Pragmatism Vs. Nihilism: The Ben Shapiro, Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson Trifecta

[Milo]

Lately I have found great refuge in listening to Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, and occasionally Sam Harris podcasts. This has brought me an invaluable amount of vigor and determination in the outlook of my future. I predominantly view this great trio of insightful people to bear the combined resemblance of what I wish to characteristically embody. I thought that bringing these names to this sight would be of great use to a few of you, and maybe even if it is only one of you, the impact of their influence could very well grant the form of longevity that I would like to see spread. I have become very concerned with culture from both a statistical and psychological perspective and have even been inspired to read some of Jung's volumes.

I am a subscriber at Dailywire.
I have Sam Harris's book on his form of spirituality on my Christmas list
I also have Jordan Peterson's upcoming book on my Christmas list (this list only given to my sister since she desperately wanted me to make one). Otherwise, I will buy these books after Christmas since I still have a few books to read. I would classify Jordan Peterson as motivational structure, Ben Shapiro as guide to good info on current events, and Sam Harris as secular anchor. Religiously speaking, I think this is a good spectrum since Sam has strongly grounded Atheist views, Jordan is a psychology professor who references mythology as unconscious attempts of expressing our motives and desires, and Ben is an Orthodox Jew who graduated from Harvard Law School at age 23. I would consider Jordan to also be a pseudorepresentation of a Christian--because of the nature in which a psychologist explains things as objectively subjective, he explains Christianity as a pragmatically useful perceptual tool.

Ben:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RY4R3_O7RE

Jordan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpqXNgvfa4k

Sam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buLOVkzV7Ko

 

[Black Rose]

You need to use quotes for video links to work now. YouTube stopped embedding a while ago.

Ben:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RY4R3_O7RE

Jordan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpqXNgvfa4k

Sam:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buLOVkzV7Ko

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

I like all of those 3 in that they value reason over feelings and groupthink. Harris, in particular, I think, has a great ability to think with uncompromosing and unadulterated clarity. And, of course, they are not afraid to take personal risk for their opinions. As for Jordan, despite his beliefs in some woo-woo stuff like Jungian archetypes (and some naive-empirical stuff like IQ measurement), I greatly respect and resonate with his practical advise.

 

[Milo]

I like all of those 3 in that they value reason over feelings and groupthink. Harris, in particular, I think, has a great ability to think with uncompromosing and unadulterated clarity. And, of course, they are not afraid to take personal risk for their opinions. As for Jordan, despite his beliefs in some woo-woo stuff like Jungian archetypes (and some naive-empirical stuff like IQ measurement), I greatly respect and resonate with his practical advise.

I actually ended up buying Volume 1 & 2 of Jung's collective works, and if you begin to understand what he is talking about, it will put a chill down your spine at the least.

On IQ, I've listened to a majority of his lectures in total on youtube and I think the way he describes the measurement of IQ is on par with a way of measuring something at least remotely real since it is validated by statistics to be the most causally connected conceived component of the psyche and the rest of psychology is extremely reliant on the fact that is the most defined construct of consciousness.

You need to use quotes for video links to work now. YouTube stopped embedding a while ago.

Great thanks. I was fiddling with that for a while before I gave up last night.

 

[Hadoblado]

I like Same Harris, because he tends to be very reasonable. I like Jordan Peterson because he's very creative while also being charismatic. I don't really know Shapiro so much, but from what I have seen, I've got more mixed feelings about him.

I don't really like the communities they foster though. The kind of people who fuel the "Sam Harris DESTROYS blablabla" content on youtube. I like that they're people capable of providing compelling argument that I don't always agree with but that genuinely challenges my views. I don't like the echo chamber that builds up around them.

 

[redbaron]

Ben Shapiro's such a piece of shit lol.

 

[Milo]

I like Same Harris, because he tends to be very reasonable. I like Jordan Peterson because he's very creative while also being charismatic. I don't really know Shapiro so much, but from what I have seen, I've got more mixed feelings about him.

I don't really like the communities they foster though. The kind of people who fuel the "Sam Harris DESTROYS blablabla" content on youtube. I like that they're people capable of providing compelling argument that I don't always agree with but that genuinely challenges my views. I don't like the echo chamber that builds up around them.

I suppose the echo chamber is why I enjoy mixing them together to keep it fresh enough to withstand.

 

[Milo]

Ben Shapiro's such a piece of shit lol.

Are these leftist tears to add to my tumbler?

 

[redbaron]

Uh I mean the guy thinks that welfare should be abolished because then 'all the lazy people will go get jobs'.

Never mind the 100,000+ people with hereditary illness (or whatever the numbers were) etc.

And he just plays the Jew card whenever he gets called out on his shit, as if because the holocaust happened he's an eternal victim and therefore not actually racist or prejudiced for saying obviously prejudiced things. He's a typical Ivy League law graduate who can spin lots of bullshit in a short span of time to win debates on Fox News segments, but the actual merit of his words is very limited.

He deliberately misgenders a transwoman, and when she gets angry he talks about how it's an example of "the left" condoning violence or something.

He makes targeted attacks on people, and he very deliberately sets out to offend and bait people into a response, playing on the way that many transgender people are responding from a self-defense, emotionally compromised position to protect themselves - which is a very different thing to making a clear-minded and deliberate move of disrespecting and invalidating something.

He's just the worst kind of lazy, ignorant shithead.

 

[Hadoblado]

What do you mean mixing it together? These guys are all in a similar vein, sharing a similar audience?

 

[Milo]

What do you mean mixing it together? These guys are all in a similar vein, sharing a similar audience?

I guess echo chamber to me means that these three all agree on everything, but they don't. They actually have fundamental differences (as I'm sure you already knew). But yes, I suppose they are all causes what could be seen as a single movement--although each one is bringing things to the movement that the others aren't.

 

[Milo]

Uh I mean the guy thinks that welfare should be abolished because then 'all the lazy people will go get jobs'.

