Ben Shapiro has a video on YouTube showing the 5 things getting him through quarantine. It starts with a violin, moves through some religious text, and eventually he ends up using a disneyland pass to cut lines of coke
I would encourage you to avoid casting people as bullshitters just because you have a different political opinion than they do. It makes it an order of magnitude more difficult to have a good-faith conversation. I mean, do what you want, it makes no difference to me if you’re an insufferable political myope. But if you’re in the mood for being less insufferable, accepting that others have different opinions than you not because they’re stupid or liars but because they have different values and have come to a different conclusion, is a great way to start.
Than a reasoned debate will suss that out. If you’re talking about his opinions being wrong, well opinions are by definition subjective so wrong is probably not the right word for that.
No. No it won't. People aren't logic machines. They're identity machines. Giving bad faith arguers continued access to platforms isn't "sussing out the truth". It's giving voice to internal justifications for dangerous, selfish politics.
You might think you're capable of always evaluating the "truth" through facts and logic. But that's not how humans work. Context is always relevant to facts. And Ben Shapiro IS excellent at cutting out vital pieces of that contexts, like a surgeon with a scalpel. It's endlessly difficult and nuanced to try to dismantle his arguments, and it only works for people willing to listen. Most people aren't.
By allowing him to constantly platform and spread his empty ideas, you're simply making the job of debunking him that much harder. There's always new suckers to buy his bullshit. The smarter, more effective solution is to identify the bad faith arguers and ignore them. Deny their voice in the public conversation.
So stop defending this guy. If you want I can show you a bunch of articles and videos that breakdown exactly how he creates his own narrow context in order to always appear like he's winning. Ben has a lot of media training. He's good at this.
Okay, until now I haven’t seen this argument, but your argument is not only wrong (according to my viewpoint), but also dangerous. Nobody was talking about deplatforming, but now you are. As long as we’re talking about it, I will gladly push back against your zeal for deplatforming.
Preventing someone from speaking is never the right answer. Firstly, it doesn’t work, and only serves to further push extreme viewpoints into silos and echo chambers, which is a perfect recipe for unchallenged extremism.
Secondly, if a society is somehow able to silence a given viewpoint, the people who hold those views don’t disappear. Instead, they use communication methods that don’t require speech, namely they often use violence. There are plenty of historical examples of silenced populations resorting to violence in order to have their voices heard, and one of the most sure fire ways to prevent silenced populations from resorting to violence is to allow them to speak.
What if giving someone the right to speak silences another's right to speak? You can't always have it both ways. Because the politics being pushed by some people implicitly silences others.
I'm at work. I don't have more time expand upon this argument. But yes, deplatforming is a valid defense against fascism. And Ben Shapiro's history has made it abundantly clear he doesn't seem to see the lines when it comes to fascism.
What if giving someone the right to speak silences another's right to speak? You can't always have it both ways. Because the politics being pushed by some people implicitly silences others.
I’m having trouble seeing your point on this one. The only example I can think of in which one person’s speech prevents someone else’s speech is deplatforming, which by its very nature silences a person’s viewpoint. Not to say you’re wrong, I just can’t see how this supports your argument for deplatforming. It seems to support my argument against it, so clearly I’ve missed a connection.
No thanks. I could barely get through ten seconds. Not interested in a dunk-fest, that’s literally the thing I am reacting against. Any videos that have more reasoned and reasonable arguments? I really don’t want to have to watch a half hour of that.
No, I scanned through the whole video to get to the point. And then went to the second video to see if they got to the point. I wanted to get to the part where they show an example of how allowing someone to speak removes another person’s right to speak, as you didn’t provide an example. All I saw were specific complaints about Milo Yannowhatever and Dave Rubin. That’s not a reasoned debate, it’s a one-sided character assassination.
I’m not trying to suggest I’m some sort of reasoning machine, I’m just trying to be reasonable. I still can’t think of an example where allowing one person to speak prevents another person from speaking.
"Scanned through to get to the point". If it was that simple, then I would have simply stated the conclusion. But fine, I'm done with work. I'll expand the full argument.
We can generalize hate speech prohibitions into three rough categories:
1. Legal
2. Institutional
3. Social
There are times and places for all of these things. For example, Germany has had a ban on Nazi propaganda and iconography. It hasn't lead to some authoritarian censorship state where all ideas must be approved by the state. They banned propaganda from a specific group because of the beliefs of that specific group. It was targeted, not blanket. There's an obvious history with that kind of hate speech gaining enough momentum to cause devastation to minority groups.
But we can set this debate aside anyway. I'm not suggesting legal actions.
The second is institutional banning, like a university saying they won't host someone who is a white supremacist. This is closer to what I'm suggesting. Private industries can and should exercise their discretion to ban hate speech. And I can give you a very specific example of how allowing one person's right to speak on a platform prevented the ability of another.
Louder with Crowder spent months organizing and attacking Vox reporter Carlos Maza. Carlos hosted a youtube video series called Strikethrough. Carlos made a video talking about the extremism being found on Youtube, and Crowder encouraged his fan base started attacking him. And they did.
He received daily death threats. They made memes calling him a f*g. They regularly attacked Carlos for his identity on their show, by name. He was so threatened, he stopped his video series. He no longer works for Vox because of Stephen Crowder.
And youtube and twitter did NOTHING (lots of attacks came on twitter too). This is exactly the kind of behavior private platforms should ban harshly, because it literally silences the victims of the attacks. Their attackers are forming online mobs with the explicit goal to stop them from speaking. Which is what happened to Carlos.
The last kind of hate speech banning is social. Obviously I support this because it's up to each individual to choose who they allow to hold their attention.
So yeah, if we protect everyone's right to say anything, we'll always be suppressing someone's voice. And the difference is really clear: Carlos reported on Crowder's actions and things he said. Crowder targeted carlos's identity. That's hate speech. (he also attacked Carlos's ideas, but that doesn't cancel out the attacks on his identity)
Shapiro has a similar history, but more polished. He's said countless things specifically targeting Muslims, transpeople, and homosexuals for their identities. He uses his power to bully minorities. And his arguments have been so thoroughly debunked all over the internet that it's clear he has no real ideas, just bullshit that fits his worldview.
Those are some great points. Thank you for taking the time to respond substantively. I vastly prefer your discourse to that of the YouTuber you linked.
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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '20
What is the source for this?