, forces the simpler model neglects like general equilibrium effects compensate the bad effects entirely by moving the demand for labor. It's also possible that the effect of a minimum wage depends on the level of the minimum wage so that you'd only find effects in the subset of papers that study the largest cases in policy adjustments.

That's one problem. I think he's off with the empirical literature. The other problem is that current disputes revolved around pretty big changes. If you look at MW hikes outside the scope of what empirical studies investigated, it's unclear that the conclusions apply, even if you limit yourself to the subset of papers that did find some negative effect. What I am getting at is a subtle statistical issue related to the specific methods used in economics. Most of those models assume the expected shortfall of employment or hours worked is linear in a MW change. For small changes, you can think the result has some generality as an approximation. However, if you stretch far enough out of what we measure, you need that statistical model to be correct in a much broader sense. The estimates being okay for small changes do not imply they're okay for larger ones, so I am not sure the people involved in this debate can legitimately rely on just any study they like. To be fair, though, I didn't check if someone tried those methods on changes made in places like Seattle -- where the MW was pretty big.


What my response illustrates is that Ben Shapiro is not an economist. It doesn't make him a bigot of some sort. The details of theories in economics are things you learn in graduate courses and by tinkering with computer simulations, just like the details of the statistical methods underlying those studies. The vast majority of people who are engaged in this debate have no idea the nuances I mentioned even exist. It's not just Ben Shapiro. I don't think anyone is in a position to scorn at other people, let alone to demonize other people, over issues of policies when they have no idea how you would even check who's correct and who isn't.

The proper response, when you have some kind of expertise, is to calmly share the knowledge you acquired with others. I'm sure Shapiro has been wrong about multiple issues in varying degrees of subtleties that are expert eye would catch. That doesn't make him a spawn of Satan. On the other hand, the hysterical maniacs who destroy property and use intimidation to shut him up are clearly wrong. Maybe their policy positions are sometimes closer to what should be done. Maybe. But their actions scream to the entire world "we're the villain." If you can't make a convincing case on behalf of your position, it doesn't only call into question your ideas. It begs another question: why do you even believe those things? Do you have ideas, or do ideas have you?

 

[RetiredUSN]

The hallmark of rational debate is not that no one involved ever makes a mistake. It's that the debate centers around facts and logic. You can quibble with Ben Shapiro about how he interprets a set of facts, but you cannot fault him on not taking stock of facts. Moreover, if you dispute how he lays out an argument (i.e., if you spot a fallacy), anyone is welcome to explain the error in the question segment. And if students are ill-equipped to deal with this issue, it reflects very badly on their professors -- who, by the way, are welcome to see the lectures and are invited to voice objections during question segments.

Another note: your position requires someone to censor Shapiro and Coulter. You don't need to censor someone who is wrong, as long as you can respond to them.



First of all, putting these conservative figures in the same group as Klansmen and neo-Nazis is despicable. Klansmen and neo-Nazis have been involved in assaults, rape, and murders to name just a few things. If you don't fear to attend a neo-Nazi march considerably more than you fear to talk with Ben Shapiro, your sense of proportion is out of touch with reality. I'd go talk with Shapiro alone without a problem. But, a Nazi march? I don't know if I would feel safe, even if the army was there. The worst conservative pundits ever did was say things you don't like... That might be annoying, but it's fine.

Second of all, a college has no requirement to invite people over. However, if a group of students thinks that public figures like Shapiro, Knowles, Coulter, Prager or someone like that should be part of a discussion, they should be free to raise the funds and organize their events.

Third of all, conservatives students can make similar comments about faculty, no less than public speakers who are often invited. Imagine if things were reversed and they had the power to grant or deny access to college. Even if a group of conservatives thinks that Judith Butler is a presumptuous quack who uses indecipherable prose to hide the blatant idiocy of her identitarian claims, don't you think someone who wants to judge her work for themselves should be allowed to invite her?

Fourth of all, American campuses are all biased in the same political direction. If you had to let more people in of some kind, conservatives would probably be the best way to put a limit to the echo chamber effect, even if they're wrong in one way or another.



Here's the reasonable line: Shapiro never promoted violence of any sort, so he should be allowed to go anywhere he is invited in due form. He repeatedly condemned violence and repeatedly called people to not intimidate or insult each other over differences related to things like sexuality and religion.