Never mind the 100,000+ people with hereditary illness (or whatever the numbers were) etc.

And he just plays the Jew card whenever he gets called out on his shit, as if because the holocaust happened he's an eternal victim and therefore not actually racist or prejudiced for saying obviously prejudiced things. He's a typical Ivy League law graduate who can spin lots of bullshit in a short span of time to win debates on Fox News segments, but the actual merit of his words is very limited.

He deliberately misgenders a transwoman, and when she gets angry he talks about how it's an example of "the left" condoning violence or something.

He makes targeted attacks on people, and he very deliberately sets out to offend and bait people into a response, playing on the way that many transgender people are responding from a self-defense, emotionally compromised position to protect themselves - which is a very different thing to making a clear-minded and deliberate move of disrespecting and invalidating something.

He's just the worst kind of lazy, ignorant shithead.

Jews are getting murdered daily by Palestinians. Jews are actually not wearing their yarmulkes because of how bad it is getting in Israel. He doesn't want to get rid of welfare completely. He just thinks, like most conservatives, that the government should be reduced back down to the bare necessities.

He gets his statistics from government sources to back up what people would call prejudice, and the transwoman I think you are talking about literally grabbed him by the back of the neck and threatened to hurt him which is a crime. Ben and Jordan agree that their should be no enforcement to make people engage in compelled speech.

The problem with the transgender movement is that the people trying to enforce their interests aren't even members of their community which is what is causing the issue to more inappropriately erupt in the first place.

 

[redbaron]

I mean that entire post just sums up exactly what I'm talking about with him being a lazy, ignorant shithead tbh.

- reduce an idea that would probably leave thousands of people homeless as "just reducing government to bare necessities"
- "but Palestine"
- "but she touched him, that's a crime!"

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

Another opportunity to use the beloved pets of the left - transgenders, the sickly, the blacks, etc - to justify rabid monkey behavior. Well done once again, rb.

 

[redbaron]

Right, me calling out Ben Shapiro who deliberately goes out of his way to antagonize transgender people to goad them to fury, then to reframe that as an argument against all liberals generally like:

"the left condones violence to get their views across"

As if the specific behaviour of emotionally compromised individuals who are being attacked and ridiculed somehow represents the liberal agenda.

Is somehow me, justifying "rabid monkey" behaviour using "beloved pets".

???

Let me know if I've got this right.

 

[kora]

@Serac

«*Beloved pets*» is a very expressive turn of phrase, like there’s a sickly paternalistic dehumanizing appeal to pity being used to push forward some other real (which?) agenda ? Virtue signaling for what ? The politicization of this stuff is an end in itself, equity for all including groups that are shown to be marginalized. Blacks are massively incarcerated and poor, trans people have high as fuck rates of suicide, the sickly are weakened socially by random chance of birth etc... I don’t get the point behind what’s being said, it’s odd. Equality of opportunity is a decent political issue no ? Technically it’s maximising freedom and ensures a real meritocracy. I mean, I doubt u really think the point of any of the discussion of these issues is to justify violence, if people get violent, it is likely not justified, but it does mean they are attributing importance to something and acting out on it, that they believe they are attacked.

I don’t know Ben Shapiro, I sort of like Jordan Peterson, he says some good stuff and provides perspective on some issues. I’m worried he’s perhaps becoming a bit reactionary from his latest twitter feed. Like he used the Weinstein scandal to justify the «*no sex before marriage*» or some shit I saw recently ?

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

@Serac

«*Beloved pets*» is a very expressive turn of phrase, like there’s a sickly paternalistic dehumanizing appeal to pity being used to push forward some other real (which?) agenda ? Virtue signaling for what ? The politicization of this stuff is an end in itself, equity for all including groups that are shown to be marginalized. Blacks are massively incarcerated and poor, trans people have high as fuck rates of suicide, the sickly are weakened socially by random chance of birth etc... I don’t get the point behind what’s being said, it’s odd. Equality of opportunity is a decent political issue no ? Technically it’s maximising freedom and ensures a real meritocracy. I mean, I doubt u really think the point of any of the discussion of these issues is to justify violence, if people get violent, it is likely not justified, but it does mean they are attributing importance to something and acting out on it, that they believe they are attacked.

I don’t know Ben Shapiro, I sort of like Jordan Peterson, he says some good stuff and provides perspective on some issues. I’m worried he’s perhaps becoming a bit reactionary from his latest twitter feed. Like he used the Weinstein scandal to justify the «*no sex before marriage*» or some shit I saw recently ?

Well, if the goal is equality of opportunity (not to mention maximizing freedom), which I would advocate myself, then you must support liberalism and free markets, i.e. be the antithesis to left-oriented thinking. Historically, the left has not done much besides destroying the very people they claim to fight for. You mention poverty and crime amongst blacks. In the US in the 30's blacks had a lower unemployment rate than whites. Blacks also had vastly lower rates of single mothers raising kids than today. The turning point of this was during the 60's with the introduction of the welfare state, at which point all these things changed, and crime amongst both blacks and whites skyrocketed. Also, since 30's, at which point minimum-wage laws were introduced, unemployment rates have skyrocketed amongst blacks.

Before federal minimum wage laws were instituted in the 1930s, the black unemployment rate was slightly lower than the white unemployment rate in 1930. But then followed the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938—all of which imposed government-mandated minimum wages, either on a particular sector or more broadly. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which promoted unionization, also tended to price black workers out of jobs, in addition to union rules that kept blacks from jobs by barring them from union membership. The National Industrial Recovery Act raised wage rates in the Southern textile industry by 70 percent in just five months and its impact nationwide was estimated to have cost blacks half a million jobs.

-Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics

During the apartheid in South-Africa, construction companies were known to be fined by the government for exceeding the limits of employment of blacks. Once again – free markets don't care about race. They care about efficiency.

