As you likely know by now, Mythinformation conference was a shitshow. Here’s my story. This whopper could have easily been 2 episodes but I didn’t want to make you wait. Don’t say I never did anything for you.
I’ve got a message to anyone involved in the Mythicist Milwaukee organization at the 77 minute mark.
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If you’re trying to put “why this tweet is wrong” in completely objective terms, say something like “Well, at some point, it doesn’t become ignoring feelings and eventually becomes ignoring safety.”
When I described that “if I make you mad, I win” game to my therapist, she called it emotional abuse. She also said that shutting down and not responding emotionally isn’t healthy.
If you get the chance to borrow Jesse Rabinowitz from Embrace the Void and ask him about it, I’m sure he’d have some great insights into what gets people to want to act like that. And if I’m very lucky, he might even have some thoughts on how to cope with it.
I think if you had been less emotional, you might have been able to listen and respond without appearing confused. Unfortunately you were clearly angry and ultimately came off looking like you were pouting and then stormed off. Honestly you can’t blame people for laughing at you. I think you had good intentions,
Wow dude, your stupidity is out of this world…
You DID refer to it as a rape threat, rewatch that “Debate”. You repeatedly referred to it as a rape threat. It was clearly done in jest. You can argue it is in bad taste but you are either stupid or intentionally misinterpreting it if you want to treat it how you are. You wasted so much time in this “Interview” dwelling on actions and not talking about principles. You were skirting around it in favour of tying to attack Carl’s character. You are full of cognitive dissonance, especially around this whole debacle. You should go away, think about what happened, rewatch the Debate and digest why you came across like an ass.
I’m not so sure as to why you state he didn’t give an explanation here. It may be a shitty tweet to say, but “I wouldn’t even rape you” is not a threat. It is very much a non threat. He informs you he did it to make a point and you harp on how you personally think it was shitty, but you never bother to give him an adequate reason as to why.
You continue to keep bringing up this point throughout the debate, and he is very easily able to corner you. The MP in question openly states that she simply could not be bothered to give a shit what he said and what his fans said. She isn’t angry and feel victimized, so why are you? Why are you getting angry on her behalf? That’s incredibly misogynistic. Please, do not feel justified in getting angry FOR us, we don’t need you to rescue us.
You used her as a talking point for your argument and that’s disgusting.
Honestly, this just sounds like you’re throwing a fit because the the audience didnt agree with you.
You showed up without the proper research, you stormed out, you antagonized the audience.
You show up to a debate where there are two sides, you knew you were going to be arguing against the antithesis of your core value system, i really don’t know what you expected.
You saying that you would do everything in your power to make sure the event doesnt succeed in the future because the audience was allowed to side with a debater is incredibly childish
You lost and you had to retreat. Own it and maybe in your next debate you’ll have the testicular fortitude to stand by your own ideas, and not storm off the stage like the oldest man child that ever had a tantrum.
The animosity starts when you call him awful. He doesn’t respond the way you wanted him to after bringing up the tweet. You lose.
On this debate between you and Sargon of Akkad I agree with Sargon because you and your minions want to make it illegal to be mean or disgusting to people. Do you realize that everyone is mean or disgusting to other people and that sucks but when you want to make it illegal to be mean to people online, you will have a chilling affect on the Freedom of Speech. This will only lead to everybody being in jail or everyone NOT being willing to SPEAK their MIND. How do you NOT understand this.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/free-speech-and-cyber-bullying “”Cyber-bullying” is a loaded term to be avoided by anyone interested in engaging in an objective look at online speech. Like past legislative attempts to justify online censorship, such as the “Deleting Online Predators Act” (DOPA) and the “Securing Adolescents From Exploitation-Online Act” (SAFE Act), the term is intended to stack the deck against the First Amendment.”
My opinion is that is is also a slippery slop that can mean even aggressive criticism can be interpreted as “Cyber Bullying” and do you all really want to fill our prisons with people who write mean or even disgusting comments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpGxagKOkv8 Eric Garner who is black does RESIST ARREST. Do you doubt for a second that if a huge white man acted exactly as this guy acted that the white man would have received the EXACT same treatment. Eric Garner is under arrest and after 4 minutes of arguing with police and resisting being handcuffed this does end badly. I am just saying a white man of his size and weight would have been treated the exactly same way.
Sorry if I’m late to this. I’m confused by the impression you left in the debate/interview that intersectionality had no relation to marxist thought. Do you acknowledge the connection?
“Collins uses a Marxist feminist approach and applies her intersectional principles…Collins’s theory come together to add a new dimension to Marxist economic theory. ”
These quotes come from the wiki on intersectionality. Is this information incorrect?
Sargon may be distasteful, but this seems like a fair point to discuss. No?
You didn’t “lose” in their mind because you got mad. You “lost” in their mind because your arguments weren’t as good as your opponents, and, they believe you got mad because you couldn’t comprehend that.