Your criterion is problematic because campuses are staffed, populated and managed by mostly left-leaning people. You cannot trust that they will do this job properly, even if they tried. If you try to get rid of every "bigot" that could slip through, you'll end up giving some groups on campus too much discretion and they will use it to ban ideas they dislike.



Actually, Ben Shapiro has often been challenged by professors during his presentation. Presumably, you would expect they could come up with good arguments, but I've never seen one. I could stump him on economics (because I am a trained economist currently studying for a Ph.D.), but I suspect it would just be a polite disagreement over how to interpret some results. Or I would point to a few studies, key results and he would just concede the point and thank me for references -- which I have seen him do on occasions, by the way.

Contrast this with protestors. He's polite, calm, and invite people to talk. They are loud, violent and want to prevent people to talk... But, in your head, Shapiro is the problem?

And they say on here that conservatives and liberals can't agree on anything.

Your post is probably in my top ten "most reasonable" category during my time on here.

Well said.

 

[Lovebug]

(Cont.)
I think that the left in America today is making a huge mistake.

There are legitimate concerns to be had over race, gender, religion, and sexuality, among other things. Although the United States and most of the West has become far more tolerant in recent decades, it is beyond doubt that discrimination can still take place. However, when you leap from observing discrimination in some places to theorizing social interactions in a way that makes differences across groups incommensurable, you're not going to eliminate the problem. Obsessing over race increases tensions by drawing sharp lines between people, by constantly reminding them to look at the color of their skin and that of others around them. It makes differences salient and commonalities disappear in the background. You won't create a world where people get along. You'll create many worlds with people who can't exist with each other. Do you want to wake up one day and live in a world so divided that Google Map's new updates include blue and red tags so you can tell when a business is conservative or liberal?

You're not going to get people you don't like to shut up and you won't get everyone to agree with you. That won't happen. What will happen is that you'll create isolated cultural silos of people who can't stand being with each other. You'll create a world where sometimes even fathers and sons cannot talk, or brothers and sisters plan ways to hurt each other and mothers who refuse to see their kid because they voted for different parties. Utopia, right?


I remember back in 2009 or 2010, Bill Maher made a joke about conservatives. He said that conservatives cannot make political jokes because it's just cruel when a fat cat laughs at the misery of Joe Average. Of course, he's got his point of view and that shows, but the broader point is that today, I think the opposite is true. The only ones laughing are conservatives. You cannot make a joke about anything on the left without risking to enrage someone over "insensitive" comments.

Great presentation overall. Reposting this for emphasis

 

[TheEconomist]

I also wanted to add a point regarding discussing with people with whom you have ample disagreements, sometimes about issues that are very emotionally involving, and I'd like to proceed by giving a non-political example.

Yesterday, I was discussing with another graduate student over mathematical proof I worked out. After some efforts, I checked my computations using a calculator for definite integrals online. I had made a typo, which I proceeded to correct. Even though I could show her the results, she seemed unconvinced. The reason is that she worked out the same proof and she made a sign error she had trouble spotting. It wasn't especially easy to spot, but I eventually did. The only way she was reassured that nothing was wrong with the final version I sent her is when I proceeded to show her where she made the mistake and why it was a mistake. In a mathematical proof, when you write that two expressions are equivalent, a subtle thing is happening: you point out that there are multiple equivalent ways to look at the same thing. It's a change of perspective, in other words. This becomes obvious when you work someone and both of you try to work out a solution to the same thing independently. If you do not manage to get equivalent answers, tough at least one of you is wrong, the discussion requires that each of you dig into the details of the steps the other person took. As problems become more complicated, this kind of thing becomes hard.


Now, what this should make obvious is that outside of technical discussions, we seem to jump ahead of ourselves very often. It's rare that you can convince someone without trying very hard to get to the bottom of what they are saying, but we have the habit of just bothering to try to show we're right. An equally important issue is to couch the problem in terms the other person will understand, to embed your response within their frame of reference.

To go back to the current dispute on this thread, the problem I am pointing out here is compounded when you deal with people you treat as enemies. We don't listen to our enemies. We only listen to our friends. If you want to make sure you say stupid things, turn a discussion into a fight. Make sure that you're the hero and they're the villain. However, if you want to learn something and if you care about actually having a positive impact in the world, you have to stop yourself when you do this. How do you do it? Well, find a reason to consider yourself and other people as part of the same group. Before you reply, pause for a minute and ask yourself: if I tried to reformulate their arguments, would they approve of what I would have to say?