So to me, leftist thinking is either driven by naiveté or self-interest. I think in many cases it is the latter. Hillary Clinton is a recent example.

The term virtue signaling captures that self-interest on a psychological and social level. Take redbaron as an example. Imagine engaging in that style of discourse but switching sides – say taking the side of an unpopular ideology like Nazism. The behavior gets a pass because of the moral implications of his position. "I can behave like an idiot, provide nothing of value, and deteriorate the quality of discourse because I have the moral high-ground". So since there will never be a productive outcome of that behavior, it seems all these underprivileged groups merely serve his purpose and not theirs.

 

[kora]

Ah, okay. I’m getting you now.

Well, as far as RedBaron is concerned, I’m not sure I see what you’re saying about deteriorating the quality of discussion. It seems to me he simply pointed out that voluntarily misgendering a trans person is clearly being willfully antagonistic, would you disagree with this ? There’s no way you’re not going to get a bad reaction from person in question, because if we are to take trans people seriously, this is precisely and apparently their point of suffering, that they are misgendered. It’s quite predictable that it will provoke an angry reaction. A bit like insisting a gay man actually likes women for X reason (like getting attention, feeling special, are crazy or whatever the justification is ?) I mean, if the suicide rates are anything to go by, these people aren't doing too good. I don't think he's saying the trans lady was right to attack to be violent. (But that's between you 2).

-------------------------------------------------------

Anyway, apparently this (acknowledging trans ppl) has something to do with economic liberalism (unclear exactly how? General terms like left and right are catch all terms that differ quite a bit from country to country I think). In my books Clinton is an economic liberal and free market proponent, so you should totally love her

So you’re completely anti socialism ? Workers rights, healthcare and free education are all bad leftist things that have done nothing for society ? Isn't that kind of extreme and quite obviously wrong? Have you not in some way benefited from it yourself ? I don't know your background.

Surely there’s ample proof that rampant economic liberalism concentrates the wealth and power into the hands of a small few and creates a de facto state of inequality that completely and increasingly rigs the game according to lottery of birth ? It's trivially obvious that if you come from a wealthy background you are immeasurably advantaged in comparison to someone who is not from a wealthy background, you will not be well fed and educated, you will be less cognitively efficient and so have less options, freedom and opportunity. This means that a well run society demands some (reasonable) economic regulation, and equalizing factors, comprising among other things minimum wages that permit a basic living standard. I thought it was common knowledge after the 2008 crash that economic liberalism and total deregulation lead to serious fuck ups .


I believe the movement leading up to the overthrowing of the apartheid in SA was when black people unionized and went on strike, thereby withholding their work and exerting power and demanding better life conditions ? Perhaps Rook knows a bit more about this than me, I'm no expert on SA. Surely this is what happened in America as well, situations for black people were less than ideal in the 1930's, they were cheap labor because of lack of opportunity, so they went on strike in order to demand that they be valued higher. The Jim Crow laws were still in place for chrissake. I'm sure you're missing some context when you're blaming the current conditions of the black community on welfare and trade unions ! Why did they even form the trade unions if they were all fine and "employed" ?

If there is then low employment this to me shows immoral behavior on the part of large businesses who employ people for the lowest possible price independently of the people who do depend on them for their life's conditions, it’s exploitation of a lower class by a wealthy minority who's ONLY aim is personal profit. I'm not suggesting that a company should not aim for personal profit of course, but that it is also responsible for the livelihood of the workers it employs and should therefore provide decent salaries and conditions for the people it employs. (after all, if they are expected to work full time by the company, they do not have time to pursue any other means of livelihood for themselves). These people don't have another choice but to buckle down and comply. It's not as if they had the real opportunity to lift themselves out of it if they didn't even have access to a proper education.

Unemployment rate shouldn't be the one filter in judging the quality of a society, I mean the child employment rates were really high during the industrial revolution in England. The motto of the ILO is "work is not a commodity". Meaning that it should never be the pure instrumentalisation of people for personal profit. Unions exist to guarantee the working conditions of the people doing the work, and if companies then refuse to employ them because they can make more profits by employing people in China who don't need pesky annoying things like social security and holidays I'm not certain I can fault the worker's unions for the unemployment rates. This is the direct result of the "free market" no ? It doesn't look like it makes people very free to me. It seems to mean that people work in sweatshops to make Iphones or plastic shoes or whatever, doesn't look like equal opportunity to me. You say free markets only care about efficiency, I say they only care about a certain kind of efficiency that benefits some people, I am sure we agree that a political system should maximize utility and reduce suffering for the greatest number possible ?

I apologize if my answer seems in any way trivial or I have misunderstood what you are getting at. I promise to try not to be naive or self interested I also apologize for the rambling length of this post, I'm sort of multitasking, maybe I will come back and write something more concise in a bit.

 

[washti]

Politics refers to issues you decide to notice and acknowladge as problem. Its rare to give the same priority or even (in very close-minded cases) accept existence and coexistence of causes which solution are contradictory( overpopulation with resources depletion AND national birth rate drop with society aging)

And there is difficulty with atention. Can you even think about slave trade in Libya, obesity epidemic, peresecution of writers, cybercrime and loss of income as a result of employment liquidation and have similar rational response?
How to compare the weight of diseases causing the highest mortality rates(malaria, diarrhea, parasite) with lack of research and investment in pharmacology of rare genetic diseases?

Choice of issues to be considered as problem is dictated by individual situation, sympathy or blind faith in superiority of certain group. Anyway always by the closest thing to your own skin. In effect people developed this aversion to acceptance that other individual situation is problematic, especially if you never experience it or if solution for this person problem is threat for your concerning matter. (Like you cannot look for alternatives...it can look like you don't care - oh well)

@Serac speaks about blacks in 30' in very cherry picked context - the employment, ignoring other factors that contribute to the quality of life, such as: employment conditions, promotion opportunities, social status, voice strength of a given group, access to medicine and education. [Of course you know about it - lazy half ass arguments seems to become your new features on forum now. Shame (except word clouds - they are cool :-))]
Interestingly, in Scandinavia itself, Serac mainly uses solutions created by people who adhere to leftist views.
Recalling the sated anarchist who benefited from the economic growth and now can fuck the system in comfort.
What is even more interesting, he tries to get out of the 9-17 grip seeing employment as an oppression. Do you acknowledge any other issues claimed by contemporary blacks as pending important humanity problems?