What’s encouraging about your interpretation of this debate is I think you accurately note the main reason Sargon couldn’t get your position and you couldn’t get his: You both have different value systems. From what I can gather, you have a more collectivist value system and Sargon has a more individualistic value system. I am sure you disagree with that but all variables being on the table that assessment seems accurate from an onlooker(me) who is trying to truly understand your position.
You seem like someone who truly does care about people. I believe you’re a good person, and, I want you to consider something for a moment: What if people like Sargon aren’t actually evil/bad/deplorable people? What if they just have different standards of what’s acceptable to say? What if they just have a stronger stance on individualism than you do?
I am taking the leap here and trying to understand what looks like a more collectivist stance than I have and I am also assuming you aren’t a bad person. It seems like you just think differently than I do about the same scenarios and that’s totally fine so long as we aren’t trying to legislate each other’s thoughts. I think it would be healthy for you to consider the same of people who think differently than you.
Cheers.
Just a bad day, move on. Carl holds plenty indefensible positions, and he had plenty of support there. But going after MM because of Carl is unbecoming at best. You got down to his level, calling names and smearing the conference. To remain civil in the face of problems like dealing with Carl is the only useful response otherwise no need to even show up. https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/13072 Richard Carrier makes the point quite well.
It is a battle of ideas. You didn’t have a grasp of your own ideas. You failed to see how intersectionality just brackets the individuality of the person and classifies them as x,y,z. People are being sick of told “Because you are a white, cis-gendered white male” as if that is a logical point of argumentation. Secondly, you failed to grasp how the statement “White people dominate everything when everyone is free” is tacitly synonymous with white supremacy. You evidently think if all things are equal, white people will still have the upper hand and keep everyone down. For me personally, it was those two lines of argumentation that made your position look ridiculous. And I am not a Sargon “fanboy.” He says many things I don’t agree with, but he is bringing the fight to weak-minded collectivists like you who just want to carve society up and pit groups against one another.
Here’s some footage of Jess Phillips giving her skewed perspective on the ‘not rape’ kerfuffle and not once does she mention sexual harassment: https://youtu.be/NBuB-_Rinao
I think you are misinterpreting the “you got mad”-thing. Here’s the problem: anger is a perfectly reasonable response when your opponent does unreasonable things. (Imagine Sargon making fart noises for an hour straight)
It’s however an unreasonable response when your opponent says reasonable things (Imagine Sargon saying something reasonable)
Now the big issue is that whether or not Sargon was being reasonable in this case is subjective. You imagine Sargon being completely unreasonable whilst the audience mostly saw him as reasonable. This in turn makes it seem to you like you had the right to be angry whilst to the audience it seemed like you did not.
I think a big part of where you went wrong in this debate/interview is in your constant astonishment that Sargon and the audience did not respond according to your expectations. And because they didn’t you immediately judged them. That’s not fair and it’s not reasonable.
And to be fair I was pleasantly surprised by you for the most part. You seem like a reasonable dude and pleasant to talk too, even though I’m slightly more on the opposite side. I think Sargon said some things that were flat-out ridiculous and it saddens me that the crowd, supposedly “my side”, supported him in that.
One of the things that especially infuriated me was him “catching you out” on you saying you cannot enforce a law, even though he cut you off mid-sentence to make it seem like you said that. If he didn’t cut you off he couldn’t have done anything but agree with you that a law against discrimination cannot fully be enforced since it’d involve policing thoughts. It was a dick move on his part and the tribal nature of the crowd was sadly visible as well.
Lastly with regards to intersectionality not being collectivist, that doesn’t make sense. This because all intersectionality does is say: “Listen we used to have two boxes; men and women. That was a bit to rough of a divide so we made a new system with 16 boxes to classify a person, in the past if you were a woman you had to think x, but because you are a black transwoman with a bad leg and a speech impediment you now have to think y”.
It totally ignores the individual in favor of making it easier to classify people based on arbitrary attributes. And it explains Sargon’s point of a white person calling a black person a coon kkk supporter. Because the intersectionally operating white person does not recognize the black person as an individual, but as someone who refuses to live in the intersectional box that was so neatly made for them. i.e. they’re a racist coon.
I watch Sargon regularly and I am unaware of his indefensible positions. Could you tell me one or two so that I might be better informed about my choice of media intake? It would really help
The problem is Thomas, the moral relativists and marxists try to use outrage/offense as a weapon to shame or frame the debate. This is the same technique that religion used for millennia with very negative social effects. What social justice has done is to create a new religion, one that most of its worshipers did not even know they joined. This creates tribalism which allows one group to castigate another easily. The saddest part Thomas is you are not even aware how inculcated you have become. You clearly lost the debate and disengaged as soon as you realized the audience was not on your side (a losers strategy).
On abortion rights “…they’re the least important thing in the fucking world.”