 

[Simpletruther]

The added security is because of his followers feel emboldened by his trolling and the antics of his that willfully inflame emotions between groups of people in the same way that public Klan rallies do.

This is incredibly blind bias on your part. These radical leftists are the ones inflaming for the most part. Have you ever watched some of Ben’s speaking engagements? He is polite and reasonable. You seem to be living in a bubble and believing your own assumption prions now instead of reality, or maybe you are a rank liar, I don’t know you that well to say yet.

Ben does say some direct things at times, but his treatment of audiences, the way he answers questions is civil and he talks ideas.

 

[TheEconomist]

Here is a way that perhaps everyone can understand what conservatives feel like on campuses, in the media, and sometimes even online. Please humor me and do the exercise seriously. It will take just a minute or two.

The criterion proposed by some people on the left for limiting speech in public requires us to think about how marginalized group might feel when exposed to certain ideas and, sometimes, to also take stock of how radical groups might use certain ideas as an excuse to engage in violence even when we did not condone that violence. In practice, campuses are dominated by left-leaning people so this means people on the left effectively decide what is appropriate and inappropriate speech based on emotions, anticipated reactions and perhaps even on the presumed intentions of the speaker. In all those cases, I must remind you that you observe none of that. You infer emotions and intentions from body language and verbal expressions and you have to make a forecast about radicalized groups of people to judge how ideas might affect them. So any argument here is bound to involve questions of judgments and not just matters of fact -- so, it's really a sort of discretionary power.

The problem I invite to contemplate is "why should conservatives trust people like you?"

To answer this question, try to put yourself in a different world. Say that instead of left-leaning groups having the upper hand on campuses, campuses are dominated by Christian fundamentalists. They decide what can be said or not said. Suppose that some courses in geology, climate science, biology, and sexuality will be canceled because they conflict with a fundamentalist view of biblical scripture. Suppose that activists supporting gay marriage are being banned from campus and that riots erupt every time someone tries to support gay marriage even when they do it on the libertarian grounds of "live and let live." The administration and far-right students argue that LGBT-advocacy groups don't really want the freedom they claim, that they have a hidden agenda to destroy America and want children to suffer.

The question is: can you think of any reason you could give to those fundamentalists that they might accept so that they do not use that power?


My answer to this conundrum is very simple. There are three possibilities: (1) they decide how to censor, (2) you decide how to censor and (3) censorship only applies to cases that you would both ban. (1) is unacceptable to you and (2) is unacceptable to them. The only middle ground is to limit bans to obvious no-noes like displays of child pornography and outright invitations to attack groups of people. In that world, there is no way a leftist would just shut up, not be mad at fundamentalists and not call for diversity of opinions. Just like conservatives do not trust that left-leaning people are fair when they label people as hateful, left-leaning people wouldn't trust that conservatives would be fair if they got to make the same kind of choices. What on Earth gives you the right, then, to do to others what you would never accept that they do to you? The happenstance fact that you happen to have a lot of support in academia and the media doesn't give you the right to decide on behalf of everyone what can be said and heard. If the fundamentalist prescription is unbearable to you, you understand exactly how some conservatives feel. They feel like their views will be misrepresented, that they will be attributed intentions they never had and that there might be no difference between the category "hate" and the category "what leftists disagree with." Which is exactly how you would feel if religious rightwing groups were policing speech instead of leftwing groups.

So, instead of being so liberal with labeling things as "hate speech," maybe you should do a little more of what you say you support. Draw a bigger circle that includes everyone. Find some common ground. Extend the hand nobody seems to be willing to extend. That actually could change a few minds, conquer a few hearts and make the world a better place. It also requires courage -- serious, real courage. Right now, you have no Klansmen to attack over lynching that no longer happens. However, you have sadistic mobs ruining the lives of people over frivolous issues. If you're looking for a dragon to slay, how about this one?

 

[Simpletruther]

I also wanted to add a point regarding discussing with people with whom you have ample disagreements, sometimes about issues that are very emotionally involving, and I'd like to proceed by giving a non-political example.