What is the scope of the issues I consider to be a problem? In what scale do I look at them? Why I give priority to these issues? Am I honest? The answer to these questions requires effort and - above all - the admission that politics in form presented on this thread is lazy entertainment by being offended.
So you care about fate of Jews who are afraid to wear yarmulkes in Palestine? Well, prove it now. Did you donate? Outrage on the internet doesn't count.

 

[Black Rose]

PragerU

Is Fascism Right Or Left?

 

[redbaron]

How is it virtue signalling to point out that someone's primary method of 'debate' is to go around deliberately goading and antagonizing marginalised people, then utilizing the responses from these people as if they're an overall representation of the inherent antisocial nature and the danger of trans/gay people and the scary welfare state?

At the end of the day, the source of the antisocial behaviour is and always has been instigated by people like Shapiro. He has a pre-existing dislike of trans people, of gays, of the poor and of others. This is made so very clear by the way that he deliberately, in a planned and premeditated manner, attacks and seeks to break down not ideas, but individuals - because what he wants is to get an emotionally charged response.

Shapiro most frequently argues against the absolute lowest common denominator representative of the things he dislikes. It's what a lot of social commentators do, and their target audience is exactly the other lowest common denominators who are simply on the other side of the political spectrum.

In reality, no one actually condones violence - but some people recognize antisocial antagonism for what it is. When Neo-Nazis walk through the streets chanting "Blood and Soil" (literally, chanting for the soil of the homeland to be stained by the blood of blacks and Jews) brandishing torches and get rocks thrown at them or get a violent reception, there's a clear difference in the nature of these two things.

One group wants to remove another from existence, literally desires and celebrates their genocide. The other group...wants not-genocide.

I don't think people should be getting violent anymore than people should be celebrating and advocating genocide of blacks and Jews, but one group here is clearly an instigator of anti-social aggression and hostility, and the other is clearly a respondent. While not strictly self-defense in a specific individual capacity, it's clear again that one group here is inherently aggressive, antisocial and hostile as a rule and that the other is responding to those attitudes in kind. Is it how I think they should respond? No. But I can still understand it. It's the wrong thing done for the right reasons.

 

[Hadoblado]

@AK
Nobody is calling anyone a fascist?

@Serac
Now that RB is giving full paragraphs can we take 'virtue signalling' off the table?

@Washti
I think it's unfair to reduce Serac's contribution down to "lazy half ass arguments + word clouds". I think you just disagree with him.

The forecast for this thread says there's going to be a shitstorm if we don't play this argument with tact.

Edit: none of the stuff said here was with the authority of a mod.

 

[Milo]

@Hadoblado
PragerU is relevant to Ben Shapiro's base of facts and opinions, which shows validity and seeing things through historical recounts and statistics which is key to Ben's arguments.

Side note: I'm becoming more and more interested in structuring a novel media network between people whose interactions will bear the fruit of new juicy content for our minds and other's minds to generate and scarf up.

 

[Grayman]

I listen to Ben. He makes some good arguments. The only issue I have with him is his obsession of what he sees as an object morality that cannot be questioned. It leads him to being considerably less objective at times.

 

[Black Rose]

@AK
Nobody is calling anyone a fascist?

No one on the forum is saying it but lots of people outside the forum say it.

Jordan is center, Sam is center left, but Ben is right wing.

If Ben is reaching for the lowest common denominator on the right I would not be surprised he is called fascist all the time.

Wikipedia now has an article on the phrase "Its O.K. to be white".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_OK_to_be_white

Pragmatism Vs. Nihilism?

Everything has been crazy for over a year now.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

So you’re completely anti socialism ? Workers rights, healthcare and free education are all bad leftist things that have done nothing for society ? Isn't that kind of extreme and quite obviously wrong? Have you not in some way benefited from it yourself ? I don't know your background.

Depends on what you mean by anti socialism. I would be prone to criticize the welfare state. That doesn't mean I want to remove the state altogether. I am not sure how that idea came about. I am not against public education, public law enforcement and many other things.



By Scandinavian standards, though, I personally could be sucking a lot of money out of the welfare state but I choose not to.

Surely there’s ample proof that rampant economic liberalism concentrates the wealth and power into the hands of a small few and creates a de facto state of inequality that completely and increasingly rigs the game according to lottery of birth ? It's trivially obvious that if you come from a wealthy background you are immeasurably advantaged in comparison to someone who is not from a wealthy background, you will not be well fed and educated, you will be less cognitively efficient and so have less options, freedom and opportunity. This means that a well run society demands some (reasonable) economic regulation, and equalizing factors, comprising among other things minimum wages that permit a basic living standard. I thought it was common knowledge after the 2008 crash that economic liberalism and total deregulation lead to serious fuck ups .

These are obviously extremely complex subjects. I would note, however, the double standard that might be present here. When leftist-style thinking suggests: there are inequalities, hence its obvious the state must intervene on behalf of those which are behind. Very simple, right? Once someone criticizes that simplistic thinking, suddenly everything becomes very complex.

Consider one thing you leave out from this argument. It is obvious there are huge differences in wealth. A simplistic view on this matter implies that the population is divided into fixed brackets into which people fall and remain all their life. This doesn't account for the fact that even if the distribution of wealth is extremely skewed, people can move between levels of wealth. I don't recall the exact numbers, but something like 60% of the US population will be in the top 10% most wealthy people at some point in their life. I.e. there is a mobility within the wealth levels, which in the end, is what actually matters, as opposed to the mere distribution of wealth at any given point in time.