On Capitalism “The only people who are actually oppressed by capitalism are people who either can’t work, people who’ve lost a leg or are morbidly obese or something like that, or people who don’t want to work because they’re fucking lazy,..”
“I don’t agree that women face disadvantages.”
Just a couple because honestly I find Carl Boring. Those positions could be knocked down by an educated 4th grader.
Thank you
Well, THAT is bullshit. If you don’t think Black people are over-policed, in the sense that they get pestered by cops and arrested over shit that cops wouldn’t even think of pestering or arresting a Caucasian over, then you must live a very sheltered life, indeed, and have zero Black friends (note that I’m not calling you racist – you may live somewhere without many Black folks around). They straight up murked Eric Garner for SELLING LOOSEYS FOR FUCK’S SAKE. Do you know how many times I’ve sold individual cigarettes to people on the street? Countless. Do you know how many times I’ve been pestered by cops or arrested for it? ZERO. I’ve done it IN FRONT OF COPS before, and they never tried to (not just ticket me, but) cuff me, put me in a choke hold, or otherwise fucking MURDER ME for it. If you don’t feel the red hot heat of righteous anger rising from your heart to your throat over what happened to Eric Garner, I would go so far as to say that you are not fully human, and are an incredibly damaged soul.
I just watched the debate and I could visibly see the cognitive dissonance going on in your head. Sargon would make a really excellent point, and you’d sit there for a second, in your mind acknowledging that it was an excellent point, but thinking that somehow if you let it be known you agreed, you’d… I dunno… go to the dark side where it would forever dominate your destiny?? So you HAD to twist it to make sure it was a bad thing.
One of the things I’ve always admired about you is your ability to find the common ground and go from there. You were on the attack from the beginning. There was no attempt to find common ground. Not gonna lie, I lost some respect for you.
Also, when you said that men don’t have problems, my god… that was where you lost me. For fucks sake, if you are this bastion of intellectual honesty that you claim to be, at least do a cursory amount of reading in MRA spaces to see what they say. I recommend The Red Pill documentary by Cassie Jaye. She was a feminist that set out to show just how awful MRA’s are, and in the process of filming, did a complete 180 and stopped calling herself a feminist because of how awful feminism is and the false narrative they’ve pushed… which you’ve bought hook, line and sinker. Perhaps being the skeptic you are, you could question your own feminist beliefs?
Weird that you somehow know what was happening in my mind? Cool powers. Carl is an awful person who says really shitty things. Why is it my responsibility to find common ground? I think the right thing to do is hold him accountable for his shitty behavior. I don’t remember saying men have no problems. I have watched the Red Pill, and I did an episode on some of the arguments in it. Feminism is a good answer to them. Some of them are just distortions of facts, but some of them are real and gender roles are to blame. Feminism is what has allowed us to fight against gender roles.
Thomas, good defense of your positions, but I don’t think your seeing the entire picture. Not sure if you’re self-employed or what, but you mentioned the blind resume study for hiring applicants.
I’ve been working for the past 22 years, and have had countless interviews for jobs and witnessed the most ridiculous hiring choices made by employers. For example, a chinese manager I had once, hired based on whether male candidates were taller than 6′, and if it was a female applicant, she had to be a non-white and shorter than her. Why? Because she was a flirt with her employees, and wanted all the guys attention on her, and not on a prettier girl.
Yep. And this was almost a dozen years ago at a major corporation. If anything, things have gotten worse.
That’s just for starters…I could go on. My point is i’ve saw every imaginable discrimination possible — and not just by “white males”. When I put on slacks, versus my usual jeans and t-shirt, people will hold the doors open for me, while entering or leaving buildings. When I wear my jeans, I get the usual door slamming in my face. Discrimination is with everything and anything. If I put on slacks, do I have “slack privilege”? Everyone opens doors for me?
Myself personally, I am a feminist AND a masculinist. I advocate both sexes equally. I highly suggest reading or watching Warren Farrells “Boy Crisis”. It can be found on YouTube. Actually anything by Warren Farrel. He came before Camille Paglia and other feminists.
In your talk with Carl (Sargon), you mentioned “equality” several times. Economic and social equality is arguably Marxism. In the real world, there is always going to be inequality — the question becomes how much inequality? Should Mark Zuckerberg be worth 80-90 billion dollars? Probably not. But should a cab driver get paid the same as a neurosurgeon? Hierarchy exists in nature, but what determines the extent and severity? Every country is a mix of capitalism and socialism. I don’t have a problem with a mix somewhere in the middle with a balance. I would agree that a society is dysfunctional with extreme inequality. But I certainly wouldn’t swing the other way, and advocate full-on communism (absolute equality).
I think you came across as angry, because you found yourself on the defense, when you clearly opened the discussion on the offense. Your opening comment was a strawman argument, which was crazy, since you mentioned Carl was strawman-arguing throughout.
Pot. Kettle. Black. Yada yada.
You are a quick intelligent guy. Just please use your intelligence for good and not fighting for the equality-cult.