Yesterday, I was discussing with another graduate student over mathematical proof I worked out. After some efforts, I checked my computations using a calculator for definite integrals online. I had made a typo, which I proceeded to correct. Even though I could show her the results, she seemed unconvinced. The reason is that she worked out the same proof and she made a sign error she had trouble spotting. It wasn't especially easy to spot, but I eventually did. The only way she was reassured that nothing was wrong with the final version I sent her is when I proceeded to show her where she made the mistake and why it was a mistake. In a mathematical proof, when you write that two expressions are equivalent, a subtle thing is happening: you point out that there are multiple equivalent ways to look at the same thing. It's a change of perspective, in other words. This becomes obvious when you work someone and both of you try to work out a solution to the same thing independently. If you do not manage to get equivalent answers, tough at least one of you is wrong, the discussion requires that each of you dig into the details of the steps the other person took. As problems become more complicated, this kind of thing becomes hard.


Now, what this should make obvious is that outside of technical discussions, we seem to jump ahead of ourselves very often. It's rare that you can convince someone without trying very hard to get to the bottom of what they are saying, but we have the habit of just bothering to try to show we're right. An equally important issue is to couch the problem in terms the other person will understand, to embed your response within their frame of reference.

To go back to the current dispute on this thread, the problem I am pointing out here is compounded when you deal with people you treat as enemies. We don't listen to our enemies. We only listen to our friends. If you want to make sure you say stupid things, turn a discussion into a fight. Make sure that you're the hero and they're the villain. However, if you want to learn something and if you care about actually having a positive impact in the world, you have to stop yourself when you do this. How do you do it? Well, find a reason to consider yourself and other people as part of the same group. Before you reply, pause for a minute and ask yourself: if I tried to reformulate their arguments, would they approve of what I would have to say?

This is a great post and Echos many of my thoughts. But it is hard at times to walk the walk even thou I want to.
Nasty posters are good st pushing buttons and it’s easy to abandon attempts to “make the world a better place” and revert to showing them what a tuxrd moron they are. Which is a never ending quest, there is never a happy ending where said moron repents and concedes.

I have gotten better at avoiding responding to the worst posters that I know don’t care about discussion.

 

[Wings]

He knew exactly what he was doing when he throws bombs, just as the Klan and the Neo-Nazis do. If the cops weren't there to protect him those people would have taken care of him and his followers if it were on equal terms, just as they would to the handful of Klan or Neo-nazis who show up and use racist rants on the courthouse steps. These twits know that the cops will prevent that from happening all the while allowing them to continue their partisan schtick.

Our free speech rights only cover the right not to be arrested or fined by the government for our speech. They don't protect us from others who disagree with them, but the cities have the cops there to prevent the riots from happening that trolls like Milo, Ben, and Ann Coulter seek to start. Maybe if the cops turn their backs while these trolls get what they have coming they would stop trying to claim that they are interested in debate and rational discussion and are outed as the troll that they really are when they insulted and attack people but claim that others can't reply in kind.

This is the “left”. If the left doesn’t agree with what you have to say, physically attack them. Use the hecklers veto to keep them from speaking. Incite violence, etc

It is despicable.
Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, Christine Hoff Summers, Glen Lowery, Sam Harris.

These folks all get it. The incredible thing is, their pints aren’t some obscure overly intellectual process. Just basic common sense.

The far left Antifa types can’t intelligently respond to any of those pints so they resort to facism to keep those articulate points from being expressed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ludin]

Ben Shapiro, like Ann Coulter and a few others, are not and never have been interested in rational debate of a subject. Shapiro is a professional troll and should be treated as such. If a college wants to invite a speaker they will invite someone with a rational point of view instead of someone who just throws verbal bombs and seeks to ignite and inflame tensions. A college has no requirement to invite people of his ilk because they add nothing to the culture, intellectual record or the educational process any mpore than inviting a member of the Klan or the Neo-Nazis. If they want to invite a rational conservative who seeks to have a rational discussion and educate people about their conservative points of views then they are welcome.

Shapiro points out the idiocy of leftist arguments and they simply have nothing to refute it with. Hence his moto facts don't care about your feelings.
The only people that ignite what you say are leftist fascist that simply don't like facts or people that have different opinions and want to shut down free speech. Shapiro has never backed down from people that disagree with him and treat those people with respect.

Shapiro was the number one target of white supremacists and nazi's so to call him one only proves how you have jo clue what you are talking about.