In terms of inherited wealth: yes, there are difference there too. But robbing their rich of their money makes economic sense only in the sense that if you want to rob someone, you should rob the one with the fattest wallet. Does it make philosophical sense that it should not be possible to generate more prosperity for one's kids by working hard?


The 2008 crash is also an extremely complicated subject. Not from the leftist point of view, of course, because to them it's just "greedy Wall Streeters gambling with derivatives". The interesting part about the crash is that there is good evidence to suggest that the initial housing bubble was caused by the government trying to make poor people and minorities buy houses.

The Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 established an affordable housing loan purchase mandate for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and that mandate was to be regulated by HUD. Initially, the 1992 legislation required that 30 percent or more of Fannie’s and Freddie’s loan purchases be related to affordable housing. However, HUD was given the power to set future requirements. In 1995 HUD mandated that 40 percent of Fannie and Freddie’s loan purchases would have to support affordable housing. In 1996, HUD directed Freddie and Fannie to provide at least 42% of their mortgage financing to borrowers with income below the median in their area. This target was increased to 50% in 2000 and 52% in 2005. Under the Bush Administration HUD continued to pressure Fannie and Freddie to increase affordable housing purchases – to as high as 56 percent by the year 2008.[24] To satisfy these mandates, Fannie and Freddie eventually announced low-income and minority loan commitments totaling $5 trillion.[25] Critics argue that, to meet these commitments, Fannie and Freddie promoted a loosening of lending standards - industry-wide.[26]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_United_States_housing_bubble#Mandated_loans

If there is then low employment this to me shows immoral behavior on the part of large businesses who employ people for the lowest possible price independently of the people who do depend on them for their life's conditions, it’s exploitation of a lower class by a wealthy minority who's ONLY aim is personal profit.

This is a rather strange proposition. How do you deduce directly from the unemployment rate that there is exploitation of workers? First of all, that's related to the labor participation rate and not employment rate, and secondly, by your reasoning, a country like Norway which has low unemployment rates must be one of the most evil countries in the world.

 

[Black Rose]

The 2008 crash is also an extremely complicated subject. Not from the leftist point of view, of course, because to them it's just "greedy Wall Streeters gambling with derivatives". The interesting part about the crash is that there is good evidence to suggest that the initial housing bubble was caused by the government trying to make poor people and minorities buy houses.

Bubbles happen because money is pumped into the economy. Spending rather than saving is what Keynesian economics about. People spend until they can't any more than a bubble crashes.

Here is a chart of U.S. unemployment.

 

[Milo]

Pragmatism Vs. Nihilism?

Everything has been crazy for over a year now.

This post was originally advertised for philosophical food to help defend against nihilistic ideology. So maybe we can then assume nihilism went rampant because of Obama

 

[Black Rose]

Rick & Morty - Pass the Butter

I feel like that robot.
Accept it is more like I have no purpose.
Recently I stopped repressing my emotions and it is not pleasant.
I have to let them go so I can feel O.K.
I want to feel O.K.

 

[Grayman]

Jordan is center, Sam is center left, but Ben is right wing.

If Ben is reaching for the lowest common denominator on the right I would not be surprised he is called fascist all the time.

http://www.debate.org/opinions/is-fascism-left-wing-yes-or-right-wing-no

Far left socialists are called fascists as well but right wing are only considered facists if they are strongly nationalist and authoritarian with social freedoms.

Ben is more globalist than nationalist but mostly because his affection for capitalism. He also isn't about limiting social freedoms by use of government and law. He believes society and culture should encourage certain norms without government enforcement.

 

[QuickTwist]

This post was originally advertised for philosophical food to help defend against nihilistic ideology. So maybe we can then assume nihilism went rampant because of Obama

What's the connection between Nihilism and Obama?

 

[QuickTwist]

Ben is more globalist than nationalist but mostly because his affection for capitalism. He also isn't about limiting social freedoms by use of government and law. He believes society and culture should encourage certain norms without government enforcement.

Don't know this guy, but I like him already.

 

[Milo]

What's the connection between Nihilism and Obama?

He blurred the lines of cultural self-respect and then no one had purpose in their lives anymore. That's one theory.

 

[Milo]

Ben is more globalist than nationalist but mostly because his affection for capitalism. He also isn't about limiting social freedoms by use of government and law. He believes society and culture should encourage certain norms without government enforcement.

A.K.A. Judaism

 

[Milo]

I seen this quote:

"The saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it's like to feel absolutely worthless and they don't want anyone else to feel like that."

The presupposition of a person thinking this is that self-worth is measured by the approval of others. The reaction to what they perceive as belittling them is, instead of defending themselves (because they haven't figured out how to), to act out the opposite of how people have caused them to manifest a sense of belittlement towards other people which usually evolves to the understanding of knowing how to be acutely aware of other people's feelings--which usually backfires since feelings are extremely complex and beyond being easily comprehensible, but this sense will develop more keenly over time and then this person will eventually be forced to self-reflect on what it is that they really wish to express as value, which will force them to engage in the self-examination that delves them deep into a rabbit hole that is the birth of philosophical thinking where their identity is lost in the nature of subjectivity where the real sadness begins and where the concept of faith begins to make sense, and from that, religion. But, after generations of building up from the ground of existentialism, religion now looks like a conspiracy to hide the truth when it is actually the resources used to climb out of and fill the rabbit hole. This fact, of course not readily available to the majority because it's a fact within the facts. The truth within the truth.

This presents 2 problems

Problem 1: Natural selection exterminates those seeking truth (unless they become wise).
Problem 2: Once truth is understood to be a dangerous, never-ending loop of regression, then once culture is built to abstain from falling into its depths, the cycle is bound to repeat itself and become once again vulnerable to Problem 1.

In the end, it is wise vs. ignorant with those in between being high risk for existential casualty where the ignorant condemn those in between and the wise try to pull them out of the darkness--meaning war is always a possibility since everyone is born ignorant and bears the conflict of remaining so and being forced to deny the wise and those choosing to risk it all or being the one braving the risk of ending life in a depressive state of an indefinitely-long identity crisis. When someone challenges our beliefs and we want to hold onto them for a feeling of security we are prone to violence which is the fundamental issue of how wars begin--because these variations in belief that defend us from the truth create the variations of culture and certain variations of culture mixing with other variations of culture create this never-ending propensity towards violence because within each culture there is this triad of wise people, ignorant and willfully blind people, and those lost in the conflict of searching for answers in the middle.



Pragmatism vs. Nihilsm.

Pragmatism is wisdom.

 

[Black Rose]

I was told that everyone has this Jesus sized hole in their chest that can only be filled by asking for Gods love.

Something needs to give life meaning to a persons life. If that thing is taken away it takes effort to find something to replace it. For me, it was a school project I did not finish. I graduated and had nothing to cling to. So I was directionless. I did not know what I wanted to do with my life. I still don't but I know that things will get easier. I have lots of ideas. I like having ideas.

 

[ruminator]

I used to like Ben because of how he points out hypocrisy on the left. But then I realized that he does a lot of the same shit that he accuses the left of. A lot of his arguments are misleading and fallacious.

 

[Milo]

I used to like Ben because of how he points out hypocrisy on the left. But then I realized that he does a lot of the same shit that he accuses the left of. A lot of his arguments are misleading and fallacious.

I would enjoy a couple examples.

 

[Absurdity]

Here https://static.currentaffairs.org/2017/12/the-cool-kids-philosopher

 

[ruminator]

That article has a good example:

When the questioner replied to suggest that transgender people just wanted to fit in, Shapiro hit her with a burst of Stone Cold Logic. After asking her how old she was, he asked her why she wasn’t a different age. Answer: because age is a fact not a choice. Then he asked her why she didn’t just change her species:

SHAPIRO: If I call you a moose, are you suddenly a moose? If I redefine our terms…

YOUNG WOMAN: That’s a completely different thing.

SHAPIRO: Yes, that’s right. Men and women are a completely different thing. This is true. Have you ever met a man or a woman? They are completely different.

Just look at how he distorted his questioner’s response about moose: he says “Why aren’t you a moose?” and when she replies “That’s different,” he interjects “That’s right, men and women are different.” She clearly said that species and gender are different (which they are, in that there’s a good argument for revising one of the categories but not for revising the other). But he tried to convince his audience that she had essentially conceded his point, by seizing on and spinning the word “difference.” (We call this “sophistry” rather than “logic.”)

Isn't he supposed to be the master of logic? She made a valid point (that there is a distinction) and rather than responding to her point by asking her what the distinction is, he pretended she said something else and avoided it.

 

[Hadoblado]

So why do you like Ben Shapiro? What does he do that others don't? Are there any issues that he takes a particularly bold position on that you think puts him ahead of everyone else?

To me he seems to be quick-witted, and has good delivery etc., but that's not sufficient to earn my adoration.

What issues does he approach with great clarity?

 

[Milo]

Here https://static.currentaffairs.org/2017/12/the-cool-kids-philosopher

That article has a good example:



Isn't he supposed to be the master of logic? She made a valid point (that there is a distinction) and rather than responding to her point by asking her what the distinction is, he pretended she said something else and avoided it.

When the questioner replied to suggest that transgender people just wanted to fit in, Shapiro hit her with a burst of Stone Cold Logic. After asking her how old she was, he asked her why she wasn’t a different age. Answer: because age is a fact not a choice. Then he asked her why she didn’t just change her species:

SHAPIRO: If I call you a moose, are you suddenly a moose? If I redefine our terms…

YOUNG WOMAN: That’s a completely different thing.

SHAPIRO: Yes, that’s right. Men and women are a completely different thing. This is true. Have you ever met a man or a woman? They are completely different.

I actually have watched so much of him that I remember this exact discussion. Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtuqmThPE5c

Ben Shapiro is very culture orientated and was originally going to school for a double major in music and biology, so he sees issues down the line of gender being not clearly defined in society because it becomes a legal hazard for doctors and professions for which those details matter when having someone who is transgender as a client. It would be asinine to let the possibility of letting someone who has male cells get a prescription drug designed for female bodies by accident because the person filled out "Female" on their medical form. This, and he makes the claim that no one should ever be obligated to identify anyone or anything with specific terms because its not natural and goes against basic American freedoms.

So why do you like Ben Shapiro? What does he do that others don't? Are there any issues that he takes a particularly bold position on that you think puts him ahead of everyone else?

To me he seems to be quick-witted, and has good delivery etc., but that's not sufficient to earn my adoration.

What issues does he approach with great clarity?

I like his clarity and foresight on issues concerning American culture and politics. He covers a very broad area of life's matters and discusses them in a wholesome way.

He is an Orthodox Jew, so his boldest position is on the future where he references statistics which is the most practical things to be concerned about, and also the most respected way to go about taking precautions on how we should form policy.

I think he approaches all issues that come to his attention with great clarity. The things he has the least clarification on are the things he has already taken precautions to avoid.

 

[Hadoblado]

Ben Shapiro is very culture orientated and was originally going to school for a double major in music and biology, so he sees issues down the line of gender being not clearly defined in society because it becomes a legal hazard for doctors and professions for which those details matter when having someone who is transgender as a client. It would be asinine to let the possibility of letting someone who has male cells get a prescription drug designed for female bodies by accident because the person filled out "Female" on their medical form.

This seems like a cop-out. Societal issues are not dictated by the legal hazards of doctors. "I'm sorry, you're a socially a man in every way but did you even think for one second that maybe if you went to the doctors and they fucked up really badly by not listening when you gave them accurate medical information that something could go wrong and it would be your fault not theirs?"