Shapiro tends to storm out when held to the facts such as what happened when he was interviewed by the BBC, so if you invite him then they also have to invite someone to counter his fast-talking lies. I doubt he would accept that invitation because he knows that he will lose. I would force him to pay for the added cost of security because of his antics, and I doubt he would be willing to do so.

Unlike.most leftist Shapiro actually does research on the topics he is talking about and looks up the statistics for the things he is going to discuss.

If there is something he isn't sure about then he says so and researches it for next time.

Actually it isn't him that causes the need for added security. It is left wing fascists that threaten violence. So they should be the ones paying for the added security.

You seriously need to research stuff before spewing misinformation and lies. They are easy to debunk.

 

[Simpletruther]

The hallmark of rational debate is not that no one involved ever makes a mistake. It's that the debate centers around facts and logic. You can quibble with Ben Shapiro about how he interprets a set of facts, but you cannot fault him on not taking stock of facts. Moreover, if you dispute how he lays out an argument (i.e., if you spot a fallacy), anyone is welcome to explain the error in the question segment. And if students are ill-equipped to deal with this issue, it reflects very badly on their professors -- who, by the way, are welcome to see the lectures and are invited to voice objections during question segments.

Another note: your position requires someone to censor Shapiro and Coulter. You don't need to censor someone who is wrong, as long as you can respond to them.



First of all, putting these conservative figures in the same group as Klansmen and neo-Nazis is despicable. Klansmen and neo-Nazis have been involved in assaults, rape, and murders to name just a few things. If you don't fear to attend a neo-Nazi march considerably more than you fear to talk with Ben Shapiro, your sense of proportion is out of touch with reality. I'd go talk with Shapiro alone without a problem. But, a Nazi march? I don't know if I would feel safe, even if the army was there. The worst conservative pundits ever did was say things you don't like... That might be annoying, but it's fine.

Second of all, a college has no requirement to invite people over. However, if a group of students thinks that public figures like Shapiro, Knowles, Coulter, Prager or someone like that should be part of a discussion, they should be free to raise the funds and organize their events.

Third of all, conservatives students can make similar comments about faculty, no less than public speakers who are often invited. Imagine if things were reversed and they had the power to grant or deny access to college. Even if a group of conservatives thinks that Judith Butler is a presumptuous quack who uses indecipherable prose to hide the blatant idiocy of her identitarian claims, don't you think someone who wants to judge her work for themselves should be allowed to invite her?

Fourth of all, American campuses are all biased in the same political direction. If you had to let more people in of some kind, conservatives would probably be the best way to put a limit to the echo chamber effect, even if they're wrong in one way or another.



Here's the reasonable line: Shapiro never promoted violence of any sort, so he should be allowed to go anywhere he is invited in due form. He repeatedly condemned violence and repeatedly called people to not intimidate or insult each other over differences related to things like sexuality and religion.

Your criterion is problematic because campuses are staffed, populated and managed by mostly left-leaning people. You cannot trust that they will do this job properly, even if they tried. If you try to get rid of every "bigot" that could slip through, you'll end up giving some groups on campus too much discretion and they will use it to ban ideas they dislike.



Actually, Ben Shapiro has often been challenged by professors during his presentation. Presumably, you would expect they could come up with good arguments, but I've never seen one. I could stump him on economics (because I am a trained economist currently studying for a Ph.D.), but I suspect it would just be a polite disagreement over how to interpret some results. Or I would point to a few studies, key results and he would just concede the point and thank me for references -- which I have seen him do on occasions, by the way.

Contrast this with protestors. He's polite, calm, and invite people to talk. They are loud, violent and want to prevent people to talk... But, in your head, Shapiro is the problem?

I have watched him several times and you are nailing it with every point here.

 

[ludin]

This is the “left”. If the left doesn’t agree with what you have to say, physically attack them. Use the hecklers veto to keep them from speaking. Incite violence, etc

It is despicable.
Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, Christine Hoff Summers, Glen Lowery, Sam Harris.

These folks all get it. The incredible thing is, their pints aren’t some obscure overly intellectual process. Just basic common sense.

The far left Antifa types can’t intelligently respond to any of those pints so they resort to facism to keep those articulate points from being expressed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The left's antics are back firing. When they attack black women like candice Owen's and other minorities like shapiro they only shoot their arguments of tolerance and inclusiveness in their head.