That is ridiculous. Am I missing something? How should this at all inform his perspectives or what he argues for? He should be protesting only trans that fill out forms wrong.

I like his clarity and foresight on issues concerning American culture and politics. He covers a very broad area of life's matters and discusses them in a wholesome way.

He is an Orthodox Jew, so his boldest position is on the future where he references statistics which is the most practical things to be concerned about, and also the most respected way to go about taking precautions on how we should form policy.

I think he approaches all issues that come to his attention with great clarity. The things he has the least clarification on are the things he has already taken precautions to avoid.

Is the article Abs linked accurate? I understand it's a hit piece, and a lot of those can prioritise caharacter assassination over accuracy, but it is pretty damning. He doesn't seem that wholesome after reading it. What are the things he has little clarity on and avoids?

 

[Jennywocky]

Shapiro sounds like he's missing a basic understanding of trans issues, and are there really such a thing as "male vs female" cells aside from the 23rd chromosome? When you get a blood transfusion, what if a woman gives a man her blood or vice versa? Oh dear, all those cells that are supposedly gendered (but aren't in terms of function)... it's really gonna mess someone up.

It sounds like Shapiro would view this as catastrophic if you have represented him correctly. You grasp scientifically that we all start with a female body template, don't you? Until androgens either do or do not differentiate some of the gross physical structures (to some degree) some weeks into fetal development?

Anyway, this doesn't seem to be 'stone cold logic' to me, what it sounds like is that he's regurgitating the Conventional Wisdom of folks who think life is WYSIWYG, the same kind of "common sense" that told people the sun was revolving around the earth. It sounds logical, until you actually know something about that topic. if he's an Orthodox Jew, it makes a lot of sense he's going to believe in the rigidity of male and female social roles and thus gender as to him they were ordained by the creator into two boxes, rather than something that evolved through nature and thus isn't uniform (with a lot of variance in a particular individual's development and how various species handle reproductive roles), nor decreed as right or wrong.

 

[Absurdity]

Ben Shapiro is very culture orientated and was originally going to school for a double major in music and biology, so he sees issues down the line of gender being not clearly defined in society because it becomes a legal hazard for doctors and professions for which those details matter when having someone who is transgender as a client. It would be asinine to let the possibility of letting someone who has male cells get a prescription drug designed for female bodies by accident because the person filled out "Female" on their medical form.

Society can't handle transgender people because we only print medical forms with two gender boxes? You know there are like 8 different blood types right? If anything we should have far more precise and granular ways of differentiating humans than the millennia-old and clearly flawed categories of "male" and "female" (which breaks down as soon as you have any kind of chromosomal abnormality - is someone with XXY male or female?).

This, and he makes the claim that no one should ever be obligated to identify anyone or anything with specific terms because its not natural and goes against basic American freedoms.

What does this even mean?

I like his clarity and foresight on issues concerning American culture and politics. He covers a very broad area of life's matters and discusses them in a wholesome way.

He actually just oversimplifies things in a way that conforms with his existing prejudices and panders to people already inclined to agree with him. He a sophist, a demagogue, a peddler of fallacies and non-sequiturs. Get the junk he spews out of your head.

 

[Milo]

This seems like a cop-out. Societal issues are not dictated by the legal hazards of doctors. "I'm sorry, you're a socially a man in every way but did you even think for one second that maybe if you went to the doctors and they fucked up really badly by not listening when you gave them accurate medical information that something could go wrong and it would be your fault not theirs?"

That is ridiculous. Am I missing something? How should this at all inform his perspectives or what he argues for? He should be protesting only trans that fill out forms wrong.



Is the article Abs linked accurate? I understand it's a hit piece, and a lot of those can prioritise caharacter assassination over accuracy, but it is pretty damning. He doesn't seem that wholesome after reading it. What are the things he has little clarity on and avoids?

Wouldn't we rather have a society that is practical? Because say this goes through and flows well in the major parts of society--now we have the problem of people who are less influenced by culture who just say things as they actually see them looking like a-holes because their minds are genetically predisposed not to be able to manipulate their perception in that way. And that is a set up for violence because confusion creates violence and now a whole group of people are being processed by the law because another group as called themselves a victim to incidents of a confusion.

The way society actually works is that, if you know a transgender person enough to gain respect for them (respect is not just something you give to anyone unless you have extreme anxiety disorders--if you think that's not true you might know that you have high anxiety or don't have an instinctual sense of what respect is; the thing that forms the hierarchical order of every social animal ever) you identify them in a way that has been passively agreed on.

Societal issues are dictated by each person at every instance--it's one of the most pragmatic issues which makes it the most difficult things to talk about coherently without one person thinking the other person is just out to hate people.

He avoids talking about things he has no experiences with--say things like divorce disputes, but if someone is asking him things that pertain to topics outside of his judgement he tells them that and gives them as much information surrounding the issue.

The article is hella bent to say the least. I mean, when you have to pick at anyone--usually you're missing the foundation (the place you can make one or two picks to debunk the rest--why the article is so long). Also notice the same site is trying to sell anti-Trump books. So obvious of the side it's on.

 

[Milo]

Shapiro sounds like he's missing a basic understanding of trans issues, and are there really such a thing as "male vs female" cells aside from the 23rd chromosome? When you get a blood transfusion, what if a woman gives a man her blood or vice versa? Oh dear, all those cells that are supposedly gendered (but aren't in terms of function)... it's really gonna mess someone up.

It sounds like Shapiro would view this as catastrophic if you have represented him correctly. You grasp scientifically that we all start with a female body template, don't you? Until androgens either do or do not differentiate some of the gross physical structures (to some degree) some weeks into fetal development?