 

[Simpletruther]

The hallmark of rational debate is not that no one involved ever makes a mistake. It's that the debate centers around facts and logic. You can quibble with Ben Shapiro about how he interprets a set of facts, but you cannot fault him on not taking stock of facts. Moreover, if you dispute how he lays out an argument (i.e., if you spot a fallacy), anyone is welcome to explain the error in the question segment. And if students are ill-equipped to deal with this issue, it reflects very badly on their professors -- who, by the way, are welcome to see the lectures and are invited to voice objections during question segments.

Another note: your position requires someone to censor Shapiro and Coulter. You don't need to censor someone who is wrong, as long as you can respond to them.



First of all, putting these conservative figures in the same group as Klansmen and neo-Nazis is despicable. Klansmen and neo-Nazis have been involved in assaults, rape, and murders to name just a few things. If you don't fear to attend a neo-Nazi march considerably more than you fear to talk with Ben Shapiro, your sense of proportion is out of touch with reality. I'd go talk with Shapiro alone without a problem. But, a Nazi march? I don't know if I would feel safe, even if the army was there. The worst conservative pundits ever did was say things you don't like... That might be annoying, but it's fine.

Second of all, a college has no requirement to invite people over. However, if a group of students thinks that public figures like Shapiro, Knowles, Coulter, Prager or someone like that should be part of a discussion, they should be free to raise the funds and organize their events.

Third of all, conservatives students can make similar comments about faculty, no less than public speakers who are often invited. Imagine if things were reversed and they had the power to grant or deny access to college. Even if a group of conservatives thinks that Judith Butler is a presumptuous quack who uses indecipherable prose to hide the blatant idiocy of her identitarian claims, don't you think someone who wants to judge her work for themselves should be allowed to invite her?

Fourth of all, American campuses are all biased in the same political direction. If you had to let more people in of some kind, conservatives would probably be the best way to put a limit to the echo chamber effect, even if they're wrong in one way or another.



Here's the reasonable line: Shapiro never promoted violence of any sort, so he should be allowed to go anywhere he is invited in due form. He repeatedly condemned violence and repeatedly called people to not intimidate or insult each other over differences related to things like sexuality and religion.

Your criterion is problematic because campuses are staffed, populated and managed by mostly left-leaning people. You cannot trust that they will do this job properly, even if they tried. If you try to get rid of every "bigot" that could slip through, you'll end up giving some groups on campus too much discretion and they will use it to ban ideas they dislike.



Actually, Ben Shapiro has often been challenged by professors during his presentation. Presumably, you would expect they could come up with good arguments, but I've never seen one. I could stump him on economics (because I am a trained economist currently studying for a Ph.D.), but I suspect it would just be a polite disagreement over how to interpret some results. Or I would point to a few studies, key results and he would just concede the point and thank me for references -- which I have seen him do on occasions, by the way.

Contrast this with protestors. He's polite, calm, and invite people to talk. They are loud, violent and want to prevent people to talk... But, in your head, Shapiro is the problem?

He uses the same verbal bomb tossing shtick as they do. I didn't criticize his religious beliefs.

Ben is nothing like these others, is this your echo chamber talking?

 

[ludin]

He is creating a strawman from their questions and they aren't fast enough to catch it.

You don't know what a strawman is but you do it frequently. Most leftist do because they can't argue the point or dispute facts.

 

[FinnFox]

Actually, Ben Shapiro has often been challenged by professors during his presentation. Presumably, you would expect they could come up with good arguments, but I've never seen one. I could stump him on economics (because I am a trained economist currently studying for a Ph.D.), but I suspect it would just be a polite disagreement over how to interpret some results. Or I would point to a few studies, key results and he would just concede the point and thank me for references -- which I have seen him do on occasions, by the way.

Contrast this with protestors. He's polite, calm, and invite people to talk. They are loud, violent and want to prevent people to talk... But, in your head, Shapiro is the problem?

I like to see where Ben Shapiro is shining, because he's making logical fallacies (like many of us do, here on forum). Do you know Zero books? He took this BBC/Shapiro interview and made video about it



About left - some of my thoughts

I'm not sure if this makes any sense, but I have just feeling that 'left' in US isn't same as 'left' in Europe (like in Finland). What I mean is that left in Europe is - most likely - more "advanced" (= far left in US is just normal left in Europe). For example: we have here in Finland Left party and Communist party (they are pretty far from each other, policy wise). Government has representatives from 5 different political parties and one is Left (Communists don't have any seat in parliament). Also there is Social Democratic Party, Center Party, Green Party and National Coalition Party (compared to US system it is a mess?).

Not sure what definitions we should use for Left(US) and for Left(EU) - how many variations we can find from each group?

Some of my progressiveness is about lefty ideas in way that I have some same goals, but as I see it, every party in Finland is somewhat progressive. So that difference is making it a bit harder to find out where people stand and "what is what". Maybe I should do some in-depth analyze how much my progressiveness is including ideas from the left. At this point I can't tell much... I really don't know and I need to find out what definitions I should use as things are measured in right way.

 

[TheEconomist]

This is a great post and Echos many of my thoughts. But it is hard at times to walk the walk even though I want to.

Nasty posters are good at pushing buttons and it’s easy to abandon attempts to “make the world a better place” and revert to showing them what a tuxrd moron they are. Which is a never-ending quest, there is never a happy ending where said moron repents and concedes.

I have gotten better at avoiding responding to the worst posters that I know don’t care about discussion.

We all like to put people we perceive as our adversaries in what we have defined to be their place. Protestors certainly do it, just as the people more to the right laugh at students who try and ultimately fail to stump a conservative speaker. Taken to an extreme, the partisanship can make your gestures completely detached from facts and entirely attached to where your political tribe happens to stand.

I do not think that you can get rid of tribalism, but I think you can sometimes use it to unite rather than to divide people.

Jonathan Haidt has an example in his latest book, The Coddling of the American Mind, co-authored with Greg Lukianoff. He recalls an incident involving Trump supporters and "Black Live Matters" protestors. Trump supporters were hosting an event with a stage, debating policy when the BLM protestors arrived on sight. The leading organizer of the pro-Trump event went on stage and asked protestors if one of them would want to come on stage and expose their views, that it was a matter of respecting the right everyone has to speak their minds.

One protestor got on stage and started to talk about discrimination and police brutality. Tensions were visible. At one point, someone in the crowd screamed "All Lives Matter." The man on stage then did something unexpected, saying it's true that all lives matter. That whole point of his movement is to remind that all lives really do matter, that they are just concerned for the security of all Americans. He got rounds of applause from everyone, including the Trump supporters. Someone said "God bless America" and everyone applauded again.


The moral of this story is that if you can just find something you share with other people, even just one thing, you might just convince them to let down their guard, convince them that you're not the enemy. You'll never plow your way to an intellectual victory, however satisfying it might be to "own" the others.

 

[TheEconomist]

I like to see where Ben Shapiro is shining, because he's making logical fallacies (like many of us do, here on the forum). Do you know Zero books? He took this BBC/Shapiro interview and made a video about it.

I have seen this interview and it is very unrepresentative of how he conducts himself. It is fair to point out that he commits logical fallacies during this video, but he has hundreds of hours in podcasts, presentations that were filmed on campuses and a few other interviews, namely on Bill Maher's show in recent years, and he doesn't routinely speak like that.

I've seen him being too presumptuous, if not aggressive, in this BBC interview and in an interview with Piers Morgan, but he doesn't do that on his own show, his own podcasts, on college campuses. He was also outright friendly with Bill Maher, just as with Dave Rubin. He is usually calm and polite. Of course, it doesn't make this behavior alright, but it is the case that it's not a representative sample and a really uncharitable picture of him that uses some of the worst he does and presents it as normal -- which it isn't. Everyone can make mistakes.

It is anyone's guess why Ben Shapiro did so poorly in this specific interview, but I think it fits quite squarely with some of what I have been talking about. There is a lot that seems to underline the statements Ben Shapiro makes in this interview: he is assuming his interviewer has a certain point of view and that he is out to get him. To be fair, that's something we all do. I've caught Jordan Peterson doing this during an interview with a British journalist whose name escapes me -- not Cathy Newman, someone else. He was assuming too much knowledge of her views: because she adopted some of the concepts associated with feminism, he lept a bit forward and presumed she condoned a lot more than she actually does.

If I had to guess, that sounds like they got tired of being put in front of journalists who always have the same political biases, who always accuse them of the worst... When you spend your day being bombarded by people who say you are the Devil, you probably eventually slip and try a pre-emptive strike. And someone will just pull that one emotional slippage and say "See! He is irrational all the time."