Anyway, this doesn't seem to be 'stone cold logic' to me, what it sounds like is that he's regurgitating the Conventional Wisdom of folks who think life is WYSIWYG, the same kind of "common sense" that told people the sun was revolving around the earth. It sounds logical, until you actually know something about that topic. if he's an Orthodox Jew, it makes a lot of sense he's going to believe in the rigidity of male and female social roles and thus gender as to him they were ordained by the creator into two boxes, rather than something that evolved through nature and thus isn't uniform (with a lot of variance in a particular individual's development and how various species handle reproductive roles), nor decreed as right or wrong.

Every single cell in the body has all of our chromosomes in them--which means they are all either XX, XY, or one of the atypical ones. He is actually very well versed in genetics from his early years in college. He doens't condemn transgenders--he just says its his right and every American's right to see, believe, and say what they wish as long as its not meant as a threat. Btw, the code in the Y chromosome initiates the creation of androgens and other particularities that manifest the systematic differences between males and females which means that there are drugs that will effect males differently than female even with hormone treatments concurrently happening.

 

[Milo]

Society can't handle transgender people because we only print medical forms with two gender boxes? You know there are like 8 different blood types right? If anything we should have far more precise and granular ways of differentiating humans than the millennia-old and clearly flawed categories of "male" and "female" (which breaks down as soon as you have any kind of chromosomal abnormality - is someone with XXY male or female?).



What does this even mean?



He actually just oversimplifies things in a way that conforms with his existing prejudices and panders to people already inclined to agree with him. He a sophist, a demagogue, a peddler of fallacies and non-sequiturs. Get the junk he spews out of your head.

I believe I clarified your first concern in my response to Hadoblado

For your second concern, what I mean is that being forced to identify people in certain terms is compelled speech and is a direct violation of the 1st amendment, so it can never be enforced to have to respect or call anyone by a chosen name or identity--that comes from knowing a person.

For your third comment, he doesn't simplify things without an empirical formula that he states. He, unlike people who lose their self-awareness to being overly complicated and undefined because of their idolatry to being special because they subjugated themselves to the idea that that is what it takes to fit in while being able to fit in their daily dose of debauchery, has a foundation that he can stand on and grow on. The role models of socialists are the inverse--inverse in that that they stand as tall as how much tradition and stability they can debunk. Without some structure being there in the first place, these people would have nothing to stand for. They worship taboo and get delinquent followers to back up the claim that taboo has value. It's like the guy who brings Pinocchio to pleasure island where he turns into a donkey.

 

[Yourmother]

Uh I mean the guy thinks that welfare should be abolished because then 'all the lazy people will go get jobs'.

Never mind the 100,000+ people with hereditary illness (or whatever the numbers were) etc.

And he just plays the Jew card whenever he gets called out on his shit, as if because the holocaust happened he's an eternal victim and therefore not actually racist or prejudiced for saying obviously prejudiced things. He's a typical Ivy League law graduate who can spin lots of bullshit in a short span of time to win debates on Fox News segments, but the actual merit of his words is very limited.

He deliberately misgenders a transwoman, and when she gets angry he talks about how it's an example of "the left" condoning violence or something.

He makes targeted attacks on people, and he very deliberately sets out to offend and bait people into a response, playing on the way that many transgender people are responding from a self-defense, emotionally compromised position to protect themselves - which is a very different thing to making a clear-minded and deliberate move of disrespecting and invalidating something.

He's just the worst kind of lazy, ignorant shithead.

Your entire argument is faulty as heck. You rage on him for playing the Jew card when the Left has been playing the "muh blacks, muh gays, muh *insert oppressed group here*" cards for years. The left has been posturing on their high moral ground and what Ben Shapiro is doing is calling them out on that. He's doing it to mock the Left's tactics, and you are proving his point when you criticize him for that. The point is that the left are a bunch of hypocrites.

Ben Shapiro actually uses facts and statistics to back his arguments, more than what I can say about the Left. He has challenged the Left to actually cite valid statistics multiple times but the best they can do is "But ur racist!11!!!". God forbid they come across any article that suggests that ON AVERAGE men are more mathematically inclined than women. Then they throw a hissy fit and everything scientific gets thrown out the window. Because they are dumb.

Regarding the transgendered guy, LOL, he literally grabbed Ben by the neck and threatened to put him in the hospital. Ben accused the left of condoning violence because that was exactly what they were doing. But of course, the left has a long history of not being able to accept the truth. Because they are dumb.

Finally, the left has not been making targeted attacks on people? Oh please. Their dumb fucking "white privilege" annoys the shit out of me, and I'm not white. Honestly, you just sound like a knee-jerk liberal cuck.

 

[redbaron]

What does the left have to do with my opinion of Ben Shapiro?

He makes targeted attacks on people, and he very deliberately sets out to offend and bait people into a response, playing on the way that many transgender people are responding from a self-defense, emotionally compromised position to protect themselves - which is a very different thing to making a clear-minded and deliberate move of disrespecting and invalidating something.

^ this paragraph pretty much explains it.

Even in a limited world where you believe gender is binary and separated into male and female, it's a total shithead move to call someone the wrong gender. If you don't want to get into calling people "xem" or something then whatever but that example rarely ever comes up in real life anyway.

Misgendering someone when you know what they prefer is just straight-up bullying, and there are few ways to respond to bullying unless the bullying is recognised for what it is. It's equivalent of someone giving someone a pet name they really don't want, and repeating it over and over even when asked to stop.

If it happened once, you might not think much of it and any insult perceived wouldn't really be that justified. But if you harassed that same person the same way over and over, and they endured it regularly to the point it became systematic bullying endured from many of their peers, in many social contexts, you'd probably understand why they were upset.

And yeah, nowhere am I condoning someone being violent and threatening someone like that - but if you watch that altercation (it's on YouTube somewhere) it becomes obvious who the real shithead provoking who is there, and why she person responds the way she does.

Ben Shapiro, and the people who follow him are more often than not quite hostile and malicious towards basically anything they don't understand - namely people from already repressed minority groups that are regularly bullied and socially stigmatised.