99% of the time, Ben Shapiro takes the time to expose his views carefully, involves facts and invokes studies. He's not always right, he probably falls for the same kind of selection bias from which we all suffer and he makes mistakes. Bill Maher also says asinine things every now and then, just as Obama said asinine things a few times... So, what? I wouldn't put either of them in the pile of people with whom you cannot have a polite conversation.

I'm not trying to make the point that Ben Shapiro never makes mistakes, never ignores important facts, always fights the best counterarguments he can find and never committed a single fallacy in his life. My point is that enough of what he does is done correctly to have a polite discussion with him. Moreover, be careful when talking about logical fallacies. Most people play fast and loose with that term... If you've never formalized arguments in symbolic form, you're probably going to screw up trying to point out when inferences are invalid under first-order predicate logic. Many relevant arguments in our debates also involve the more complicated concepts of modal logic and probabilities -- and you would be shocked how easy it is to even get Statistics Ph.D.'s to fail here once you don't give them the luxury of presenting things as a mathematical problem.

 

[NWRatCon]

I have found myself going too deep into a critique of some radicalized group on a different thread, so I decided to start one here.

I appreciate the effort to start a topic on a difficult and potentially divisive subject in a rational way. Unfortunately, the tack you took in the opening posts destroyed the premise. You attacked the criticism without addressing the underlying conundrum, which is subject matter, not forum or advocates.

We live in a diverse society (much to the chagrin of some), and as such a variety of views are expressed in public fora. Some are hateful and irrational, but they enjoy the opportunity to be expressed. (Indeed, you've demonstrated that in noting that they were invited to speak in public fora.) That those speakers and their messages are vigorously opposed is natural and expected. They can be corrosive to honest discourse.

Instead of substance, though, your attack is on the process. In airing, the obvious viewpoint bias has undercut what I believe is your central premise: that all voices deserve to be heard - the fundamental premise of the First Amendment. I'm not sure your assertions are well-founded. First, it is obvious that the viewpoints have audiences - you named a number of well- known advocates. So the speech is clearly not "suppressed" on a societal level. Second, your premise is based upon the conception that all fora are equally available to all viewpoints. I would challenge that. (And will, later.) Third, is the premise that all viewpoints have equal validity. Admittedly, you acknowledge that they should be subject to scrutiny and criticism, but that is still an implied premise. Again, I don't think that is a valid assertion, but I don't want to get off- point.

The First Amendment is an expectation that all viewpoints can be heard. It is not, however, a requirement that they may be heard anywhere and at any time. As a society we create parameters regarding time, place and manner. Your objection, really, is to the manner of expression of the opposition. Those that protested. I'm not sure that is a fair objection. It implies a restriction on speech at least as severe as the basis for your objection. It's a goose-gander proposition. You would like, I think, to control the forum in which the debate occurs and devise rules that give parity to viewpoints. That, I'm afraid, is not how the real world works, and not all viewpoints have equal validity, so creating artificial parity may not be a reasonable expectation.

 

[Stealers Wheel]

Fourth of all, American campuses are all biased in the same political direction.

As soon as I saw the word "all" I knew you were about to express something that is not true.

For someone who prides himself on being able to articulate a cogent argument, why would you make such a stupid mistake?

BYU, Liberty, Westmont, Baylor, TCU, Loma Linda, Pepperdine, Oral Roberts ... shall I go on? There are literally dozens of examples that demonstrate your thesis is wrong.

Of course, you might want to argue that all these campuses are hotbeds of liberal indoctrination. Maybe that's what you ought to do.

 

[NWRatCon]

So to sum up: you don't like diversity of ideas and will take any legal opportunity to discourage it, and you think speakers you don't like should be violently attacked and not be protected by the police.

You don't deserve America.

That is some classic strawmanism, there. I'd congratulate you on your demonstrating of sophistry, but that would be rewarding it. TTF.

 

[NWRatCon]

Its a political/partisan variation on this idea.........

When was the last time that you had sex with goats and children?
At what age did your father teach you this skill?
How much is your mother paid for oral sex by the UPS guy?

They can also create a strawman and force them to debate the half-truth strawman instead of allowing them to discuss the actual facts behind the fallacious strawman. He does this in machine gun fashion and never gives the person time to reply with a rational response. There is always a sliver a of truth in his claims but 75% of it is either BS talking points or outright lies. He looks intelligent and decisive until you understand the tactic.

He is a classic purveyor of the "Gish gallop".